You jolt awake, your eyes adjusting to the darkness and your breath easing into a slow, steady rhythm. You roll over to your right. Your sister is sleeping with her mouth open. Your roommate at college did the exact same thing; it was like you had been rooming with your sister all along. Karla didn’t snore, but her body made an effort to breathe harder when she was asleep and it competed against the loud hum of the fan in your room.
The girl could sleep through anything, which made her the ideal candidate for a Sharpie makeover at any sleepover, and the envy of insomniacs like yourself. You know that it’s around 5:00 a.m. without having to check your phone, and you turn back to your original position facing the wall. You try to remember what your dream was about, but the last time you could successfully recall one was ages ago, long before you started high school. Karla claimed that she could summon dreams whenever she ate dessert too close to bedtime, conjuring up tales of school dances gone wrong, or her crush from the third grade appearing out of nowhere to help her reach a box of Lucky Charms on the top shelf at Jewel. Your mamá had told you two that if you recounted your dreams out loud, they wouldn’t come true, so Karla had been reluctant about sharing that last one.
You throw the sheets off your body and sit up. You inch your way toward the end of the bed and reach toward your dresser. Sitting near the edge is the Rubik’s cube your dad got you in the fifth grade. You taught yourself to solve the puzzle in the dark, which was how you worked up to completing it with your eyes closed. The light coming from the window helps you distinguish the yellow from the orange squares as you roll the cube back and forth between your hands, watching the scrambled pattern glisten in the light. Solving a Rubik’s cube isn’t like math, there’s only one way to do it, and you need to work backward—start from the end to get to the beginning.
When you wake up a few hours later, Karla is gone and you have to strain to hear the fan, and everything else, over the music that’s blasting downstairs. Your mamá is singing along, and if things were the same, she was twirling around the entire kitchen too. You hear another voice, which must be your abuelita’s, echoing the crisp, soothing tone that belongs to your mamá. Either that, or your papá started singing along to Vicente Fernández while you were gone. What else had changed while you were gone? For starters, your mamá and Karla happily rearranged the room and hid your belongings. There’s much more space, and it’s Karla’s room now, only to be borrowed when you are a guest in your own childhood home.
Karla bursts through the door, panting and holding a rolled-up tortilla in her left hand. You figure there’s a slice or two of cheese in there, and it makes your stomach growl. Mami told me to wake you up, Karla says, it’s almost one o’clock. You stretch your arms over your head and reach toward Karla. Give me your taco, you say. Karla takes a bite out of it before handing it over. There’s cheese and some black beans that spill out from the bottom as you take a massive bite. Real food! This tastes like home.
Nadia, don’t eat all of it! your sister says.
More actual food makes the menu later that day. After you finally make it out of bed, you eat the huevo con salchicha your abuelita made for you, and your papá pours you a cup of café con leche. You feel grown up, like you’re on an entirely different plane than your siblings in high school, who are still worrying about collecting extracurricular activities and have to ask permission to use the bathroom. That used to be you, and even if you have only been gone for four months, you scratched the surface enough to distance yourself from them. At college, there’s a club for people like you guys, the ones with dark thick hair and wide eyes that let you know what they’re thinking. One of the girls spoke for everyone and asked the advisor if they all got in because the university had a quota to fill. The advisor had been unfazed; she must’ve gotten that question every year. You don’t know if the advisor asked her to stop, but Michelle ceased trying to start an uprising and never asked anything like that again. Michelle was the one who told you it would break your parents’ hearts if you dropped out of college, which you already knew, but what else was she going to say? It didn’t matter that you only saw Michelle once a week, at the Latinx Student Association meetings every Thursday at 7:00 p.m. in the classroom tucked away on the bottom floor of the history building. Michelle was the oldest sibling, too, so she was coming from a place of compassion and extensive knowledge in “this family is no stranger to shame, but that doesn’t mean you should bring it into our home.” Michelle asked you the same question each time, but phrased in a different way. Did you change your mind? Do you know how much high school graduates make? Did you talk to your sister about it?
You haven’t told Karla anything. You don’t want to disappoint your little sister, the person who knows you the best, or at least to a better extent than your parents and brother do. You feel like there’s no way Karla can possibly understand how you feel, and she has two more years until she starts thinking about college. If you drop out now, it will only ruin the comfort and safety this home brings everyone. It would take you months to earn steady pay to buy an apartment somewhere else, and that was even if your parents agreed to let you out of their sight. First, you have to convince them to let you drop out, which is a whole different territory of terrifying that you haven’t crossed over to before. Up until this point, the worst thing you’ve ever done was lie to your parents about staying after school for math team every Thursday, when you and your friends were going to get slushies at Sonic.
