I spent $186 and two whole days making seven dozen tamales for my mother-in-law’s Christmas Eve, and at her table she patted my husband’s arm and said, “Good thing your mother made the real ones, mijo.” Then she passed me a plate, and one look at the husk told me those weren’t mine.
My daughter had tied every single one of mine.
Last Christmas, Marta took one bite of my tamales and put the rest back on the platter.
“Dry,” she said. “Like you made them at the beach.”
Dwayne laughed.
Zoey was eight then. She didn’t laugh.
In the car she asked me if Grandma Marta hated us.
So this year I used my grandmother’s recipe, the index card with a grease spot right over the word lard.
Pork shoulder, masa, two bags of husks, guajillo chiles from the good market. The receipt said $186.
I cooked Monday. We spread and rolled all day Tuesday.
Zoey wanted a job, so I gave her the roll of red baking twine.
She tied a bow around every tamal.
Eighty-four of them. Double knots, pulled tight, the ends trimmed with my sewing scissors.
“So Grandma knows which ones are OURS,” she said.
We drove to Marta’s place in Pico Rivera at four.
She met us at the door and took both foil pans out of my hands before I had my coat off.
“I’ll warm them,” she said.
She carried them into the kitchen and pushed the swinging door shut behind her with her hip.
Eddie had the game on with the sound off. He says the announcers ruin it.
Roseanne was on the couch with her phone. She waved without looking up.
Zoey kept checking the kitchen door.
Marta didn’t let anybody back there for two hours.
At six-thirty we sat down, and the platter came out piled high with steam coming off it.
Marta took the chair next to Dwayne.
She put two tamales on his plate and unwrapped the first one for him like he was five.
“Good thing your mother made the real ones, mijo,” she said. “You remember last year.”
“I remember,” Dwayne said, and he grinned across at his dad.
Then she passed me a plate.
The husk was folded flat at the bottom and tucked under.
No string.
I looked at the platter. Thirty-some tamales, every husk folded the same way.
Not a speck of red anywhere.
Zoey had her plate in both hands.
“Mom,” she said. “Where are ours?”
“Eat, sweetheart,” Marta said. “It’s Christmas.”
“Marta, where are my pans?” I said.
“Soaking.”
I pushed my chair back.
“Gabby,” Dwayne said. “Come on.”
The kitchen sink was empty and dry.
The oven was cold. I put my palm flat against the door to be sure.
By the back door there was a tall can with a fresh liner in it, the kind with a drawstring.
I lifted the lid.
My pans were in there upside down, on top of coffee grounds and onion skins.
The foil was still crimped all the way around. My crimp, folded twice at every corner.
She never opened them.
One pan had split, and red twine was poking up through the grounds.
Zoey’s knots.
I pulled the drawstring tight and hauled the whole bag out of the can.
It was heavy. Seven dozen tamales are heavy.
I carried it through the swinging door and down the hall and dropped it on the floor beside Marta’s chair.
Then I reached in, lifted the top pan out, and put it on the tablecloth in front of her, grounds and all.
Eddie turned the game off.
Roseanne put her phone face down.
Nobody was chewing.
I peeled back one corner of the foil.
Twelve red bows in a row, cold and perfect.
Zoey stood up so fast her chair hit the wall.
“Those are MY KNOTS,” she said. “I tied those.”
Marta wiped her mouth with her napkin and folded it in half.
“They were going to be dry again,” she said. “I saved everybody the embarrassment.”
“You didn’t even unwrap them,” I said.
“I didn’t have to.”
“YOU THREW AWAY EIGHTY-FOUR TAMALES, Marta. A nine-year-old tied every one.”
Dwayne put his hand on my wrist.
“Babe,” he said. “Not in front of my dad.”
“Let her talk, son,” Eddie said.
Roseanne said, “Mom. Seriously?”
Marta pushed the pan an inch away from her plate and looked at Dwayne, her chin up.
“Go on, mijo,” she said. “Say whose idea it was.”
