This piece was first published in Quarto’s 2019 Spring Print Edition.
Illustration by Gisela Levy
Abuela lived in the back room of the Garcia house on 105 Andalusia Avenue. It was a small room, with egg shell white painted walls and a twin sized cot that took up half the space. Only one window allowed for views of rotting palm leaves and small slivers of light to enter. There was one closet in the corner, filled with luxurious batas de casas1 of all prints and colors. On a seven-day drawer was an organized tray of multiple pill bottles, with long names for prescriptions my nine-year-old tongue could not begin to pronounce. Next to those pills were half empty jars of rich anti-aging creams from La Prairie—a reminder of the beauty queen she once was in Cuba. It was an indulgence mami never understood, but abuela always cherished.
Abuela’s routine was simple while she lived at 105 Andalusia Avenue. In the mornings, she walked out to the kitchen and joined me and my sisters for breakfast. She took her café con leche with more milk than coffee, and made sure to add as much Splenda as mami would allow. Sometimes, I would catch her in the corner of my eye sneakily trying to add just one more packet of the fake sugar. But her hands would fumble and drop the packet on the floor for the family dog, Pinky, to quickly lick up. In pure Cuban tradition, Abuela would then dunk her Publix toast into the cup, letting the salty buttered bread soak up the artificially sweetened liquid. If it was not café con leche, abuela would drink a tall glass of the fake orange juice, Sunny-D, to wake her up. Mami kept the refrigerator in the garage visibly stocked with bottles and bottles of Sunny-D—unnaturally orange and toxic looking in their packaging. On every third Saturday of the month, Papi would buy in bulk the sickeningly sweet drink at Costco—just so Abuela always had the option.
At breakfast, and on every other occasion, Abuela felt a self-appointed responsibility to keep us Garcia girls in check. She hissed while Gloria cried about the lack of French toast sticks on her plate and yelled at me when she heard I did not finish my scrambled eggs. “Piensa de esos niños en Cuba!” her voice would bleat out to us at the dining table. I rolled my eyes, and let my scrambled eggs go untouched.
When us Garcia girls were finally out the door—on our way to school or day care or running errands with Mami—Abuela returned to her room and spent most of her day with her head on those frumpy cot pillows. She let her favorite talk show, Cristina, fill up the small room with pre- recorded laughs and ridiculous interviews with trendy actors she did not care enough to know about.
Every other afternoon, Mami drove abuela to the local clinic down Flagler street for her dialysis treatment—past abuela’s beloved La Rosa Bakery. Before diabetes took away her eyesight, abuela would ask mami to go see the delicately baked pastries, so perfectly cut and assembled in their large trays shelved on top of each other. If she could not take a bite, at least her other four senses enjoyed the delight that were freshly baked Cuban pastelitos. Occasionally on these visits, Mami would order a guava y queso pastelito and describe to her mother in such exact detail how flaky the pastry was or how sweet the guava tasted. When the sensory description was not up to par, abuela would walk straight to the counter and yell at the camerera2 on how the pastries were a disgrace to the Cuban tradition and community in Miami. And yet—without fail—Abuela and mami would be at La Rosa Bakery the next week to give them one more chance at baking a guava y queso pastelito the right way.
Indeed, it was Abuela who taught Mami to never accept anything less than perfection in her consumer goods. When Mami was in middle school, Abuela would drive them both to McDonald’s for fresh fried French fries as their American treat. If McDonald’s served them lukewarm or unsalted fries, Abuela would park the car and march Mami and herself into the golden arch establishment. Once inside the fast food chain, she stomped to the counter and shook the bag of French fries at the young server. “I paid two dollars for these French fries, and they are not hot or crispy!” her thick voice getting louder with each syllable. Abuela knew she was a spectacle, but if fleeing her beloved Cuba and becoming a proud American citizen taught her anything, it was to stand up for what you believed in. In no time, abuela and mami would be back in the car with fresh hot French fries in their lap.
