The Line of the Sun by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Author:Judith Ortiz Cofer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-8203-4010-4
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
Published: 2011-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

THEY SAY my mother, Ramona, was a beauty. Her bones were light and fine, and when nature began to clothe them in flesh she turned into an enchanting young woman, a combination of fragility and lushness that people, men in particular, remarked upon when she was only fourteen or fifteen. But she hardly had time for vanity in her childhood. While Mamá Cielo was bearing children, Ramona, as the oldest daughter, had to be nurse and babysitter. By the time she entered adolescence, she was tired of children and the endless drudgery of housework. She promised herself she would someday marry a man who would take her far away from Salud; the second thing she proposed to do was to convince whomever she married that one child was all she could or would bear.

Ramona grew up in a woman’s world. The misadventures of her brothers, Carmelo and Guzmán, took place in the world of men. She was aware only of the repercussions of Mamá Cielo’s anger, and the chaos the house could be thrown into when Guzmán, who was the acknowledged troublemaker, would get into scandals that made Mamá shut the front door, and sometimes even take to her bed for days, leaving Ramona to take care of everything.

Ramona became aware of her power over men the same year that Carmelo was killed in Korea. It was on Saturdays that Mamá Cielo would tell Ramona to walk to Las Fuentes out in the country and pick some herbs that grew wild around the springs. She used these to make home remedies for herself and the children. She made teas with yerba buena, chicory, and other weeds and plants that cured everything from constipation to menstrual cramps. She had taught Ramona how to identify the plants.

On this day Ramona was fourteen years old. She had already met Rafael at the church with her brother Guzmán and had begun to dream about him. In her mind she saw Rafael as an angel who lifted her from her bed at night and took her walking through the stars. There were vague sensations in her thighs and belly when she thought of the slender blond boy, but this part of the pleasure she had not yet named. She was thinking about Rafael when she reached the area where springs came out of the earth in burbling pools. There was a field just beyond the springs where cattle usually grazed, but today the field was spotted with green tents, and men in army uniforms were everywhere. She felt embarrassed to have come upon these men, some of whom were in their white undershirts shaving and washing themselves in the pools of spring water. But to get to the far end of the field to collect the herbs, Ramona had to cross the springs and walk through the pasture. It did not occur to her to return home without the plants. Mamá was home with a sick child waiting for her.

The men saw her. The ones who had been kneeling down to wash themselves stood up.

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