Though, these were only photocopied sheets, I set the pages on the nearby table so as not to blotch them. I stroked my warm, clotted throat, traced my jaw, long and sharp like Fermina’s, and fingered my wide cheekbones, streaked now, slick with tears. I wrapped my arms about my sides as if to enfold and finally comfort that bereft and shuddering child who was Fermina, and who was also me.
Then I flashed on an image of Fermina as a lonely girl driven to send her baby away. I thought of my sisters and their children, the ferocious love binding them. They know better than I the devastation she must have felt in handing that bundle of life —all she had —over for another to raise, the courage it took and the trust she mustered in another woman’s goodness. And I thought of our baby, mine and Chris’s, in Guatemala —another woman wrenching herself from her own flesh and trusting, without knowing or seeing us, having faith in our goodness. We will have to earn this. For that selfless Guatemalan birth mother, for Fermina and my own mother, for my sisters, and mostly for our baby daughter, we will have to be better than we have ever been.
I doubted I was strong enough to have much faith and I was not sure where to direct it, but this is what I prayed that night: Like Shiamptiwa, called Patricia, our daughter will never have to wonder why she is alone, who her mothers are, and why they are not with her. We will give her music, stories, and art as companions for her spirit, and we, her mothers, will always be close at hand. We will show her through our acts and tell her often who we are —all of us through the generations —and how abundantly blessed by fortune we are to be with her.
After his grogginess the first night, the next morning it was as though someone had thrown a switch, activating my father’s tongue. He yakked incessantly from the first light of dawn. I guided him to the couch, where he grabbed the remote control and flicked on the television, ostensibly to warm up the set for Oprah’s show. We sat through a series of soap operas, show after show dealing with the mysterious paternity of certain characters. My father gabbed through them all. At one point, when a brassy blond actress confided to the stiff actor portraying her husband that he was not the father of their child, my father hooted, “I’m the father! Heh-heh-heh! I’m the one!”
I grew alarmed and phoned Sophie, who had the morning off. “I think Dad’s stroked and compromised.”
“What’s he doing?”
“He’s watching soap operas.”
“Is he claiming to be the baby’s father?” she asked.
“Yes, he is.”
“Relax, he always does that, thinks it’s funny. Since Pam died, he’s been acting sillier and sillier —anything to get attention.” Her voice was quiet, her tone somber.
“Hey,” I blurted out. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” Sophie said.
“Did you —”
“I did,” she said. “I read it last night.”
“And?”
“It’s crazy, because I just stepped off the scale, so I know better, but I feel lighter than ever right now. I feel free, like I can finally climb off the damn stage. I’m incredibly relieved, but sad, too, after reading about Fermina, what she went through. It’s like I’ve got all these backed-up tears in me for Fermina and from a lifetime of doing stand-up, and I don’t know how to let them out yet,” she said. “I’m really glad I have some time off today with Aitch, just me and him. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else right now.”
We hung up, and my father raised a brown-speckled fist from his nest of blankets on the couch. “He’s not the father. I am!”
“Ha-ha,” I said. “That’s pretty funny.”
He thrust his cup at me. “Get me some more coffee.”
“Do you think that’s wise, Dad? We nearly didn’t make it in time last trip.” My father’s bladder was still acting up. Instead of false alarms, he was now unable to tell when he really had to go.
“Well, get me a soda, then.”
“You should have something to eat.”
“No, no, no.” He shook his head stubbornly.
“How about some oatmeal, Dad? You can eat a little oatmeal.”
“Hey, did I tell you about the time I was in the rodeo?” And he was off, with the television blaring in the background. As though stored in a loop in his brain, one story triggered another and that sparked the next. There were the ubiquitous World War II stories, stories about neighbors, about cousins, and several tales of winning money at the track, at cards, and in the lottery.
I interrupted once to ask, “Do you remember Fermina leaving something for us?”
“Bah, how would I know? I was busy. I had responsibilities. I had you kids to take care of. Nilda handled Fermina’s stuff. I couldn’t do everything.”
“Did she say anything about —”
“That was so long ago, h’ita. Can I have a soda now? I’ll eat some oats with it.”
I rose to get his drink. “I’m going to be a mother,” I blurted out.
“It ain’t easy, raising kids. I raised five and look at me now.” He pointed to his bandaged neck and shot me a shrewd look. “Are you married now to that woman?”
“Something like that.” Wariness crept over me. My father had never before asked about my relationship with Chris. He’d met her, a couple times —Cary’s wedding and a holiday get-together. Ever appreciative of a fresh pair of ears for his stories, he seemed to enjoy her company. “Why?” I asked.
