his son. My father, to him,
was the emblem of his
mother’s sin, and as a result
was wrong and did not
have the right to be loved.
My Dad learned from that
experience and there is not
one night my Dad doesn’t
say he loves me. He also
never drinks, not even on
family occasions. He says
its bad for the heart so in
my house you only find
water and juice, because
my mother says soda is bad
for the liver.
…
When I was five, my father
was my superhero. I think
that my love of storytelling
comes from him. My
sisters and I would race
to our balcony whenever
he came home exhausted
from work at midnight. He
was a janitor by day and a
factory worker by night.
There were nights when my
eyelids would not allow me
to stay awake until twelve
and I would sleep with one
of his shirts. Every Friday
night we would make him
tell us stories. He would tell
us about two little kids who
were taken by a witch! It
wasn’t until a couple years
later that we found out my
father did not create that
story, and that those two
little kids were Hansel and
Gretel. American fairytales
with a Hispanic twist made
up my childhood. But those
nights, we would each sit
on my Dad’s lap and under
the five stars of our sky,
he would open doors to a
world we had never seen
before and that was more
than enough to satisfy our
childish curiosity.