Donna Dufresne<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sat there lost\nin thought, admiring the fancy dress and shoes my mother, or someone else had\nsketched in her journal, when I heard my sister Dodie\u2019s BMW kick up the gravel\nof the circular drive out front of the house. It screeched to a hissing halt of\ndust, and I was relieved to hear only one car door slam, which meant Dodie was\nalone and wouldn\u2019t have Jessie, her youngest daughter who was twenty-two in\ntow. I stamped out my cigarette in the empty scotch glass from the night\nbefore, and realized that if I really wanted any privacy, I was going to either\nhave to get my own place or set up one of the empty care-taker houses as my own\nlittle cottage. Dodie would not stand by\nfor long while I occupied mama\u2019s room. \nI\u2019d have to clean up this mess and snoop around in case mama left behind\nany other bombshell secrets that would blow up in Dodie\u2019s face. I chuckled to\nmyself a bit when I thought of mama\u2019s journals and wondered if she wrote down\nwhat she really thought about Dodie\u2019s husband (Old Roy, as we liked to call\nhim), and his pretentious family. Mama and I referred to them as our\n\u201cout-laws\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the heavy\nwalnut door slammed, the two Chihuahuas, Heidi and Amigo began their frantic\nyelping. I quickly escaped from mama\u2019s room, securing the door behind me so\nthat Dodie wouldn\u2019t be compelled to come barging in to look for me. I met her in the kitchen, rummaging around\nfor demitasse cups and setting the coffee-maker to espresso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWell, there you\nare, sleepy head. I can\u2019t believe you haven\u2019t drugged your lazy butt out of bed\nand put on the coffee when you knew I was coming over this morning to go\nthrough mama\u2019s stuff and all.\u201d Dodie flitted around the kitchen chirping like a\ncatbird in that high, screechy voice of hers, tinged with a little bit too much\nput-on southern belle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Actually, I had\nforgotten she was coming over. I would have to deter her from going through\nmama\u2019s room and set up a decoy such as going through the china in the dining\nroom. That would keep Dodie occupied for hours, searching for Royal Dolton, and\nsome Antique Road Show piece of shit treasure she could sell for a million\nbucks. I made a mental note to move mama\u2019s secret trunk into the guest room\ntonight, which would be ostensibly off limits if I set up my camp in there. I\nalso thought I\u2019d check out the old gardener\u2019s cottage which had been empty for\na year since mama\u2019s favorite Mexican gardener went back home one Christmas and\ndisappeared. She hired a landscaping unit after that, which appeared once a\nweek with a whole truck load of Mexican day workers (probably illegal) and\naccomplished in one day what it took Manuel a month to do. I wanted to see just\nhow much fixing up it would take for me to move into the cottage for six\nmonths, where I could have my own space without Dodie barging in any time she\npleased. At this point, if Ed, came down from Cambridge to get away from his\nwife, I wouldn\u2019t be able to hide him in the house. Dodie would be all over me\nwith questions, including when the wedding date was going to be. And, being a\nconsummate snoop, it wouldn\u2019t take her long to figure out that he was already\nmarried to someone else. At least the cottage would be outside her normal\nradar, and the driveway out back toward the stockyard was a little too rutted\nand bumpy for her delicate little sports car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI thought we\u2019d\nstart in the dining room today,\u201d I suggested, \u201cI\u2019ll go fetch mama\u2019s inventory\nfrom the will. I know there\u2019s some special items she wanted you and the kids to\nhave, and I\u2019m not all that sure I want the rest, so we can go through it\ntogether,\u201d I handed her the heavy cream she liked to put in her espresso,\nunlike any normal person who would just drink it black and sweet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But just as I\nturned to go to the library, Dodie chirped \u201cI thought we\u2019d go through mama\u2019s\nroom first. It needs a good cleaning up anyway, and I wanted to look through\nthe jewelry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo\u201d, I said, \u201cI\nmean my shit\u2019s all over the room and I haven\u2019t even got my own stuff unpacked\nyet. I\u2019ll move into the guest room tonight, and you can start in there\ntomorrow. And don\u2019t worry \u2013 do I look like the type who is going to run off\nwith the family jewels? I can hardly\nremember to put on earrings half the time, and the last thing I\u2019m looking for\nis a diamond bracelet that will get lost in a pile of horseshit when I\u2019m at the\nstable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dodie frowned in\nher pre-temper tantrum kind of way and for a minute I thought she was going to\nput up a hissy fit, but she thought better of it and said \u201cAlright, I guess\nyou\u2019re the lawyer and all. By-the-way, I\nbrought you some key lime pie I just made this morning, and you\u2019ve got to try a\npiece right now. I made a chocolate orange sauce which I drizzled on the top\nand you have to tell me how you like it. \nI think I\u2019m going to enter it into my luncheon club cooking contest for\nthat fundraiser cookbook we\u2019re making \u2013 you know, the one where we\u2019re going to\nraise money for a cheerleading camp scholarship for poor black girls \u2013I think\nit\u2019s a winner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t think\nDodie caught the roll of my eyes as I slipped out of the kitchen to fetch the\ninventory list. \u201cYeah \u2013 O.K., whatever \u2013 just make it a really thin slice,\u201d I\nshouted from the hall, which of course I knew she would not do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It had been almost\na week since I flew down to Texas to finally settle Mama\u2019s estate. It seemed\nimpossible that she had been gone almost sixth months already. Being the only\nlawyer in the family, Mama had made me executor. I took care of most of the\nwill and probate from my law office up in Boston, but I couldn\u2019t settle the\nshuffling of generations of knick-knacks from behind a desk. It was about time\nI showed my sorry ass on the Ranch and helped Dodie go through Mama\u2019s personal\nthings. What Dodie did not know, was\nthat Mama had given me a key to a bank vault before she died. I\u2019d expected to maybe find a few pieces of\njewelry and Great Granddaddy\u2019s Confederate sword. Instead, I left the bank with a truck load of\nold chests brimming with costumes, letters, journals and Lord knows what\nelse. It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t want Dodie\nto have her fair share, but Mama made me promise I wouldn\u2019t tell anyone in the\nfamily about the vault. It had something to do with a secret well-kept for most\nof her life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
We spent the\nmorning culling through the china closet and the Hepplewhite inlay sideboard,\nlaying out silver, crystal and china as if we were classifying dinosaur bones.\nMost of the contents of this room had belonged to Granny McCullagh, whose own\nfamily, the McBride\u2019s, had bought their pedigree collection in northern antique\nshops, having come into money by cunning accident and a twist of planned fate.\nIt occurred to me that Dodie took after our Scotch\/Irish grandmother who was an\nodd mix of old country South and the pretentious middle class. She loved the stuff of status like the pieces\nof obscure plate settings that made a statement of old wealth and charm. Dodie was going to have to build an addition\nonto that Frank Lloyd Wright house of hers in order to fit all the family\nheirlooms where they could be prominently displayed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After making some\nheadway wrapping and packing up the china in boxes which were boldly marked\n\u201cDodie\u201d, we sat out on the veranda for ice cold lemonade. The original part of\nthe ranch house had been built by Grampy McCullagh back in the thirties, when\nhe was rolling in newly made oil dough. It was built in the old southwest style\nwith thick stucco walls that kept it cool during the oppressive heat of\nsummer. There was a wide veranda that\nwrapped around three sides of the one-story house embraced by oleanders and\nfanned by the breeze in the cottonwood trees. Every year since the house had\nbeen built, some Mexican gardener strung up the lattice work for elephant ear\nand morning glory vines to climb, sheltering the siesta snipping inhabitants of\nthe porch from dust and heat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Out the back of\nthe house was a series of rambling additions which wrapped around a courtyard\nin two wings with a pool house. The\ncourtyard contained well cared for vegetable and flower beds as well as a\nformal garden around the pool. The roof\nthroughout the house was made of red, Mexican tiles, and the courtyard had its\nown sheltered walkway constructed of formal pergolas and a tiled floor that\nmeandered past the master bedroom, the guest rooms, and the kids wing on the\nother side of the master bedroom, where Dodie and I slept when we were\nyoung. The original kitchen was in the\nback of the old house in the center of the courtyard and its two outstretching\nwings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although the pool\nwas well cared for and inviting for a dip on hot afternoons, and the courtyard\nhad its old-world charm, my favorite place to sit was in the big wooden rocking\nchairs on the front veranda. Here I could rest my feet up on the rustic\nbalustrade and pretend I really did emerge out of the old west fantasies of my\nchildhood, when the ranch truly was a working business of cattle and horses,\nnot the dwindling lawn ornaments and exotic pets my mother had collected in\nlater years. Sitting there with sidekick Dodie huffing and wheezing up a storm\nbecause I lit up a cigarette kind of ruined the moment for me, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou better not be\nsmoking in mama\u2019s room or the rest of the house. You\u2019re gonna burn the place\ndown and none of us will reap the benefit of its worth from that scrap heap of\ninsurance daddy bought just to rub Roy\u2019s nose in. I don\u2019t know what got into him. Roy could\nhave set him up with all kinds of protection for the ranch, the business, the\nhouse. He just wouldn\u2019t have anything to do with it. Not that Roy needed the\nbusiness, mind you, this is just small potatoes compared with his usual investment clientele, but he did want to help\ndaddy out and secure his assets,\u201d Dodie rambled on in the same tone as the\ncicadas in the trees of August, buzzing away in that annoying message reminding\nyou that it was too damned hot, as if you didn\u2019t know already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOh, I expect\ndaddy made out alright in the end, he left Mama in pretty good shape when he\npassed,\u201d I chimed in just to get her off on another topic. She should\u2019ve\nrealized that I knew the history of the books quite well, that being my job and\nall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For someone who\nhad the wallowing metabolism of a water buffalo in the physical realm, Dodie\nhad the mental attention span of a meadow vole. She couldn\u2019t stick to one\nsubject if her life depended on it. In order to have a non-random conversation\nwith Dodie, you had to continually bring her mind back to task and set the rail\nin the direction you wanted to go. Otherwise you\u2019d be stuck on her train of\ngossip and incidentals going round and round at a dizzifying rate. I couldn\u2019t keep up with all the tidbits she\ndropped about each and every one of her so-called friends, their bad marriages,\naffairs, drug addicted children and other train wrecks on which Dodie supped\nlike a vampire. But in-spite of her annoying pertinacity for the mundane, she\nhad an acute memory for family details. I decided to run a query into mama\u2019s\npast, wondering if Dodie ever remembered her dressing up in a magnolia evening\ndress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Point blank I\nasked, \u201cDid you ever see mama dress up in a black evening gown with a white\nmagnolia pattern and magnolias on the shoes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After taking a\nlong draft of her lemonade which was spiked with a little gin, Dodie blinked\nwarily at me. \u201cHow the heck would you know about that dress? You were away at\nschool when that happened, and I don\u2019t think I thought much enough about it to\nsay anything to you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At this point I\nwas caught a little off guard and had to do some quick thinking to cover my\nass. \u201cOh, not a big deal,\u201d I said, \u201cI happened to see a sketch of that dress in\nMama\u2019s papers, and it got me to thinking I\u2019d never seen her wear anything like\nthat.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It turned out the\ndress which was sketched out in mama\u2019s diary was<\/em> real. According to Dodie it had emerged out of some hidden\ncloset the time that Uncle Charles, mama\u2019s youngest brother who wasn\u2019t all that\nmuch older than me, got married. I was in Europe at the time, studying in\nEngland and traveling around with my first real boyfriend. I wasn\u2019t about to come back from the time of\nmy life to attend a wedding where there\u2019d be a bunch of hokey Mexican music,\nlots of accordion and Cajunto on the dance floor, and a very long catholic\nservice. I had sent them some expensive Irish crystal thing and continued on my\nmerry way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But according to\nDodie, I missed the event of a lifetime. \nOur great grandmother, Do\u00f1a Magdalena and the family arrived from\nMonterrey, Mexico, in their exotic and very shiny cars complete with chuffers\nand fancy clothes. There weren\u2019t enough guest rooms for everyone, and some of\nthem had to be shipped off to El Paso to stay in some fancy old-world hotel the\nfamily had ties with. Do\u00f1a Magdalena was\nthe grand matriarch of the family and our Abuelita\u2019s mother. She arrived in her\nwheelchair with her own personal nurse. \nShe stayed at the ranch with my mother and Abuelita in her constant\nservice. Dodie never did bother to learn Spanish, so she couldn\u2019t understand a\nword of what Do\u00f1a Magdalena said unless Abuelita interpreted. She got enough of\nthe gist, though, that Magdalena was more than a little miffed by my\nabsence. She demanded to know \u201cWhere is\nthe other one? Our little Magdalena?\u201d, which must have pissed Dodie off. I\nimagined her touting one of her \u201cWhat am I \u2013 chopped liver?