Remembering Marco’s Mother
David and the Lion’s Den, chapter 21
The doorbell rang one night not too long before Halloween.
“Oh — Hi, Jill,” I smiled as I let her in. “What’s in the pan?”
“Tray of lasagna. Hungry?”
I didn’t have to ask Richard about the grocery bag he was toting. I could hear wine bottles clinking.
“Must be really cold out,” I mentioned as I took Jill’s black jacket. “Brrr!” The leather was ice in my hands. Hilda grabbed the foil-wrapped package as Jill tried to palm my cheeks.
I pretended to jump back in shock from the cold.
“Barolo!” Richard announced as we trooped into the kitchen. “Big old Italian red for a brisk night.” He arranged three bottles on the table. I figured he was counting on either a long evening or a well lubricated one.
“Wait, Hilda. I got it,” I said. She was bent over the oven with a packet of matches. I smelled sulphur as I grabbed the box, struck one of the over-long sticks, and tried to place in just the exact right spot to catch.
“Vielen Dank, Richard,” I heard her say as I probed around. “Wine! Sehr gut! But no Riesling for your old sweetie?”
Whomph!
The oven lit and rocked me back me with blue heat. I felt around my eyebrows for char. All seemed intact, one more successful ignition of Hilda’s ancient oven accomplished without serious injury.
“And the lasagna, Jill!” Hilda continued as I stood back up. “Wonderful. So nice you are cooking for us.”
I grabbed a corkscrew as Jill waved away the compliment. “Wish I could take credit. It’s compliments of Cucina. When I told Alonzo we were getting together tonight, he insisted I grab a pan from the kitchen.”
She turned to look at me. “Already cooked. Just set it at 350 for 30 minutes to warm it up.”
I handed Richard an open bottle and fiddled with the knob. “Right.”
He started pouring out four glasses of plum-red wine. “Want to grab your notebook? You can read to us while we wait.”
We moved into the living room, and I took a sip as I leafed through to the right page. I puckered my lips at the powerful tannins, took a deep breath, and started.
I arrive at the small brownstone around 7:30. Lydia told me yesterday I can be as early as I want. She’s up with the birds. This will be my first session with her, so I’m struggling to balance easel, canvas, and supply bag as I ring the bell.
A kid answers the door, big and beefy, but still baby faced. Maybe 14 or 15. His rumpled hair and sock feet tell me he just got up. His messy black curls match Lydia’s.
“You Mr. Martin?” he mumbles through the half-open door. I nod, and he turns and shouts loud enough to rattle windows. “Mami, he’s here!”
I hear a faint response that must have drifted around several corners. “Marco!” I make that much out, but the rest is in Spanish.
“Come on in,” the kid says, opening the door the rest of the way and padding down the hall to where an apartment door stands open. Onions and garlic flavor the air as I step inside. Lydia’s standing, smoothing beetle-black hair, coughing lightly.
“Good morning,” she greets me as I carry my stuff over to a south-facing window. “Do I look OK? Is this all right?” She’s pulling a velour robe a little tighter around her neck. “You said I should look natural.”
“You look great. The robe is nice. Perfect.” I set my stuff down and scan the room. “I know we said the recliner, but the light’s not great. Can we move it over a little?”
“Of course.” She sounds tense. “Marco, help the man, can you?”
“Just right over that way,” I tell him, lifting a corner. He eyes me suspiciously, but picks up his end, and we cat-step over into the sunlight as Lydia hovers. I think pushing would be easier but I don’t want to scratch the polished hardwood floor.
“Can we get you some coffee?” Lydia offers.
I start to refuse. I’ve had mine already, like every morning. But her eyes are funny. It’s important to her, so I nod. “That’d be nice.”
“Marco, cariño, bring the tray, por favor.”
The three of us sip powerful, intensely black brew out of tiny cups, Marco and me on a pillow-strewn sofa facing Lydia enthroned on her leather lounge chair. She’s pretty, maybe not beautiful anymore, but her bone structure is elegant, her eyes are big and brown, and her glossy hair is lovely. She’s twirling it nervously, and I can see how thin her wrist is. I think I could snap it like a pencil.
I see the hollows under her eyes, how deep they are, and how her cheekbones stand out too far. She’s emaciated.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she’s saying. “Marco mostly lives with his dad. He stayed over last night. He was just going to play his Nintendo while you paint. If that’s not too distracting for you?”
I try not to smile at the idea of Lydia and me needing a chaperone. The idea’s as Old World as the Spanish-style coffee. “It’s not distracting at all,” I assure her.
“You got Super Mario Brothers?” I ask the kid. “I left my Atari back in Kansas, but I used to like Donkey Kong.”
That breaks the ice some. He shows me some cartridges while I set up, and Lydia seems to relax. I think how she’s not much younger than my mom, how she’s the right age to be my mother. I see how she watches Marco, proud and protective, but slightly needy. Something bitter stabs my throat.
I wonder how long she has. Other than the cough and her too-thin frame, you’d hardly know she’s sick.
