MY MOTHER, MYSELF

My mother rarely initiates a phone call to me. She has a noblesse oblige outlook on life that dictates it is the grown children’s duty to call their parents. So when she called me at 6:30 yesterday morning, I was alarmed. The last time she called at such an ungodly hour was when Janet Reno ordered little Elian to be taken from his uncle’s house and sent back to Cuba.

“Que pasa?” I asked her, bracing myself.

“Conchita died.”

“Who’s that?” I asked, quickly doing a mental roll-o-dexing of names and drawing a blank.

“Your second cousin Ana’s mother-in-law’s mother,” she answered, in her I-can’t-believe-you-don’t remember voice. “She was 94.”

I groaned inwardly and decoded what she was not telling me—someone important died from Cuban society and a de-rigueur appearance at the wake to pay our respects was not only expected but compulsory.

“It’s at eight tonight. Wear your black dress and pearls,” she said, not only assuming that I am going but telling me how to dress.

I haven’t seen my second cousin Ana in twenty years much less the deceased. “I’m not going, Mami,” I said. “I didn’t even know her.”

“Of course you’re going.. It’s your duty as my daughter. The whole family will be there. I’m going to call your brothers now and tell them as well. By the way, we have to pick up your aunts Cuca and Fefa and take them to the wake.”

“Did you already talk to them?” I could scarcely believe how early and fast news travelled through the Cuban grapevine.

“Of course. Don’t you read the paper?”

Not her paper, which is in Spanish and displays ‘noted’ obituaries in bold, black-framed rectangular inserts.

As I hung up the phone, I rolled my eyes and told my husband about the call.

“That shouldn’t be too bad,” he says flippantly.

“No?”

He does have a point. Cuban wakes in Miami are loud, noisy affairs where family, friends and very marginally connected mourners of the deceased get together to talk, laugh and discuss politics, both local and 90 miles away.. There is usually someone passing out thimble-sized servings of Cuban coffee bought at the cafeteria in back of the funeral home, where most of the men are gathered smoking smelly cigars. When midnight rolls around, many end the evening at Versailles Restaurant on 8^th Street for their hefty sized Cuban medianoche sandwiches and steaming cups of café con leche.

“It’s at eight tonight. You can wear your dark suit,” I informed my husband, feeling much better just thinking about the medianoche.

“I’m not going,” he said. “I didn’t even know her.”

“Of course you are. It’s your duty as my husband. The whole family will be there. And we’ll have to pick up Mami, Cuca and Fefa on the way.”