“She gonna go to hell!” I heard my father yelling as I sat on the cold linoleum floor of my parents closet. Surrounded by fancy towels and photo albums overflowing memories of my family’s memories from their lives in Cuba My mother came here in 1962 with the Peter Pan kids, she was one of many to settle in our neighborhood Grand Concourse in the Bronx. She met my father two years later at Peña Grocery on East 175th street. He was stocking Platanos and their hands met as my mother reached for one, it was love, at first sight. At least that is what my Mother told me. They got married at St. Philip Neri Church right on Grand Concourse, and I was born six months later.

I felt the dim yellow light from the street lights penetrate the slits in the closet door and hit my face as I sat in the closet. By now, I knew that the light didn’t reveal my face. The light was rather a cover, a mask.

“She needs to act like a girl!” roared my father.

“Carlos, you need to be understanding!” my mother sneered back at my father.

When she got angry you could hear my mother’s accent, that was the only trace of her homeland that she had left. Her silky, white moon-like skin and deep black curls that reposed gracefully upon her head allowed her to pass as a European woman.  She was the epitome of beauty, she even gave Betty Rumble a run for her money. When we would walk down the street together, all eyes were on her. My father, on the other hand, was a different story. He was large and stout like the pigs that he butchered. His skin had a pinkish hue, and his fingers were sausages. He always had a weird smell to him, no matter how much he showered. It was a mix of pigs blood, sweat, and desperation.

“Ximena didn’t act like her when she was her age,” said my father more calmly,” she was focused on her school work and dance.”

This was true, at the age of twelve my whole life revolved around being the very best in my class and in the studio. Every day after school I would go to the dance studio until seven and then I went home to do my homework. None of that had changed since now except dance got replaced by work at the bodega around the corner. I never realized how much my dance lessons had cost my parents when I found the bill from the studio hidden under a pile of past due bills I was flabbergasted. I asked my mother why she had continued to let me take the lessons and she responded:

“te quiero dar a ti las oportunidades que yo no tuve”- I want to give you the opportunities that I didn’t have.

After that I found a job, I hated asking my parents for money. I was seventeen now and felt like I should help to support my family. My father was angry when I came home one day with a brand new Sony Walkman, it had cost me $150 and was now my prized possession. The blue piece of plastic and cassette tapes emasculate him, but I could somehow tell that he was relieved that he didn’t have to pay for it.

My family was financially well when I was born, my father’s job at the supermarket paid 5 dollars an hour and my mother made around 4 doing odd jobs. Upon hearing about my birth, my mother’s family in Cuba sent money as well as clothes. I was the first grandchild. No expense was too much for their new baby. My mother’s best friend Rosa would watch me from dusk to dawn almost every day, I remember her apartment smelled like stale cigarettes and Cuna De Lobos was always playing.

“It’s our fault anyways Carlos, we are the one who made her this way,”

I heard my mother wail. I could see her eyes welling with tears. She always blamed herself for Xiomara. Xiomara was born when I was three years old. Though it seems like little time those three years made a world of difference. When she was born the support from my mother’s family had stopped and Rosa moved to New Jersey. When I was a baby I rocked pink tutus and frilly socks. Xiomara wore second-hand clothes that we got from the Salvation Army thrift store a couple of blocks away. My mother eventually found someone else to watch us, I don’t remember her name or what her apartment looked like. I tried to repress most of the memories of that place. What I do remember was the birth of the divide between me and Xiomara, I remember the moment that I knew.

Whenever we would get to the unnamed babysitter's apartment, I would always color and play princesses with the other girls while Xiomara would play cars with the boys. When my parent finally got enough money to take my sister out the second-hand overalls she refused. They were her now, that was who she was. My sister was gay. It took my parent a little longer to finally realize and when they did they were not happy.

“It’s not our fault, there are camps we can send her to, the priest can talk to her”

“They won’t work!” screamed my mother, “she is our child, by god I know it won’t work”