When dinner rolls around, your mamá calls you to set the table. If you even remember how to set the table, she jokes, referring to an earlier comment you made about not being able to find your clothes. One day you’ll be able to find that pair of polka-dotted pajama pants you always wear when it gets too cold. You head to the cabinet where they keep the place mats, and remember to grab extras because your abuelita and tío are visiting. Your abuelita is in the kitchen with her, scooping the pozole into blue-and-white bowls your mamá has several sets of. The toppings are also in these bowls—radishes, oregano, and cilantro, which you’re not a huge fan of, but not because you think it tastes like soap. The lettuce is in a larger metal bowl due to there being more mouths to feed than usual. The rest of the family assumes their positions at the table. You sit between Karla and your brother Miguel. She guilts you into squeezing two wedges of lime into your soup. You’re going back so soon, she whines. We only have a few days left to hang out. I’m going to miss you. Those four months were the longest time you’ve been away from your little sister.
You’ve eaten pozole countless times, and you wish you remembered the first time because you feel a sentimental attachment toward simple things, as if you think they’re going to be important later. There’s something methodical about pozole that you like. Everything is right in front of everyone, no one needs an explanation on what to do with all the garnishes in their bowls. You keep it simple—two handfuls of lettuce, one spoonful of radishes, a drizzle of lime to seal in the flavor. You begin mixing the ingredients together without spilling the red orange broth onto the place mats. Out of the corner of your eye you catch everyone doing the same. Are they thinking about the soup too? Does this dinner mean as much to them as it does to you? Last month, you came home for Thanksgiving, but that was for three days. What good does three days do when all you think about is what waits for you when you go back? Why go back to your prison cell of a dorm room when you have a house that doesn’t want you to go? While everyone’s savoring their soup, you think about this tweet people you graduated from high school liked: If you don’t miss your college friends after three months, you picked the wrong school. Did you?
Your tío asks his sister if there’s crema. For the pozole? she exclaims in horror. No, for the tostada, he explains. Your papá gets up from the table and grabs the bottle from the fridge, passing it to him. He wipes his spoon on a napkin and scoops a dollop onto the crisp surface, spreading the crema as if it were on a giant circular corn-flavored cracker. Soon the rest of the adults follow suit and everyone’s taking bites of their tostadas while you and your siblings break off pieces and shovel piles of hominy and chicken into your mouths. You think about what Karla said. You only have a few days left here. A few days left at home. The questions about how you’re adjusting and the murmurs of sympathy from your relatives after you explain that you missed your family, but was trying your best, make you more nervous. Thankfully, with an extra two people at the table, the conversation divides into two groups, two languages. The adults rehash details from yesterday’s episode of “the one where they cram 30+ relatives into this house and try to keep everyone from losing their minds.” Your friends from high school would call that a “family reunion.” For you, it’s just another Saturday night. Your abuelita comments on how big your cousin has gotten since she last saw her a year ago. ¡Es dinámica! your tío replies. It was their first-time meeting and well, with being a five-year-old girl, your cousin refused to say hi and ran away. Your dad mentions that she reminds him of Karla, who’s digging into Miguel for not knowing the official timeline of all the Marvel movies. If it weren’t for you and your sister, your brother would’ve grown up without watching Tobey Maguire play Spiderman.
When the three of you start spending less time talking and more time eating, you return your attention to the adults. You wonder if that’s what it’s going to be like when the three of you are older—a nonstop reel of childhood stories rebutted and pasted together by all the parties involved. It must be the soup because your mamá brings up how much she hates the way your aunt, the last one in Mexico, slurps soup. She demonstrates, carefully bringing the wide bowl to her lips and making a hideous sound that resembled a sputtering car engine. This makes Karla perk up, a mischievous smirk on her face. You and Miguel smile, already aware of what’s coming next. Karla grabs her bowl and mimics your mamá, amusing everyone except for her. In true fashion, your mamá ignores her and continues talking. Karla persists with her mischief and urges you to join in, making it hard for everyone to ignore you two. Instead of your mom, it’s your papá who looks up from his soup in annoyance. That’s not good enough, though. Your tío laughs from across the table, egging you and Karla on. He too has had a lot of experience in bugging your mamá. Miguel joins in, but can barely compose himself long enough to exaggerate a slurp before the soup dribbles down his chin. You and Karla take a break from playing with your food to actually eat it.
