The dress which was sketched out in\nmama\u2019s diary was real. It was too bad that she wasn\u2019t here to explain the\nlittle remnants of herself she\u2019d left behind. Ever since I went to that bank\nvault and claimed my inheritance, my life had become a nightmare \u2013 a labyrinth\nof questions that would never be answered. Had I been a better daughter, I\nwould have known these things. Had I paid more attention to being a girl I may\nhave even stumbled upon some hatbox secrets during those irrepressible Nancy\nDrew years of adolescence. But here I\nwas, a grown woman for God sakes, scratching my head like a man over the tiny\nclues left to me in my mother\u2019s steamer trunks she had stashed at the bank. I\njust didn\u2019t have enough girlie-girl cells in my brain to put two and two\ntogether. There was only one person left in our dwindling little family who\ncould help me solve the mysteries of my mother\u2019s self. That would be my sister,\nDodie. And, well maybe my grandmother, Abuelita Lena who had been born in Mexico and like\nMama had been a dancer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last thing Mama had said to me\nwhen she handed me that little key to the bank vault, was, \u201cPlease don\u2019t share\nthis with Dodie. She wouldn\u2019t understand. There are secrets best kept between\nus and not the rest of the family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here I thought I was going to be\npicking up a diamond ring or great-granddaddy\u2019s Confederate sword. Not two\nsteamer trunks full of diaries, letters and photographs, although I had yet to\nfind a key to pry open that second trunk. I assumed it was just more of the\nsame. It figures I would inherit all the family papers. Dodie would probably\nwalk away with the Ranch, and I would be stuck with the family tree. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My various degrees in history,\nlibrary science and law weren\u2019t exactly appreciated by my conservative South Texas family. Daddy, whom we fondly called Colonel\nJoe, had been a Colonel in the army and had inherited the oil rich McCullah\nRanch which was and still is rich in land and oil. He had tried to steer me\ntoward a business degree, exasperated by my stubbornness and self-direction. As\nfar as he was concerned, history was a waste of time and money, and someone was\ngoing to have to run the place when he was dead and gone and it sure as hell\nwouldn\u2019t be Dodie, who had barely made it through High School. He was a little\nmore amiable when I made it into Harvard\n Law School.\nAlthough he didn\u2019t like the idea of me getting an education up North amongst\nall those \u201cliberal-headed fools\u201d, he did foot the bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had left home for college when I\nwas seventeen to get as far from Texas\nas I could, and hadn\u2019t looked back since. More than once I\u2019d been accused of\nrunning away from the family. Mama had tried everything from begging to\nconniving to get me to come back home. Holidays were spent sitting across the\ntable from eligible bachelors whom I stared down until they fled with their\nlame excuses. Dodie would invite me over for dinner so she could nag me about\nhow hard it was to be the only one to look after the family and they were,\nafter all, getting older, and how I ought to consider starting up a law\npractice in El Paso,\nGod knows there was plenty of drug money to be had. And then there was\nAbuelita, my quirky New Age Mexican grandmother. I\u2019m surprised she hadn\u2019t\nconcocted some kind of curandadao potion that would make me change my mind. But\nI liked my life in Boston.\nI had a thriving law practice, a great old house in Newton with historical provenance moldering\nin the attic, and a married lover who kept me satisfied and thankfully\nuncommitted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I called Dodie and asked her to\ncome out to the ranch so I could show her the sketch I\u2019d found in Mama\u2019s diary.\nIt would be tricky, because I didn\u2019t want Dodie to know about the two steamer\ntrunks. I would have to make something up, like I found the diary in one of\nthose old hatboxes when I was cleaning out Mama\u2019s closet. Dodie, being Dodie,\nof course, fell for it and was more than happy to be in the role of my advisor\nfor a change. But mostly, she was just curious about that diary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We settled down on the wide veranda in the\nshade of the afternoon with a pitcher of mint julep made with Mama\u2019s recipe,\nheavy on the rum, light on sugar with a shot of peppermint schnapps. It was hot and every insect sizzled as if to\nremind us that no human being in their right mind was cut out for the South Texas heat. Dodie drawled on in her annoyingly\nnasal voice, heavy on Texas\nand pecan pie. She studied the sketch for an instant and immediately promenaded\ninto a monologue about the dress. She had one-upped me, alright. She had the\ngoods and I didn\u2019t, because, after all, she was the good daughter who had\nstayed close to the family whereas I, apparently, had