Page 22 of The Night We Became Strangers

Alicia

M y mother had been at the hospital for over a week and neither my father nor my grandmother would tell me why. When I asked if I could go visit her, they flat-out said children were not allowed in hospitals. Fortunately, my best friend in the whole wide world, Marisa, had come to my rescue.

From a white sock that rose all the way to her knee, Marisa removed a folded piece of paper. We were sitting in the patio, inside Colegio La Providencia, where we attended sixth grade.

“What is it?” I asked.

“The hospital’s address,” she said.

“How did you get it?”

“I have my methods.”

She never said what they were, but that was how Marisa was.

A mystery—even to me, her closest friend.

She’d come to my school unannounced, in the middle of the school year, three months ago.

We’d taken an immediate liking to each other.

I had been in need of a best friend since the other girls in my class would often ignore me.

They would only occasionally include me in their games, but I often spent recess by myself.

Marisa, on the other hand, had been interested in me from the beginning, in spite of the other girls’ attempts to befriend her first.

Later I found out she’d moved to Quito from the Coast, which explained why she was bolder than the rest of us, and so agile.

At first, I thought she had formal acrobatic training, as she’d been able to hang upside down from a metal bar for several minutes.

Her legs had hooked onto the bar as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and if that wasn’t enough, she’d end the exercise with a jump, twisting quickly in the air and landing on her feet—all while wearing our uncomfortable uniform skirt.

That had made her the most popular new girl in the history of my school.

After a month of friendship, she’d made a confession.

There was no professional acrobatic training.

Back in Guayaquil, she lived right next to a park, and there had been a bar on the playground where she practiced.

She’d befriended a group of boys who taught her and her brother these and other tricks.

I thought she was the most interesting person in the world.

Not only had she introduced me to the fun of physical play (I, myself, was now hanging from the same metal bar and performing a routine with her), but she was also a big reader and had introduced me to books filled with adventure and mystery.

“We’ll go after school,” she said, as I reread the hospital’s address, trying to remember where the street was.

“I already know how to get there. It’s only a few blocks from here, by El Arco de la Reina.

” On the other side of the address was a map she drew herself.

I gave her an excited hug. It was all set. I would see Mamá this afternoon.

Marisa and I waited until a couple entered the hospital and followed them inside. We shadowed them at a close distance so that people would think we were their children and wouldn’t ask what we were doing there. Somehow Marisa had even figured out in what room my mother was.

As with many buildings in downtown Quito, Hospital San Juan de Dios had a large central patio with a fountain and a gigantic tree in the middle.

We continued on our own after the couple entered a room.

Marisa pulled me into a wide hall flanked by concrete archways.

I fixed my eyes on the floor so that nobody would notice me, but before we reached our destination, a high-pitched voice hollered behind us.

“Hey, ninitas , you can’t be here!” The stern nurse was quickly approaching us.

Marisa grabbed my hand and darted toward a set of concrete stairs. I ran as fast as my feet and my tight moccasins allowed. We darted through the upstairs hall, lost in a maze of white walls and mahogany doors. But somehow, with sweaty armpits and braids in disarray, we found my mother’s room.

“How do you know this is the room?” I asked her.

“I just do.”

Again, my friend’s talents were a mystery.

“Hey, you!” Somehow the persistent nurse materialized.

Marisa opened my mother’s door and pushed me inside. She stayed in the hall, where I could hear the nurse screaming at her.

When I entered the room, I identified a scent akin to rubbing alcohol, masked by a mild whiff of pine, and my mom lying on the bed. There was also an unpleasant odor I couldn’t quite pinpoint. I rushed toward my mom before the nurse kicked me out.

Her eyes were shut.

“Mamita,” I said.

She opened her eyes and produced a smile through chapped lips. “Alicia, what are you doing here? How did you get in?”

What had happened to her voice? She sounded like she was speaking through a cone.

I didn’t know which question to answer first and besides, I didn’t have time for explanations. “I miss you,” I said, holding her bony hand.

She usually was well-groomed: the latest cloche hat, a smart two-piece suit, carmine lipstick, and her nails neatly manicured.

But today things looked very different. Her mane rested wildly on her shoulders, the tip of her nose was red, and she wasn’t wearing a lick of cosmetic.

The final blow were her nails, stripped of any polish.

As if things couldn’t get any worse, her arm was connected to a tube that led to a glass container with a transparent liquid slowly dripping inside her veins.

I felt an urge to cry just seeing her unkempt appearance.

“When are you coming home?” I asked her.

She started coughing uncontrollably, bringing a handkerchief to her mouth. I spotted yellowish mucus coming out. When she was done coughing, she finally answered. “I don’t know.” She was about to say something else but seemed to think better of it. “How did you get here?”

“Marisa found you.”

My mom smiled. “She’s such a good friend to you. I’m so glad you have her.”