On these afternoons in the clinic, abuela sat herself down in a worn out brown La-Z-Boy and greeted Polly, her favorite nurse on shift. Abuela had slowly grown to trust Polly, and definitely appreciated the nurse’s willingness to listen to stories about her youth in Cuba. While Polly pricked Abuela’s arm with two needles, Abuela closed her eyes and squeezed Mami’s arm hard. Her veins pulsated through her paper-thin skin, visibly showing her blood’s circulation throughout the treatment. Mami could not stand to watch her own mother in pain. Abuela would twist her legs together, or bite her bottom lip. But Mami would still make eye contact with abuela, to let her know she was there, by her side.
Pain, and the pain of others, was something mami could never handle well. When Isabella would run down the hallway and bang her head on the corner of the wall, Mami would cry out and leave a trail of kisses all over Isabella’s forehead. When Gloria skidded her knee learning to ride a bike, Mami squeezed Gloria’s hand until her fingers turned white from loss of circulation. To watch her mother’s blood be filtered through loud, whirring machines only echoed the strenuous discomfort mami felt inside. Yet, Mami saw it to be her daughterly duty to drive her mother and stay for her three-hour dialysis treatments.
Abuela would get home around the same time as my sisters and I got home from our tennis practices, soccer games, or ballet rehearsals. She would walk back to her room and lie her body down on the small cot once more. There she closed her eyes and allowed her body to rest in the singular seconds of quiet that filled the Garcia home. Almost immediately, us Garcia girls disrupted the quiet with our dance marathons located in the family room. I was always DJ, and chose a mix of Celia Cruz, NSYNC and Britney Spears as our track list. Abuela would simply stay put in her room, too disturbed and tired to watch the show us Garcia girls put on in the room next to hers.
The dance marathons that resumed in the family room lasted whole afternoons, an unlimited energy radiating from our tiny bodies. Gloria and Isabella took it upon themselves to make every inch of space their own, and began to jump on the couch to keep things interesting. This truly pissed off Abuela, as she could hear our jumps from couch to couch through the vibrating walls. Our shrieks and giggles and singing could not distract abuela from our activities, and thus led to her bleating yells of my name from her small back room. “Carolina! Carolina! Carrrrrrolina!” Her rolling of the r in my name acted as an authoritative pronunciation I hated to hear. After the fourth or fifth time she shrieked my name, I left Gloria and Isabella in their own antics and answered abuela’s call.
I was never really interested in visiting Abuela’s room. It smelled like old people, a smell that usually acquainted me at relative’s homes where I was given too many kisses on the cheek. The light that filtered through the window only emphasized the stale dust that floated in the air. I entered Abuela’s room to see her, laid down on her bed, eyes closed. “Yes Abuita? You called me?” I asked her as I slowly stepped closer to her bed. She would turn on her side, eyes still closed, and arms stretched out to reach for my face. I knew Abuela was blind, but I could never wrap my head around her condition. I was too fresh with youth, still seeing everything as if it was for the first time.
I would come just close enough for her to place her hands on my cheek. “Carolina,” she then cooed, sweetly. Her frail, spider veined hands traced themselves around the baby soft skin on my forehead. I noticed her own skin began to turn darker, as if she enjoyed afternoon sun bathing sessions when us Garcia girls were out. But I only ever saw Abuela in her room or at the dinner table.
“Please, can you and your sisters stop jumping.” She croaked out in thick, accented English. I nodded to her request, frozen in place as her hands still caressed my face. “Y esquela?” she then asked. I mustered up some lame response, a mixture of updates on my good grades or upcoming birthday parties I would be attending that weekend. Her hands would then retract themselves from my face, and slowly she would place them beside her. I noticed the pain in her twitching muscles, how every movement of her body was a chore in of itself.
“Que linda eres.” She cooed once more to me. I never believed this, since I knew Abuela could not see the snotty, sweaty pre-pubescent girl I was. But I would smile to myself anyways. I was the last grandchild Abuela got to see—Mami told me this. I was the last grandchild she had a visual memory of. And because of this, she always told me how beautiful I was. I ate it up, always.
“Gracias, Abuita.” I thanked Abuela. I would run back to the family room, and lower the music a bit. I then yelled at Gloria and Isabella to stop jumping on the couches, and began to shake my hips to Celia Cruz’s cries of “azucar!” through the speakers again.