Dwayne put his fork down and reached for his water.
The Chair in the Hall
“I told her to make another batch,” Dwayne said. “That’s what she means. Something to have in case yours weren’t enough.”
I took his hand off my wrist and set it beside his water.
“Seven dozen weren’t enough?”
“That’s not what I said.”
It was what he’d said. We were six people. Unless Eddie planned to eat twenty-seven tamales between the end of the game and bedtime, we’d been covered.
Marta reached for the foil.
I put my palm on the pan’s edge.
“Leave it.”
“You’ve got garbage on my tablecloth.”
“You put my dinner in garbage.”
Dwayne stood up. My chair was still sticking out from when I’d gone into the kitchen. He lifted it and carried it through the dining room doorway.
“Come sit out here,” he said. “Let’s talk without an audience.”
He put it in the hall beside the coats.
I stayed where I was.
Zoey reached toward the open pan, then stopped with her hand above a bow.
“Can we take them home?”
“No, honey. They’ve been in the garbage.”
“But the foil.”
“I know.”
I wanted to tell her yes. I wanted one corner of that evening that I could fix by washing something.
Roseanne pulled Zoey’s chair away from the wall and sat beside her.
Marta turned to Eddie.
“Are you going to let this continue?”
He pushed his plate away.
“I’m waiting for somebody to answer her.”
Dwayne stood in the doorway with one hand on the chair he’d moved. He looked ridiculous, a forty-two-year-old man offering his wife a hallway conference while his mother sat at the head of a garbage inspection.
“Nobody meant for this to happen,” he said.
Marta looked straight at him.
“Don’t start changing it now.”
The Grease Spot
Zoey’s coat hung over that chair. My grandmother’s recipe card was in its pocket.
She’d brought it because Marta had asked which recipe we were using. Zoey wanted to show her the handwriting.
I took the card out before Dwayne could move the coat, too.
On Tuesday afternoon, Zoey had held it up while I beat the masa. Dwayne came through and took a piece of pork from the pot. Then another. “Leave some for the actual tamales,” I’d said. He’d kissed my cheek and said, “Mom asked for both pans, right?” I’d said yes. He’d taken the card from Zoey, squinted at the grease spot, and handed it back. “Better bring this. She’ll ask what you changed.”
Now he reached for it again.
“Put that away, Gabby.”
I held it against my skirt.
Marta looked at the card and then at the pan.
“Your grandmother made them differently.”
“She certainly didn’t put coffee grounds on them.”
Roseanne made a sound through her nose. Marta turned toward her, and it stopped.
I hadn’t brought that card to prove anything. I’d brought it because my daughter thought two grandmothers’ recipes could occupy the same room without a referee.
“Why did you ask for both pans?” I said.
“I had no idea you were making such a production.”
“You said you’d have containers for everybody to take some home.”
“I say plenty of things when I’m planning dinner.”
Dwayne rubbed his forehead.
“Mom does a lot, Gabby. You know that.”
I did know. Marta mentioned every chair she’d unfolded and every dish she’d washed. She could account for a teaspoon from 1998 if the conversation required it.
But she’d asked me to handle the tamales this year. Not bring a few. Handle them.
“I thought I was helping,” I said.
“You were,” Dwayne said.
Marta looked at him again.
He reached for his water.
Earlier that evening, just after six, he’d come out of the kitchen and gone to wash his hands. I’d asked whether she needed help serving. “Just trash stuff,” he’d said. “She’s got it.” I’d stayed with Zoey, who was trying to calculate how many tamales each person could take home.
Now Eddie pointed at the pan.
“Did you even put those in the oven, Marta?”
“They didn’t need warming.”
“She brought them cold. You said you’d warm them.”
“I know what I said.”
Dwayne stepped between Eddie and the pan.
“Can we stop doing this over food?”
I folded my fingers around the card. The corner pressed into my thumb.
Marta held out her hand.
“If you’re going to stand there, at least give me the recipe.”
“No.”
Her hand stayed out a second longer.
