by Ashley Morales

Ashley Morales (she/they) is a senior at Rider University. She is the daughter of Central American immigrants and the youngest of three children. She’s still trying to figure it all out… whatever that might be.

yo se que dije que quería irme de la casa, y todavía quiero, pero aveces se siente como yo sola me quiero alejarme de ti y todas las partes que siento que me has avergonzado. tú me has avergonzado.

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i know i said i wanted to leave the house, and i still do, but sometimes it seems like i just want to get away from you and all the parts that i feel like have embarrassed me. you’ve embarrassed me.

PROLOGUE

she’s an average height salvadoreña. a great cook, but terrible listener. a good cleaner, but a loud talker. she’s the eldest daughter of thirteen other siblings, the second to be born after my tio israel and before my tio gabriel.

she grew up in un rancho (or at least that’s what i remember it looking like). mama calla would send her to do the outside chores, like washing the clothes down by the nearby river or getting maiz from the farm in order to make the powder for tortillas. elsewhere, papa chepe would work with tio israel and tio gabriel because men did all the labor back then.

mama calla was pregnant for most of their childhood and going into their adulthood. consequently, she had to grow up too quickly. she stopped going to school in the fifth grade because her family needed her. she became a second mother. and with this new title, if anything had happened to her younger siblings, she was responsible and to be blamed. and even if she was the one who hadn’t done anything wrong, and it turned out to be one of her siblings, like my tio isaias, and mama calla wanted to correct him by hitting him (cause that’s what they did back in the day), she would step in to defend him. she told me he was so small, that he hadn’t known any better and she couldn’t bare to see him go through what she had gone through.

she told me of another time when she came back from the river with one of my tias, i think it was mytia yoli, short for yolanda. they were walking back with the buckets and something happened to yoli where she got hurt. i dont remember what happened in the between the river and her getting home, but she told me that mama calla eventually threw a rock at her head and she bled. when mama calla realized this the only thing she remembers her saying was: “no le digas a tu papa.”

and she didn’t.

that scar is still with her to this day. when she raises her eyebrows or when she’s laughing so hard that her face starts to crinkle, you can see it. a small t-shaped indent.

she forgives mama calla for this incident and all the years of abuse as a kid and teenager she had to face. she claims she did it out of love, her mother didn’t know any better. who really knows how to be a mom?

at the age of 24 or 25, she married a Guatemalteco who had also recently come to the states. they met through tio israel at the Iglesia de Liberacion Para Las Almas in Newark. she told me she liked him first but he was with some other girl. so she found a way to get her out of the picture (whatever that means).

she didn’t tell her children about how they got engaged, all they knew was that it happened. a year later, she had her first child. a boy. she’d always wanted to have a son first because in any case, he would be the sole protector of his younger siblings. her next child was a daughter, someone who might be like her, she thought. her last child, another daughter, but this one would almost kill her. she claimed that through God’s grace she was saved. she had wanted another child but she wasn’t sure her body could go through all of the pain again.

she made sure to take her kids to church and raise them as pentacostal Christians. she made sure to make them participate in any and every event. when her kids started to grow up though, that is when she started to worry.

on the day of her son’s first baptism, he had decided to skip it in order to go to a pool party. at the second one that was scheduled, his father was the one to lead him into a new life, a rebirth. years later he’d be baptized again, for real this time.

her second eldest daughter took Bible study classes in order to get baptized, but she didn’t know if it was because she wanted to make her parents proud or because she really, truly believed in the Lord.

her youngest has yet to be baptized. she’s begun to worry that she has done something wrong as a Christian and as a mother. but maybe she’ll find him down the line.

EPILOGUE

I don’t think my mom is necessarily a quirky or witty woman. My siblings might say that — but I also feel like those wouldn’t be their first two descriptions of her. I don’t want to say she’s unique, in the sense that she’s one hundred percent original. Yet, when I think about it for a while, I guess she is somewhat quirky, witty and unique. One of a kind one might say. When I was younger and in my teens, going through my extremely angsty phase, she wasn’t someone I necessarily looked up to. I probably only looked towards her if and when she did something for me. For example, buying me something I wanted, washing my clothes, cooking what I had asked for, giving me money, or driving me or my friends around. I was a real grade A asshole (not so say that I’m not anymore) but I digress.

Over winter break I would wake up and find her in the kitchen cooking breakfast for my dad. I would do my rounds of saying good morning to everyone and then head to the bathroom. But before I got in she’d ask if I wanted some coffee. I’d say yes, but then she would proceed to find a way to mess it up. I would still drink it though.

When she would finish making tortillas, eggs, and frijoles negros, for my dad, she’d ask if I wanted some. She gave me a plate and served me. She’d call my dad from his “office” and if he wasn’t busy, he would eventually join us. Sometimes he didn’t and it was just her and I. My mom used to be a much more devout Christian. She still is but she doesn’t really to go church anymore. Instead she’ll listen to hispanic gospels or hymns, sermons on YouTube or even on Facebook live.

One of the many questions that frustrate me that she asks every other time I see her is: “Ashley, ¿cuándo te vas a bautizar? Ya sabes que Jesus te ama, y que el se murió para que tu y yo vivimos en su gloria?”

Or something along those lines.

I usually roll my eyes at this. Or I’ll try to change the subject. I don’t like talking about religion with my mother because anything that I end up contradicting against her, will result in bringing myfather into the mix. Once he’s there, either hovering over me or sitting down, clutching his hands as if he’s talking to an ex-convict, he’ll go on for hours on a lecture. I don’t know what’s worse, having to sit through it all or having to pretend like I understand what he’s saying so I can get out of it quicker. I can say “I wish I wasn’t like this” all I want– but if I’m not doing anything to try to change, am I really that bothered with who I am?

The reality of it is– I don’t think or feel ready to whole heartedly convert to Christianity. I still have this idea that I may still be well off without it. Or maybe I tell myself this because I’m too scared to tell her that I don’t think I’m going to heaven. In part because I don’t want to break her heart again, but also because I don’t think I’m a good person.

It doesn’t feel like enough to say that I do in fact believe in God, but my interpretation of this all mighty entity is not the same as hers.

This is another story I will not show her. Another story inspired by her that she will never know. Another secret story hidden from her. I’m hoping it’ll be the last one though.