Mami told me that abuela loved to hear about how I was doing in general, that she spoke about me during her dialysis treatments. I beamed inside, proud to know that I was the favorite. Even if I did not enjoy the back room visits to abuela, I would never reject any affirmation.
Abuela only ever left her bedroom in the late afternoon once, where she joined my sisters and I for dinner. While we scarfed down our arroz con pollo, Abuela slowly brought a spoonful of the dish to her mouth. Her hand shook, spilling some of the arroz on the floor. Mami would then take action and spoon feed her mother, the tenderness and patience between them palpable.
There were certainly bad days. The kind of bad days where abuela was not able to come to neither breakfast nor dinner. She was not able to yell my name when my sisters and I got too rambunctious. She was not able to feel my face, to see how much I had grown in mere weeks. She was not able to tell me how pretty I was and in turn I was not able to see her toothless smile. I began to miss it all. These days of Abuela’s absence became more and more frequent. Her hospital stays got longer and longer. Mami stopped coming to dinner too.
It was not unusual for us Garcia girls to come home to an ambulance outside the house on 105 Andalusia Avenue. It was a stomach-turning image to see Abuela carried out on a stretcher, her eyes still closed. I did not yell to her, but Gloria and Isabella cried hard and loud. I stood there, my spine frozen. I saw Mami, fresh tears still on her face. We all collectively felt helpless.
After one hospital visit, Mami came home and told us Abuela had her right big toe amputated. Her body began to shut down on her, and the first thing to go was her big toe. I could not help but laugh, and Mami scolded me, hard. “Your Abuela is not well, and you laugh?” She hissed at me. I began to cry big fat tears.
Mami did not like when us Garcia girls visited the hospital. She was scared we would get sick, or maybe she did not want us to understand what was really happening to Abuela. I only heard in passing the terms “diabetes” and “heart failure” when Mami and Papi would talk alone in the kitchen.
I knew though when abuela’s sickness became really serious. Abuela’s stays at the hospital spanned into weeks and Mami eventually started to let us visit. Papi would pick us up from school and we would drive to Doctor’s Hospital, sweaty and sticky in our plaid jumper uniforms. Mami only had us see abuela in small pockets of time, usually when Abuela was asleep. I was upset by this, and yelled that I wanted to talk to Abuita right now. Mami began to cry at my temper tantrums, unable to emotionally deal with three growing little girls and the decay of her mother.
My temper tantrums only got worse, and I would begin to bite Gloria or scratch at Isabella if I was not able to see Abuela that day. I began to crave Abuela’s hands on my face, her soft fingertips gently on my cheeks. I wanted to tell Abuela about my day at school, about how Robert pushed me at recess or about how my new friend Cristina drew me a picture in glitter markers. I wanted to hear her say my name, with the rolling of the r included. I wanted to hear Abuela yell my name, Carolina, Carolina, Carolina. Over and over and over again.
Abuela tried to say my name when she saw me during my few visits. Sometimes I could hear her, other times the big medical machines would beep too loud and drown out her attempts. Nurses ran in and asked me to leave, and I would start to cry in the hallway. I did not understand what was happening to Abuela. Mami and Papi would still not give me an answer. They would continuously tell me Abuela was not doing well. Mami would then start to cry and I knew not to ask any more questions.
Abuela was not going to get better, Mami told me and my sisters at breakfast. After months of Abuela in and out of the hospital, of her routine at 105 Andalusia Avenue officially and steadily broken, Mami accepted Abuela’s decline.
Mami did not let us say goodbye to Abuela, and I screamed so loud the neighbors called. I pushed Mami hard and hit Papi everywhere. I was mad. I could not process why my parents did not let me say goodbye, why my parents thought it was not a good idea. I was the last granddaughter she ever got to see, I held importance to her. Yet, Mami shook her head and cried more to me. She whispered sorry into my ear and began to comb her hands through my hair. “Don’t cry. You sound just like her when you do.” I cried harder.
1 Night gowns
2 waitress