Photograph by Melissa Golden/Redux, for The New York Times The New York Times Magazine 49
‘‘You’re just exaggerating,’’ Fanny would say, addressing her mother
in Spanish with usted, the formal ‘‘you’’ that Spanish speakers usually
reserve for authority fi gures and strangers. Underlying this habit was
the private assessment Fanny had formed of Rosario: ‘‘My mom is not
the type of person you can actually talk to.’’
Fanny sometimes felt as if they fought about everything now: about
money, about going out and, more and more, about makeup. Fanny had
taken to leaving the house with a full face of makeup, complete with
novelty contacts that magnifi ed her brown irises into green, pink, gray
or purple discs. ‘‘I don’t even have that much makeup on,’’ Rosario said.
Maybe it was the makeup or maybe it was the way Fanny sat up straight
and had a quick answer for every question he posed, but Rosario and
Fanny were pretty sure that the elderly manager at the diner across
the road from their apartment hadn’t known how old she was when
he off ered her a summer job waitressing a few days a week. Rosario
didn’t stand in her way.
SOME DAYS THAT SUMMER, Fanny woke up in their 8-by-10
room, and Rosario was still asleep, because she’d worked late the night
before. Some nights she went to bed after her shift at the diner, and
Rosario wasn’t there, because she was still at work. And sometimes
she woke up because her mother had cranked up her favorite Latin
music on Fanny’s old speakers and was dancing in her
pajamas. ‘‘Wake up, Fanny!’’ Rosario would say, shimmy-
ing at the foot of the bed. ‘‘Come dance.’’ Fanny would
laugh and join her.
Mostly, though, they saw little of each other, except in passing. It felt weird
to Fanny. ‘‘Mom, I’m going out,’’ she would say. Or: ‘‘Mom, I’m going to work,
I’ll be out late.’’ Or: ‘‘Mom, I’m going to Walmart — do you need anything?’’
By the fall, Fanny had dropped the diner shifts because of school, but
she would soon fi nd new ways to avoid being home. She got a fake ID and
started sneaking out of the house to go clubbing. When Rosario fi rst caught
her, she said that if she couldn’t stop Fanny from going out with her friends,
she at least didn’t want her to drink. The second time, she was suspicious
that Fanny had been drinking anyway. Their fi ghts turned louder and more
vicious. Rosario couldn’t stop herself from saying to Fanny: I gave you
everything, and this is how you behave? One night after Fanny had been out
late, not wanting to face her mother at home, she was sexually assaulted.
She didn’t tell her mother. Fanny’s mental health, already fragile, took a
sharp turn for the worse, and she was in and out of school all year. She spent
time in a mental health facility, and only just managed to pass eighth grade.
By the summer after middle school, Fanny had moved out of the
room she’d shared with Rosario and in with her brother, who lived
in a neighboring county with a couple of friends and their girlfriends
and kids. Come this fall, Fanny had decided, she would enroll in high
school in another town; maybe she would pick up shifts with a house-
cleaning crew after school. After graduation, maybe she’d get a business
degree and start doing other people’s makeup for a living, or maybe
she’d become an auto mechanic. She didn’t talk much to
Rosario about what she was thinking. She and Alejandro
were moving in with a friend of his who lived in the new
school district. It would be her fi fth home in two years.Above: Fanny with her
mother, Rosario.