I Arrived Without Warning and Saw Something It Took Me Years to Understand

One of the stories I wrote a while back that got the biggest reaction was about Sandra, my mom’s best friend. For weeks I got messages asking about her, about the two of them together, about what their relationship was like. So I decided to write this.

If you’re expecting an explicit account where the two of them end up tangled in bed, I’m afraid I’m going to disappoint you. What I’m going to tell you is real, and it’s much more subtle than that. These are three scenes I lived through as a teenager, and at the time I didn’t interpret them in any particular way. Today, with twenty-two years behind me, it’s impossible to remember them without thinking there was something more there, even if I can never fully confirm it.

They’re three unrelated moments, separated in time, each with its own texture. On their own they mean nothing. Together, they tell another story.

***

The first time was on a Tuesday in October. The history teacher was absent and we got out an hour earlier than usual. I walked the same blocks from school as always, alone, with my headphones on and without warning that I was getting home early.

The front door gave way with its usual creak. The living room was empty and silent, but from the back of the hall came a smell I recognized right away: almond oil. Sweet, warm, the kind that places you somewhere specific before you even know exactly where you are.

I kept moving down the hall. My parents’ bedroom door was ajar, as it usually was when nobody else was home. I peeked in without thinking, purely out of habit.

They were both there.

Sandra was lying face down on the matrimonial bed, her arms folded beneath her head. She was only wearing a black lace bra, unfastened in back, the straps falling to either side of the mattress. Her breasts, large, were pressed into the mattress and spilling out a little at the sides. Her eyes were closed and her expression was completely relaxed, as if she were resting on the beach.

Mom was sitting beside her on the bed, kneeling back on her heels. She was giving her a slow massage on the shoulders and back. Her hands gleamed with oil and moved calmly over Sandra’s skin, her thumbs sinking into the muscles of her neck, loosening the tension little by little.

—Oh, Flor... there, right there —Sandra murmured, her voice thick and relaxed.

Mom let out a soft laugh. She leaned forward to reach more of Sandra’s back, and with that movement her blouse opened slightly, revealing the edge of the red bra she had on. Her curls fell over her face and she brushed them aside with her forearm without stopping the massage.

That was when they both saw me.

—Caro! What are you doing here? —Mom exclaimed, but without moving quickly, without jerking. She just smiled, as if she’d been caught doing something minor.

Sandra lifted her head slightly. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was tousled across the pillow.

—Hi, sweetheart... you’re back already? —she said, in that soft voice she had when she was completely relaxed.

I shrugged, my backpack still hanging from my shoulder.

—The teacher was absent.

—Sandra had knots all up her back —Mom explained naturally, without taking her hands off her friend’s skin—. I’m giving her a massage. Want some afternoon tea? I’ll make something and the three of us can have a snack together.

It didn’t seem weird to me. They had been friends forever, since before I was born. Mom had always given Sandra massages when she came over all tight, and Sandra returned the favor. I’d seen them a thousand times in bras or wrapped in towels after the pool. It was part of the trust they had, that comfort women have when they’ve known each other for twenty years and don’t need privacy from one another.

But now, writing this from my apartment, I remember details I completely overlooked back then.

The way Mom’s thumbs lingered in the curve where Sandra’s back met her waist. It wasn’t the brief, technical pressure of someone doing a favor. It was something else: slow, almost contemplative.

The sigh Sandra let out when Mom found the exact point. Longer than a knot in the muscle should require. With something inside it that wasn’t just physical relief.

The smile Mom gave when Sandra murmured her name.

I said, “Okay, I’ll change and come down,” and closed the door carefully, as if I didn’t want to interrupt something that didn’t yet have a name. From the hallway I heard the two of them laugh again, more quietly, as if sharing a joke I wasn’t in a position to understand.

And maybe that was true. Maybe I wasn’t.

***

The second scene was on a winter Friday. Dad was away on a work trip and my sister Magui was sleeping over at a classmate’s house. Mom invited Sandra over to watch movies, like they sometimes did when they had the house to themselves.

I joined in at first, stretched out on the big couch under a blanket, but by the half-hour mark of the second movie my eyes were already closing. It was one of those slow romantic movies they loved and I found impossible not to fall asleep to.

—I’m going to bed —I said, yawning.

Mom kissed my forehead. Sandra ruffled my hair from the far end of the sofa.

—Rest up, pretty girl.

I went upstairs, put on my pajamas, and fell asleep almost immediately.

