9.25

Character prompt: Interpreter; someone who verbally translates between two languages on the spot.

Warning: Theme of loss/death

Jose "Pepe" Juarez had thought, growing up, didn't think much of translating his abuela's words for people. He would help her ask questions at the meat counter in the grocery store, order takeout over the phone, and read her the daily newspaper. When Abuela would inform a neighbor their that she had left over menudo, he was there. When Abuela would write a card to his cousin in Florida, who did not speak any Spanish, Pepe was there.

Pepe did not realize how much he would hate being "there," when he had to tell Abuela she had lung cancer. The doctor, to her credit, did her best to slow down and explain everything to Pepe in layman's terms. But nothing she did was going to make Pepe wish any less that he wasn't bilingual right now. No mater how soothing her tone or simple her words, nothing would EVER prepare him for having to translate "lung cancer" into "cáncer de pulmón."

Abuela was eyeing him expectantly, and a silence began to stretch uncomfortable across the sterile examination room. Pepe heard the doctor clear her throat, and Pepe swallowed.

Turning to Abuela, he looked over her brown, wrinkled skin, her gray hair, and how her crow's feet highlighted her dark brown eyes. He reached out to grab her weathered hands, remembering how her calloused hands used to rub Vicks on his chest when he was sick.

His mind stalled for a moment, before his brain began to stutter to life, and translate the incomprehensible.