Alicia
MY MOTHER, SURÉ, died on 10 May 1960, a month after I was born. Although I have no memory of her, I’ve spent my life trying to recall her particular smell, her comforting touch, the beating of her heart against my own.
I have a tinted photograph showing me feeding at her right breast, taken a week before she died. I carry it with me everywhere. She held me in her arms for those thirty days and I treasure every moment of our imagined closeness.
The day she died is Mother’s Day, of all days. Can you believe it?
When I was growing up and missing her, my father, Victor, used to reassure me the date proved I was so special Mamá made it her purpose in life to give birth to me, despite the risks. She was forty years old. He’d take me in his arms and give me a consoling embrace, often cradling my face in his hands—but in the secret corner of my mind, I’d wish it was Mamá comforting me. I’d feel confused and even more upset, and guilty too, for hurting Papá if he ever suspected how I felt.
Every year without fail, we used to visit Mamá’s older sister, my Tía Ariché, on the anniversary of Mamá’s death. We’d spend a week at her ranchería in Cerocahui, deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains among the canyons. We’d honour Mamá’s memory, as though celebrating the Día de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, six months early.
The first such visit I clearly remember occurred in May, 1967.
We drove up from our home in Saucillo the day before, in my Tarahumaran grandfather Cerrildo’s 1956 Golden Hawk Studebaker. It was a seven-hour journey, with short stopovers in Cuauhtemoc and Creel.
My older brother Andrés let me win four games of checkers out of seven during the drive, ‘Because you’re still a beginner and learning the moves.’
I went through Andrés’s latest comics between games, reading and rereading the adventures of my favourite superhero, Kalimán, and his eleven-year-old apprentice, Solín, until I was car sick—just the once and fortunately outside the car. Papá bent me over at the roadside, an arm around my waist and his free hand holding back my hair, urging me not to soil his shoes. I slept the rest of the trip stretched out on the back seat with my feet up on Andrés’s lap.
The next morning I woke early and found my Tía Ariché sitting in silence on the chilly patio, looking out across her grapevines. Andrés was out on his early morning training run, and Papá and Abu Cerrildo were still asleep.
Tía’s feisty white miniature Schnauzers, Zipi and Zape, lay alert beside her, their muzzles on their paws, their eyes scanning the vineyard for any marauding thick-billed green parrots or other birds daring to feed on the grapes.
When I sat down, Zape lifted his overhanging eyebrows and met my gaze, the glint of warning in his bright, dark eyes letting me know he’d nip me if I got too close. I promptly lifted my bare feet to the seat of my chair and rested my chin on my raised knees, wrapping my arms around them, and he dismissed me and resumed his surveillance.
The green and gold leaves of the vines gleamed as the sun rose behind us. Clouds of tiny midges shimmered here and there in particles of light above the ripening purple bunches. The sun’s rays slanting towards the rim of the Urique Canyon warmed my back and shoulders, melting away my icy dread at the thought of confronting Tía with the question I’d asked Papá and Abu Cerrildo countless times.
‘Tía, please tell me the truth this time.’
No one else will and I’m sick of asking. The frustrating thought ran through my mind.
‘What truth, sweetheart?’
‘What happened to Mamá? Why did she die?’
Publisher: Dune Publishing (15 January 2025)
Language: English
Paperback: 312 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0975621684
Brief Summary – Elevator Pitch:
1968, Mexico – 2025 Western Australia.
Free-spirited Tarahumaran-Mexican, Alicia Serrano, loses her mother at birth. As a result, she develops a steely resolve to overcome the challenges she faces when she grows up. Like her older brother Andrés, she’s a gifted athlete. When he’s caught up in the political turmoil engulfing Mexico in 1968 and is shot, she does her best to save his life. A highly qualified linguist, she later travels to Spain and then West Africa, joining a team of Australians kayaking down the Niger River. When disaster strikes, she escapes to Western Australia, where she meets Lennard Currie. He invites her to assist in reviving his dying language, Malgana. She hopes her search for happiness is over at last.