missed out on all the\nfun. She didn\u2019t have to say it. The cicadas buzzed the truth catching the same\ntone of Dodie\u2019s martyr song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Dodie, the dress had\nemerged out of some hidden closet around the time that Uncle Charles, mama\u2019s\nyoungest brother who wasn\u2019t all that much older than me, got married. I was in Europe at the time, studying in England and\ntraveling around with my first real boyfriend. \nI wasn\u2019t about to come back from the time of my life to attend a wedding\nwhere there\u2019d be a bunch of hokey Mexican Cajunto and accordion music and a\nvery long catholic service in Spanish. I had sent them some expensive Irish\ncrystal thing and continued on my merry way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dodie gloated, making sure I knew that I had\nmissed the event of a lifetime. All Abuelita\nLena\u2019s family arrived from Monterrey,\n Mexico, in\ntheir exotic and very shiny cars complete with uniformed chauffeurs. There\nweren\u2019t enough guest rooms for everyone, and some of them had to be shipped off\nto Old El Paso to stay in a fancy old world-hotel the family had some sort of\nties with. The matriarch of the family,\nDo\u0148a Magdalena, Abuelita\u2019s mother and our great-grandmother, arrived in her\nwheelchair with her own personal nurse. \nShe stayed at the ranch with my mother and Abuelita who was at her\nconstant service. Dodie never did bother to learn Spanish, so she couldn\u2019t\nunderstand a word of what Do\u0148a Magdalena said unless my grandmother\ninterpreted. She got enough of the gist, though, that Magdalena,\nwas more than a little miffed by my absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She demanded to know \u201cWhere is the\nother one? Our little Magdalena?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mama tried to explain that I was in\nEurope on a scholarship, but the old woman\nsnorted, making it clear that she did not approve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wedding supper finally took\nplace on a Friday night in the Grand Old El Paso Hotel. Traditionally the wedding supper was the\nresponsibility of the groom, and with the help of my great-grandmother Magdalena, Abuelita went all out. Uncle Charles was\nmarrying a demure southern girl from Georgia, who had that blonde and\nfreckled look which belonged in a J. Crew catalogue. Her family must have been\nmore than a little shocked by the colorful crew that showed up at that wedding.\nMy Mexican relatives were from old world money and they had very old world\nideas. Although none of them were as\ndark as some Mexicans can be, having the blue-eyed strains of Spain in their\nblood, there were a few distant cousins who clearly had the profiles of an\nAztec Indian. Apparently, Abuelita had reached deep into the roots of her\nfamily tree and invited every last living relative right down to the tiniest\nrhizome. This would be the last big fiesta before her mother would surely die.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cGod,\u201d Dodie drawled on, \u201cold\nMagdalena must have been pushing ninety. And the way grandma Lena\nwas carrying on, you\u2019d have thought that Nancy and Ronald Regan were the guests\nof honor,\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Daddy, apparently, had a convenient\nbusiness trip to attend, so he had been out of everybody\u2019s hair up until the\nnight of the wedding party dinner. He\narrived handsome and straight as ever in his officer\u2019s uniform decorated with\nbrass and epaulets. But he was in an obvious funk about having to keep company\nwith Mama\u2019s side of the family. Apparently, he still held some kind of a grudge\nagainst the Magdalena clan, dating back to the\ntime of my birth when the aunts and grandmothers interfered with my name on the\nbirth certificate. Abuelita insisted that the first daughter must be named Magdalena. It was a guarded tradition and had been so for\nhundreds of years. In spite of the fact that Daddy had wanted to name me Mary\nMargaret, after his own grandmother, the name Magdalena\nsomehow got filed as my official name. He was overseas the night I was born,\nprobably Viet Nam,\nso he never saw the birth certificate. My mother got around it by nick-naming\nme Maggie, which went along with Margaret or Magdalena.\nDaddy didn\u2019t find out until he had to apply for our passports when I was\nten-years old, and didn\u2019t that stir up a hornets nest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Didn\u2019t Dodie just love a little\nfamily dirt? I could tell by the way she gloated over the telling of the story\nlike each little anecdote was a gold nugget. She was more than happy to share\nwith me that Daddy had plenty of reasons to favor her. Apparently I had been a\nthorn in his side from the day I was born. No wonder Mama didn\u2019t want her to\nknow about her big box of \u201csecrets\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After a third refill of mint julep,\nDodie\u2019s embellishments of the story took hold. I wished to Christ she would\njust get to the point and tell