Short Stories

Colors

    Alejandro hated Texas. It wasn't for any of the usual reasons; the accent, the people, the fact that they wanted to secede. He hated it because all of the stupid traffic lights were turned sideways - at least, where his mother lived, they were. He didn't really care if it was a statewide thing; all he cared about was that his mother had chosen to live in some old, white neighborhood in Texas where all of the traffic lights were tipped over when Alejandro couldn't tell the difference between green and red.
    His mother told him that she wanted to be close to Mexico, for when her brother finally made it over the border. Alejandro knew that he wasn't coming over anytime soon, but he didn't have the heart to tell his poor mother that. He did, however, have the heart to tell her that all of the tickets he was getting for running red lights were going to make him go broke. She told him, in her typical manner, to "get the hell over it" and to "come down to visit for Christmas, or else!" Alejandro wasn't intent on figuring out what the '"or else" was, and he had wrestled his young son into the backseat, wrapped a few last-minute presents, and taken off. Normally, little Mateo would be yapping his head off and eating potato chips with his mouth open, but he knew better than to do that in Texas. He had learned that lesson when he was very small, even smaller than he was now: being obnoxious in Texas was not something that his dad was going to tolerate.
    Alejandro stared at the traffic light ahead of him. He couldn't tell at all whether it was green or red. There were no other cars in the intersection that he could see, so he decided that it was better now than when a car showed up, and he eased off the brake. The dented once-white car slipped through the intersection and safely to the other side. Alejandro let out a rough sigh. If he remembered right, that was the last traffic light before he got to his mother's house. The ugly monotone Christmas decorations, which Alejandro knew were meant to be red and green, weren't half as bad as the sideways lights.
Normally, Mateo would beg his father to turn on the radio. Instead, in Texas, the car was unnaturally silent. Alejandro had been too buried in his own frustration to notice, the white noise of his internal monologue (which was something along the lines of "oh my god, what fucking color is that") buzzing in his ears at all times, but now that he could relax a little bit the quiet was suffocating. He pressed the button to turn on the radio. Instead of the pop station that would have played at home, Alejandro found himself assaulted by some kind of country adaption of All I Want For Christmas, echoing tinnily out of the crappy speakers. He reached out and slapped the radio off. All he wanted for Christmas were right-side-up traffic lights. With a sigh, he took a final left turn into his mother's neighborhood.
"Can we talk now?" Mateo's voice drifted up from the backseat. Alejandro nodded, guilty. It wasn't his fault that his father was colorblind. The little boy wasn't, and his favorite color was the green that Alejandro couldn't see. He drew his father picture after picture in forest green crayon. Alejandro didn't have the heart to tell him that green wasn't really green to him, and he accepted the drawings with bright smiles. The fridge back home was covered in green grass and green trees and even one sheet of paper that Mateo had colored entirely green for no apparent reason.
"Yeah, buddy, we can talk. Are you excited to see Nonna?"
"Yeah, but what I really want is for it to be Christmas today! I can't wait to open all of my presents!" Mateo clapped in the backseat, and Alejandro didn't have to glance at the rearview mirror to know that his son was bouncing up and down in his seat. Christmas was his favorite holiday by far; he liked the green and the presents. It was Alejandro's least favorite, but Mateo's enthusiasm never failed to make him get a little more into the holiday spirit.
Alejandro laughed and pulled into his mother's driveway. Almost before the car was fully stopped, Mateo was unbuckled and out on the concrete, sprinting for the front door of the squat yellow house. Alejandro couldn't help but smile as he grabbed the luggage and the presents from the trunk, slamming it shut and following in his son's footsteps towards his mother's home.
It was only a couple of seconds before she was outside, the screen door slamming into the wall from her dramatic entry. "Nonna!" Mateo wailed, and he threw himself into her arms. She positively beamed.
"Aww, Mateo! You're so big now!" Nonna was tiny, and Mateo was a chubby kid, but she spun him in a circle like he was as light as a feather. She smiled at Alejandro over Mateo's shoulder. "Alé, baby, come on inside. I have a present for you."
Nonna spun and walked into her home, not bothering to check whether or not Alejandro was following. She chattered away with Mateo about how the second grade was going instead. Alejandro dumped the presents and the luggage by the front door, slipping off his shoes to reveal the Christmas socks that Mateo had picked out for him. Alejandro rather hated them, but Mateo had insisted, and Alejandro could never say no to his son's puppy eyes.
Nonna led the way into the living room, where she had decorated a Christmas tree with ornaments and ribbons and lights. Alejandro tried not to cringe. It looked awful - at least, it did to him. The whole thing was almost the same color, an ugly beige-like tone. Mateo liked it, though, and he clapped his hands from his place on Nonna's hip. "Nonna, do I get a present too?"
"No, baby, you'll get to open yours tomorrow on Christmas day. Your papá gets his early, because I just couldn't wait!" Nonna leant down and picked up a present from under the tree with her free hand. It was striped white and green, or white and red - Alejandro couldn't tell. He took the present from his mother's hand.
"Are you sure you want me to open this today? I can certainly wait until tomorrow."
"No, baby," Nonna said, clapping her hands like Mateo. "Open it! Come on, rip the paper off!"
Alejandro couldn't help but laugh as he tore the paper away. Underneath was an ambiguous brown cardboard box. He tore off the packing tape and reached inside. From underneath the packing peanuts, Alejandro unearthed a pair of square-rimmed glasses.
"What are these?" Alejandro didn't have vision problems. He didn't even wear reading glasses. Nonna ignored his confusion.
"Come on, Alé, put them on!"
Alejandro sighed, wondering how he always ended up being the one bossed around, and slipped the glasses onto his face.
He almost fell over. There was a whole new world on the other side of the glasses. The tree was two different colors, two awe-inspiring different colors. Alejandro spun in a slow circle. Everything looked different. Gone was the monotone beige of all of the Christmas decorations; in its place were two colors that he couldn't even begin to describe. He stared down at the socks Mateo had picked out for him. They were wonderful. Mateo had been right.
All at once, Alejandro remembered the drawings that Mateo had made that Nonna kept up on her fridge. He stumbled into the kitchen. The hand towels weren't a yellowish beige anymore, and neither were the skimpy Texan trees outside the window. Alejandro could pay little attention, though; all he could see were his son's drawings, in red and green, all across the door of the fridge.
There was the sheet of paper that had been colored in completely green, along with the green grass and the green trees. There were drawings of Mateo and Alejandro holding hands, and one of a green hippo. Alejandro felt his heart stutter in his chest. So this is what Mateo sees.
"Alé, baby, are you alright? I didn't mean to upset you." Alejandro turned to see Nonna with her hand on his arm, looking worried. With a start, he realized that tears were dripping down his face. He shook his head back and forth at his mother.
"It's beautiful," he whispered, and he meant it.
"Papá, can you see the colors now?" Mateo's voice was small. He had never seen his father cry before. Alejandro smiled down at him.
"Yes, Teo," he said. "I can see them."