I have been avoiding this. Doing it well, too: I have found every speck of dust to be plucked away on the floor of my room, I have made and gone to appointments, done my work early—I have finished every unfinished thing in order to prolong the inevitable, which is my second try at this big thing, this Something I Do Not Understand, which is Tata living in that strange twilight between this world and the next. She's not fully here, she's not fully there, and we can only get sips of her, cool little refreshing bursts of the Tata we knew before the bottom dries out again and the fog clouds her eyes and when I ask her ¿Entiendes? she replies in English, Not really.
When we arrive I hear her before I see her and she sounds tired and when I round the corner I see her—there, in that big armchair, looking small, looking around, seeing things a second after they happen. I go up and say what I always say—¿Qué pasa chica? ¿Qué pasa linda?—What's up girl? What's up pretty thing? and I bend down and kiss her on the cheek. Mi corazón, she says—My heart.
For the first time I see my grandmother's scalp. It's tan somehow, and leathery. Her skull is a good, round shape. Thin grey hairs sprout like so many untended blades of dying grass—and my grandmother is proud, too proud to have no hair, and I know this. You look like me, I say, I can give you haircuts from now on. I motion with my invisible electric clippers around my shaved head. Zip zip zip. And she laughs.
I sit down on the carpet next to her. I think she must feel very small these days, and I want to be small with her. So I sit on the carpet and rest my hand on hers, and mine is live and strong and hers is splotched with liver stains, and her veins rise up blue and inky like gorged rivers, and we talk.
Tata asks, How is your girlfriend? I tell her we're not dating anymore and she nods. She holds on too tight, she says. And I say, Yes. A few minutes later she asks me, How is your girlfriend? And I say steadily that we are not dating anymore and she nods again. You are so young, she says, and there are so many. Yes, I say.
I am holding her hand and I've never done this before. I've never held her hand, not really. I forget that so much can be communicated through the strength of a grasp, through a squeeze, and I'm suddenly terrified she will communicate something to me that I do not want to know. I squeeze her hand, which means, I'm here, Tata. She squeezes mine, meaning, Hello, mijo.
I squeeze hers, I don't mind sitting next to you on the ground.
She squeezes mine, I can't understand what they're saying.
I squeeze hers, I can't understand what is happening to you.
She squeezes mine, It is lonely here.
I cup her hands in mine, Does anyone else hold your hand anymore?
Her hand is limp, I can't understand what they're saying.
I turn over her palm, What are your dreams like?
Her hand is slack, I get so tired.
Then—I squeeze my grandmother's hand. Are you afraid like I am?
She squeezes mine. I love you, mijo.
I excuse myself for a glass of water downstairs. Really I'm leaving to take a break. It takes a lot of energy to hold onto someone's hand when they're trying so hard and wanting so much to float away from this world, and I'm exhausted. Dad is downstairs on a conference call and I'm yelling loudly inside my head, Help, Help, because I've left Tata and my stepmom and Tata's sister alone upstairs and what will they talk about? And who will make jokes about my bald head? And who will hold her hand?
When Dad is done we go upstairs together. I take my spot again on the carpet, make myself small up against her arm chair, and take her hand. I start to say things but her eyes remind me of a clean cup of water clouded with milk. I ask, ¿Me entiendes?—Do you understand? She says in English, Not really. So I start doing my best to speak to her in Spanish and it's as if her mind turns on again after so many years of disuse. I see the light behind her eyes, she understands my every word—I have my Tata again, after I thought I had lost her completely. We chat excitedly for a bit, and I tell her that when I was in Spain the locals would always turn their noses up at me when I tried to speak Spanish to them. She says something too fast for me to hear—later I figure out it was métetelo en el culo—and my dad laughs, and I ask what she said, and Dad says, She said they should shove it up their ass. This is my grandmother.
After a while it gets hard, it gets impossible. It's too exhausting—trying to hold onto Tata's hand to keep her from floating away, swimming in my sloshy brain that's halfway between Spanish and English and doing neither well, seeing Dad smiling and knowing how he will cry when we get downstairs. It's too hard to communicate. So I just hold Tata's hand and hope that will be enough.
There are so many things I want to tell her and ask her, so many things I want to say to comfort her, but she won't understand me in English and I don't know enough Spanish. I think for a while. Finally I look at Tata in the eyes and I say, Somos dos personas en la neblina—We are two people trapped in fog. And she says tiredly, thankfully, Sí, nosotros dos—Yes, us two in the fog.
They talk. My dad, stepmom, great aunt, and the caretaker. They chat, this and that, nothing really. The new Hunger Games movie, magazines, work, travel—my great aunt is going to Panama soon—and I can tell Tata isn't understanding all of these English words buzzing by her. I wonder what's going on inside that tan scalp, what she's thinking, what happens in a dying brain. ¿Que estás pensando? I ask, What are you thinking about? She says, without hesitation, Musarañas. I ask Dad what it means. If there was any light flitting around in his eyes, it drains away. He looks at his mother and says, Cobwebs.
They talk more. I'm still there, small on the dark yellow carpet next to my Tata holding her hand. English words zip by us. I want to know if she's still thinking of musarañas, because if she is I think I will have to get up for another glass of water. I ask, ¿En qué estás pensando ahora?—What are you thinking of now? She looks down at me. En tí, she says—Of you.
It is time to go. We get up to say our goodbyes and I promise Tata I will send her a letter in Spanish and attach a poem by Pablo Neruda. We shuffle out. Inches by the door, my great aunt says, Pórtate bien—Behave yourself. My grandmother looks up at us, looking small in the enormous armchair that swallows her. She is far away, or deep underwater, or high up behind the clouds—somewhere that is not here. He tratado, pero no es divertido. And I don't need a translation for that one. She said—my Tata—I've tried, but it isn't any fun.
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