Dormir Bien, by Desi Burns

     Every summer when I was younger, I spent my days at my grandmother’s house. Both of my parents worked and even when my dad didn’t he just wanted us out of the house. My sister and I were my abuela’s babies. My mom would tell us how when we were just born, she barely got to hold us because  my abuela would whisk us away and dote on us.

     My abuela couldn’t drive, couldn’t write in English, could barely speak English. All of the Spanish I learned as a kid was from her. Mainly from her telling us to calm the hell down. My sister and I would run all around those fifties tiles back and forth until we were sick of running. It’s hard to remember the words she yelled at us because our father never cared to learn Spanish, but I remember the expletives and the noises. It was “EY!” when we knocked something over and “NAHNAHNAH!” when we jumped on the couch.

     Dead roaches littered the house, from the long dark peeling drywall to the carpet that was always just a bit soggy.   My sister and I would scream for my abuela whenever we saw one. She would pull the dustpan from where everything useful was and pick it up. I remember that carpet curling around my pink-polished toes and outlining my footprints as I ran around. I must have seen hundreds of roaches in that house.

     Maybe the roaches also thought of her house as home. Maybe when they slid under the old rotting wood, they felt that this house was the most comfortable place to die,  the same way I knew this house was the most comfortable place to live.

     Then there was the room I was honored to be in. It always smelled of fluffy rice. I remember birthday cake after birthday cake being baked within its three and a half walls. The cabinets were the good kind of disgusting. Squeaky and old so there was no way to hide the fact that we would rummage through them. The coffee machine screamed. It really needed to be put down. My sister and I never got used to that sound with our little ears.

     My sister and I would do the stupidest thing. Our grandma would let us go back to the ice cream fridge and we would grab the Blue Bellvanilla and put it in the microwave. My abuela would watch in horror as we ate our lukewarm vanilla soup.

     There wasn’t a car in the room with the ice cream fridge, but it was never empty. There was so much junk stored in that room, lining the walls.  We could have sworn were from caveman times. Inside was a long army green box that in one lifetime held memorabilia. . . Now it just held either me or my sister. We would push the box over as if that stopped the pain of hitting the oil-stained ground.  It didn’t, but it felt plush in the moment. Maybe that kickstarted my need for adrenaline, or maybe that worsened the stress on my poor abuela’s heart. The only thing for certain is the clatter of the boxes and the pained laughter that came after.

     The house is a vague memory, and when it comes to the rooms and the halls and the tiles I can only give so much imagery. The details of the house aren’t the most important things. In reality, the most important thing about the house is the woman who lived in it. My abuela. She made the house a home. She was the walls and the halls and the tiles. Heriberta Alidigna Martinez. Every meal and every birthday cake feels soulless because of her absence.

     The house I have written about does not exist anymore because she does not live in it. The house you have read about is now a small box six feet underground, not eight feet, because she is buried above her husband.

     Te amo, Abuela. Dormir bien.