\u201d looks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wedding supper\nfinally took place after a week of preparations and Abuelita desperately trying\nto impress her side of the family with her only son\u2019s wedding. Charles married a demure southern girl from\nGeorgia, who had that blonde and freckled look of a J. Crew catalogue. Her\nfamily must have been more than a little shocked by the colorful crew that\nshowed up at that wedding. My Mexican relatives were from old-world money and\nthey had very old-world ideas. Although\nnone of them were as dark as some Mexicans can be, having the blue-eyed strains\nof Spain in their blood, there were a few distant cousins who clearly had the\nprofiles of an Aztec Indian. Apparently, Abuelita had reached deep into the\nroots of the family tree and invited every living relative to the last big\nfiesta before old Magdalena would surely die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cGod, old\nMagdalena must have been pushing a ninety. And the way Abuelita was carrying\non, you\u2019d have thought that Nancy and Ronald Regan were the guests of honor,\u201d\nDodie drawled on with her story to the quiet sounds of a South Texas afternoon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Daddy, apparently,\nhad a convenient business trip to attend, so he was out of everybody\u2019s hair\nthroughout the visit up until the night of the Wedding Party Dinner, when he\narrived all spiffy in his formal military jacket. Apparently, he held some kind\nof a grudge against the Magdalena clan, dating back to the time of my birth\nwhen the aunts and grandmothers interfered with my name, making sure that\nMagdalena was on my birth certificate. He may have come grudgingly, but\naccording to Dodie, he was handsome and straight as ever in his decorated brass\nand epaulets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In typical Catholic\nfashion, the wedding practice and mass went on forever, half of it being spoken\nin Spanish, which daddy could understand but refused to listen to. Mama turned\nmore than a few heads when she walked down the aisle on daddy\u2019s arm in her\nblack magnolia dress and heels. There\nwere a lot of cousins overwhelming the groom side of the aisle, and it was hard\nto know which were legitimate, and which were simply close family friends who\nwere referred to as \u201ccousin so & so\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Finally, after the\npractice and the long and tedious mass ended, the procession made its way to\nthe grand hotel for the wedding supper, or as Dodie put it \u2013 \u201cThe last supper\u201d,\nwhich didn\u2019t start until 9PM, a little too late for the American taste of the McCullagh\nside of the family and the poor bride who was swept up by the tsunami wave of an authentic fiesta. There were pi\u00f1atas to occupy the children\nbetween courses, and authentic Mariachi musicians who were well-versed in all\nthe regional cultural dances and songs. Do\u00f1a Magdalena insisted that everything\nbe translated from Spanish to English, rather than the other way around, which\nruffled a few feathers on the McCullagh side. Finally, after the last toast was\nmade to the groom and his new family, the dancing began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Old Magdalena\u2019s\nMexican family was its own oligarchy which could have taken over a Banana\nRepublic. But the fact that she also came from a long line of traditional\ndancers added to the Bohemian flair. \nThere were enough cousins, aunts and uncles present at that wedding to\nstart their own traditional dance troupe. I was all too sorry that I was such a\nselfish young pup and had missed the opportunity to see our Abuelita dance one\nmore time. When the band struck up a flamenco,\nold Jaime, who\u2019d been a long-time family friend, came and took Abuelita\u2019s hand\nand escorted her to the dance floor. Dodie swore that had old Magdalena not\nbeen strapped to her wheelchair, she too would have gotten up to dance with her\ndaughter, as her feet tapped the floor in rhythm to the music. Abuelita would\nhave been about seventy at the time, but she was still tall and beautiful, her\nhair piled high on her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There had been\nenough wine passed around to supply the Mexican Revolution, and the crowd was\ngetting a little rowdy. When the band\nstruck up a tango, there was a moment of hush as all heads turned toward my\nmother, who was a beauty in her early forties. \nShe blushed and put up her hands to say no, but her brother, Uncle\nCharles, who was barely thirty years old, took her hand out to the dance floor,\nmuch to the consternation of daddy who did not come from a dancing family and\nwho didn\u2019t pay any attention to mama\u2019s previous dancing life as a young woman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Charles stumbled\ninto some of the basic tango steps in the awkwardness of brother and sister\nbeing a little too close for comfort. Then a tall Mexican, whom everyone called\n\u201cCousin Carlos\u201d, gracefully cut in, and the Mexican side of the family went\ncrazy with spoons banging against crystal glasses and the kind of frenzied\nclapping one would expect to find at a bull fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can remember\nthat scene like it was yesterday\u201d, Dodie drawled on, \u201cCousin Carlos raised his\nhand as if he were conducting the orchestra, and the band started over