“Well, you always did things your own way,” he said. “You get that from me. Now, take your mother’s family. They got no imagination, and they’re boring, too. They couldn’t tell a good story if they wanted, except for your mama.”
“Mama told stories?” I remembered her reading books to us, one after another, during the long days of her confinement, during pregnancy and illness. But I couldn’t recall her weaving a tale of her own invention.
“Esperanza told five of them —you, Bette, Rita, Sophie, and Cary.” He laughed. “Hey, h’ita, did I tell you about the time I was in the rodeo?”
“When were you in the rodeo?”
I listened from the kitchenette as he told the tale, beginning to end, winding in the loop to the place where he’s disguised from my mother by a hat. “She didn’t know me,” he said. “She didn’t know me at all.” Story into story, his voice quavered without tiring that morning and into the afternoon. Each narrative apparently purposeless, certainly convoluted, and likely untrue, but one after another pressing my father’s point: Here I am. Look, look at me. I’m the father, and I’m still here!
After I helped him to bed that night, I stood in the dim kitchen and emptied the dishwasher, stacking dishes, bowls, and cups in the cabinets. But the woodworking had warped, and some cabinet doors would stubbornly creak open as soon as I shut them tight. The rag doll that stored grocery bags between its legs watched me, wearing a look that was both insipid and triumphant, as if mocking and challenging me. After closing and reclosing the poorly fitted doors a few more times, I gave up and pulled every cabinet, every drawer, wide, absurdly thinking that things should breathe. The kitchenette had a stale smell, so I thought more reasonably of dankness, of mold. Things should be exposed to the circulation of air and what light there was. Then I wiped my hands on a dish towel and phoned Chris, waking her, I’m sure. “Hi, it’s me. I heard you called. I tried you earlier, but I couldn’t reach you. Busy day?”
“Ridiculously,” she said.
“So we’re going to Guatemala?”
“Everything’s set for mid-April. You’d better be thinking of names,” she warned.
“I have one,” I told her.
“Oh, really? I hope it’s not something like Brunhilda or Myrtle.”
“I can’t tell you now because you have to hear the whole story,” I said. “But this one is a real name, a family name.”
READING GROUP GUIDE
1. The Gabaldón sisters lose their mother at an early age, and much of the book is about trying to regain her through recovering her memory. It is also about
their attempts to find out who their late housekeeper/servant Fermina was. What dilemmas are faced by the sisters in seeking secrets from the dead? And in what ways do the dead speak to the living in this novel?
2. The WPA reports about Fermina appear as interchapters in the novel. These are written by a fieldworker who apologizes to her superior for not writing “correctly.” How does this unauthorized history work to provide connective tissue between the chapters that chronicle the sisters’ lives?
3. With the exception of Rita, the sisters are happier and stronger when they are without male partners —husbands and/or boyfriends —in their lives. In fact, Rita theorizes their “magical gifts” are diminished when they fall in love, as though men draw strength and wisdom away from the women. Bette and Sophia even perform “visitation,” helping raise one another’s fatherless children. What shapes their belief that they are better off without men? And what is gained and/or lost by this conviction?
4. The novel suggests that love is being seen for who one is in the context of family. One’s traits —strengths and weaknesses —show up only because these are what the others don’t possess. Family isn’t about getting along; rather, family is the source of self-definition: the brain, the angry one, the caretaker, and the clown. How is the Gabaldón family a microcosm of the larger cultural tensions explored in the Los Angeles area of the girls’ youth and the historic Southwest of Fermina’s past?
5. The novel reveals the horrible and hilarious ways in which siblings betray each other. They collude, create factions, and intentionally drive one another out of their minds. How do the multiple perspectives affect the complex and ever-shifting strands of familial connection and disconnection?
6. Much of the conflict in the novel arises from misunderstanding related to the idea of a “gift” or “legacy.” Attached to the idea of receiving a gift is responsibility or obligation. What does this responsibility entail for each sister?
UNA GUÍA PARA GRUPOS DE LECTURA
1.La hermanas Gabaldón pierden su madre cuando son niñas y, por mucho del libro, tratan de recobrar la memoria de ella. También tratan de descubrir la identidad verdadera de su criada Fermina. ¿Qué problemas encuentran las hermanas cuando buscan secretos de los muertos? ¿Y cuáles modos usan los muertos para hablar con los vivos en esta novela?
2.Los informes del WPA sobre Fermina aparecen entre los capítulos de la novela. Éstos son escritos por una investigadora quien se disculpa por escribir “incorectamente.” ¿Cómo trabaja esta historia no autorizada en proveer el tejido conjuntivo entre los capítulos que narran la vida de las hermanas?
