My Sister

by Selenis Leyva

  At first, I loved it. I was playing house! And I got to be the mommy! I changed diapers, heated up bottles. During snack time, I lined the kids up at the table and passed out Cheerios and apple slices. But then there was the flip side: sunny afternoons I’d be stuck inside while my brothers and cousins played out in the yardita, their shrieks and laughter creeping through the brick walls of our home. Soon, I began to resent how I had to spend every afternoon indoors taking care of other people’s kids. I began to hate translating, and reading letters, and going to parent-teacher conferences and sitting between my mother and my teacher. And then I hated babysitting. I just wanted to be a normal kid.

  Mami ran a tight ship. Despite sometimes having up to a dozen children in our home at once, it never felt chaotic. The house was always tidy and always put together, my mother’s floors so gleaming you could see your reflection. Like a day care, my mother had a schedule. I remember how, every single day, she looked forward to the serene promise of nap time. And she had rules. Everything child-related was restricted to the back of the house, to the small bedroom that served as the toy room: el cuarto de los juegos. There, we set up the Barbie house and train sets and chests of toys. The front half of the house was like a museum. No one was allowed in the living room. The dining room was off-limits. The glass doors were to remain shut. Nothing was to be touched.

  WE WERE A typical Latinx family in many ways. And like many Latinx families, our physical characteristics varied widely. Take my brothers and me: we all looked different.

  Tony was a really good-looking boy, with beautiful caramel-colored skin like my mother. But thanks to my aunts and uncles, I knew from a young age that he had “pelo malo,” or bad hair. For their standards, which were culturally inherited, his hair was too kinky. And this, combined with his wild temperament, made him seem unruly all around. Luckily, according to my aunts and uncles, Tony’s light eyes were something that “saved” him.

  As a child, I secretly favored my youngest brother, Tito, over Tony. Tito was mild-mannered and sweet, the kind of child you want to love and hold and fuss over. I had been conditioned to believe that “good hair” and fair skin were the ultimate signs of beauty, and of the three of us, Tito’s skin was the lightest. And he had “pelo bueno,” these long, soft, beautiful curls that, when no one was looking, I’d brush and tie up with ribbons, like I did with my dolls. With him, I could pretend that I had a baby sister, which is what I always wanted.

  I was somewhere in between. My skin tone was lighter than Mami’s and Tony’s, but darker than Papi’s and Tito’s. My hair was more malo than bueno, and my aunts made it a point to always let me know that my hair was a problem. Many of them, at our house for family gatherings every weekend, would comment on the state of my hair before even saying hello to me: “Ay Dios mio y ese pelo!” On my dad’s side, all of my cousins had pelo bueno. And every time we’d play outside or go swimming, and my hair would become kinky, they would make fun of me and tease, “Why does your hair stick out like that?”

  Seeing this, my mother tried to help me with my hair. “No quiero que te vean con este pelo asi,” she’d say, wanting me to look presentable, and we’d get to work early on Saturday mornings. First, she’d slather my hair in deep conditioner. Then she’d set it in rollers. Next came tugging on my hair so much that my scalp hurt and my head throbbed, all just to get the perfect bun or pigtails. But then there were weekends when she didn’t have time to do my hair, and when my aunts and cousins entered our house, they’d scan my head, making me feel like I was just awful to look at. Eventually, I began to dread these get-togethers, even though I loved playing with my cousins. And if my mother heard them make a comment or crack some kind of joke, I knew that the next weekend I’d be woken up well before Saturday morning cartoons aired to endure another round of hair torture.

  I was “una mulata.” Latinx cultures, like many cultures around the world, have a history of anti-Blackness that discriminates against those with darker skin and Afro features. Being mulata was considered better than being “fully” Black, but only slightly. Mulatas are often portrayed as jezebels, the temptresses who get in the way of wholesome relationships. And harmful ideologies like these have been passed down for generations. From a very young age, these awful, racist stereotypes began to haunt me. I always felt different, like an outsider. My aunt, who looked mulata herself—but don’t tell her that!—would give me “tips” on how to manage and “fix” my hair. But they never worked and always left me feeling even worse.

