“What color is it?” Abuelo asked, pointing his big wrinkly index finger to the stoplight.
“Red,” I said, and he stomped on the brakes too hard, making my head jerk forward and back. I didn’t mind the way Abuelo drove, making sharp turns and harsh stops, because it made me feel like we were partners in crime like robbers in old bank heist movies, or like we were in a roller coaster or in a bumper car at the fair. Plus, he let me sit in the passenger seat, which was both insanely irresponsible and illegal, and something my dad never let me do. I was nine and all I understood was that my abuelo was the coolest person in the universe and that he was indestructible.
“Light me one,” he said as he squinted at the sky, struggling to see the red of the stoplight, or maybe the stoplight itself. At that point I couldn’t be sure quite how bad his eyesight was. Sometimes I thought he was completely blind, but then he would suddenly point somewhere and say, “Look at that bird” or “That guy’s fly is open” and suddenly my abuelo would become indestructible again, flawless. I reached over to Abuelo’s shirt pocket and pulled out a carton of Marlboro Red and put one of the cigarettes in my mouth. I could never get used to the taste. Every time I put a new one in my mouth it tasted like something different: carton, wood, sawdust, boogers, I never knew exactly what.
The light changed so I said, “Green,” and the cigarette slipped from my lips and tumbled to the floor as someone behind us honked.
“Shit in your mother’s mouth,” my abuelo yelled through the open window, his voice hoarse and raspy. “Where’s that cig at, Rodrigo?”
I couldn’t reach it without unfastening my seat belt.
“It fell,” I said.
“Well, pick it up,” he said, speeding past a stop sign.
My dad’s number one rule in the car was never take off your seat belt, and even if he wasn’t there I could still feel his imposing gaze on the back of my head whenever I was in a car.
“I can’t reach it. The seat belt won’t let me.”
“For Christ sakes,” he said and felt around with his right hand until he found the belt buckle and unfastened my seat belt, never taking his unseeing eyes off the road.
“Get it. Get it. Get it.”
I flung myself forward, grabbed the cigarette, fell back on the seat and fastened my seat belt in one movement.
“Good boy,” he said when he heard the flick of the lighter as I lit his cigarette. I inhaled once and handed it over to him. He had only recently started letting me have a puff of his cigarettes whenever he lit a new one. “You’re becoming a man, Rodrigo,” he had said that first time he let me try one in the parking lot of the 7-Eleven by his apartment, “have a drag—but just one.” This, of course, was a secret between us—one of many—no one could know that he let me smoke or that his diabetes was leaving him blind. Not my mom, not my dad, and not my abuela. No one. That was the one rule he ever gave me: secrets are sacred.
We drove down San Miguel Boulevard, making our way back to his apartment, where Abuela was waiting for us. He had made it a point to teach me the names of every street we drove by—Atocha Street, José María Street, Sol Street—so that I could be his eyes, map, and compass on the road. I was proud of how fast I had learned the street names, how I almost never got us lost. How my abuelo smiled at me with a cigarette clenched between yellowed teeth whenever I got us from point A to B.
We drove past palm trees lining the long road and all of the tiny pink and blue and yellow houses that looked just like my house. Kids my age ran around shirtless and shoeless, kicking deflated soccer balls around or playing baseball with a broomstick and bottle caps. We sped past Burger King, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and all of those other fast-food restaurants that were starting to pop up in our neighborhood, all of them within walking distance of the mall.
“Don’t tell Abuela about the cigarettes,” he said when we got out of the car.
“OK.”
“Or your parents.” He turned around to look me in the eyes.
“Don’t worry, Abuelo, I promise.”
We found Abuela pacing the living room from wall to wall. She rushed into Abuelo’s arms the moment he walked into the room.
“José,” she said, sounding relieved and pleading at the same time, “José, where were you?” She was almost crying.
“I told you I was going to go pick up Rodrigo from school.” I asked him once, how come he could drive to school without my help but needed me to give him directions anywhere else. First, he told me to mind my own business. Then he told me he knew the way by memory and he drove very very slowly, squinting all the way there.
