He did a fine job. I don’t even remember his name…other stuff on my mind, you can imagine. He was timid, slow, methodical, seemed trustworthy. I was grateful he was there. I asked him to come back the next day. He asked for bus fare. And he even showed up. It was halfway through that second day that he told me, in Spanish, that he liked my clothes. That he liked stretchy clothes because they are comfortable… workout clothes. I didn’t think much of it but two hours later he asked me if I had any clothes for him. Umm. I don’t think so, I said, but I can check in my husband’s closet. We had just donated a bunch of stuff. “No,” he said, “you.” “Do you have clothes for me?” Oh, ummm…searching brain for translations…umm I don’t have many clothes either. And then he kept talking. “I like panties… mini-skirts …you know short—and he held his hand way above his knee…and bras.” I kneeled there, painting a base cabinet in charcoal grey. And I knew from my own work in therapy that I just needed to listen…even though I was uncomfortable. “I like women’s clothes,” he said. And then it occured to me that I had found probably the only closeted homosexual, cross-dressing illegal Mexican house painter in any parking lot in Arizona. He didn’t have a gun, he had a bra! In any other situation, this wouldn’t have seemed out of the ordinary to me, but in my current state and given my narcissism about the intense drama I was living, I was stunned that there are more dramas playing out everywhere all the time. “My girlfriend is going to leave me because she thinks I like men.” And I asked if he did like men. And he said that he had been with men when he was a boy in Mexico. I told him he had come to the right country. I told him that he was lucky to be here where he could have freedom to express himself and be who he wants to be. “Pais” and “libertad” being my only ways of expressing what I was trying to say in my pigeon spanish. I kept leaving the room to check on my baby—a baby comes in very handy during an uncomfortable situation. But mainly I just listened and reminded myself that he truly needed to say these things and he had chosen me as a safe person. And I was. In fact, I had chosen him as a safe person as well.
And he came back the next day and finished a job that I alone would have spent probably two weeks doing. And I was grateful.
As for happy endings, my husband did come back. And he’s doing really well. And so are we. Right now he is putting together an Ikea desk for the studio with his beefy corded drill. Amazing what we can do if we have to. We are stronger than we know. read more