Then she laid it flat on the table.
“Fine. Tell them I asked you.”
Six Plates
I wanted her to say she was sorry. At that point, I would’ve taken an ugly apology. One with a cough in the middle and a complaint about the tablecloth at the end.
I put the card in my own pocket.
“Tell Zoey you shouldn’t have thrown them out. Pay back the ingredients. We’ll go home.”
Marta looked at Dwayne.
He looked at the pan.
Roseanne leaned toward Zoey. “Want to come sit with me in the other room?”
Zoey shook her head.
“I want Grandma to say it.”
Marta picked up her napkin.
“Sweetheart, grown-ups have disagreements about cooking. You don’t need to worry about that.”
“She asked you something,” I said.
“And I’m answering my granddaughter.”
Zoey slid her hands under her legs. Roseanne stayed beside her.
Dwayne came back to the table and pulled out his wallet.
“How much was it?”
“You know how much.”
“Just say it.”
“One hundred and eighty-six dollars.”
He counted out two hundred and put the notes beside the pan. The corner of one touched coffee grounds.
“There. Can we get past this?”
Marta sat back.
“That should be more than enough.”
I stared at the money. I could buy the ingredients again. I could put Zoey in the car and be out of that room before anybody called me difficult in a new way.
My fingers went toward the notes.
Then Dwayne said, “And you can apologize for bringing the trash in.”
I left the money where it was.
“For finding it?”
“For the way you did this.”
Eddie pushed his chair back.
“Son.”
“What? Dad, come on. You wouldn’t let Mom do this in somebody else’s house.”
Eddie looked at Marta.
“I wouldn’t throw away two days of somebody’s work.”
“It’s dinner,” Dwayne said. “Everybody’s acting like she burned down our house.”
Marta picked up the serving spoon and moved it from one side of the platter to the other. There wasn’t anything to serve with it. She needed to be doing hostess things.
“Food gets thrown away,” she said. “Every house in this country throws food away.”
“Before dinner?” Roseanne said.
Marta put the spoon down.
I took the two hundred dollars off the table and handed it back to Dwayne.
“You can keep that until you remember whose money you ought to be offering.”
He didn’t take it.
I tucked the notes under his water glass.
Marta began collecting plates.
Eddie put a hand over his.
“Leave it.”
“We can’t sit here all night.”
“Then answer her.”
Marta’s eyes filled. She pressed the napkin beneath one eye, carefully, and Dwayne was beside her before she’d done the other.
“Mom, don’t.”
I wanted to cry, too. Apparently I should’ve used a napkin. Standing beside a garbage bag had put me in the wrong category.
“I’ve cooked Christmas dinner for this family since before either of you had a house,” Marta said. “One thing happens, and this is how you speak to me.”
“One thing?” I said.
Dwayne turned.
“Enough, Gabby.”
He said my name the way he said it when I was about to miss a turn on the freeway. Loud, impatient, certain he was helping.
Zoey took her hands out from under her legs.
“Dad, we worked on them.”
“I know, sweetheart.”
“Then why are you mad at Mom?”
He looked at me.
“Because she knows better.”
The Money Under His Glass
Dwayne pulled his chair closer to Marta’s.
It scraped the floor for a long time. He could’ve lifted it. He’d managed mine without difficulty.
“Sit down, Gabby,” he said.
“My chair’s in the hall.”
“You know what I mean.”
Roseanne got up to fetch it, but I put my hand out. I didn’t want my sister-in-law doing the first decent thing my husband should’ve done.
I wanted him to get up.
He stayed beside his mother.
Marta touched his sleeve.
“Just eat. It’ll all be cold.”
He picked up his fork.
That was the part I hadn’t prepared for. He’d made jokes before. He’d changed the subject. He’d told me later, in the car, that his mother didn’t mean things the way they sounded.
But there he was, cutting into her tamal while mine sat in a garbage bag at his feet.
“Dwayne.”
He put the fork down.
