I should tell you that story

by Kirsten Kelley

"Alex is such a nice kid," I say to Doña Maria as we wait for our carry-out food at the Mexican restaurant. It is Saturday night in San Pedro de Macorís. The mini-buses, 'guaguas', that provide public transportation ply the streets. Many people sit outside their houses, feeling any breeze that blows, listening to the radio, moving to the beat of the popular merengue, salsa, and bachata songs that are played almost constantly.

Doña Maria looks at me and smiles.

"Yes, he is. He's very dear to me. His father was my only brother."

"And this was a brother from your father and mother?" I ask, always cautious in this country where so many have siblings from father and mother as well as siblings from father and another woman.

"That is a story I should tell you," she says. She sits back in her chair and wipes the sweat from her forehead with a paper napkin from the restaurant.

"My father married a woman named Xiomara. They tried to have children, but couldn't. After a few years my father became frustrated. He found my mother, who lived in the same area. They had my older sister and myself. During about that same time, Xiomara got pregnant and had two children as well. My father had four daughters.

"Eventually my mother found out about Xiomara. She left my father, my sister and myself. We grew up with my grandmother, my father's mother. My mother went to Santo Domingo to work as a house-maid for a very rich family. She was very poor.

"The man she worked for..." She pauses, searching for the polite term. Doña Maria does not use crude language.

"Well, he conquered her, you understand what I mean by that?"

I shake my head yes. "How awful," I say quietly.

She nods and continues.

"She got pregnant and stopped working for that family. She never told us about the baby. She had my brother, Manuel, in Santo Domingo. The family which she had worked for took him. They allowed her to see him until he was three. After that, she never saw him again.

"Well, never again until she was dying. When she was on her death bed, she told my sister the story--and that she wanted to see her son before she died.

"My sister looked all over Santo Domingo for him and eventually found him. I wasn't there for the reunification, but I heard through others that it was incredible. Everyone was crying.

"My sister called me afterwards and said, 'Guess what--we have a brother.' I was shocked. I had always wanted a brother. To find out I did and he was living in the same city as I was -- well it was pretty overwhelming.

"The day he came to my house to meet me, he didn't even say who he was. As soon as I saw him, I said 'Manuel', and he, 'Maria' and we hugged and hugged. We talked as if we'd known each other forever. And he looked just like my mother--oh his eyes, the way he talked, the way he walked, everything, Exactly like my mother.

"We both lived in Santo Domingo for a year after that. Then I left the country with my family to go to graduate school. He died two years later. No one really knows why. He was leaning over, tying his shoes, and he died. People think it was his heart.

"So I only knew my brother for three years of my life. I'm so grateful I had the chance to meet him and love him. And it's so incredible to me that if my mother wouldn't have died, I would have never known Manuel existed."

Her eyes look away from me. I don't know what to do except shake my head and try to be understanding. She looks back at me and smiles.

"But what a story--eh? It's like a soap-opera!"

We laugh easily together. The waiter comes outside to announce our food is ready. We each take a bag of tacos and a variety of other Mexican specialties and stroll back to her home.