Geneva Torres, October 2013

    Nobody comes to visit today, but Carmela and Bruce and the babies, los niños are coming to eat lunch tomorrow. I have to start cooking today, now, to finish in time. I think I use extra dishes this time, too many pots, pans, because Sophia washes dishes with me now and talks while she does it. She talks so sweet, her voice is dulce, dulce, dulce, and she is a good worker. Not a baby anymore, so tall! Very healthy, eats what I cook. She dries, I wash. Dishes go fast, wish they went slower.

    Ay, dios, the last time someone did dishes by me was long, long time ago. Back where I was before subsidized living. I love that house a lot, there where I had curtains with lace like how waves fall on sand and red carpets. I had a little statue of Virgen María that I had to leave behind, a small tapestry from Puerto Rico, clean table with a basket of fruit.

    I live here now. There is plastic on the couch and I clean, clean but there is still dust. The neighbours still smoke and I smell it through wall, makes me cough. My lungs are no so good anymore. Mostly my body not working now. It’s just as well I can remember the old house better than I see this apartment, with its smoke and its plastic couches, today. Memory is working funny, I see things from years ago, days like jewels from my childhood on the beach, I see them as clear as anything. But I can’t remember what I wear yesterday, can’t remember if I mailed my check or if I buy grocery. Time is cruel and then it is kind, that is what I think. Memory is all I have.

    Or at least, it was all I had today. I did not take my depression pill, I see what passed very strong and all alone. Nobody visit me today, but Carmela and Bruce and the babies who are no longer babies will visit tomorrow. I need to start cooking very soon. Sophia will wash the dishes, no, I will wash. She will dry.


Note: This piece is from the perspective of my great aunt Geneva, my Titi Jenny, who lives by herself in the Bronx. She comes from Puerto Rico and she is so old that she is forgetting how to speak English, which I tried to capture in the language used.