me what she knew about the damned dress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt was a typical Mexican wedding,\u201d\nshe sneered, \u201cthe wedding practice and mass went on forever, half of it being\nspoken in Spanish, which daddy did not appreciate. Mama turned more than a few\nheads when she walked down the aisle on daddy\u2019s arm in her black magnolia dress\nand heels that matched. That\u2019s the dress in the picture. There were a lot of cousins overwhelming the\ngroom side of the aisle, and it was hard to know which ones were truly related\nand which ones were just family friends who were referred to as \u2018cousin\nso-and-so\u2019, but I swear each and every one of them fixed their eyes on Mama as\nif she were the Virgin Mary making an appearance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cadence of Dodie\u2019s voice and\nthe whine of the cicadas drew me into the story like I was really there. Finally,\nafter the practice and the long and tedious mass ended, the procession made its\nway to the grand hotel for the wedding supper, or as Dodie put it \u2013 \u201cThe last\nsupper\u201d, which didn\u2019t start until after nine, a little too late for the\nMcCullah side of the family and the poor bride who wasn\u2019t expecting the Groom\u2019s\nparty to outshine the wedding. There\nwere pi\u00f1atas for the children to occupy them between courses, and authentic\nMexican musicians including strolling mariachi and a small orchestra. After the\nfinal toast was made to the groom and his new family, the dancing began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There were enough cousins, aunts\nand uncles present at that wedding to start their own traditional dance troupe.\nWhen the band struck up flamenco, old Jaime came and took Abuelita\u2019s hand and\nescorted her to the dance floor. Dodie swore that had old Magdalena\nnot been strapped to her wheelchair, she too would have gotten up to dance with\nher daughter, as her feet tapped the floor in rhythm to the music. Abuelita\nwould have been about sixty-five at the time, but she was still tall and\nbeautiful. Her hair was long and piled high on her head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There had been enough tequila passed\naround to supply the Mexican Revolution, and the crowd was getting a little\nrowdy. When the band struck up a tango,\nthere was a moment of hush as all heads turned toward my mother, who was a\nbeauty in her early forties. She blushed\nand put up her hands to say \u201cno\u201d, but Uncle Charles, took her hand and led her out\nto the dance floor, much to the consternation of daddy who did not come from a\ndancing family and didn\u2019t appreciate mama\u2019s talent and fame as a competitive\ndancer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Charles stumbled into some of the basic\ntango steps with the awkwardness of a brother feeling a little too close for\ncomfort. Then a tall Mexican, whom everyone called Cousin Carlos, gracefully\ncut in, and the Mexican side of the family went crazy with spoons banging\nagainst crystal glasses and the kind of frenzied clapping one would expect to\nfind at a bull fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI can remember that scene like it\nwas yesterday\u201d, Dodie drawled on, \u201cCousin Carlos raised his hand as if he were\nconducting the orchestra, and the band started over with a different tango. At\nthat moment you could have heard a pin drop on the Mexican side of the family,\nwhile Granny Bates and Granny McCullah were still talking away at their little\ntable. But soon enough, all heads were turned toward mama. I never saw her look like that before. I guess I never paid much mind to her dancing\ndays and I don\u2019t think I ever saw her dance before that night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I thought about how mama used to\ndrag me off to those God-awful dance classes when she volunteered in the poor\nMexican barrios, hoping I would catch some interest in my heritage as if it\nwere a cold or flu. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou should have seen this guy,\nMaggie, he was tall, dark, and handsome \u2013 I mean really handsome, even\nthough you could tell 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 hadn\u2019t\nbeen pregnant I would have stood in a line a mile long to get a chance to dance\nwith Cousin Carlos. I don\u2019t think I was\nthe only girl there who had the same thought. You could tell by the dreamy-eyed\nwallflower looks that nobody, not even the men, would interfere with that dance\nby getting up there and making a fool of themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funny, though, daddy was a little\ntense throughout the whole thing, and got into one of his sullen moods after\nthat. You could tell he was tensing up by that funny little twitch over his\nright eye. It was going a mile a minute while mama was dancing the tango with\nCarlos. It was something else. Made me wish I\u2019d taken dance lessons with mama\nafter all. It was almost obscene that two people could move together like one\nin that way \u2013 you know \u2013 as if they really knew each other, every nook and\ncranny in the body. They moved kind of \u2013 I don\u2019t know \u2013 like an animal \u2013 you\nknow like a big cat or something. They looked downright professional out there.\nHim in his slender, black suit, and mama in that magnolia dress and those\nridiculous shoes. By the end of the dance, the crowd went crazy, and mama\ndisappeared somewhere, while daddy sat there steaming and knocking down\nbourbon. I don\u2019t know whatever happened to that dress. I never saw it after\nthat night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew. I couldn\u2019t wait for Dodie\nto leave so I could check out my hunch.
