The sounds of scrapping metal against concrete doesn’t stop Doña Consuelo from dragging her fold-out chair to her front stoop to watch the mailman push his carrier bag down the block. As he makes his way to her, she spots the hot pink envelopes which are meant for her neighbors, among a stack of white ones in his hand. Doña Consuelo takes great care when writing anonymous letters to her neighbors. After all, it’s not easy telling them things they don’t want to hear, like when their husbands are cheating, or when their children are using drugs, or when they’re letting themselves go.
She sips her cafecito and rubs the bandage on her forearm. The morning sun’s warmth reminds her of being a young girl in the 60s running around with her friends looking for open fire hydrants in Pilsen—way before the new bistros and vintage shops arrived.
The mailman removes his White Sox baseball cap and wipes sweat from his brow. “Good morning, Doña Consuelo.”
“Buenos días, Walter.” She tries to block the sun with her hand to see his face better. The ivory, vinyl siding from the houses across the street are blindingly bright today.
“It’s Darren, remember?” He pats his chest.
Doña Consuelo stares at him, “Ah, sí. Of course, I know that. Sorry, Darren. Walter was my mailman for 30 years. God rest his soul. Where does time go?”
He gives her a polite smile and asks her about her arm.
“I have one cooking fire in the sixty years I’ve been making food and my daughter won’t let me live it down, can you believe it?”
“First degree burns, at your age, are no joke,” He hands her a white envelope and Doña Consuelo tightens her lips when she recognizes the blue and yellow logo of Sunset Realty.
When she received the first letter six months ago, Doña Consuelo knew she had to hide it from her daughter, Carmen. They’ve been struggling to pay medical bills, and utilities, and the taxes on the property. And after the fire, Carmen insisted it was time to move.
“I can’t afford two houses, má.” Carmen snapped back after her mother refused to move in with her and her family.
“I’ve lived in this house longer than you’ve been alive! Over my dead body will I move to Cicero!”
Doña Consuelo chews on the dry parts of her lips, stuffing the Sunset Realty letter in the large pockets of her bata.
“Nothing but mierda, Darren!” Doña Consuelo’s laughter turns into a coughing fit. Darren reaches for her, but she fans herself and waves him away. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”
“You’re one tough lady. If they had offered me a million dollars for my house I would’ve left that piece of shit before they could change their minds,” he said.
Doña Consuelo shrugs and sips more cafecito. She’s heard it all before—what people would do if someone offered them a million dollars for a house that’s falling apart, on a block with new, wealthier neighbors moving in every week, in a neighborhood once “riddled with Mexicans and crime” but now has “authenticity and charm.”
When Carmen found out about Doña Consuelo rejecting Sunset Realty’s first offer, she called her mother selfish.
“Má, you know what that money could have done for us?” Carmen pulled back her graying hair into a ponytail as she paced up and down the very living room where she took her first steps. “We could have paid your medical bills, my student loans, put your grandbaby through college!”
Guilt wrapped around Doña Consuelo’s heart like a wisteria vine around a tree. Of course, she wanted to help her daughter, but she wasn’t going to give up the home she built with her late husband, Antonio.
“Ya se. Ya se. But I’m not leaving. And that’s the end of it.”
That wasn’t the end of it. Carmen nags about moving her to Cicero, a 20-minute drive and a whole world away, almost every day, like it’s Carmen’s new job to annoy her mother into leaving it all behind.
Outside on her stoop, Doña Consuelo fans herself with the Sunset Realty letter, sweat accumulating at the top of her forehead, and watches Darren walk down the block. From her pocket she pulls out a tiny tube of Bengay and rubs her arthritic knees—flashing her varicose legs at anyone who might be looking at her.
Sabrina, from two houses down, is the first to collect her pink envelope. Doña Consuelo sees Sabrina shake her head and try to give Darren back the letter, but he raises his hands and walks back. Sabrina slams the door so hard the rose bushes planted in the front yard shake, too.
Sabrina moved into her mother’s, Mirella, house on the block after she passed. Mirella, the pinche vieja, had been on the block as long as Doña Consuelo. No one had liked Señora Mirella much because she was crotchety, but she was always one hundred percent honest to people’s faces. Doña Consuelo herself wasn’t that brave so she preferred her letters—more discreet and considerate.
At first, the messages in Doña Consuelo’s letters were more fortune-cookie-like than truth-telling. When she wanted to warn Sabrina about her husband’s extramarital affairs, she’d write on the stark white paper left behind by Antonio: “It is important to keep an eye on what matters.” But Sabrina kept waiting up at night for him to come home. Doña Consuelo changed her approach when her grandbaby, Estrella, taught her about “Men are trash!” In future letters, she wrote, “Pendeja, your husband is trash. Leave him!” Those types of letters eventually did the trick.
