Read Online The Tori Trilogy by Alicia Danielle Voss-Guillén - Free Book Online Page A

a ten-year-old aunt who plays with Barbies and collects Webkinz and wears purple high-tops. It doesn’t seem real.
    â€œThe baby’s due right before Christmas, isn’t it?” Gina continues.
    â€œDecember twenty-first,” I say. “If she’s even a little bit late, she could be born on Christmas.”
    â€œ She?” Abuelita shakes her head at me. “Time will tell, cariño .”
    We have a delicious dinner of chicken and rice with salad tossed in Abuelito’s homemade salad dressing. When we’re through, Gina and I pitch in to help clear the table and wash dishes, and then we all return to the living room. Abuelito brings the fire back to life, and we play cards and talk some more, and after a while, Abuelita dishes up big bowls of chocolate-chip ice cream for us all, and we eat while we play and talk.
    When our bowls are empty and our third game of Go Fish has come to an end, Abuelita takes out her old photo albums, and we spend over an hour looking at them. Gina and I have seen them many times before, but we never get tired of the hundreds of pictures, carefully organized by date from earliest to latest. The pictures are black-and-white in the first albums, faded-color in the middle albums, and brighter-color in the most recent albums.
    They date all the way back to when Abuelita was a little girl growing up in Lima, Peru. It’s fascinating to see her so young, on her way to school, or playing with her brothers and sisters. There aren’t many pictures from that long ago, but in the ones she does have, the city of Lima looks so different from the modern photos I’ve seen.
    And then there are the pictures of Dad and Auntie Luz and Auntie Crista and Uncle Javi growing up in an apartment in Chicago, then later on, in this very same bungalow in Cicero. There are pictures of them on the first day of school, sitting on Santa’s lap at the mall, in a sailboat on Lake Michigan, visiting relatives in Lima.
    â€œYour dad looks like Joey in this picture,” Gina points out, and I gasp in horror when I see that she’s right.
    Abuelita laughs and laughs.
    I decide to change the subject. “I like the pictures that were taken in Lima,” I say. “I can’t wait till Dad takes me there.”
    â€œWhen will that be?” asks Gina.
    â€œI don’t know,” I sigh. Dad took Andrew to Peru when he was twelve, and he took Nate and Ben together when they were fourteen and eleven. He’s been saying for years that he’ll take Joey and me as soon as I’m “old enough to appreciate it.” I’m ten-and-a-half now, so I’m not sure what he’s waiting for.
    â€œIt stinks that I have to go with Joey,” I continue. “Why couldn’t we all go separately, like Andrew got to?”
    Abuelita smoothes my long hair with her fingers. “Andrew is the oldest,” she reminds me. This is not a good point, but it’s a point enough.
    I sigh loudly.
    As always, Gina and I spend the night in the small, cozy guest room at the back of the house where Auntie Crista and Auntie Luz slept when they were growing up. Their old furniture is gone, replaced by an old-fashioned four-poster double bed, a tall dresser with a tilting mirror, and two round bed tables with long, spindly legs.
    The mattress is thick and soft, and Abuelita piles cover after cover on top of us when she and Abuelito come in to kiss us goodnight. The very last one is an alpaca wool blanket that was brought from Peru. It’s brown and white with what Dad would call “indigenous designs” all over it, sort of like Native American loom weaving.
    I like thinking that I’m wrapped up in a piece of Peru. Spending time with Abuelito and Abuelita always makes me feel closer to that part of my background. And, as Abuelito flicks off the guest room lights, I realize something else: being with my grandparents makes me very proud to be