In only two years, Karla will be in the same position as you. Your parents are already hounding her about schools, pushing her to major in STEM, and pestering her about standardized tests. In two years, Karla could end up in your position, or worse, kept on such a tight leash because you, her older sister, messed it up for her. The slurping starts up again, each one more obnoxious than the first. Your mamá gets up to refill your abuelita’s bowl. She wags her finger no, but your mamá grabs her bowl anyway. Your abuelita would’ve done the same if she had said no. Miguel is intrigued by the crema and tostada combo and decides to have a taste. You try to keep up with your sister’s slurping, but this time you can’t stop laughing. You laugh into the bowl, your face slightly turned so only Karla can see it. This is when your mamá snaps. You just want to make me mad, huh? she says through gritted teeth. Your abuelita clicks her tongue and shakes her head, and while Karla presses her lips together to keep from laughing, you get up to refill your bowl.
There’s a week of break left. You could postpone it until then, but it wasn’t like you’re going to go back. You can’t. You have no idea what’s going to happen, but your parents are never going to let you leave their sight. If things end the way you hope they will, you will never have to sit next to Michelle on the bottom floor of the history building ever again. Dinner is almost over, and thinking about all things you’re not going to miss is giving you the courage to tell them. You won’t miss the musty classroom, or the look one of the girls on your dorm floor gave you when she heard you speaking Spanish on the phone. You won’t miss the emails from your professors, asking you to come speak with them because you’re failing their classes. How you barely scraped by is a mystery you don’t care enough to solve; you’re already convinced this is the right thing to do. When you return to the table with your bowl in hand, you clear your throat. You blurt it out, stumble over your own tongue a few times, but you tell them. Your abuelita doesn’t speak English, but a look of shock and disappointment translates perfectly in any language. The room had been so loud that you had forgotten the TV was on, and all you can hear now is the telenovela, its own family having an argument at the dinner table.
But that noise isn’t loud enough to mask the sound of your family’s collective heart crumbling. It’s the sound of your house, the protective bubble, caving in, and there’s nowhere for you to escape. Your mamá is unable to form a sentence, your abuelita turns to your tío for clarity, and Karla’s eyes move back and forth from every member at the table, except for you. Miguel grabs your hand and squeezes it. He’s always trusted your judgment and even now, you’ve given him no reason to think otherwise. You squeeze back and stare at your refilled bowl of pozole, unable to look at anyone else. The lettuce is tinged with orange and you realize your broth to ingredient ratio is off. There’s not enough hominy or chicken for you to scoop with your tostada. You pick up the spoon and trace the perimeter of the bowl, again and again, trying to calm your breathing. If you had let your mamá do it, this wouldn’t have happened. If you had let her make this decision for you, this wouldn’t have happened. But even if she won’t admit it, you’re old enough to make your own decisions. You don’t want to say it either, but no one knows you better than you do.
Hija, ¿qué pasó? your papá says. You take your time, setting down the spoon and wiping your mouth with a napkin, before gathering every ounce of apology you can give him with just a look. Lo siento, papá, you say. I’m sorry I couldn’t do it. He looks at all his children and his wife before turning back to you. Nosotros vamos a salir de esto, he says. Juntos. Karla grabs your other hand. You’re waiting for the person you’ve hurt the most to give you reassurance. You can’t move ahead without her, and when she pushes her chair back and gets up, a part of you thinks she already has. She grabs her bowl, half full with pozole, and puts it into the sink. You wish you could read her thoughts the same way she probably did each night you were away. She idles at the sink, but not for too long. When she returns, she kisses your forehead and folds you tightly into her arms. Pressed against each other and afraid of letting go, you tell her everything you meant to tell her.
You used to tell your mamá that she should open her own restaurant. It never happened, but the idea still sits in the back of her mind. Your mamá pictured herself receiving compliments to the chef and watching the smiles of those who frequented the restaurant on first dates, anniversaries, birthday dinners. She joked about being unoriginal and naming it Jimena y los Dinos, paying tribute to the one and only Selena, but that’s because it was going to be a family restaurant. When you left for college, that was one of the first things she thought about.
As she washes the blue-and-white bowls, scratching at the dried-up insides, and you watch her, sitting at the island, alone with her in the kitchen, you both wonder what comes next. She told you she had feared it was going to happen, but she had told your papá about it, recounting it over and over again so it wouldn’t come true. Your mamá understands that she can’t actually know what you’re up to, how you feel. When she finishes washing the dishes, she grabs the covers for all the Tupperware. She seals the lettuce, radishes, and limes into separate clear containers, and carries them to the fridge. The counter has been wiped down, the place mats have been put back into the cabinet where they belong. You hear a chorus of voices laughing downstairs, where your family is waiting for the two of you. With her head on your shoulder, you both walk down the staircase and over to the couch where your brother is sitting. There isn’t enough room for both of you, but you guys make do, and huddle closer to each other, grateful for the company.
Elly Rivera’s work has appeared in Perfil, the Chicago Reporter, North by Northwestern, and PALABRITAS. She is a recent graduate of Northwestern University and currently lives in West Chicago.