Only a few months after Antonio’s passing, Sabrina came over, crying to Doña Consuelo about a pink envelope she’d received.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Sabrina bawled into the handkerchief Doña Consuelo had offered her.
“Well, mi’ja, the letter says to leave him.” She sipped from her cup of cafecito, resisting the urge to smack this pendejita who was more upset about a letter than her husband being a daily piece of basura.
“What kind of person would send something like this?” Sabrina’s tears stained the letter as she sat on Doña Consuelo’s plastic-covered couch, convinced the old woman would help her make it right. But Doña Consuelo knew that if Sabrina was crying over the letter instead of the cheating, then she’d need to be more direct. Sabrina’s husband had been stepping out on her for a while now and everyone suspected. If Antonio, may he rest in peace, were here, he’d agree Sabrina needed to be told.
It took almost a dozen more letters before Sabrina finally asked her cheating husband to leave. Pero, she took him back months later, leaving Doña Consuelo no option but to keep writing letters to Sabrina.
From her front stoop, Doña Consuelo can barely hear the phone ringing inside her home but it’s enough noise to remind her she needs more cafecito. She lets the answering machine get it.
“¿Má? Pick up, it’s me.” Doña Consuelo recognizes her daughter’s screechy, whiny voice coming from the machine.
She grabs the cordless phone and holds it between her ear and her shoulder as she waits for the water to boil, “Hello? Carmen?” She yells into the receiver.
“Si, má. Why aren’t you answering your cellphone? I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour!” Doña Consuelo rolls her eyes. Disque, the cellphone was supposed to help her stay “connected” but Carmen only uses it to keep track of her.
“Ese tiliche no sirve. Call the house. I’ll always be here.” She hears Carmen sigh the same sigh she’d give when she was a teenager and Doña Consuelo would tell her she couldn’t go out with her little friends until her room was cleaned.
“I’m on my way. Do you need more tape? More boxes?”
“Boxes? No, no. Just some more of that fancy writing paper your dad was always leaving around the house. And more café.” Doña Consuelo throws the unopened Sunset Realty letter into the trash and washes the empty Folgers jar.
“Fancy writing paper? You should be packing! Estrella and I’ll be there in a little bit to help.”
“Pack what, chiquitita? Everything is where it should be.” Doña Consuelo’s dishes are neatly stacked above the sink, her mugs rest in the cabinet, the pots and pans are in the oven, the ivory dish towels she embroidered with pink florets drape through the drawer handles.
“Mami, please!”
“It’s fine! Don’t forget my coffee. I’ll see you later.” She hangs up before Carmen can say more.
With a fresh cup of cafecito in hand, Doña Consuelo sits outside on her stoop, adjusting the seat cushion with her butt. From her periphery, she can see the new apartment complex that wasn’t there when she bought her house with Antonio, God rest his soul.
In the summer of 1977, they had been married a year and bought the house around the corner from her parents. Fifty thousand dollars for a house that needed a lot of work was steep, but Antonio insisted this be their home.
“I’ll figure out how to pay for the moon and the stars if that’s what you want, my dancing queen!” Antonio twirled her in the empty living room, humming Abba, as the Polish realtor feigned interest in something outside the window. “Amorcito, a new school coming soon, new factories with better pay, and we can drop off any future babies with your parents. What else can we ask for?” Antonio placed his hand on her belly and, pressed together tightly, they swayed.
Out in the stoop, Doña Consuelo catches la güereja Britney, from the new apartment complex across the street, checking the mail and tossing her arms up when she sees her pink envelope. La Britney’s been on the block for about a year. She moved into where Señor Fernando’s house used to be. Sunset Realty bought the house, demolished it, and raised new apartments for people like La Britney. A whole life and history tossed and replaced in a blink of an eye.
One night around dinner time, when Antonio had been gone nearly a year, Doña Consuelo brought up the news about her new neighbor and her husband to Carmen and Estrella.
“He’s her partner,” Carmen explained. “They don’t like husband and wife because it’s too gendered, má.”
“¿Tu que?” Doña Consuelo watched as Carmen swept around her.
“Abue, it just means she doesn’t want people assuming she’s married or married to a man or to a woman.” Estrella sat on the scratched wooden floor and rubbed Nivea on Doña Consuelo’s calloused feet—the way Carmen used to do when she was about the same age.