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Naphthalene\nis very bad for you. Probably even worse than smoking, if you can believe that.\nAfter Dodie finally left (bless her heart – as we gals like to say in Texas), I dug out an\nold hand truck in the garage and carted the heavy trunk which reeked of\nmothballs out to the pergola beneath the shade of the grape vine. Since I\nhadn\u2019t located a key, I grabbed a crowbar from the garage and pried the damned\nthing open. I stood back and turned my head away as I lifted the lid so as not\nto get the strong whiff of the first escaping gas. On the top there was a layer\nof old white tissue paper, already yellowed and aged by the acid in the wood of\nthe trunk and many years. I wondered if\nthe clothing would be eaten away by acid. Surely there were no moths which\ncould survive 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 Macy\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. Next to the shoes was a silk magnolia hair\nclip. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the bottom of the box was a\npiece of folded linen paper which looked like it had been well-worn. The edges\nwere a bit torn and the creases disintegrating. This was a letter that had been\nobviously read more than once. But it\nwas in Spanish, so I set it aside, not being in the mood for a tedious\ntranslation.<\/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 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 is attached to the pool\nhouse, where I could hang the clothes from the hooks in the ceiling that mama\nused for her futile attempts at herb drying. I scooped up the first layer of\ntissue and mothballs, and peeled off the next, and as I expected, the magnolia\ndress was right there. It would have fit mama perfectly. She had kept her\nfigure her whole life, having practiced dance every day, and having spent a\ngood part of her life riding horses. I carefully hung the dress on a garment\nhanger where it swayed gently in the breeze. As I stepped back to look at it I\nthought about the story Dodie told about Uncle Charles\u2019 wedding party and the\nMexican entourage. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tried to imagine mama in her\nblack magnolia dress, her black hair gently streaked with gray and piled on top\nof her head with that old Mexican horn comb she used, a silk magnolia just\nbehind her ear. I wondered if daddy ever told her how beautiful she was. He was\nalways so preoccupied with getting things done \u2013 all work no play. I couldn\u2019t\nrecall him ever being overtly affectionate. But I could tell he loved her in\nhis Colonel Joe kind of way. He wasn\u2019t one to say as much, but he did buy her a\nprize horse or two, a love note in a Texan sort of way. I couldn\u2019t recall anything other than a\nbrotherly love between the two of them. \nThat is two brothers who fought on a daily basis but were fiercely loyal\nwhen push came to shove. I wondered if he ever tried to dance with her in that\ndress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watching my parents tiptoe through\ntheir marriage as if it were a minefield navigated by a troupe of Brownies is\nprobably the reason why I prefer to be a mistress to someone else\u2019s husband. I\ndon\u2019t ever want passion to become entrapped or constrained by the mundane of daily\nexistence. As soon as you start ironing his shirts, a man begins to take you\nfor granted. You become his care-taker and not someone to take care with. I\nprefer knowing that the man who holds me in his arms loves me deeply and\nhonestly because he wants to, not because he is bound to me by law and\nproperty, and that he will always look at me as if I am the most beautiful\nwoman on earth and he will tell me so. I don\u2019t have to clean up his mess or\npretend I like his mother. He has no legal or moral ground to control me, and\nthere are no economic strings attached. My livelihood is a separate domain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You sometimes see long-lasting and\npassionate marriages between childless couples or couples who have rebounded\nlate in life after the nest has been emptied. \nBut I vowed long ago that I would not live a passionless life like my\nmother, who seemed perfectly content to go about the daily business of living\nwithout love. Thinking about Dodie\u2019s\nstory, though, I wondered if my mother really did live a passionless life, or\nwas there a hidden valley in her