Gringo Santa and the Perfect Doll

Maria Sanchez Gutierrez held her hand up in front of her face and spread her fingers wide. In the light coming through the dirty bus window, it looked like an old woman’s hand. Like her mother’s hand. Maria was only twenty-nine. She should not have a hand like that. Still, there it was. The knuckles were swollen, the nails broken, and the skin in between the thumb and the first finger had cracked open again. Wider this time, and the red angry color was spreading. It was very painful.

“Possibly it’s an allergy,” the doctor at the hospital had said. “Or maybe it comes from the harsh cleaning chemicals you use. Either way, you must stop putting your hands in water with strong detergents for a while. Maybe six weeks.”

She had laughed at the doctor. She didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but how stupid was that? How long could she keep her job cleaning rooms at the resort if she refused to put her hands in the buckets of soapy water and disinfectant used in the tourists’ bathrooms? Six weeks? More likely they would fire her in six hours if she did that. Or six minutes.

So the doctor gave her some cream that helped for awhile. But it had run out and she couldn’t afford to buy more, not with Navidad only a week away. Maria sighed and pushed her hand inside her worn coat, willing the pain away and wishing it was only her hand that hurt. Her feet were swollen and rubbed raw inside her shoes. Even worse was her back, which burned from ten hours of bending to clean around toilets and under beds.

Maria wanted to go home where she could put her feet up and put some ice on her spine. Instead she bounced along the highway to Cancun. It would take the bus an hour to get there and an hour back home. All this to get a doll for the daughter who no longer spoke to her.

********************

“I hate you, Mama! I hate you!” Sofia had run from the small kitchen up the stairs to slam her bedroom door shut.

Luis was sitting at the nearby table repairing a lamp he had found on the street that day. As his daughter ran past him, he looked at his wife who stood preparing dinner over steaming pots. “What’s that all about?”

“She is still upset about the doll.”

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