Anyone could see that at a single glance. Not only was she tall, blonde, and skinny, but there was something special to her beauty. It might have been because they all had the same last name and all went to church, but the women in town seemed to share a certain physiognomy, which I didn’t find very attractive. And the one life she turned upside down was my uncle’s-and maybe mine, too. Maybe she wasn’t really a woman, but a girl. The only thing I had to worry about was showing up to meals on time to keep my grandmother happy.Ī woman came to Salomó one summer and turned life upside down.
In town-to us, Salomó was a town-I had my own group of friends and we’d spend all day playing. So I wouldn’t get bored out of my mind back home, my father would drop me off at my grandparents’ in Salomó for a few days a year, as soon as school was out. But every once in a while we’d knock over a stack of shoeboxes and my grandmother would run over and yell at him like he was still a little boy. My uncle had short arms, but he could catch a ball with incredible skill. We’d go to the store (my grandmother ran a shoe store), and I’d kick while he played goalie. Sometimes I’d bring a ball to town with me, and he’d want to play right away. “What’s up, Pepino!?” he’d ask as I smiled, happy and embarrassed at the same time. He’d hold back the kisses-knowing I hated them-but as soon as I came within his line of sight, he’d hug me until I squealed in pain. Or at least he acted like he did whenever we’d trek up to town to visit my grandmother in Salomó. My uncle and my father truly cared about each other, but they weren’t friends. My uncle stayed to work the lands my grandfather left us when he died a few years back. Still, it wasn’t my uncle who skipped town for the city, as everyone had expected, but my father. He’d only been married to my Aunt Pilar for about a year, and they had one on the way, but you could tell he was having second thoughts. Maybe because he was the youngest, my uncle was a whole other story. If there was ever any conflict between him and my grandparents, I never heard of it. A man of the house and a man of faith, he was hardworking, brave, and responsible. Plus, they knew for a fact he wasn’t faking it. My father was the child my grandparents had always wanted. Even though they’d been brought up pretty much the same, there was a fundamental difference between my uncle and my father.
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