“Sí, ¿pero que tiene? Carmen is married to Sandrita and they’re always like ‘wife this’ and ‘wife that.’” Doña Consuelo made her voice go higher at the end to mimic Carmen’s voice and she and Estrella burst out laughing.
“Mami and mamá want everyone to know their business,” Estrella laughed, and Carmen narrowed her eyes at her daughter.
“¿Y haber? How do you know all this?” Doña Consuelo called after Carmen.
“Because mami talked to her,” Estrella raised her eyebrows at her grandmother.
“Ah, a traitor,” she whispered to Estrella. They stopped laughing when Carmen walked back into the living room.
“Má, don’t worry about other people’s lives,” Carmen handed her mother a cup of tea. Doña Consuelo made a caca face at the taste of the tea. “It’s better for you than all that coffee you drink,” Carmen insisted.
La Britney strolled onto the block shaking her tiny, almost non-existent ass in tight Lululemon pants and a yoga mat under her arm. At least twice, maybe three times a day Doña Consuelo watches La Britney come and go from Señor Fernando’s old house in her yoga uniform.
“Doesn’t she have a job?” Doña Consuelo asked Sabrina once, when she had stopped by with some groceries and pot of pozole.
“Disque, she’s a writer. And her husband is a lawyer.” Sabrina, with her hands full, pushed the house door open with her foot.
“Her partner,” Doña Consuelo said, staring directly at the new apartment complex.
“Her what?” Sabrina called from inside the house.
“Nada.”
La Britney turned to wave at Doña Consuelo, and she waved back. A writer, Doña Consuelo thought. I have a few words for you.
After Antonio’s funeral, Doña Consuelo sat at the kitchen table with Señor Fernando, who was there to say his goodbye.
“Pero, hombre. You’re not dying.” Doña Consuelo tried to escape the wave of loneliness washing over her. She inhaled deeply and caught a whiff of Antonio’s tobacco and shaving cream scent, probably coming from his Cubs’ sweatshirt she refused to take off.
“You’re right. Now I get to be closer to my children and grandchildren. You should think about doing the same, vieja. The neighborhood is changing and I’d give my left nut that they won’t stop until they get you out of this house—alive or dead.” He was not wrong.
La Britney’s first letter was the longest letter Doña Consuelo had written yet. Señor Fernando woke up at the crack of dawn and didn’t come home until after the sun had gone down to pay for that house. That old house now turned new with solar panels on the roof that was once a leaky roof, was once a partially caved in roof when the tree that was out front lost a branch. Sunset Realty even took the goddamn tree. The tree his children climbed like trapeze artists. The tree Carmen also tried to climb but only ended up with a sprained wrist. ¿Pero quien te manda? Doña Consuelo said when Carmen crossed the street in tears to show her mother her arm.
If La Britney ever read the letter and had any complaints, Doña Consuelo never heard about it. Typical, she thought, to not care about who came before you. The letters that followed said things like “Close your curtains. No one needs to see your downward dog.”
Doña Consuelo walks down her stoop to water her plants when she sees Patrice get her mail next.
Patrice has been on the block longer than La Britney. Patrice and her husband bought the house directly from Doña Susana, who had had that house for over fifty years. At Patrice’s housewarming party she had overheard her describe the house as a “starter home.” Patrice was the only new neighbor who had ever invited Doña Consuelo over.
“What’s a starter home?” Doña Consuelo asked Carmen after the party, as they walked home.
“It’s what young couples buy to start their lives so they can save to buy a bigger, better home later,” Carmen helped her mother up the steps.
“When your father and I first bought this house, we didn’t think we could even afford it. Much less, save to get another one. This was supposed to be our forever home.” Doña Consuelo wiped her watery eyes from underneath her glasses. “Forever doesn’t last as long as it used to.”
Patrice’s letters were the most boring to write. Her husband left and came home at the same time every day. He threw out the trash regularly. He took their little boy to the park on his bike once a week. At the sight of the first snow, her husband was the first one out there with a shovel and salt. He even offers to do Doña Consuelo’s part of the block. What was there to report?
“Family is God’s greatest blessing,” Doña Consuelo had written in the first letter.
Around that time, there had been so many protests in the city. Doña Consuelo asked Estrella why folks were protesting the police.
“It’s not against the police, abue. It’s against the police murdering Black people for no fucking reason.” Doña Consuelo saw her grandbaby’s face flush red with anger.
“Language, Estrella,” Carmen scolded from the kitchen.
“Déjala,” was all Doña Consuelo could say to protect her grandbaby.
