A Life Like Other People's
Two
When I am eight, same-sex marriage becomes legal in Spain.
It is beautiful, momentous, and it makes my ama cry. She picks me up with a degree more difficulty than before and kisses the side of my head. When she eventually puts me down, I wipe the lipstick stain from my face and stare up at her, confused. In my little mind, only sad people cry.
“No, no, baby,” she says, “this wonderful.”
It doesn’t not seem wonderful from the tight line of my grandmother’s lips. I cower behind the couch as they argue, my name arising more than once. Ama always says it’s alright for boys to cry, but she doesn’t really know what it’s like. I’ve already started to bottle everything up a little more, something that will have my future girlfriend spewing her liberal university bullshit about toxic masculinity in my face in front of her friends. No one will ever ask me how I really feel without assuming something first.
I begin to see my grandparents less and less that year, and a pretty woman called Ana a little more. She is a teacher which makes me wary, and her dark eyebrows do not match her blonde hair. Regardless, something about her presence makes ama very happy—happier than I have seen her in a long time.
I decide I like Ana. She likes to buy me things like sweets and footballs when mine goes a little flat. Once she takes Txingurri and I to Bilbao to see Athletic play. The occasion is wasted on Txingurri, who by now has discovered a love for art and a distaste for football—heart breaking, yes, but I do not let this get in the way of our friendship—but magnificent for me. I tell ama I want to be a footballer when we get back and she kisses Ana, telling her she’s created a monster.
And then Ana leaves. My ama cries. Absolutely no one is to be trusted and no one will ever hurt my ama again.
The only bright side to this horrendous ordeal is that I can now crawl into bed with ama again, my own pillow wedged under a scrawny arm and a book under the other. I read to her with a stutter, her finger guiding me along the lines, still just small enough to tuck myself up on her lap. Some time between falling asleep and waking up, she carries me back into my room now adorned by pictures of Julen Guerrero and Joseba Etxeberria, another of Ana’s lasting legacies.
It is beautiful, momentous, and it makes my ama cry. She picks me up with a degree more difficulty than before and kisses the side of my head. When she eventually puts me down, I wipe the lipstick stain from my face and stare up at her, confused. In my little mind, only sad people cry.
“No, no, baby,” she says, “this wonderful.”
It doesn’t not seem wonderful from the tight line of my grandmother’s lips. I cower behind the couch as they argue, my name arising more than once. Ama always says it’s alright for boys to cry, but she doesn’t really know what it’s like. I’ve already started to bottle everything up a little more, something that will have my future girlfriend spewing her liberal university bullshit about toxic masculinity in my face in front of her friends. No one will ever ask me how I really feel without assuming something first.
I begin to see my grandparents less and less that year, and a pretty woman called Ana a little more. She is a teacher which makes me wary, and her dark eyebrows do not match her blonde hair. Regardless, something about her presence makes ama very happy—happier than I have seen her in a long time.
I decide I like Ana. She likes to buy me things like sweets and footballs when mine goes a little flat. Once she takes Txingurri and I to Bilbao to see Athletic play. The occasion is wasted on Txingurri, who by now has discovered a love for art and a distaste for football—heart breaking, yes, but I do not let this get in the way of our friendship—but magnificent for me. I tell ama I want to be a footballer when we get back and she kisses Ana, telling her she’s created a monster.
And then Ana leaves. My ama cries. Absolutely no one is to be trusted and no one will ever hurt my ama again.
The only bright side to this horrendous ordeal is that I can now crawl into bed with ama again, my own pillow wedged under a scrawny arm and a book under the other. I read to her with a stutter, her finger guiding me along the lines, still just small enough to tuck myself up on her lap. Some time between falling asleep and waking up, she carries me back into my room now adorned by pictures of Julen Guerrero and Joseba Etxeberria, another of Ana’s lasting legacies.