The Sunday Call

Every Sunday at nine in the morning, Guatemala time, Wilmer calls his mother from his apartment in Queens. In New York it's already late morning, and he always has his coffee ready and the same three questions: Are you eating? Are you sleeping? Is the roof still holding?

"Good morning, Mom! How are you?" "Fine, mijo, everything's fine," she says, the way she always does. But today something is different. Usually she answers from the kitchen, with the radio on and her hands full of tortilla dough. Today she isn't standing at the stove. She's sitting very still, and behind her he can see the green curtains of the living room.

"Are you making tortillas today?" he asks. "No, not today. I'm resting a little. Chayo from next door is bringing me lunch." Wilmer leans closer to the screen. Behind his mother, next to the television, there's a bed. Her bed, with the blanket he sent her two Christmases ago.

"Mom, why is your bed in the living room?" "Oh, that? Your cousin moved it. The bedroom gets cold at night, you know." "It's never bothered you before," he says. She laughs, but she doesn't look at the camera.

Then he sees the table. There are boxes on it, at least six of them, lined up next to her glasses. He knows those white and blue boxes. He saw them every day during the last year of his father's life. "Mom, are you taking Dad's heart medicine?"

For a long moment she doesn't say anything. "I didn't want to worry you," she says finally. "You're working so hard, and you're still paying for the roof. I fell in the yard two weeks ago. The doctor says my heart is tired, that's all. I can't climb the stairs in the beautiful house you built, so I'm sleeping down here. It's nothing, mijo. I'm not dying."

Wilmer isn't listening anymore. With the phone in one hand, he's opening a new window on his laptop. Guatemala City, Thursday night. "What are you doing?" she asks. "I can hear you typing." "I'm not asking, Mom," he says. "I'm telling you. I land on Thursday, and I'll take the first bus to Huehuetenango on Friday." "Don't spend your money on me!" He clicks "Buy" before she can say it again. "Tell Chayo she can take Saturday off," he says. "I'm making lunch."