She had another coughing spell. I handed her a glass of water from a metal tray with long legs and tiny wheels. After she was done, I took the glass back.

“I want you to have this,” she said, removing her necklace.

It was her favorite, the one she wore at all times, even with her nightgown. It had a gold pendant of a sun, which I loved. She put it around my neck. “Something to remember me by.”

“But you are coming home, right?”

She wouldn’t say anything, but her eyes filled with big fat tears.

The door opened abruptly. “Alicia? What are you doing here?”

I turned to face my dad.

“How did you get here?” He stopped speaking when he saw that my mom was crying—well, both of us were.

“We have to take her home,” I said. I didn’t care what the doctors said. I needed her home.

“We’ll talk later, hija ,” he said.

My mom was coughing again, and this time a nun walked in. My dad pulled me back so she could do her work.

“I need you to step outside,” the nun said.

We did as we were told and sat on a couple of chairs in the hall. There was no sign of Marisa.

Almost immediately, the nun came out of the room and scurried down the hall. Not five minutes had passed before she came back, followed by a doctor. I tried to go into the room, but my dad held me back with those strong hands of his. Two other nurses went into the room.

“What’s happening?” I asked my dad.

He had paled, and he looked like he’d shrunk since we arrived. He didn’t utter a word.

Fortunately, my grandmother arrived. Surely, she would know what to do. She was a confident woman who always had an answer and knew how to solve any problem in sight.

“ Hola, Mamá ,” my dad said, sounding somewhat relieved at her presence. At least he still had a voice.

In spite of the fact that my grandmother and my mom had a sometimes antagonistic relationship, she’d come.

And I loved her for that. I hugged her. She was not what you would expect from a grandmother.

Most of my friends’ grandmas were plump matrons who inspired nothing but hugs and cozy meals.

Papá’s mother had a sophisticated name, Azucena, and a slim, elongated body with hardly any hips or breasts to go with it.

No matter the weather, she donned tubular, low-waisted dresses that she sewed herself; the kind of woman who would never be caught outside her house without face powder and lipstick or her stylized chignon.

Most grandmothers I’d met bore mourning dresses and a few extra pounds after years of indulgent eating, but Dona Azucena Ortega broke all preconceptions.

With a perfectly straight back, the poise of a ballet dancer, she assessed the doctor approaching us behind a pair of round, golden framed glasses.

“Can I speak to you for a moment?” the doctor asked my dad.

The two of them stepped aside while my grandmother held my hand with her cold one.

That mountain of a man who was my father looked stricken by the time he was done talking to the doctor. He came toward us while the doctor stood there, looking solemn. My dad squatted in front of me, his eyes watery, and hugged me tightly.

“I’m sorry, nena , we lost her.”

His choice of words confused me. Surely, he didn’t mean my mother was dead , did he? I was about to ask for an explanation when I heard my grandmother speak.

“That can’t be, Manolo. She was only thirty-six years old. Are they certain?”

Was?

I let go of my dad and darted into my mother’s room.

Someone had covered her entire body—from head to toe—with a sheet, and there was a man writing something on a clipboard.

I removed the sheet, but something had happened to her in the last twenty minutes.

Her face was ashen, waxy, and her eyes partially open.

“Mamita!” I said, shaking her.

Someone held me by the shoulders—my dad again. “She’s gone to heaven,” he said. But it sounded mechanical to me. “She’ll always look over you.”

How? She’s still here. I wanted to say. But I couldn’t form the words.

My grandmother stood by the door, dabbing her eyes with the corner of a handkerchief. I stood there, staring at my mom. I wanted to hug her, but she looked so different now it was scaring me.

“You can touch her,” my grandma said.

Hesitantly, I touched her arm.

“She’s still your mother,” she said.

I climbed on the bed and hugged her. My tears wetting Mamá’s neck, they let me cry there for a long time. So long I completely lost track of time.

When the nun came back into the room, my dad held my arm. “Come with me, chiquita ,” he said, helping me step out of the bed.

Slowly, the three of us left the room. I was so small, I drowned in my father’s arms. For as long as I could remember, people had been intimidated by him. He was taller than most men in Quito and had large, wide shoulders. But it was his raspy voice that made him so scary to all except for me.

Mamá claimed tobacco had ruined his vocal cords. “Don’t you ever smoke, Alicia,” she would say. “It’s a vile habit.”

I never got around to asking her what vile meant, but when I learned the word, months after I’d lost her, I inexplicably broke down and cried.

Once arrangements for my mother were made, the three of us finally left the hospital.

It was dark already, and the moon looked blue.

How many hours had I been inside? I grasped my dad’s hand as I followed him down the street.

When I turned to look back at the hospital, where my mother’s body rested, I spotted a figure at the end of the street.

She was sitting on the curb, her back leaning against the hospital wall, her arms hugging her knees. When she looked up, I immediately recognized her.

It was Marisa.