Thirteen Senses Read Free

Salvador and Lupe’s golden anniversary picture was taken, with Tia Tota sitting proudly in the center with her five-foot-two frame looking so large and tall and imposing as she faced straight into the camera.
    Tia Tota really thought that she was the queen of the whole show, with her large, blond wig, white-powdered face, and a huge white flower pinned above her heart area, wanting so desperately to hide her dark Indian blood and look All-American White.
    Salvador was looking off into the distance toward his right, holding his black, thick-rim glasses on his lap with both of his hands. Lupe had one grandchild and one great-grandchild on her lap. She was completely oblivious to their picture being taken—she was so happy playing with these newest additions la familia.
    And standing behind Salvador and Lupe were their four children, Ten-cha, Victor, Linda, and Teresita, and their families.
    It was a telling picture.
    THE FATHER SUN WAS NOW GONE, and the Mother Moon was coming up, and the Child Earth was cooling. Everyone was done eating, and they were now talking and drinking and visiting.
    The women were gathered in the living room next to the grand piano. The men were in the long formal dining room, right off the living room where Salvador was in the process of lighting up a big, fat cigar, a ritual that he did very slowly with long, wooden matches.
    Gorjenna, Salvador and Lupe’s second oldest granddaughter, was loud and tipsy. Ever since she was a child, Gorjenna had loved horses and riding. She’d never gone in for dresses and stuffed dolls like her sister RoseAna, who was two years older than she.
    â€œOh, grandmama, ” Gorjenna was now saying, with her big blue eyes so excited that they just looked like they were going to pop off her lovely, smooth-skin face, “I was so scared that you weren’t going to say ‘I do’ that I almost wet my pants. I mean, my dress,” she added, laughing, realizing that today she wasn’t wearing her Levi’s.
    â€œMe, too!” said RoseAna, laughing equally nervously.
    Both of these young women, Gorjenna and RoseAna—Tencha’s children—looked totally Ail-American, without a bit of Mexican Indian blood in them, but, also, they’d been taken down to Guadalajara, Mexico, and los Altos de Jalisco enough times as youngsters by their grandparents, so that they were both proud of their Mexican ancestry.
    â€œTell us, grandmama, ” continued Gorjenna, “if you had it all over to do, would you still marry grandpapa? ”
    Hearing this, Linda, Salvador and Lupe’s second daughter, almost spilled her champagne.
    And Lupe, feeling wonderful with all the Mumm’s champagne she’d drunk, looked at Gorjenna and all these young women standing before her. “Yes, of course, mi hijitas, ” she said.
    â€œBut grandmama, ” said RoseAna, “you have to admit that there was a moment when it looked like you weren’t going to say your vows.”
    â€œYeah,” said Gorjenna, smiling happily, “my sis is right. You weren’t going to say ‘obey,’ grandmama! ”
    â€œAnd she didn’t,” said Teresita, Salvador and Lupe’s third daughter, “so let bygones be bygones.”
    â€œOf course, I didn’t,” said Lupe, “I’m not a child.”
    â€œThen grandmama, ” Gorjenna said, “you don’t think that wives should obey their husbands?”
    â€œOf course not, mi hijita, ” said Lupe. “How did you ever get that in your head?”
    â€œWell, because, men—I mean, we, women, are taught, grandmama, that men are—”
    â€œAre what?” said Lupe, cutting off her granddaughter, “weaker than we women when life really gets tough? Oh, I’ve told all of you girls since you were babies,” continued Lupe, “that I saw my mother in the middle of the Revolution keep our family alive and together with her