  Today, many individuals vocalize and celebrate an Afro-Latinx identity, and I am proud to embrace it myself. But growing up, it was not a term used in my family or in my community. In many ways, any suggestion of Blackness or African heritage was shunned in my extended family. My parents weren’t concerned about who was more Black or who was more white, but those words from my aunts and uncles stung. I became conditioned to believe that light skin and “good” hair were the prerequisites to being attractive. I never felt pretty. Nor was I ever told that I was pretty. And this kind of internalized racism created a deep-seated sense of self-hatred in me, one that brought me years and years of pain. It is something that even today I fight to overcome.

  OUR PHYSICAL FEATURES didn’t matter to Mami and Papi; they loved us and supported us all the same. And I remember how the dynamic of our home changed when it was just us, our immediate family. This was especially true in the late afternoons, after all of our cousins and the neighborhood kids Mami babysat had left for the day. My brothers and I were expected to clean up our toys before Papi came home from work, but we always had so much energy around this time, amplified by the aroma of dinner that filled the air. We’d run around teasing each other, laughing or fighting while Mami, working hard in the kitchen, called for us to calm down.

  But of these warm, cheerful memories, one day sticks out in particular. I was around eight years old, and Tito didn’t want to play or run around. He just lay in front of the television, leaving the craziness to Tony and me. Something was off. I saw it in his face and I felt it in the air. I saw it on my mother’s face, too; two deep lines—a clear sign that she was worried—formed between her eyes. And I overheard her on the phone with my father talking about Tito. When she hung up, she announced that Papi was coming home early, and this made me even more uneasy.

  What I remember next is how Tito sat on the bed wrapped in a blanket with my mother rocking him and holding him close. His skin looked like a ghost’s, and though he was only three, heavy, dark circles hung beneath his eyes. My parents were going to take him to the hospital, and when they lifted the blanket from his lap, I saw that his belly was distended, long and taut.

  The doctors said that it was non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Terminal. That my parents should begin making arrangements.

  But Mami and Papi refused to give up. They refused to let go of their youngest son without trying everything they possibly could. Both of my parents are people of deep, sincere faith, though they show it differently—for my mother, it is all about church and prayer, whereas my father is constantly looking for signs. But both have a strong belief in miracles. During the first several weeks of my brother’s illness, I didn’t see my parents all that often. They spent their time at the hospital by Tito’s side. My mother held on to her faith in prayer, but my father needed more guidance and went to see a woman in Brooklyn who read the tarot. She told him that the doctors wanted to operate, but that they shouldn’t.

  “It isn’t the right time,” she said.

  My father returned to the hospital and told the doctors to wait. They were shocked and tried to insist. But Papi was adamant, too, and instead of major surgery, they performed a biopsy. Later, after receiving the results, the doctors admitted to my parents that surgery likely would have been too much for Tito’s frail body to handle and that it could have made his condition worse.

  The next time I saw my brother was through a window in the pediatric intensive care unit. He was so thin and his bones so
fine, I’m not sure I would have recognized him on my own. He spent three months in the ICU, hooked up to monitors and tubes. During that time, we saw many children come and go. One day, a bed was filled. The next, it was as if no one had ever been there. I was so afraid my brother would one day disappear just like the others.

  My parents never wavered in their faith. In a way, those long days in the hospital made their faith even stronger. They prayed and showered my brother with constant love and care. There was not one night that my father spent away from that hospital room; he slept there, in a chair, beside my brother’s bed. He and my mother discussed how, if Tito survived, they would help other children in whatever way they could. They didn’t know what they meant by this at the time, but they held on tightly to this promise. It was a promise not only to God but also to each other.