There was a moment of silence while she stared at him. She looked down at me and smiled. “Oh. Yes! Of course,” she laughed and bent down to hug me. “Rodri, do you want something to eat? Come on, I’ll make you a sandwich.”
And just like that she was happy again. I saw Abuelo pinch the place between his eyes and nose with two fingers and breathe in deeply before Abuela pulled me into the kitchen. I heard the front door close again, and I knew Abuelo was having another cigarette and I was missing out on my one puff.
“How was school today?” Abuela said, opening the fridge and taking out a jar of peanut butter and another one of jelly.
“It was good.”
She started spreading the peanut butter on a slice of bread. “Did you play a lot with your friends today?”
“Yeah. Damián climbed to the top of the slide during recess and pulled his pants down and he got sent to the principal’s office ’cause Geraldine told on him.” I laughed, remembering how Damián’s butt looked like two hamburger buns about to go down a slide.
Abuela stopped making my sandwich and looked around the kitchen. She stared at the floor tiles blankly and then at the wallpaper, the fridge, and eventually back at me. She smiled at me and asked, “How was school today, Rodrigo?”
My dad came to pick me up after work. He was a doctor and worked at a hospital taking pictures of people’s bones. He also did surgery on them, so usually it was my mom who picked me up from Abuelo’s apartment because dad would be in the hospital until late at night. Mom was an important lawyer, so she worked a lot too. Sometimes they both had too much work to do so I stayed at my abuelos’ place, and Abuelo would take me to school the next morning in the same clothes I wore the day before.
“How was school?” asked Dad, one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding his phone. He could have had one eye on the road and one on his phone and it would have been fine—I mean, Abuelo could drive with no eyes on the road.
“Fine.”
“Come on, buddy. You gotta’ give me a little more than that.”
I didn’t understand my dad. He always pressured me into talking, into narrating my day, play-by-play, but I could always tell he wasn’t actually interested in what I had to say. The moment I got into any story longer than two sentences he would look at his phone and suddenly remember he had to make a call.
“It was good. Damián did something funny.” I stared out the window at the green mountains in the distance, watching them slide out of view as if resting on a giant conveyor belt.
“Yeah? What did he do?” He put his phone down in the cup holder and smiled at me.
“Well, he climbed to the top of the big slide and pulled his pants down and showed everyone his butt.”
My dad let out a short laugh. “That’s funny. But don’t ever let me catch you doing that.”
“I know. He got in trouble.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, he got sent to the principal’s office.”
“Well, there ya’ go.”
“Yeah.” We rode in silence for about a minute. “I had to tell that story three times to Abuela today.”
He looked at me, but he wasn’t smiling this time.
“I gotta’ make a call,” he finally said, reaching for the phone in the cup holder.
We sat at the dinner table. This was the one moment in the day where the three of us sat together as a family. Mom had ordered delivery. On the table were tiny white-and-red boxes with different types of Chinese food for her and Dad, and there was also one tiny box of pizza for me—I didn’t like Chinese food. Mom was still wearing her lawyer’s uniform of black blazer and pants; my dad was still wearing his scrubs, which meant he did surgery today. He had a small brownish stain on his right sleeve, which by then I recognized as dried blood.
“How was your day, honey?” Mom asked, reaching for one of the tiny boxes of fried pork-and-leek dumplings.
Again, I’d have to tell the Damián story—the fifth time today. Adults always asked the same stupid questions. Well, except Abuelo, he never asked me how my day went. We didn’t need small talk.
“It was good,” I said, biting into my pizza. I decided to get the story out of the way, “Damián showed his butt at recess and got in trouble.”
“Oh well, good! He shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“I know.”
“You don’t do those types of things, right?”
“Nope.”
“He better not,” Dad said.