“What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to stop eating while I’m talking to you.”
“I’m hungry.”
“So are we.”
“There’s food right here.”
Zoey pushed her plate away. Roseanne took it without comment.
Marta held out the platter toward her.
“Take another one, honey. There’s nothing wrong with these.”
“No, thank you,” Zoey said.
I was proud of that thank-you. I’d spent years dragging manners out of a child, and there she was supplying some for the entire room.
Marta set the platter down too hard.
“You’ve made her afraid to eat.”
“Don’t put that on me.”
“She’s been perfectly happy here until tonight.”
Dwayne rubbed his face with both hands.
“I told you not to make it such a big deal this year.”
“You told me to bring both pans.”
“I told you what Mom said.”
“And I did it.”
“You could’ve bought something.”
Marta’s head came up.
“Bought?”
Dwayne closed his mouth.
For a second, I nearly laughed. He’d stepped on both sides of the argument and discovered his feet weren’t long enough.
Roseanne moved Zoey’s plate to the kitchen counter, then came back.
“Mom, did you ask Gabby to make them or didn’t you?”
“She offered to help.”
“Did you ask for the tamales?”
“Yes.”
“Both pans?”
“Yes, Roseanne.”
Dwayne lifted his water. The notes stuck to the damp bottom. He peeled them off and smoothed them against the table.
“I’ll cover it,” he said. “Personally. It won’t come out of groceries. It won’t come out of anything of yours.”
“I didn’t ask you to buy me quiet.”
“Nobody said that.”
“Then why do I have to apologize to get it?”
He folded the notes once.
“You don’t. Fine. You don’t have to apologize.”
Marta turned away from him.
He leaned toward her immediately.
“I just mean we need to end this.”
Eddie stood up and took his plate to the kitchen. He came back without it.
Marta’s napkin went into her lap.
“So you’re not eating either.”
“No.”
“Wonderful.”
Eddie remained behind his chair. He didn’t defend me with a speech. He just wouldn’t sit down and help her pretend we’d finished discussing it.
Dwayne looked around the table.
“You’re all making this bigger than it is.”
I bent to straighten the garbage bag so its open edge wouldn’t touch Zoey’s shoe. The second pan slid against the first.
Dwayne reached down automatically.
“I’ll get that.”
I pulled it toward me.
“No.”
His hand stopped.
I stood with the bag gathered in my fist.
Marta said, “Let him help you.”
For the first time that night, Dwayne didn’t reach when his mother told him to.
The Second Pan
I lowered the bag onto the floor and lifted out the other pan.
One corner had buckled. The foil remained folded over it, twice, the way I’d done it at my counter.
Roseanne brought a towel from the kitchen and spread it over the empty end of the table.
“Here.”
Marta said, “That’s a good towel.”
Roseanne put her palm on it.
“Then it’ll hold a pan.”
I set it down. My wrists hurt. Tuesday’s work was still in them, and hauling dinner out of a trash can hadn’t improved matters.
Dwayne pulled at the towel’s edge.
“Don’t open another one.”
“Why?”
“We’ve seen them.”
Marta started to stand.
“I’m getting containers. Whoever wants dinner can take it with them.”
“I don’t want yours,” I said.
“You don’t have to be rude.”
“I don’t want food from somebody who threw mine away.”
Zoey stood beside Roseanne. She wasn’t looking at the platter anymore. Her eyes stayed on the crushed corner of my pan.
“Did the bottom ones break?”
“Some might have.”
“All that folding.”
I reached for her.
She came against my side, and I put my hand over the back of her head.
I wanted to get her out. I also wanted somebody besides me to have to carry the shame of what was sitting on that table. Those wants pulled in opposite directions, and my daughter was standing between them.
“Get your coat, honey.”
Roseanne went with her into the hall. They stayed within sight of the dining room doorway.
Dwayne stood up.
“Good. We’ll talk at home.”
“Are you coming?”
“In a little while.”
I stared at him.
“You’re staying?”
“I can’t leave her like this.”
