The Words for Grandma

July 3. Grandma has been living with us in Los Angeles for five days, and so far I've said exactly eleven words to her. I counted. Most of them were "hi" and "thanks," and she answered every one with a smile and something I didn't understand. She's from a small town in the mountains of Quiché, in Guatemala, and her first language is K'iche', one of the Mayan languages spoken there. She also speaks Spanish, and hers is better than mine, although that isn't saying much. Mom translates whenever she's home, but she works until seven, so most afternoons it's just Grandma and me in the kitchen, smiling politely at each other across the table.

July 7. I've found an online course in K'iche' made by a university in Texas, and I've been practicing in my room every afternoon with the door shut, whispering so nobody can hear. I'm keeping it a secret partly because it's embarrassing, but mainly because I want to surprise her. It turns out you don't greet everyone the same way. With older people you're supposed to use the respectful form, so instead of "La utz awach?" I should ask her "La utz wach la?" and call her "nan," which is how you address an older woman. My tongue keeps tripping over the sounds that the apostrophes stand for.

July 12. Disaster. I left my notebook on the couch, and Mom found it. Before I could grab it, she'd read half a page out loud, mispronouncing everything on purpose. Then she stopped laughing and went quiet. She told me she'd arrived here when she was twelve and had stopped speaking K'iche' within a year, because she was tired of sounding different at school. She can still understand almost everything Grandma says, but she answers her in Spanish, because the K'iche' words won't come out anymore. She made me promise not to tell Grandma she'd cried. I made her promise not to tell Grandma about the notebook.

July 18. I did it. This morning Grandma was making tortillas, clapping the dough flat between her palms, and I walked in and said, "Saqirik, nan. La utz wach la?" She stopped with the dough in her hands. I'd rehearsed it so many times that the words sounded as if they belonged to somebody else, and for a second I was sure I'd insulted her. Then she answered slowly, so I could follow: "Utz, maltyox." I said, "Maltyox che la," which used up nearly everything I know, and she laughed so hard she had to sit down. I couldn't work out what was so funny.

July 24. Now I know. Tonight there was a notebook on the kitchen table that I'd never seen before. Inside, in careful pencil, Grandma had written whole pages of English: "Good morning. How are you? Thank you very much. I love you, grandson." Mom admitted that she'd been teaching her every night after I went to bed, for about as long as I'd been whispering in my room. So for almost two weeks, Mom has known both secrets and kept both of them. I haven't moved either notebook. They're lying side by side on the table right now, mine full of K'iche', hers full of English, both of them open to the same words: thank you.