I sketch out the recliner and start to rough in her form while she watches Marco’s game, him sprawled on the floor, immersed in a world of primary colors and beeping melodies.
I don’t initiate conversation when I paint, not as a rule, but I don’t mind talking. It just doesn’t usually occur to me unless it starts happening. So, the morning passes mostly without words.
I’m mixing some cobalt into a melange of browns and black — trying to find the shade of her hair — when I feel the boy peering over my shoulder. “What do you think?” I ask him, dipping a clean brush into the glossy mess and applying a careful stroke. “Does it look right to you, the hair color?”
“I guess,” he mumbles, eyes flicking over towards his mother. “Not bad.”
He watches me as I play with skin tones. It can’t be very interesting. I’m barely painting yet, just getting a feel for colors.
“How come you’re scraping that off,” he asks me as I take a palette knife to the canvas.
“Doesn’t work,” I grunt, concentrating. “Don’t like the shade. Too much olive in the mix.” I squeeze out a dab more pigment from an open tube and stir it around. “This should fix it.”
“Cool. Didn’t know you could erase. I never saw nobody do this before.”
“Yeah. That’s an advantage of working in oils,” I tell him. “You get do-overs. More lives.”
“How come you do it?” he asks as I clean my brush.
“Well,” I murmur through clenched teeth as I dip into the new, viscous paste. “You don’t always get it right the first time.”
I apply a dab of color to the face. Perfect. “Gotcha!”
“No, I mean, how come you paint?”
“Hm.” I dab and stipple for a minute. “Because I love it?” It’s an autopilot answer, but it’s the best I’ve got.
“So you wanna be rich and famous and get a lot of money and fans?”
I laugh. “I wouldn’t mind! That’s not usually what happens. I paint just cause that’s what I do.”
“Why my mom?”
I peer carefully at her and think about her eye color. Do I have the right pigments with me? I see she’s listening carefully. “Because… I’m not really sure. When I met her and saw that she’s beautiful, I felt like painting her. She’s different from some of the other stuff I’m doing this summer.”
“Oh.” His voice is neutral. Accepting.
Lydia pulls herself erect in her chair. “Marco, honey. Do me a favor and stir the beans? I don’t want them to burn, baby.”
“Listen,” she instructs after he leaves the room. “He knows I have HIV, but we don’t talk about it. I save my energy for the days he’s here. I don’t let him see me when I’m bad.”
“He doesn’t know about my project?”
“Only that an artist asked to paint me.”
I smile at her. “Don’t worry. I won’t bring it up.”
His voice hollers in from the kitchen. “The beans are fine, Ma! You’re loca!”
“Then stir the pork! And could you start warming up the rice? Gracias, cariño.”
She turns her brown eyes on me, sad. “I cook when he’s here. A mother should cook for her child. Most days, when it’s just me, I’m too exhausted. I eat the lunch you guys bring, and I sleep.”
Her eyes are darker now, I notice — mahogany trying to fade to black.
“I made plenty extra. I hope you and your friend can eat with us? You ever have Puerto Rican food? I hope you like shredded pork. Lots of garlic!”
She relaxes back into the chair as I nod. “It smells delicious. I noticed when I came in. I’m always hungry.”
“Everybody loves my black beans. I’ve got a secret ingredient. You’ll never guess.”
I imagine Lydia passing her days in an empty apartment, afraid to let her son see how sick she is. A brief surge of anger sends shivers into my fingertips, and I screw up some detail work. Damn!
“Your husband? Not around?”
“Ancient history, that man.” She waves a stick-thin arm dismissively. “We divorced when Marco was five. But I can’t complain, you know? It’s a blessing he’s taken the boy to live with him now. This way? When the time comes … it’ll be easier on him.”
I blink as her voice trails off. I try to concentrate on painting. I hear the teenage boy clattering around the kitchen. I remix the pigment for her eyes. I’ve got it totally wrong. How could I have thought I needed so much red?
I take a breath. “What does your doctor say? About, you know … like how long you have?” I think this is the first time in my life asking this question. I don’t know how to do it right.
She’s much more direct than I am. “If I’m lucky, I’ll be around for his graduation. If I take care of myself. If no infections get me. I can’t expect much past that. My T-cells are pretty low already.”
What do you say to something like that? How do you answer? “I’m sorry. It must be… I’m sorry.”
“Ma! The rice is sticking!”
Saved by the bell.
“So, turn it down! The flame should be muy muy pequeña! And don’t stir it too much. It’ll get sticky.”
The doorbell rings, and Lydia gets up to let Howie in. I stuff the styrofoam boxes in her fridge, and we feast on her pork and black beans, which is delicious and the first Puerto Rican food I’ve ever eaten.
We stay longer than we should. Howie has her laughing, and I see how she loves having people over, having them enjoy her cooking. We eat our cannoli with more Spanish coffee before we finally go.
I tell Lydia I’ll see her in the morning. But I don’t.
Marco lost his mother just a few hours later in the St. Vincent’s Emergency Room.
Next chapter!