with a\ndifferent tango. At that moment you could have heard a pin drop on the Mexican\nside of the family, while Granny Bates and Granny McCullagh were still talking\naway at their little table. But soon enough, all heads were turned toward\nmama. I never saw her look like that\nbefore. I guess I never paid much mind\nto her dancing days, when she taught kids in the barrios. I don\u2019t think I ever\nsaw her dance before that night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Unlike Dodie, who\nwas more interested in cheerleading and beauty pageants when we were kids, Mama\nused to drag me off to those God-awful dance classes. I guess she hoped I would\ncatch my heritage as if it were a cold or flu. But eventually, she realized I\nhad no interest in dancing, and left me alone in the stockyard with my horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou should have\nseen Cousin Carlos<\/em>, Maggie. He was\ntall, dark, and handsome \u2013 I mean really handsome, even though you could\ntell he was about the same age as mama and daddy. Roy and I had just gotten married a few\nmonths before, and I was out to here in my pregnancy with Kenny, but if I\nhadn\u2019t been pregnant, I would have stood in a line a mile long to get a chance\nto dance with Cousin Carlos. I don\u2019t\nthink I was the only girl there who had the same thought. You could tell by the\ndreamy-eyed wallflower looks that nobody, not even the men, would interfere\nwith that dance by getting up there and making a fool of themselves. Funny, though. Daddy was a little tense\nthroughout the whole thing. You\u2019d a thought he was downright jealous of Cousin\nCarlos. He got into one of his sullen moods after that. You could tell he was\ntensing up by that funny little twitch over his right eye. It was going a mile\na minute while mama was dancing the tango with Carlos. It was something else.\nMade me wish I\u2019d taken dance lessons with mama after all. It was almost obscene\nthat two people could move together like one in that way \u2013 you know \u2013 as if\nthey really knew each other, every nook and cranny in the body. They moved kind\nof \u2013 I don\u2019t know \u2013 like an animal \u2013 you know like a big cat or something. They\nlooked downright professional out there. Him in his slender, black suit, and mama\nin that magnolia dress and those ridiculous shoes. By the end of the dance, the\ncrowd went crazy, and mama disappeared somewhere, while daddy sat there\nsteaming and knocking down bourbon. I don\u2019t know whatever happened to that\ndress. I never saw it after that night,\u201d Dodie drifted off mid-sentence in some\ndreamy thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I couldn\u2019t wait\nfor Dodie to leave so I could check out my hunch about that dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Naphthalene is\nvery bad for you. Probably even worse than smoking, if you can believe that.\nThe mothball smell was chokingly intense, and I opted for taking the trunk\noutdoors to the courtyard. After Dodie\n(bless her heart, as we gals like to say in Texas), finally left, I dug out an\nold hand truck in the garage and carted the heavy trunk to the pergola beneath\nthe shade of the grape vine. I stood back and turned my head away as I opened\nthe lid so as not to get the strong whiff of the first escaping gas. On the top\nthere was a layer of old white tissue paper, yellowed and aged by the acid in\nthe wood of the trunk. I wondered if the\nclothing would be eaten away by acid. Surely there were no moths which could\nsurvive the amount of mothballs mama had dumped in there. I removed the tissue paper. On top of the\nnext layer was an old hat box, the kind you could pick up at Macey\u2019s Department\nStore in the fifties. It was gray with\nlittle salmon pink hearts, and the rim was a solid salmon color with a gray\nsilk chord handle coming out of the top. \nThe cover was salmon with a gray rim. I lifted the lid, and there they\nwere. The shoes, even more beautiful than I thought they\u2019d be with their white,\nsilk magnolia tops and the spiked heels. Yes, they were perfectly formed for my\nmother\u2019s delicate dancing feet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Unfortunately,\nthe mothballs were overwhelming. I put on rubber gloves and brought out a small\nwhite trash bag, determined to fish out every last little sucker lost in that\ntrunk. I also grabbed a bunch of fancy padded\neveningwear hangers from mama\u2019s closet. \nIf there were clothes in there, they\u2019d have to be seriously aired out\nbefore they could be brought into the house. \nI brought the trunk into the screen house which was attached to the pool\nhouse, where I could hang the clothes from the hooks in the ceiling that mama\nused for her attempts at herb drying. I scooped up the first layer of tissue\nand mothballs, and peeled off the next, and as I expected, the magnolia dress\nwas right there. It would have fit mama perfectly. She had kept her figure her\nwhole life, having practiced dance every day, and having spent a good part of\nher life riding. I carefully hung the dress on a garment hanger