Thirteen Senses Read Free Page B

children and of the home. And a home, mi hijitas, is not a fine house with great walls and roof, but a piece of the Mother Earth where a woman has squatted down to give birth, and in doing this sacred act, she makes that piece of Earth Holy before God,” added Lupe with power.
    â€œLupe is right,” said Carlota, tears coming to her eyes, “we had nothing but sticks with mud for walls for our home in Mexico, and our floor was dirt that we swept and watered down every morning and afternoon and polished smooth with the sweat and oil of our bare feet. But oh, what a home we had. The finest home in all the world, because our mother—God bless her soul—showed us love and the way to God every day! And our laughter, and our fights; oh, we were poor, but so happy with our love of la familia! ”
    Carlota couldn’t go on—she was crying so much. There was not one dry eye among all the women in the room.
    IN THE NEXT ROOM Salvador was leisurely smoking his long, fat cigar. The husbands of Linda, Gorjenna, and RoseAna were also smoking cigars. But they were puffing on their cigars like a person does with a cigarette, causing their fine cigars to burn too hot and fast. The whole room was filling up with smoke. Victor, Salvador and Lupe’s only son, got up to open the side door. Victor hardly ever smoked, and the smoke was bothering him. Glancing into the next room, he saw that their Aunt Carlota’s face was full of mischief as she talked to the younger women.
    â€œI’m not joking,” she was saying. “We women have to know how to get our way with men or we don’t got a chance. Everything is organized to their side. Not ours. So the best way for us to get our way is by rolling our eyes and hips like this and pretending to be obedient, but we are not! No, we’re thinking and planning all the time. It’s hell, I tell you, living with men!”
    And as she said this, Carlota rolled her big, painted-up eyes to the heavens and gave such a smile with her powdered-white face as she moved her hips suggestively that the young women were all busting with laughter.
    â€œ Tia Tota! ” screeched Gorjenna, blushing. “I didn’t know you could still move like that!”
    â€œYou’re just terrible!” said RoseAna, wiping her eyes—she was laughing so hard.
    â€œOh, no, she’s not terrible! She’s good!” yelped Teresita, shuffling her feet and doing a little dance. “And roll those hips again, Tia Tota ! Roll ’em and roll ’em! And keep those joints loose and young!”
    Carlota did as her niece Teresita said, holding on to her cane with her right hand and raising her left hand to dance and roll her hips, like a real ballroom sex machine.
    â€œWell,” said Lupe, “I was always very different from my sister Carlota, as all you girls know, so I never rolled my eyes and did those other things to get my way in my marriage. What I did was speak up very frankly, saying what I was thinking, as I’d seen our mother do with our father. But I’ll tell you, it wasn’t always easy, especially when we first got married and I was so young and I knew nothing. And Salvador, like a typical man, just thought that he knew everything.
    â€œAnd why do men think this, God only knows,” continued Lupe. “When it’s so obvious, as my mother-in-law, Doña Margarita, explained to me, that it was us, the women, that God entrusted with the carrying of life here in our womb, so He obviously thought a great deal of us.
    â€œI loved that old woman so much,” added Lupe. “I tell you, a mother-in-law can be a great asset to a young wife, if the wife is wise and open-minded, and that mother-in-law knows how to give advice from a distance.”
    â€œBut Lupe,” said Carlota, smiling, “you have to admit that this is the very reason God gave men such big heads, the truth is that the poor fools are really good