Cup of Water under My Bed: A Memoir

Summary of Cup of Water under My Bed

1. 1

   When Home Speaks Two Languages

   

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   Picture a five-year-old girl standing at the threshold of Holy Family Catholic School, where English sounds foreign and frightening. At home, her mother creates linguistic compromises-"el vacuum," "la teacher"-mixing Spanish articles with English nouns in a beautiful, broken code that belongs to neither world completely. This is where the journey begins: in the painful space between languages, where every word carries the weight of identity, belonging, and survival. The girl begins to resent Spanish, blaming it for her struggles with English and her mother's factory work. She distances herself from her family's culture, consuming American sitcoms about white families while convincing herself she has no history of her own. Yet secretly, she longs for the Spanish conversations, the cigars, the comfort of Walter Mercado on TV. Her father's warning echoes constantly: study hard to avoid the factory. She excels, checking out library books by the dozens, translating her family's sayings literally-"Don't drown yourself in a cup of water." After college comes the supposed reward: a job in book publishing. But mastery of English brings no happiness. Years later, attempting to reclaim Spanish through classes, she discovers she speaks with English syntax and a child's vocabulary. Reading Spanish feels like meeting a loving stranger who shares her history but remains just beyond complete understanding. Twenty years after kindergarten, she returns to Holy Family School, now transformed into El Centro de Guadalupe. The place where she'd begun becoming "white" has itself grown brown and Spanish-a reminder that borders multiply with every step we take.

2. 2

   The Stories That Raised Me

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   Every night, a mother lies beside her six-year-old daughter, recounting the same stories of leaving Colombia-first at sixteen for a Bogota factory, then at twenty-eight for America, believing promises of dollars growing on trees, only to find more factory work and crushing loneliness. Her stories feature monsters: cursing factory women, her sister Rosa who lent money for the journey, immigration officials. She tells of marrying a Cuban man, using her pregnancy as proof of their legitimate marriage at the Canadian border. In one rare happy story, she recalls learning that mothers love their children regardless of appearance-a lesson she needed as much as her daughter. As the girl grows, she tries teaching her mother English with colorful magnetic letters, believing language will save her from dismissive receptionists. Eventually, she discovers feminism and writing, finding power in naming experiences. Her mother squeezes the word "feminism" like an avocado at the market-suspicious of its ripeness. Through her mother's narratives, she learns that history isn't just what happened, but how we choose to remember it. Storytelling becomes survival-a way to carry home wherever you go.

3. 3

   Hidden Gods and Secret Faith

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   Behind the boiler sits a clay dish of M&Ms and Tootsie Rolls. Nearby, tiny iron toys rest beside Cuban coffee. A tin rooster perches atop the kitchen cupboard. These strange arrangements are just part of childhood-normal, unexplained, forbidden to touch. When questions arise, her mother says, "Son cosas de tu papa"-your father's things. While she attends Catholic school, her father never goes to church. He drinks Coors beer until he becomes angry or passes out. At fourteen, Tia Chuchi reveals the truth: these objects belong to Santeria. The rock with cowrie-shell eyes is Eleggua, a warrior spirit. Her father transforms from a drunk into someone with a secret spiritual life. At fifteen, she leaves Jesus. At Paramus Catholic High School, she learns Bible stories are parables, not literal truth. After rejecting Catholicism, she suffers a devastating car accident-divine punishment, she believes. Yet she secretly prays to Eleggua for exams and driving tests. In graduate school, she learns Eleggua is an orisha, a Yoruban god who traveled with enslaved people to Cuba. One day, Ana the santera performs rituals in the basement, passing a small bird over her body before slitting its throat. The sacrifice feels normal, like Catholic communion. Her father speaks to the deities in a tender voice she's never heard before-and forgiveness, like faith, requires time and revision.