where it swayed\ngently in the breeze. As I stepped back to look at it, I thought about the\nstory Dodie told about Uncle Charles\u2019 wedding party and the Mexican\nentourage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I tried to imagine\nmama in her black magnolia dress, her black hair piled on top of her head with\nthat old Mexican horn comb she used, a silk magnolia just behind her ear. I\nwondered if daddy ever told her how beautiful she was. He was always so\npreoccupied with getting things done \u2013 all work no play. I couldn\u2019t recall him\never being overtly affectionate, although I often caught him watching her with\na twinkle in his eye. I could tell he loved her by the way he talked about her\nto his friends. It was all \u201cMaggie did this \u2013 Maggie\u2019s doing that\u201d. But did he ever try to dance with her in that\ndress? Perhaps he felt too inadequate to dance, being entirely out of his realm.\nThey were an odd match, my parents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After listening to\nDodie\u2019s story, I wondered who this \u201cCousin Carlos\u201d really was. I\u2019d never heard\nthat name before, and I spent a lot more time with Abuelita and Do\u00f1a Magdalena in\nMexico than Dodie ever did. When I was really young, mama used to pack us up\nwhen daddy went overseas or on a special assignment. We would fly from\nWashington down to Texas to visit mama\u2019s family on Grampy Bates\u2019 ranch. Dodie was prone to travel sickness, and once\nwe got there, she was put in the hands of my grandmother and aunts who doted\nupon her strawberry curls and dressed her up like she was Shirley Temple. Mama and I would ride the range, and I was\ngiven lots of instruction in the stables. Then mama would cross the border to\nteach heritage dance at a cousin\u2019s studio. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are only one\nor two occasions that I can remember crossing the border and going to Do\u00f1a\nMagdalena\u2019s spacious villa-like home in Monterrey. I must have been very young,\nfor I only have snippets of memory such as the darkness of that house with the\nSpanish heaviness of curtains and furniture, and my great grandmother\u2019s\nelaborate black taffeta mourning dresses which she had worn since her husband\u2019s\ndeath. Although the house was somewhat stuffy, it was filled with excitement\nwhen we arrived with Abuelita. While Mama was off teaching dance, I was left\nwith and doted upon by my great aunt Pilar and Uncle Franco. This is why I held\nonto my Spanish language better than Dodie, who never had the mind for a\nforeign tongue. I spoke better Spanish\nthan mama when I was little. But I\u2019ve lost a lot of the dialect by living up\nnorth, although it has come in handy in my law practice that I can translate,\nif somewhat clumsily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I knew there were\nlots of cousins on the Mexican side, but I don\u2019t ever remember someone tall and\nhandsome, other than in the pictures of my great-grandfather. There was a whole wall of pictures in Do\u00f1a\nMagdalena\u2019s parlor. Most of them seemed to be of the daughters, Pilar, Hester,\nand Lena (Abuelita) in various dance costumes and contests. All those weeks when I was left with the\ngreat aunts and cousins, they must have been traveling around Mexico and Latin\nAmerica in dance competitions which were popular at the time. Funny how there\nwere no trophies or pictures in our own home on the ranch. There was not one\nrelic from mama\u2019s dancing life. She must have wanted to keep that little piece\nof her world from daddy and protected it like it was a sacred thing of her own.\nThe need to keep her artistic life separate from life on the ranch was probably\nthe biggest reason why Dodie was always left behind on Grampy Bates\u2019 Ranch.\nMama knew that Dodie would never keep her mouth shut, and the whole universe\nwould know every last detail of everything that was said and done during those\nMexican expeditions. I was the type that you had to pry information from with a\ncrowbar, and even then, you wouldn\u2019t get the whole story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Somewhere in the\nstory of my Mexican roots there were clues about mama and her dancing cousin.\nPerhaps there were photographs in the trunk, or another treasure trove kept\nsecret on Grampy Bates\u2019 Ranch, or in the attics of the family across the\nborder. I could see now that it was\ngoing to take more than a six-month leave of absence to ferret out the story,\nand I would need to engage the help of my grandmother and aunts, and, God\nforbid even Dodie, in piecing together the biography of my mother, Magdalena,\nchampion of the tango.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nShe s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Donna Dufresne I sat there lost in thought, admiring the fancy dress and shoes my mother, or someone else had sketched in her journal, when I heard my sister Dodie\u2019s BMW kick up the gravel of the circular drive out front of the house. It screeched to a hissing halt of dust, and I was … <\/p>\n