At least to her, I still was. “Grandma Aurora, did you bring me something yummy?” she asked with that smile that always melted my heart. I told her I had brought everything to make her favorite meal, and her little eyes lit up.
I went straight to the kitchen and started preparing lunch as always. I took the meat out of the bags, chopped the vegetables, put the rice on to boil. This was the routine every Sunday.
I would arrive, I would cook, I would serve, and they would eat what I prepared with my money and my labor. But that Sunday was going to be different, although I didn’t know it yet. Melissa only appeared in the kitchen to complain that I had bought yellow bell peppers instead of red ones.
“Mom, I’ve told you a thousand times Marina doesn’t eat yellow peppers. Why do you never listen to me?”
I explained that the red ones were extremely expensive—$30 a pound. But she just huffed and went back to her sofa, to her phone, to her world, where I only existed when she needed something.
Chris came over while I was stirring the sauce and started on his favorite topic. “Your house, Aurora. I was thinking it would be a good idea for you to sell that big house.
You’re too old to live alone, and we could help you invest the money.”
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