Marta pressed her napkin beneath her eye again.
There it was. Two days of cooking, a nine-year-old’s work, my hands smelling of the garbage bag, and he couldn’t leave his mother beside a perfectly good dinner.
I took my coat from Roseanne.
My sleeve turned inside out. I couldn’t get my hand through. I yanked at it once, then again, furious at a piece of lining because it was the only thing in that house I could pull without making the evening worse.
Roseanne held the cuff.
“Here. I’ve got it.”
Dwayne came into the doorway.
“Gabby, please don’t drive upset.”
“Then drive us.”
He glanced back at Marta.
I waited.
He didn’t take his coat.
Zoey reached for my hand.
“Can we go now?”
“Yes.”
Marta stood up behind him.
“Take the money. Don’t make Dwayne chase you over this.”
He held out the notes.
I left my hand at my side.
“I’ll leave them here,” he said.
Eddie came around the table.
“Dwayne. Your daughter is waiting.”
“I said I’d be home later.”
My husband put the money on Marta’s place mat. Then he bent and kissed her cheek.
I got one arm into my coat.
Roseanne put Zoey’s hood down where it had folded under the collar. She stayed with her in the hall.
From the dining room, Marta said, “I told you we should’ve taken the bag outside.”
My other sleeve hung empty.
Dwayne said, “Mom, stop.”
I took my coat off again.
The Drawstring
I hung the coat on the back of my chair.
“Roseanne, sit with Zoey a minute.”
She nodded and took her to the couch. Eddie stayed by the dining room doorway. Zoey could see him from where she sat.
I went back to the table.
“Taken it outside when?”
Marta picked up the money.
“Before this became a spectacle.”
“Dwayne?”
He reached for his water, although he’d emptied it.
“She means it shouldn’t have been sitting there.”
“You came out of the kitchen after six.”
“Gabby.”
“You said you were helping with trash.”
He put the glass down.
“Because she asked me to.”
Marta’s head turned.
I rested my hands on the back of his chair.
“What did you help her do?”
“Move things.”
“What things?”
“The pans, okay? I moved the pans.”
Eddie stepped away from the doorway.
“Where did you move them?”
Dwayne looked at his father.
“Mom had already decided. Her food was ready. There was no room.”
“In the oven?” I said.
“On the table. For all of it.”
“There’s room now.”
Both pans sat there. So did her platter. Nobody had needed to knock down a wall.
Marta put the money back on her place mat.
“Don’t make it sound like I stood there giving orders.”
“You said you didn’t want them served.”
“And you said she’d insist if we left them in the refrigerator.”
Dwayne’s hand closed around the empty glass.
I waited.
Marta looked at me.
“He said you’d take them home and bring them up every time you came here.”
“Mom.”
“You wanted me to tell them, didn’t you? You sat there and let everybody look at me.”
Eddie pulled out the chair beside him.
“Put the glass down, son.”
Dwayne did.
I looked at the bag on the floor, then at his hands.
“You put them in?”
He rubbed his palms on his pants.
“I was trying to avoid exactly this.”
I had to grip the chair to keep from sitting on the floor.
He’d stood beside me for all of it. He’d offered me money. He’d tried to move me into the hall. He’d let me ask his mother where my pans were while he knew which one he’d lowered into the garbage first.
Marta folded her napkin again.
“He said you’d calm down once everybody started eating.”
The folded corner wouldn’t lie flat. She pressed it with her thumb.
I took my recipe card out of my pocket and put it beside the pans.
Dwayne looked at it.
“What are you doing?”
“You two owe me eighty-four tamales.”
Eighty-Four
Dwayne stared at the card.
“Gabby, come on.”
I pulled my chair back into the dining room and sat down.
Marta remained standing.
“You can’t mean that.”
“I do.”
“I’ll give you the money,” Dwayne said. “You can buy more. Order them wherever you want.”
“I made mine.”
“And I’m saying you shouldn’t have to do that again.”
“I won’t.”
