An excerpt by Richard Rodriquez
My mother is not surprised that her children are well-off. Her two daughters are business executives. Her oldest son is a lawyer. She predicted it all long ago. “Someday,” she used to say when we were young, “you will all grow up and all be very rich. You’ll have lots of money to buy me presents. But I’ll be a little old lady. I won’t have any teeth or hair. So you’ll have to buy me soft food and put a blue wig on my head. And you’ll buy me a big fur coat. But you’ll only be able to see my eyes.”
Every Christmas now the floor around her feet is carpeted with red and green wrapping paper. And her feet are wreathed with gifts.
By the time the last gift is unwrapped, everyone seems very tired. The room has grown uncomfortably warm. The talk grows more listless. (“Does anyone want coffee or more cake?” Somebody groans.) Children are falling asleep. Someone gets up to leave, prompting others to leave. (“We have to get up early tomorrow.”)
“Another Christmas,” my mother says. She says that same thing every year, so we all smile to hear it again. Children are bundled up for the fast walk to the car. My mother stands by the door calling good-bye. She stands with a coat over her shoulders, looking into the dark where expensive foreign cars idle sharply. She seems, all of a sudden, very small. She looks worried.
“Don’t come out, it’s too cold.” somebody shouts at her or at my father, who steps out onto the porch. I watch my younger sister in a shiny mink jacket bend slightly to kiss my mother before she rushes down the front steps. My mother stands waving toward no one in particular. She seems sad to me. How sad? Why? (Sad that we are all going home? Sad that it was not quite, can never be, the Christmas one remembers having had once?) I am tempted to ask her quietly if there is anything wrong. (But these are questions of paradise, Mama.)
My brother drives away.
“Daddy shouldn’t be outside,” my mother says. “
“Here, take his jacket out to him.”
She steps into the warmth of the entrance hall and hands me the coat she has been wearing over her shoulders.
I take it to my father and place it on him. In that instant I feel the thinness of his arms. He turns. He asks if I am going home now. It is, I realize, the only thing he as said to me all evening.
Every Christmas now the floor around her feet is carpeted with red and green wrapping paper. And her feet are wreathed with gifts.
By the time the last gift is unwrapped, everyone seems very tired. The room has grown uncomfortably warm. The talk grows more listless. (“Does anyone want coffee or more cake?” Somebody groans.) Children are falling asleep. Someone gets up to leave, prompting others to leave. (“We have to get up early tomorrow.”)
“Another Christmas,” my mother says. She says that same thing every year, so we all smile to hear it again. Children are bundled up for the fast walk to the car. My mother stands by the door calling good-bye. She stands with a coat over her shoulders, looking into the dark where expensive foreign cars idle sharply. She seems, all of a sudden, very small. She looks worried.
“Don’t come out, it’s too cold.” somebody shouts at her or at my father, who steps out onto the porch. I watch my younger sister in a shiny mink jacket bend slightly to kiss my mother before she rushes down the front steps. My mother stands waving toward no one in particular. She seems sad to me. How sad? Why? (Sad that we are all going home? Sad that it was not quite, can never be, the Christmas one remembers having had once?) I am tempted to ask her quietly if there is anything wrong. (But these are questions of paradise, Mama.)
My brother drives away.
“Daddy shouldn’t be outside,” my mother says. “
“Here, take his jacket out to him.”
She steps into the warmth of the entrance hall and hands me the coat she has been wearing over her shoulders.
I take it to my father and place it on him. In that instant I feel the thinness of his arms. He turns. He asks if I am going home now. It is, I realize, the only thing he as said to me all evening.