Under The Mesquite

Despite her weakening health, Mami continues to nurture her garden. Under the stubborn mesquite, Mami’s roses continue to bloom. Mami sings to them, caring for them as if they were her children. However, Mami’s approach to “parenting” her garden is different than her parenting of her actual children. While she must keep the roses separate from each other so they can survive, she encourages her family to cling to one another. The family does just that, more so now that they can see their mother’s life passing away.

Mami cries on Lupita’s bed when she can hear Lupita crying and talking to herself in her bathroom. Lupita explains to her that she was practicing for drama class, and Mami asks her to perform it for her. Mami still doesn’t speak English, and Lupita is nervous to perform for her mother for the first time. Mami continues to cry while Lupita acts. After, they sit together, and Lupita tells Mami about her life as an actress, but she doesn’t tell her that acting has been her coping mechanism through her mother’s illness.

Lupita sees the days go by like one synchronous loop; each day is like the next while the family suffers with Mami through her cancer. One day, while Mami is napping, Lupita watches her father look through his account books and cry. He throws the books away, and when Lupita tries to retrieve them, he stops her. He tells her that the money that is now gone is inconsequential. The loss of money and even the loss of control over financial planning is yet another way that Mami’s cancer is crumbling the family foundation.

Lupita suggests that her father bring Mami to a special cancer clinic in Galveston. The facility has excellent medical care, coupled with spiritual and psychiatric programming. Lupita convinces her father that she can stay at home taking care of the kids while he brings Mami to Galveston and works nearby her in Houston.

It is the summer after Lupita’s junior year, and she is fully in charge at home. Mami and Papi are in Galveston, and Lupita is struggling to stay in control over the household. Her sister Analiza is wearing makeup and talking to boys, things that would not be allowed if Mami and Papi were home. Lupita reflects that “Mami made it look so easy, raising kids – ‘like pruning roses,’ she used to say. But most days it feels like the current of the Rio Grande is swallowing us up” (105). Lupita struggles to keep order in the house, and she prays for the scary legend of la Llorana to help.

Lupita wonders how Mami was able to make tortillas so diligently. Mami would wake up early in the morning and make the tortillas before the rest of the day awoke. Nothing would distract Mami when she was cooking these tortillas, morning or night. Mami was the epitome of happiness while she cooked for her family.

Lupita finds respite under the stubborn mesquite in the rose garden. She writes her poetry by the mesquite, a quiet place where her secrets can remain her own.

Lupita is running out of food to give to her siblings, but she is more worried than hungry. They haven’t seen their parents in weeks, and Lupita continues to feel out of control. Her brother Paco begins to disobey the rules of the house and leaves to hang out with his friends. Lupita is worried he will become wayward, and she tries to distract herself from her anxieties with books and Benito under the mesquite. She puts the younger kids to bed early and hears Paco return home with his friends. They take the top shelf from the fridge and place it over a makeshift fire in the yard. Paco brings home pomegranates and doves to roast over the fire. His friends and family sit together and laugh through the night, eating the delicious food Paco procured.

Relatives and friends stop by the house to visit and offer help and food. And yet, the food Lupita receives runs out quickly. The children are relying on the kindness of their community to help them eat. One day, Paco and his friends see an ice cream truck break down in the street. By the time the truck would be able to receive help, the ice cream would have melted, so Paco brings home as much ice cream as can fit in the freezer. Lupita invites Mireya and Sarita over to catch up over copious amounts of the ice cream.