I figured Santos probably wasn’t legal. Who else would work for two bucks an hour? And why else would Eli have had to pay Mrs. Glass five grand to get him here? But he seemed like a decent guy. He kept the bathroom clean, he only talked if you talked to him first, and he worked his tail off on the farm.
For the next couple days, we figured out how to run the farm together. We learned how to get a whole day’s work done in half the time it used to take me. I always felt bad when he’d work harder than me and not even have a bed or family dinners.
Every evening, my mom dished up his dinner and brought it to his room before she served our plates. I could always hear him repeating gracias down the hall. Made me feel like garbage just saying “good soup” between bites. My mom made sure to serve his food during the news so my dad wouldn’t notice he got to eat first.
I noticed he kept wearing the same clothes he showed up in on the first day.
“Do you have clothes?” I said in broken Spanish one evening.
“Solo esto, pero es suficiente”, just these but they’re enough. I learned he’d been washing his clothes in the bathroom sink at night and hanging them outside to dry. He showed me his clothesline and seemed ashamed to have used some of Eli’s rope to make it.
I gestured for him to come to my room. I had him try on a few of my clothes and they fit, so I let him have a couple sets of work clothes. It turns out he didn’t have any clothes to sleep in either, and I didn’t want my mom walking in and getting startled, so I gave him a few pairs of boxers. Imagine showing up to work without even a spare pair of boxers and just being okay with that.
I think he was surprised we had a washing machine. I told him it didn’t work very well and it made horrible noises, but it sure had to be better than washing clothes in a bathroom sink. I showed him the washing schedule and said he could throw his clothes in with mine. I think that’s what I said anyway. The whole time I was talking and making hand gestures, Santos just nodded so I think he figured out what I meant.
Just as I closed the dryer, my mom stood in the doorway holding a basket of Eli’s clothes. “You need any help? You told Santos he could use the washer, right?” I told her I had, and Santos pointed at my name on my mom’s laminated laundry schedule on the wall and gave her a thumbs up.
My mom’s eyebrows raised. “Is Santos wearing your old work clothes?”
“Yeah, he just had the set he showed up in so I lent him some of mine. I had too many anyway.”
My mom did that thing where she smiled and messed up my hair. I loved that but I couldn’t ever let on that I did. “What a nice kid. See, I can raise a good kid.” She looked at Santos, pointing at me. “Bueno Nino.”
It’s little things like that you end up remembering forever. I don’t wanna get all mushy, but I really miss that. If I ever have a kid someday I’m gonna make sure to do stuff like that.
“Say, you guys done for the day already?” You can always tell when someone wants something from you. This was my mom’s strategy, which I liked much better than Eli’s. Besides, my mom always gave us better chores than Eli did.
“Yeah, he helped me get done fast today.”
“Great. I’ve got a project I could use some help with.” I knew it. We followed her to the kitchen, where she had a huge pot boiling on the stove and mason jars all over. It looked like a redneck version of one of those science labs in the movies, I swear. I laughed a little cause I hadn’t ever seen any of this before. I knew my mom did some chores while I was taking care of the farm, but I never bothered to learn what they were.
She started talking really loud. “We’re pickling today! And now I have two strong young men to help!” I hadn’t seen her this excited in ages. I don’t think I ever did again either.
“Santos! Diccionario!” He was just wearing socks on the linoleum floor from probably the 70s, so he fell right on his butt trying to follow my mom’s order as fast as he could. We all laughed so hard Santos couldn’t even get up. He just kind of flopped around on the floor like a fish for a few minutes. You ever laugh so hard you think you might piss your pants while your foreign employee flops around like a fish? Man, it felt so good to laugh like that.
When we all caught our breath I remembered we couldn’t ever laugh like that around Eli. “Where’s dad?” I really hoped my mom would say he died or something. I guess I always hoped that though. I know it’s horrible to want someone dead. But I did and I don’t think I even regret it now. It would have served him right. Turns out he was just in the next town over getting some tools sharpened or whatever.
But there we were all so happy that afternoon. I mean we were damn happy. My mom found some Spanish music to put on. Santos said that’s what moms listen to when they do chores or something. We just talked and made pickles and every so often my mom would shout a random Spanish word that she would remember and Santos would point and respond, “Eyyy”.
One time Santos poured water in a bowl that was supposed to have vinegar in it. My mom dipped a cup in the water and splashed it all the way across the kitchen at me. Normally I hate stuff like that but it was probably a hundred degrees in there with how much water she was boiling. I guess you have to boil a lot of water to make pickles. I splashed her back with the cup I’d been drinking out of, and Santos looked scared to death so I grabbed some ice cubes out of the freezer and put them right down the back of his shirt. It was even better cause he tucked his shirt into his pants so he just stood there shouting until he could get his shirt untucked.
You know how the movies always have food fights at schools but in real life, schools never let you do them? Well we ended up having a food fight just like in the movies. I swear we ruined that poor little kitchen.