heart which none of us were privy to, not even\ndaddy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dodie tends to see just what she\nwants to see to fit her narrow construct of reality, although she possesses the\nuncanny ability to see more than anyone else would ever read into a given\nsituation, as long as it\u2019s not hers. If mama were someone else dancing with a\n\u201ctall, dark and handsome\u201d Mexican in the way that Dodie described, she would\u2019ve\nbeen all over that situation tooting the gossip horn and constructing an affair\nof the heart that would be the envy of a Mexican soap opera. But the construct\nin which Dodie lives, has everyone else\u2019s marriage but hers and mama and\ndaddy\u2019s tainted and cheapened by her juicy tidbits of information. She should\nhave become a CIA operative or a spy like Daddy, for God sakes, at least when\nit comes to sticking her nose into someone else\u2019s business. Dodie swears that mama\nand daddy had one of those life-long loving marriages. But I wasn\u2019t so sure\nabout that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I wondered who Cousin Carlos was\nand why I\u2019d never heard that name before, and I had spent a lot more time with\nAbuelita and Do\u0148a Magdalena in Mexico\nthan Dodie ever did. When I was really young mama used to pack us up when daddy\nwent overseas or on a special assignment. We would fly from Washington down to Texas to visit mama\u2019s family on Grampy\nBates\u2019 ranch. Dodie was prone to travel\nsickness, and once we got there, she was put in the hands of my grandmother and\naunts who doted upon her strawberry curls and dressed her up like she was\nShirley Temple. Mama and I would ride\nthe range, and I was given lots of instruction in the stables, while mama\nresumed her passion for teaching heritage dance to Mexican children. This was\nsomething she shared with Abuelita who joined her in the barrios on the border,\nback before the drug wars when it was still safe to travel there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are only one or two occasions\nthat I can remember crossing the border and going to Abuelita\u2019s home in Monterrey, Mexico.\nDodie was left behind, but mama, Abuelita, Tia Hester and I traveled by car to Monterrey and stayed in\nDo\u0148a Magdalena\u2019s spacious villa-like home. \nI must have been very young, for I only have snippets of memory such as\nthe darkness of that house with its Victorian-like but Spanish heaviness of\ncurtains and furniture, and my great grandmother\u2019s elaborate black taffeta\nmourning dresses which she had worn since her husband\u2019s death. Although the\nhouse was somewhat stuffy, it was filled with excitement when my mama arrived\nwith Abuelita, and they would disappear for what seemed like weeks, while I was\ndoted upon by my great aunt and Uncle, Pilar and Franco. This is why I have\nheld onto 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I knew there were lots of cousins\non the Mexican side, most of them short and fat as far as I could remember. I\ndon\u2019t ever remember someone tall and handsome, other than in the pictures of my\ngreat-grandfather. There was a whole\nwall of pictures in Do\u0148a Magdalena\u2019s parlor. I can barely conjure up the\nimages, but most of them seemed to be of the daughters, Pilar, Hester, and Magdalena (my grandmother) in various dance costumes and\ncontests. Come to think of it, there were pictures of mama and Abuelita Lena\ndressed up in flamenco dance costumes and accepting trophies together as\ncompeting mother and daughter. All those\nweeks when I was left with the great aunts and cousins, they must have been\ntraveling around Mexico\nand Latin America in dance competitions which\nwere popular at the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Funny how there were no trophies or\npictures in our own home. There was not one relic left from mama\u2019s dancing life\non the Ranch. It wasn\u2019t like Daddy didn\u2019t know that she danced when he was\naway. She must have wanted to keep that little piece of her world to herself, a\nsacred thing of her own. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A breeze rustled up a whiff of\nmothballs and Mama\u2019s tango dress shifted from side to side as if it were\ninhabited by her ghost. I tried to kick the image of the last time I saw her, a\nshriveled remnant of herself in the ICU. I closed my eyes, preferring Dodie\u2019s\nstory about our mother\u2019s last tango, letting the dress guide me toward the\ntrunk full of documents she had left me. I knew then that I would not return to\nBoston. I would\nstay put on the Mcullah Ranch and try to map the territory of my mother\u2019s\nheart. Maybe, just maybe, I would find my own compass along the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The dress which was sketched out in mama\u2019s diary was real. It was too bad that she wasn\u2019t here to explain the little remnants of herself she\u2019d left behind. Ever since I went to that bank vault and claimed my inheritance, my life had become a nightmare \u2013 a labyrinth of questions that would never … <\/p>\n