He looked at his mother.
She sat down.
Eddie took his place across from them. Roseanne came to the doorway with Zoey beside her.
“I want to hear,” Zoey said.
I held out my hand. She came to my chair and leaned against my shoulder.
Dwayne pushed the money toward me.
“Here’s two hundred dollars. Take all of it. I don’t care about the change.”
“I do. The ingredients were a hundred and eighty-six. Your mother asked me to buy them. She can pay me back.”
Marta’s fingers closed over her napkin.
“Why should I pay all of that? He was there.”
“You asked for both pans. You took them from me. You told me you’d warm them.”
Dwayne started to speak.
I turned to him.
“You can buy the replacements.”
He pushed his chair back.
“So we’re buying the same food twice?”
“The first batch is in the garbage, Dwayne.”
Eddie put his hand over his mouth. I couldn’t tell whether he was stopping a laugh or a word he didn’t want Zoey to hear.
Marta could tell. She glared at him.
“This is humiliating.”
Dwayne stood, then sat again.
“I don’t even know where you buy half this stuff.”
“The receipt’s at home.”
“I don’t know how to make them.”
“The card’s right there.”
He picked it up. His thumb covered the grease spot.
“There’s no amount on this part.”
“I can read it.”
“Then you’ll have to help.”
“I’ll answer questions. I’m not doing the work.”
He stared down at the handwriting as if my grandmother had personally arranged this evening from beyond the grave. She’d mostly arranged to feed people, which would’ve been a useful place for him to start.
Marta put her hand on the card.
“Give it here. I know how to make tamales.”
I held the other end.
“These tamales.”
She let go.
Dwayne leaned forward.
“Can we please just talk about this at home? You’re making plans like this is something we have to settle tonight.”
“You were ready to settle it with two hundred dollars.”
“Because I wanted you to stop being hurt.”
“Then listen.”
He shut his mouth.
I took the card from him.
“Saturday, you buy the ingredients and cook the pork. Sunday, you make the tamales. Both of you. At our house.”
Marta shook her head.
“I’m not spending my weekend being supervised in your kitchen.”
“Then don’t.”
She looked toward Eddie.
He stayed in his chair.
I put the card in my pocket.
“But I won’t cook for you again. And we’re not coming here next Christmas.”
“You can’t decide where the family spends Christmas,” she said.
“I can decide where Zoey and I spend it.”
Dwayne said, “Gabby.”
I looked at him.
He rubbed his eyes.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. Saturday.”
Marta turned toward him.
“You have plans Saturday.”
“I know.”
“And Sunday.”
“I know, Mom.”
She pushed her chair back.
“Well, I’m not being ordered around in front of my granddaughter.”
Zoey stood straighter beside me.
“Nobody ordered you to throw ours away.”
Marta opened her mouth.
Dwayne put his hand on the table.
“I did it, Zoey.”
She looked at him.
“I put them in the garbage,” he said. “Your grandma said she didn’t want them on the table. I should’ve brought them back to your mom.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He looked at me, then back at her.
“I didn’t want Mom upset with me.”
Zoey pulled a loose thread at my cuff.
“She’s upset now.”
Dwayne covered his eyes.
Roseanne turned toward the wall. Eddie reached across and took the recipe card when I offered it.
He laid it in front of his son.
Marta stood beside her chair. Nobody followed her.
“If I come Saturday,” she said, “I don’t want this brought up every holiday for the rest of my life.”
“Then don’t do it again,” I said.
Her eyes filled. This time she left the napkin alone.
“I shouldn’t have thrown them away.”
Dwayne lifted his head.
“We shouldn’t have.”
Marta looked down at Zoey.
“I shouldn’t have thrown away your work.”
Zoey leaned against me again. I put my cheek on her hair.
Dwayne got up and brought our coats.
He held mine open, but I took it from him and put it on myself. He didn’t argue.
Before we left, he carried the bag back to the kitchen. Marta stood in the doorway while he lowered both pans into it. Nobody tried to save the food. Nobody could.