Then it was time for Mom and Dad to catch up on their respective days, so the rest of family dinnertime was spent on talk of jurisdiction and affidavits or brachytherapy and mammography. I wondered what Abuelo was doing, what he was eating. He must have cooked something because he won’t let Abuela near the stove anymore. I took one of the extra chopsticks from the table and asked to be excused. Alone in my room, I sat at the edge of my bed and placed the chopstick in my mouth, pretending it was a cigarette, and took a puff—just one.
The next day Abuelo picked me up after school, which was usual. What wasn’t usual was that Abuela was in the car with him. Two things I didn’t like about this. One: she was his eyes when they were together, so she took my job and bumped me to the back of the car, and two: we couldn’t smoke in front of her. I used to love hanging out with Abuela almost as much as I love hanging out with Abuelo now. Before she got weird and started calling me by other people’s names, she would come over to our house and take me out to my dad’s garden. She would get on her knees and weed through my dad’s crimson and purple orchids, delicately plucking snails from the plants. Then, she would place all of the snails in a plastic container and we would each pick one and race them.
They were midconversation when I got into the car. Abuela seemed lucid and aware for the first time in months. Abuelo smiled at me and back at her as he listened to her talk.
“Hi, Rodrigo, honey,” she said, turning around in her seat to face me. “You up for a little trip with Abuela and Abuelo?” She wore makeup, her lips red and her eyelashes longer than usual. Her hair was pulled back nice and tight in a bun. She looked younger and somehow out of place in Abuelo’s car. She looked like she remembered.
“Sure,” I said, feeling more positive than I did a minute before.
“We’re going to do some shopping,” she said, as Abuelo pulled out of the parking lot.
“We’re going to the mall,” he said, his big wrinkly right hand resting on Abuela’s crossed legs. “Show Abuela you know how to get there.”
I said OK, and I gave him directions. Turn right unto Atocha Street, left here on Flamboyán Street. Abuela was impressed because I knew the names of the streets, and I was impressed because she remembered them correctly. She was staring out the window, laughing, as she recounted stories that took place in the streets and buildings we passed. “This was my childhood stomping ground,” she turned around and told me. She really remembered.
I kept naming streets and every time I did, Abuelo would smile, but not at me; he would smile at Abuela, who would say, that’s right, or good job. Those smiles were supposed to be meant for me.
They held hands as we walked past the glowing neon signs in the food court and as we rode down the escalator toward the stores. I walked behind them and wondered how long it would take Abuelo to notice I was gone if I suddenly decided to wander off. My parents would be so angry with him for losing me. My dad probably wouldn’t let me stay at their house that much anymore.
“Rodrigo,” he said, turning back to look at me as I looked around for good hiding spots.
“Stay with your Abuela. I need to hit the john.”
They walked over to me and he placed her hand in mine and I wondered at that moment who was supposed to be watching who.
“Stay right here, OK?” he said.
“OK, Abu.”
He walked off and turned right at a corner and disappeared. I looked up at Abuela, who was smiling, looking at the stores.
“I need to buy some new slippers,” she said, “and some nail polish. I wonder if there’s any store in here where we could get both.”
I still couldn’t believe how in-the-moment she was, how aware and lucid. It was like she just got back from vacation or something.
“Look over there, Rodri,” she said, pointing at a large rectangular sign, “let’s check the directory.” There was a map of the mall and a list of all of the stores. As she inspected the list, I wondered if she would stay like this forever, if she was just suddenly cured of her condition.
“Abuela?” I said.
“Mhm?” she said, closely inspecting the directory.
“Do you remember when you would come over and we would play with the snails in the backyard?”
She looked at me and laughed softly. “Of course, I remember Rodri. How could I forget?”
I felt a strange pleasant warmness in my chest and I felt like I wanted to cry, but the weird thing was I wasn’t really sad. I couldn’t understand what I was feeling, but it felt OK.
