as she had promised

Mi Mamá, the Playgirl
by Richard Garcia

      When my mother left Mexico, soldiers comman-
deered the train, forcing the passengers to get off and
wait for the next one. Later they passed it lying on its
side, burning.

      She wore black dresses. Her closet was lined with
identical pairs of black shoes. She constantly advised me
to jump off the bridge while the tide was going out.

      Long after my father was dead, she complained
that his side ofthe bed still sank down. "Viejo," she
would tell him, "if you have somewhere to go, please
go." At seventy, she went out to nightclubs. Twisted her
knee doing the bunny hop. Talked for hours to forty-
year-old lovers on the phone. My brothers were
ashamed.

      After she died, she came to see me as she had
promised. My father came, too. We sat around in the
kitchen drinking coffee as if nothing had happened. My
father looked great, said he'd been working out. She
stroked his forearm, smiling at his tattoo of the dancing
hula girl. When they left it was nothing dramatic. They
just walked out the door and up a street that seemed to
reach into the night sky. How beautiful, I thought, as I
was waking, the stars shining in my mother's hair.