I woke around three in the morning needing to use the bathroom. The house was silent, but from downstairs there was a dim light: the TV was on, sitting on the menu screen. I thought they must have forgotten to turn it off. I went down the stairs barefoot, without turning on any lights so as not to make noise.

And there they were. Asleep on the big couch, covered by the same fleece blanket I had been using.

They were hugging.

Sandra on her side, her back to the couch’s armrest, her legs tucked in. Mom settled right behind her, spooning her perfectly: one arm around Sandra’s waist under the blanket, her head resting against the back of Sandra’s neck. Sandra’s brown hair mixed with Mom’s curls as if they had slept like that their whole lives.

I didn’t think anything weird. It was really cold, they were best friends in the world, it was completely logical that they’d curled up together. When I was little I’d fallen asleep hugging Mom many times on that very same sofa.

I stood there for a moment looking at them from the bottom of the stairs. The blanket had slipped a little off Sandra’s shoulder, revealing the strap of the bra she was still wearing. Mom had her open hand on her friend’s belly, her fingers completely relaxed, as if that were the most natural place in the world to put a hand.

I went upstairs, peed, and went back to my bed without making a thing of it.

***

The third time was on another weekday afternoon, another day school let out earlier than expected. I walked the same blocks with my headphones on, thinking about something else.

I came into the house and from the hall there was soft music, the kind Mom played when she was in a calm mood. I poked my head into the living room.

Mom was half reclined on the big sofa, her back against one end of the armrest, her legs stretched out along the couch. She was wearing a loose cotton T-shirt and house shorts. Her feet were bare, her eyes half-closed. Sandra was sitting at the other end, sideways with her legs crossed, and she had Mom’s feet in her lap.

She was giving her a massage.

I always knew Mom had pretty feet. That day, with the afternoon light slanting in through the big window, they seemed especially beautiful to me: the pronounced arch stood out clearly as Sandra held them, her toenails painted a deep lacquered red, her skin shining slightly from the oil she had already applied.

Sandra worked slowly and with a focus I read, at the time, as mere skill. Her thumbs pressed into the center of the sole, slid toward the heel, returned. Her fingers spread one by one, delicately. She moved slowly up the ankle, made circles, then came back down. It was methodical and at the same time not entirely so: her gaze was fixed on what she was doing, with that low smile Sandra wore when she was in her element, when she was doing something she liked doing.

Mom let out a short sound every time Sandra’s thumbs found the exact spot in the arch. Short, low, somewhere between a sigh and something else.

—Oh, Sandra... there, like that —she murmured, her voice sounding deeper, looser than usual.

Sandra didn’t answer with words. She just smiled a little more, biting her lower lip ever so slightly while her thumbs kept tracing the arch. There was something in that smile that today I recognize perfectly: it was slow, complicit, with a mischievous glint that did not belong to someone doing a favor for a friend.

Mom let out another sound, longer this time, almost a full sigh.

—God, Sandra... don’t stop —she murmured, settling more comfortably into the armrest, surrendered.

That was exactly when she opened her eyes and saw me in the living room doorway.

—Caro! —she exclaimed, but without jumping, without taking her feet out of Sandra’s lap.

Sandra looked up without hurrying. She kept massaging with the same calm as before.

—Hi, pretty girl —she said—. Your mom spent the whole day walking around in new sandals. Her feet are wrecked. I’m giving her a hand.

The explanation made perfect sense to me at the time. Mom always came back wrecked from long outings, always complained about new sandals. There was nothing to interpret.

—Want me to make coffee? —I offered, my backpack still over my shoulder.

—Yes, love, please —Mom replied, closing her eyes again when Sandra resumed the massage—. And a glass of cold water too, if you can.

I went into the kitchen and started getting everything ready. From there I could still clearly hear Mom’s soft little sighs and Sandra’s gentle laugh.

Today, when I remember that scene, I can’t see it any other way. I love having my feet massaged too. And almost always I end up with a warmth that starts in my ankles and slowly climbs up my calves, settles into my belly, doesn’t go away easily. Seeing Sandra hold Mom’s feet with that devotion, that deliberate slowness, that smile that was not entirely innocent... it’s impossible to read it now as anything neutral.

That massage didn’t seem like just a massage. And Mom, with the way she let herself go, the way she surrendered without any reservation to those hands, didn’t seem to be receiving it like one either.

Those two knew something it took me years to understand. And maybe it was enough that only they knew it.