  Once Tito was out of the hospital, my father took a trip to Puerto Rico. His friend Hector had told him about La Virgen del Pozo. In 1953, three children saw a young woman floating in a cloud above a natural spring in Sabana Grande. A crown of seven stars circled her head. She wore a white gown, a pale blue cloak, and held a rosary between her hands. When they looked into her eyes, the children were overcome by a deep sense of peace. She continued to appear day after day for over a month, and people from all over the country flocked to the spring. Hector explained to my father that people visit La Virgen from around the world, people who are in search of miracles.

  My father packed with him a pair of Tito’s pajamas. They were light blue, long pants and a short-sleeved shirt, covered in little yellow tricycles. These pajamas were Tito’s favorite, his signature look. In addition to the pajamas, Papi also packed a small pouch of old coins he had collected over the years.

  Papi’s first stop was a church in Ponce. There, he left the old coins—an offering—to the statue of La Virgen. Next, he traveled to the site in Sabana Grande where La Virgen appeared and a statue of her now stands. He saw the artifacts people in search of miracles had left behind: pictures in frames, toys, wheelchairs, a car. My father kneeled in front of the statue, set down my brother’s pajamas, and prayed: “Si nos concedes la vida de nuestro hijo, si lo salvas de su enfermedad, prometemos ayudar a otros niños.”

  My father returned from his trip, and for the next two years, Tito went through rounds and rounds of chemo and radiation. And then, miraculously, he went into remission. He was cancer free. The doctors didn’t know how to explain it. But my parents did. And they were deeply thankful.

  My mother had been raised by her eldest sister, whom we called Abuela Mora. She was a small and feisty spiritual woman, a midwife who read tarot cards and used medicinal teas concocted from the herbs in her garden to heal all who came to her. She was always smiling—and a loving mischief danced in her eyes. My mother loved and respected her deeply, and so when she said that Mami and Tito should go to Higüey to pay homage to La Virgen de Altagracia, the patron saint of the Dominican Republic, the two of them went. They visited the Basílica Catedral Nuestra Señora de la Altagracia, one of the most sacred spaces for many Dominicans, and my mother gave thanks for my brother’s life.

  Papi had his own way of saying thanks: One day he brought home with him a statue he had purchased at a shop in the South Bronx. It was of La Virgen de la Caridad, the patroness of Cuba. She wears a blue and gold robe beneath a tall crown and holds the child Christ in her arms. She is held up by angels, who hover above a small boat with three men, lost in a rough sea, looking up at her in wonder. Every morning, my father greets the statue. He touches her and thanks her for saving his son’s life. When he returns home, he presents her with yellow roses on the stem.

  My parents did not forget their promise to help other children. After she returned from the Dominican Republic, my mother began sending boxes and boxes of children’s clothing to her village for those in need. She continues to do so to this day. My father, likewise, has donated to Saint Jude’s research fund for years. But once Tito was healthy and in kindergarten, they thought of another way they could keep their promise.

  EL CUARTO DE los juegos in the back part of our house was the first thing to change. Suddenly, the toys were out and in came a crib, a little set of drawers, a bed. My brothers and I were disappointed that our playroom was gone.

  “Why do we need any more kids?” Tony asked.

  But I knew what it meant: soon, we would have babies in the house. Maybe I could finally have a little sister of my own.

  “Can’t we ask for just girls?” I asked Mami.

  “Eso no es asi, Mima,” she said, shaking her head. It didn’t work that way.

  Enter into our lives a cast of babies from the direst of situations. Babies who had been neglected and abused. Kids with anger issues or behavioral problems. One had cigarette burns along his arms. Another was HIV-positive. Most didn’t stay with us for long, and it was always difficult to say goodbye. But Mami always reminded me: “Estos niños se quedarán con nosotros hasta que sus padres se mejoren.” The ultimate goal was, always, for children and their parents to end up together once the parents got better.

