I just went into the living room and my mom was watching telenovelas. usually it’s the news or the hallmark channel. it’s been many years since I’ve watched a telenovela. a tv story in Spanish. six years. my grandmother watched them all day and all night long. she was bedridden and housebound. too poor to buy anything or use a car even if she could get out the door.
she was bilingual but didn’t want me to know Spanish for complicated reasons. so we spoke in English. but when I’d go over, she often didn’t have much to say. she didn’t do much after all. and she didn’t really understand what I was into — music, pokemon, video games, coding. we had a common language but not a common language.
so a lot of times I’d just sit there. there was no room on the bed. it was a twin. so I’d usually just sit on the floor at the foot of the bed. she couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see her. but she knew I was as there.
she always wanted to watch the telenovelas. some of the stories were outrageous, twists and turns that seemed impossible. lots of virgins getting pregnant, plain poor girls being noticed by some handsome guy who had money and status and being taken away. rags to riches, evil rich people getting humbled, divine intervention, some of it very real, some of it very unrealistic. maybe that was the appeal.
anyway, just a sound I hadn’t heard in a long time, a memory I had forgotten. I spent my entire childhood on the floor, looking at my mom and grandma laughing and crying at something I didn’t understand.
but when it was just me and her, that’s what we’d do too. I didn’t understand and it was kind of boring, but I did it because I knew it made her happy and she just wanted some company, even if we weren’t talking. and I was surprised at how much I could follow the story even without the words. the music, the facial expressions. I got the gist, and sometimes even got invested.
“do you understand what they’re saying?”
and I’d say, “no, you didn’t want me to know, remember?”