Then he came back for his wallet.
“Saturday at what time?”
“Eight.”
He nodded.
Marta said, “That’s early.”
“So was Monday,” I said.
Saturday at Eight
On Saturday morning, Dwayne stood at our counter with the receipt and a bag of husks.
Marta arrived at eight with an envelope.
She handed it to me before she took off her coat.
“Count it.”
I did.
One hundred and eighty-six dollars. No extra fourteen dollars to make me look petty for caring.
I put it in my purse.
Dwayne had gone to the same market I’d used. He set the bags down and began putting ingredients wherever there was space.
“Don’t put the pork there,” I said. “That’s where the husks go.”
He moved it.
Marta reached for the chiles.
“I do these differently.”
Dwayne put the recipe card beside her.
“Let’s do hers.”
She gave him a look. He stayed where he was.
I sat at the kitchen table with Zoey. She’d brought the red twine out, but I put it beside Dwayne’s cutting board.
“You don’t have a job today,” I told her.
“Can I check them?”
“At the end.”
Dwayne read the card aloud. Marta corrected his pronunciation of one word. He corrected her when she reached for something that wasn’t on it.
By noon, they’d argued about the pork twice. I answered four questions and refused to take a spoon out of Dwayne’s hand.
At one point he held the pot lid toward me.
“Can you just taste this?”
“Put some in a bowl.”
He looked at the lid, then at the spoon he was holding.
“Oh.”
That little “oh” did more for me than half the sentences he’d said on Christmas Eve.
On Sunday, Marta stood at the counter spreading masa while Dwayne handled the filling. He made the first one so fat it wouldn’t close.
“Less,” she said.
He scraped some off.
The next one tore.
Marta took it from him, then stopped and handed it back.
“Another husk.”
He got one.
They worked through lunch. Dwayne kept looking at the clock until he took it off the windowsill and put it behind the coffee maker.
I left it there.
When they reached the twine, he held up a length.
“How did you do the ends?”
Zoey came over and tied one bow.
“Like this. Then again.”
He copied her.
She pulled on his knot. It came apart.
“Again,” she said.
He did it again.
Marta kept her eyes on the tamal in her hands.
By the time Eddie and Roseanne arrived to collect the portions meant for them, eighty-four red bows filled two pans.
Dwayne stood beside them.
“Count them.”
Zoey did. She touched every bow.
At eighty-four, she put both hands on the counter and grinned at me.
I started crying. Ugly, inconvenient crying, while my husband stood there with masa on his shirt.
Zoey wrapped her arms around my waist.
Dwayne reached toward us, then waited.
I took his hand.
Fourteen Dollars
On Sunday evening, I set the envelope beside the finished pans.
Marta’s money had replaced the $186.00 I’d spent. Dwayne had bought the second batch from his own spending money, not our grocery money.
He’d worked both days. Marta had worked beside him.
Eighty-four tamales went into my refrigerator before any portions left the house. Zoey checked the number one more time.
Eddie took his container from me.
“Thank you, Gabby.”
Dwayne shook his head.
“Thank her for the first batch. I threw those out.”
Marta stood beside him. She didn’t correct him.
Roseanne put her container in her bag, then looked at me.
“Next Christmas?”
“Here.”
“I’ll help.”
Eddie nodded.
Marta picked up her purse.
“I suppose I can bring something.”
“I’ll let you know what we need.”
Dwayne opened the door for her. This time, he stayed inside our house.
When he came back, I handed him fourteen dollars from the two hundred he’d left with me while we settled the shopping.
He looked at the change.
“You could’ve kept it.”
“I charged you for what you threw away.”
If you’ve ever spent two days making something for your family, you know those hours count, too.
For more family-table tension and painful slights, read “My Husband Moved My Dad’s Chair Into the Garage” and “My Father Promised My Son for the Wedding Photograph”. There’s also a family money-and-pride clash in “My Sister Put Her Daughter’s $180 Bag In My Hands”.