3.Con la excepción de Rita, las hermanas están más felices y más fuertes cuando no tienen esposos y novios. Rita piensa que sus “regalos mágicos” se disminuan cuando las mujeres se enamoran, como que si los hombres les roban la fuerza y la sabiduría de las mujeres. Bette y Sophia hacen “visitation” para auydar a criar a sus niños sin padres. ¿Por qué creen que están mejores sin los hombres? ¿Qué ganan y qué pierden a causa de esta idea?
4.La novela sugiere que el amor es ser visto por quien uno es, en el contexto de su familia. Las características de una persona —las fuerzas y las debilidades —solo aparencen porque son las características que las otras personas en la familia no tienen. La familia no es de llevarse bien; sino la familia es la fuente de la identidad: La Preparada, La Enojada, La Guardiana, La Payasa. ¿Cómo es la familia Gabaldón un microcosmo para la tensión cultural más grande que existe en Los Angeles durante la juventud de las hermanas, y del suroeste histórico de Fermina?
5.La novela revela los modos horribles y chistosos que las hermanas usan para traicionar una a la otra. Conspiran, pelean, y se vuelven locas. ¿Cómo influyen las perspectivas múltiples a las conexciones y separaciones complicados de la familia?
6.Mucho del conflicto de la novela es debido a un malentendido de la idea de un “regalo” o una “herencia.” Con un regalo viene responsibilidad y obligación. ¿Cuál responsibilidad tiene cada hermana?
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have been written without the practical help and encouragement of my patient and trusty readers: Beth Bachmann, Lauren Cobb, Teresa de la Cardidad Dovalpage, Maura Mandyck, Justin Quarry, the splendid Kathryn Locey, and the luminous Heather Sellers, whose encouragement and wisdom benefited the work more than I can say here. And I must acknowledge the benevolent intercession of my wise mentors: Judith Ortiz Cofer, Mark Jarman, William Luis, Tony Earley, and Peter Guralnick. I am also grateful to those who urged me on with friendship and empathy, my dear colleagues and friends: Tina Chen, Blas Falconer, Tayari Jones, Janis May, Karen McElmurray, Lynn Pruett, and Nancy Reisman. I am likewise indebted to my calm and sensible agent, Lauren Abramo, to Andie Avila for seeing the promise in the work, and to Selina McLemore, an astute close reader and supportive editor. I owe a fresh bouquet of thanks to Manuel Muñoz and Stephanie Finnegan, whose careful scrutiny benefited the work more than I can say. I thank my children, Marie and Nick, for putting up with my writing life for many years. For inspiration, I must recognize all the López Lovelies —aunts, cousins, and nieces, as well as the men with the courage to love them. My most profound appreciation goes to Louis Siegel, my husband, who has read this work almost as many times as I have and is unfailingly honest and kind in his insights each time.
Finally, I attribute the following books for the wealth of research material they yielded: Captives and Cousins, James F. Brooks; Hopi Animal Tales, Ed. Ekkehart Malotki; Hopi Stories of Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Magic, Ed. Ekkehart Malotki and Ken Gary; Hopi Voices, recorded by Harold Courlander; and Recuerdos de los Viejitos, collected and edited by Nasario García.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Though born in Los Angeles, California, Lorraine López comes from a large extended family with long-standing ties to central New Mexico. The austere and haunting beauty that characterizes the Land of Enchantment has long captivated the author and inspired her work. Several years ago, López discovered that her “adopted” paternal grandfather was the biological son of his adopted father’s brother (his uncle) and a Native American servant, a Pueblo woman who worked as a maid in the family home. After bearing this son, the woman subsequently gave birth to a daughter, who was surrendered by the family to an “asilo de huerfanos,” an orphanage. When López learned this bit of information, a life bloomed in her imagination, and this novel is an attempt to recreate fictively and to comprehend the heartbreaking circumstances of such a life.
Currently, Lorraine López is an assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review. Her stories have appeared in Prairie Schooner, Voices of Mexico, CrazyHorse, Image, Cimarron Review, Alaska Quarterly Review, StoryQuarterly/Narrative Magazine, and Latino Boom. Her short story collection, Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories (Curbstone, 2002), won the inaugural Miguel Marmól Prize for Fiction. Her second book, Call Me Henri (Curbstone Press 2006), was awarded the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature. She is completing a second short story collection and editing a collection of personal essays and memoir by women writers from lower- and working-class backgrounds. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her husband, Louis Siegel.
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