With Estrella’s help, her letters to Patrice said things like “Blacks Lives Matter” and “Black Girl Magic.”
Back in her fold-out chair, Doña Consuelo spots Patrice coming her way.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Consuelo. How are you feeling today?” She smiles. Patrice is a psychologist and doesn’t ask “how are you doing?” but “how are you feeling?'' At first, it was annoying because Doña Consuelo’s feelings are no one’s Goddamn business, but honestly, no one else, besides her grandbaby, really cared about her feelings enough to ask.
“Hi, querida. Today I feel like I’m out of time.”
“I spoke with your daughter. I was sad to hear you’re leaving. But moving in with Carmen sounds like a wonderful new adventure. And Estrella seems excited to have you closer.” Patrice places a gentle hand on Doña Consuelo’s bandaged arm. Doña Consuelo turns her attention to the car honks coming from Cermak Road, echoing down the block.
“You alright, Ms. Consuelo?” Patrice asks.
Doña Consuelo nods, “After I stopped working at the factory for a little while to take care of Carmencita, I’d wake up at the crack of dawn with Antonio to make his lunch. He loved my rice and beans and I’d cook him the biggest piece of bistec we had.” She stares toward the main road, most of the factories now closed. Doña Consuelo sees a young brown girl holding hands with a slightly taller brown man, walking home from work, lunch pails swinging at their sides. Antonio walked her home for months until he worked up the courage to ask her out on an official date.
“You okay, Ms. Consuelo?” Patrice asks again. “Is that what you were doing when the kitchen fire started? Making lunch for Antonio?”
Doña Consuelo doesn’t respond.
“I brought you a little something,” Patrice hands her a small Tupperware with a card taped on top. “My baby boy and I made them last night. I’ll stop by again before you head out. You take care, okay?”
“Ay, mi’ja. Thank you!” Doña Consuelo takes the Tupperware and waves as Patrice walks away. She opens the note and reads: “Gluten & sugar free chocolate chip cookies. They don’t sound delicious but they are. Thank you for your letters. Patrice, Samuel, & Sammy”
Doña Consuelo laughs: Mierda, I hope no one else has figured it out.
“What’s so funny, abue?” Estrella and Carmen walk up the steps carrying flat boxes and bags of takeout.
“Nada, mi reyna. Gluten and sugar free cookie?” She offers the Tupperware to Estrella.
“Eww, pass!”
“Carmencita, no seas grosera,” Doña Consuelo holds the Tupperware out, nostrils flaring at the disrespect.
Estrella looks at her mother and then kneels to her grandmother.
“Abue, I’m Estrella, remember?” Estrella takes Doña Consuelo’s soft hand in hers.
Doña Consuelo stares deeply at her, searching her eyes for answers. “Sí, sí. I know. You know how I get when I’m tired.” Estrella and Carmen give each other a quick glance.
“I’m fine. Go, go, I’ll be in in a minute.”
They make their way past Doña Consuelo and into the house.
“Maaa, what the hell?” she hears Carmen screech from inside the house.
Doña Consuelo lets out a deep sigh. Her bones ache. Some days, it’s her knees that hurt the most. Some days it’s her hips. Some days her back. When it’s her hands that throb and pinch, it also hurts her heart that she can’t write. She struggles to stand from her chair and uses the railing to pull herself up.
“Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong?” Doña Consuelo shuffles inside.
“You unpacked the stuff from the kitchen we packed yesterday?” Carmen huffs and slams the food on the kitchen table. “We can’t keep doing this, má. We’re running out of time!”
“Those dishes are older than you!” Doña Consuelo goes to sit on her rocking chair in the living room, the rocking chair she got as a gift and which she used to rock Carmen to sleep when she was a baby. Even then, Carmen was stubborn.
Doña Consuelo rests her eyes for a second and when she opens them, she’s in her late twenties with a new baby cradled in her arms.
“Shhh, shhhh, chiquitita, ya.” Doña Consuelo coos to the red faced, crying baby. She rocks back and forth. The baby won’t stop crying and soon Doña Consuelo is crying too. “Shhhh, shhh, shhh.”
“Dámela,” Antonio says, taking Carmen from her. “Chiquitita, tell me what’s wrong,” he sing-whispers Abba until Carmen falls asleep.
“Abue, are you okay? Abue?”
Estrella pulls an ottoman closer to sit by her grandmother and rubs her arms, careful around the bandage. “You can just ignore mami. That’s what I do.” She giggles. “I’ll put the dishes away later. Don’t worry!”
