Exhausted, I give up eating.
Tomorrow is Saturday, and I want to spend the whole day with my Nina. Every time I come home from work, she seems tohave grown a little more, and I feel guilty for missing important parts of her development.
I also have to definitively reorganize my own life. It’s not fair to burden Mom, now that Dad’s health has deteriorated to the point of needing care.
This second stroke caught us by surprise, since the first one occurred more than ten years ago.
I decide that, contrary to what I told my mother, tomorrow I’ll have lunch with them. Who knows, maybe Nina will bring some joy to both of them.
God knows our family needs it.
Chapter 4
On the same night
Fifty dollars for a coffee? The powerful guy is definitely not a regular customer. This is, without a doubt, the highest tip I’ve ever received during the six months I’ve been working here.
After putting the money in the cash register, I jot down the amount in the little notebook where I keep track of my tips. This might be my first real job, but I’ve learned enough from Mama Heloísa about people to keep my guard up when it comes to the manager. More than once, he’s tried to shortchange me on what the customers left for me, and those weren’t even as high as this one.
I think again about the man who was here this morning. He said he had business to attend to in the area, and I joked, but seriously now, I don’t see how someone so well-dressed could even step out of the car in this neighborhood.
Actually, judging by the cleanliness of his shoes, I doubt he’s ever even walked down a street before.
The thought makes me laugh.
Of course he walks, silly. Unless he’s some kind of superhero with the power to fly.
Seriously, my fertile imagination sometimes surprises even me.
I remember what he said about me going to college. How do you tell a complete stranger that any dream of studying was forgotten in order to take care of my adoptive mother’s health for the last three and a half years? And anyway, even without the illness, we wouldn’t have had the money for college—maybe a community college, as he suggested.
When we found out about the cancer, I didn’t think twice about putting everything aside for her. If it weren’t for Mama Heloísa, I probably would have been raised in an orphanage until I became an adult, or maybe even gone through worse. Not all orphans are blessed with a good family. I grew up surrounded by love and kindness, and I owe everything I am to her.
Our health insurance only covered part of her expenses, so her savings were used to pay for medication, as well as many tests.
When Mama passed away, I had nothing. Not even friends.
The ones I made in high school disappeared as soon as they found out I wasn’t exactly pleasant company anymore. I was tired all the time because I wanted to make her last days on this planet as pleasant as possible. We both knew there wouldn’t be many. The doctors were very honest from the beginning.
I used my free time to makebrigadeirosand supply them to a local grocery store. A brigadeiro[3] is a typical Brazilian sweet, and I sold every single one I made. The money was meager, but it helped with expenses. Mama was an excellent cook, and although my talent doesn’t come close to hers, I still managed to earn some extra cash.
I’ve always been very proud of her. Her life story is an example for anyone. She saved money for years while still very young and came from Brazil to here, fulfilling her dream of visiting the United States. Just two days after arriving in the country, she met an American man and fell in love. They got married shortly after.
Unfortunately, she became a widow in less than six years, and instead of going back to her country, she fought and faced the adversities alone. She managed to graduate as a social worker and started working in the profession. She was thirty-two years old when I came into her life.
The information she gave me was never even close to enough for me to unravel my origins. All we knew is that someone left me wrapped in a pink blanket at the door of an orphanage—one that Mama Heloísa supervised—on a summer day.
There was no note. Nothing. So I don’t even know the day of my birthday for sure. They assumed I was left there at about a month old, which means I must have been born in May. From what I’ve researched about zodiac signs, I have more Gemini characteristics, so I think I’m from the end of May.
After I grew up, I tried to do some research on the internet to see if I could find anything about my past, but without resources and then without time either, since I spent the day taking care of my mother, I ended up shelving the project.
We were always close, but in her last years of life, we became inseparable. When she wasn’t too tired or in too much pain, she would tell me about her life in Brazil, and I was so fascinated that I told her I would visit the country as soon as I had enough money.
That’s my biggest project after paying off the debts, although I have several others, including going back to school.
I want to go to Brazil, more precisely to Minas Gerais, to visit my mother’s family. She said they lived in the countryside of the state and were very humble, so they never managed to save enough money to come visit her.
Mama Heloísa’s life wasn’t a bed of roses in economic terms either, and after she adopted me, it became even more complicated, so we never went to her country either. Thus, she lost all contact with her relatives, but I promised her that I would look for them one day.
