A New Mexican Cuento Aaron Rudolph I’m visiting my grandmother at her home in Río Lucío and my mother’s there, too. Minutes before the drive home I’m on the ground like a swimmer. Laying in the dirt, my head buried under my car, I’m trying to see what’s been dragging, sounding like a knife grating against rocks. I’m no mechanic—fire might be enveloping the car for all I know and Grandma asks, Te caillites? and I don’t know what that means but know just enough to shake my head no and Mom says that Grandma asked if I’ve fallen. No, Grandma. Estoy bien. We stay still, bobcats waiting for something else to stir. A few days earlier, my college buddy told me when he was nine and played all summer around his grandmother’s house with his best friend and one day from inside her house she told my friend something in Navajo and he waved and smiled. His friend said, No, she’s telling you off. She says to stop playing in the yard and for all my friend knew, she might have said that the moon is purple. On my trips with my mother, her mother and she converse in Spanish, their words like mountain winds circling through the house, stopping in the kitchen where we’re all sipping coffee. The language of our grandmothers sooths us like the stories we heard before bedtime. Their voices are snug and warm, blankets holding us in place. Their smiles are sweet like bizcochito cookies browning in the stove.