“Ay, mi niña.” Doña Consuelo continues to rock.
“She’s really worried about you, you know?” Estrella rests her head on her grandmother’s legs. “What would’ve happened to you if Patrice’s husband hadn’t been around to hear the fire alarm blaring in your kitchen?”
What was Patrice’s husband doing up and out that early anyway? She can’t help but wonder.
After Carmen makes her eat a kale salad while she and Estrella inhale tacos de carne asada for dinner, Doña Consuelo and Estrella sit outside on the stoop.
“Mami’s on the phone with the realty company,” Estrella says out to the block.
Pinche metiche, Doña Consuelo thinks. Of course, her nosy-ass daughter would see the letter in the trash.
Doña Consuelo had managed to hide the letters from Carmen for a while. The first letters from Sunset Realty were full of pleasantries: “Your wonderful house,” “we respect the neighborhood,” “We would love to offer you above market value.” And then the calls started, and the letters got shorter and curter: “this offer won’t last forever,” “last chance,” “think about your family.” These letters only made Doña Consuelo hunker down and refuse.
“I’m going to die right here,” she had told the tall, blonde, realtor in a suit when he showed up to her front door. Doña Consuelo stomped her foot on her porch and even though her house slippers didn’t make a sound, the realtor left.
Outside on the stoop, the sun is setting but that doesn’t stop Estrella from rolling up her shorts as high as she can and extending her legs and arms out to the sun’s warmth.
“This is my house. And I’ll leave when I’m dead.” Doña Consuelo follows Estrella’s lead and hikes up her bata and feels the sun kiss her thighs.
Estrella sits up to look at her grandmother. “Abue, don’t say things like that. I don’t want you to die.”
“Ay, mi reyna. I’m never leaving my house,” Doña Consuelo speaks to the sun, letting tears roll down the side of her face.
“Abue, you remember mami took the offer, right? We talked about this. ¿Se acuerda? You’re moving in with us at the end of the month.”
Doña Consuelo’s tears sparkle in the sun.
“When you live with us, we’re going to annoy mami so much. That’ll be fun, no?” Estrella wipes her grandmother’s wet cheeks. “Cicero’s not that bad. Our house is bigger, too. Enough room for all of us. Enough room for you and all your tiliches.”
“Your father and I worked hard for this house. Your father, may he rest in peace, always wanted this house to go to you, chiquitita. ‘His legacy,’ he’d call it.”
Estrella interlaces her fingers with her grandmother’s. “I’m Estrella, abue. Your grandbaby.”
Doña Consuelo lifts Estrella’s chin. “You look so much like your mother, you know that?” Doña Consuelo dabs her eyes with the tattered corner of her bata.
“End of the month, you say?”
Doña Consuelo’s block glistens with the sun’s bright orange hues. Her neighbors sit out on their steps to watch their children play. Others rush out of their apartments and into their cars. The new “For Sale” sign across the street clanks with the rolling breeze.
“Did I ever tell you how your abuelo Antonio and I got this house?”
Estrella smiles, leans back on the handrail ready to listen to the story for the millionth time.
“Your great-grandmother thought I was pendeja for marrying your abuelo. She didn’t come to the US, after all, for me to marry the first baboso who told me he loved me. Pero, mi reyna, love will always surprise you.” Doña Consuelo smiles. “¿Sabes que? Why don’t you go inside and get me some paper from your mami and a pink envelope? I want you to write something down for me before I forget.”
Estrella leans in to give her grandmother a kiss as she heads into the house.
Doña Consuelo stands to follow her but gets a brief whiff of tobacco and shaving cream. She imagines Antonio, the love of her life, enveloping her in his strong arms.
“You want the moon and the stars? Because I’ll go get them for you. An amazing daughter with a wonderful family of her own, what else can we ask for?”
Doña Consuelo closes her eyes and sways, one hand on her belly and the other raised toward the fading sun. She hums “Dancing Queen” and two-steps in a circle for the entire block to see.
Contributor Notes
Sonia Alejandra Rodríguez (she/they) is an associate professor in the English Department at LaGuardia Community College, CUNY, where they teach composition, literature, and creative writing.
They are a 2021 Mellon/ACLS Community College Faculty Fellow.
Sonia Alejandra received a Ph.D. in English from the Department of English at the University of California, Riverside. Their research introduces “conocimiento narratives” as a way to read realist fiction within Latinx children’s and young adult literature. They are currently working on a monograph on this topic.
Sonia Alejandra earned an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) from the City College of New York (CUNY). They have published fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction.