  It was about a year into our journey as a foster family when Jose came into our lives. We were told that his mother did not hold Jose after he was born. And she couldn’t nurse him, of course, on account of the drugs. Jose never had that comforting feeling of his mother’s skin on his skin, and that broke my heart. Even though I was young, just a teenager, from day one I went out of my way to give Jose extra attention and care. I wanted to make sure that he knew love. I’d give him baths, putting powder and beautiful-smelling soaps and lotions all over him. Now, as a mother myself, I have an even more profound sympathy for this baby, born into the world without his mother there to hold him, uncomfortable in his own body, fighting for his life. But at the time, I thought, This baby doesn’t have a mommy. As a little girl, I loved playing mommy with my dolls—and now I could do it with a real baby.

  I became obsessed with Jose. My mother was devoted to him, too, of course, but I was attached to him in a way I hadn’t been with the others. I knew that, as a foster baby, Jose might not be in our lives forever. At any moment, he could be returned to his birth parents or sent to a different home. But that didn’t stop me. I spent all of my time with Jose. He was mine. My chunky little baby doll. And he became attached to me, too. Whenever I went to school or to a friend’s house or even just down the block, I had to leave him with a shirt or a piece of clothing that smelled like me so that he could sleep. Very quickly, he became a happy, chubby baby. He became part of our family. And I was protective of him.

  Jose’s father was in prison, but every week his mother was scheduled to appear at the agency for visitation. Ruth was a very pretty woman with curly black hair and a swipe of bright red lipstick. I didn’t want to like her—and not simply because of what she’d done to Jose. I didn’t want to like her because she was a threat. It would be her who took Jose, this baby I loved so deeply, away from us. My mother didn’t see her this way. Instead, she saw a woman who was struggling, a woman who needed help. Mami was always kind to Ruth. Friendly, even. I was not. I hated the way she always seemed jumpy. I hated the way she was constantly sweaty. (Signs, of course, that she once again was using, though I didn’t know this at the time.) I hated the way she tried to be affectionate with Jose, kissing and hugging him. I hated how she’d comment on how cute he was dressed or how nice he smelled. I hated that when he came home from these visits, his clothes would smell like her perfume and his face would be covered in red lipstick.

  Looking back, I think that she was embarrassed. She didn’t have a connection to this baby; because she was high for most of her pregnancy, I don’t think she allowed for that kind of connection to develop. And these grand shows of affection seemed to be a way for her to compensate for what wasn’t there. On top of this, I think Ruth knew that I was protective of Jose (and I doubt I did a great job of hiding my feelings toward her), and I’m sure that made her uneasy, or even more embarrassed. She’d often say
to me, “He’s like your little doll!”

  Yeah, I’d think. MY doll.

  Over time, Jose became less and less tolerant of Ruth’s affection. It was clear that a bond was forming with us, the ones who cared for him, and whenever she tried to hold him, he’d pull away. If I was in the room with them, he was inconsolable until he was back in my arms, safe. It didn’t help that, as time passed, her visits became infrequent. She started missing appointments, sometimes for weeks in a row.

  In response to this rejection from her own baby, Ruth turned angry and cold. This made Jose want to be around her even less. After a few visits, my mother told me to stop coming. It would be easier for all of us, she said, Jose included, if I wasn’t there. “Cuando tu estas el no quiere estar con Ella,” she said, indicating that she knew Jose preferred me to Ruth but that Ruth deserved a chance with her own baby.

  Fine with me, I thought. I didn’t want to see that woman anyways. It was hard for me to pretend to like her.

  Ruth became more inconsistent with her visits. After several months of no-shows, my parents began the process of legally adopting Jose, who was becoming more and more integral to our family unit. But whenever they got close to finalizing the adoption, Ruth would reappear, wanting to see her son. Emotionally overwhelmed and distraught, my mother couldn’t imagine caring for another infant at this time. She called the agency and told them that we could no longer take any more children.

  LATE ONE NIGHT in the early nineties, the phone rang. I was already in bed but curious. I walked down the long hallway from my bedroom to the small dining room, where the house phone sat on a little table.