Tijuana Gringo |
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Mom and I are looking at old photo albums from before my Dad was killed over Hanoi (bombing for Nixon and Kissinger). We linger over the wedding pictures. They were married in 1969 in the chapel at North Island Naval Air Station, on San Diego Bay. Their reception was in the officers' club, facing onto the ocean. I freeze over one picture, almost believing my Maria was there -- a chil touches my neck. Of course she wasn't. But....
Then I understand. That was my aunt, my father's sister, thirty years ago.
"Mom, how old was Aunt Jessica when you and Dad got married?"
"Um, she was two years older than he was, so... twenty-nine, there at the wedding."
My Maria will be twenty-nine, like me, in October. We've been thinking of announcing our engagement then. Will have been going steady a year. I turn another page in the thirty-two year old album. There's another shot of my aunt, this time she's dancing with my father. From this angle her face looks less like Maria's. But my father clearly shows the bridge of his nose and the profile of his razor-clean cheekbone and chin, and now he looks like Maria looks when I catch a glimpse of her from the side.
Spooked, I close the album. "Mom, did Dad have any Mexican ancestors?"
"I don't think so, but... wait a minute... yes, sort of, maybe. His mother used to tell me how her people were from old New Orleans families, and if I remember what she said, they had a lot of mixed French and Spanish blood."
"Oh? That might explain it."
Her eye catches mine, "You mean how Maria looks like him and like your aunt?"
"Yes."
Her lips tighten. She nods. "I am sorry I don't know much more about that genealogy, Michael." Raises her head, touches my hand, "You should maybe talk with your aunt Jessica, yes? I think she still has some of your grandmother's genealogy writings, somewhere."
"Yeah, Mom, thanks. I'll do that."