She went back to reading the directory, looking for slippers and make-up in the same store, but suddenly her expression went blank and she started looking around in every direction. I knew what was coming. I could see Abuelo walking toward the place he left us. I saw his face change from happy to worried. I looked at Abuela, who was already starting to wander off, and I knew I should have grabbed her by the hand and walked back toward Abuelo, but I didn’t. I let her wander off. I wanted to know—I had to know—if Abuelo lost us both, who would he look for first?
I watched Abuela go into a store where they sold lotions and soap and candles, and I ran to a spot behind some fake plants where I could keep an eye on both her and Abuelo. He was stopping people who were walking by, probably asking them if they’d seen his wife and his grandkid. He walked closer to where I was hiding and I could hear him now. His voice was desperate and unrecognizable. My wife, my wife, I lost my wife.
He spun around in place, searching in every direction. I imagined the fear he must have felt at that moment, not only because he couldn’t find us, but also because he couldn’t see. Just when I was going to walk out, I heard him cry for the first time in my life. I don’t know why, but this terrified me. I was frozen behind that fake plant.
A couple of people, including a security guard, walked up to him. He had many questions thrown at him: What does she look like? When did you last see her? How old is she? He didn’t answer any of them. She has Alzheimer’s. She’s lost. I have to find her. The security guard helped him, grabbing him by the arm and guiding him toward the security offices, where they could send a message through the PA system.
After they went up the escalators and disappeared from view, I went into the store Abuela was in and took her by the hand.
“Smell this cream,” she said to me and put her free hand in my face.
“Smells good, Abuela,” I said. “Come on, we have to go.”
I walked over to a payphone, still holding Abuela’s hand, and I called my dad. The phone rang three times before he answered. “Hi Dad, it’s me,” I said. “I’m at the mall with Abuela and Abuelo and—well, not Abuelo. I mean—” I hesitated for a moment, unsure of why exactly I was making this call. Weren’t secrets sacred? I looked up at Abuela, with her confused stare. Her makeup looked strange now, like a girl my age had found her mother’s makeup and decided to play dress-up. She looked sad and scared.
“Are you there, Rodrigo? Are you OK?”
And then I told him everything. I told him Abuelo was almost blind, I told him about the cigarettes, about the stoplights, and finally, I told him Abuelo had lost us at the mall.
I waited for my dad to pick us up. Abuela and I sat quietly on one of the benches outside. Three messages boomed from the PA system meant for Abuela and me, but I ignored them. At first, I thought I had told my dad out of spite, because I felt betrayed by Abuelo, but I slowly came to realize that Abuelo was putting us all in danger. In the back of my head I knew that I shouldn’t be smoking and that Abuelo shouldn’t be driving or taking care of Abuela by himself.
“Look,” Abuela said, smiling. She pointed at a snail by the grass, “remember?”
After that day, my mom’s secretary started picking me up after school, and I would spend the rest of the day at her office until she was done working. My dad took Abuelo’s driver’s license and sold his car, which was probably for the best. But I saw my abuelos less and less as time passed.
The first place I drove to when I got my driver’s license was the assisted-living facility where my abuelos lived. By then Abuela had lost all her memories. She had also lost the ability to communicate and to eat by herself. She mainly slept and stared at the walls. I read and sang to her whenever I visited. I would also bring two snails and place them on a table at eye level for her. Sometimes she would look at the snails and smile and that would be enough.
My dad and I searched online and at local junkyards for my abuelo’s original car, but in the end we had to leave it in the past. I had to accept that car for what it was: one of my favorite memories. We ended up buying a newer model of the same car, though.
The next day I pushed my abuelo out of the building in his wheelchair; his diabetes had blinded him completely and taken one of his legs. Even though it’s what I most wanted at the moment, him driving me anywhere in that car was off the table. I placed his hand on the car’s bumper and I described it to him. I took creative freedom and made it sound more like his car than it really was. I told him it was the same color as his, the rims were the same size, things like that. I wasn’t allowed to take him out of the facility, so I pushed him around the hallways of the building, naming streets as I took new corners: Atocha Street, José María Street, San Miguel Boulevard.