4. Chapter 4

   Women Who Know, Water That Speaks

   La Viejita Maria's apartment overflows with religious items-carnations, rosary beads, saints with dollar bills at their feet. She shuffles tarot cards and predicts a full scholarship for college. It comes true. New Jersey teems with such women who read cards, speak with spirits, prescribe remedies. The family can't agree what to call them-brujas, witches, women who know-but they remain central to life. When these women diagnose envidia (envy), the family performs cleansing rituals with coconuts and Florida water. The mother warns: don't tell anyone our business because "any little good you have someone else covets." Cups of water talk, ferrying messages between the living, the santos, and the dead. Childhood baths in water with cologne and white carnation petals wash away malas energias. Though shivering and skeptical, something shifts when emerging smelling of cologne. When nightmares plague teenage years, a cup of water appears under the bed. Years later in San Francisco, a santera named Yvette says, "Eleggua saw that. He was there"-referring to the father's abuse. A knot in the chest loosens. Sometimes we don't need answers-we need witnesses.

   Chapter 5

   Love Without Maps

   The women warn: "Esos no sirven" - Colombian men don't work. Twisted nursery rhymes explain how they get drunk, cheat, never earn enough. At sixteen, meeting Julio at McDonald's defies these warnings. But the family has their own formula: Cuban father's alcoholism beats womanizing, college-educated men are best, white over black, forget Caribbean men, consider Argentinians. At college, a sexuality workshop introduces lesbians for the first time. The idea of kissing a girl had never occurred before. Without the mother's warnings about men, navigation happens through trial and error. Falling for dark-haired Lisette - who carries bags and whispers desires in dressing rooms - feels like love transcending gender. But after the breakup, heartbreak can't be shared with the first women loved: mother and aunties. Coming out leaves the mother hyperventilating. "This doesn't happen in Colombia," she insists. Tia Chuchi accuses her niece of trying to kill her mother. The family settles into uncomfortable silence - the weight of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" feeling like death. Speaking to high school students, the sanitized version emerges: "I'm attracted to who the person is on the inside." But this oversimplification misses truth - gender and sexuality matter profoundly. Bisexuality isn't about having a closet - it's about shifting between worlds, refusing borders others insist must exist.

   Chapter 6

   The Price of Becoming

   At fifteen, the first McDonald's paycheck of $71 goes straight to the beauty store for a $4.99 lipstick mother would never approve of. This isn't about makeup - it's buying relief from class, racial, and sexual oppressions. At eighteen, filling out a campus credit card application without understanding what it is - parents pay cash for everything. When it arrives, $100 Timberland boots are purchased without hesitation. Tia Chuchi can't understand this materialism: "No one in our family is like that." After college, credit cards accumulate like trophies. Only ricos have credit, but here's a wallet full of plastic. Using them to fit in at work - buying drinks, clothes, subscriptions - while hiding that family struggles financially. The bills become hieroglyphs as debt grows. Eventually, the thread snaps. Freezing cards, joining a support group, tracking expenses. After saving $1,000, declaring cure - only to charge over $1,000 in five weeks. Returning in tears, wanting to reject consumer culture but loving iPhones and $22.50 lipstick. The lesson emerges: material desire connects deeply to the need for belonging in a country that insists on outsider status.

   Chapter 7

   Taking Apart, Coming Together

   When a mother tailors a skirt, she turns it inside out to examine the seams. In Spanish, she's "desbaratandola"-not taking away but taking apart. This is what happens with these stories: turning them inside out, reassembling them in ways that make sense now. After leaving the Times, three suitcases bulge with books and a map of San Francisco. The morning of departure, the driver's car can't fit both mother and three suitcases. Standing under silver streetlight, tears flow-choosing belongings over mother. In Oakland, working at ColorLines feels like joining a big family. Mother refuses to visit, seeing enough of "el famoso" San Francisco on Telemundo. After leaving, everyone unravels. Parents move to Hialeah, Florida. Sister goes to Albany, then DC. Mother's sisters scatter. When Tia Dora dies after heart surgery, Tia Chuchi wails "Se nos fue"-though what needs saying is that Tia Dora didn't leave, she died. In Florida, mother transforms again. When factory jobs fail, she starts an alterations business. Women from Hialeah bring their lives in plastic bags: skirts to hem, pants to take in, complaints about sales and disappointments. Writing becomes how to leave family and take them along. One day on a crowded bus, a woman's voice breaks through, hollering at the driver to stop. Her voice, and the way everyone joins to help her, brings realization: home was never about a place. It's about us-about knowing what it's like trying to get off the bus, about recognizing shared humanity. Home is the language we create together, the stories we tell, the water we place under beds, the love that refuses borders.

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