I am returning to Mexico City next week. It has been over four years since I was last there. The reason I am going back is a long story. One I will probably tackle in installments.

Let me go back twenty years, when I was a gangly thirteen year-old, just about to enter the difficulties of puberty. I lived in Mexico with my parents and my younger sister. For those of you who don’t know, my father is Mexican and my mother is American. After they were married in the US, they moved to Mexico City where I was born and grew up. Almost every summer, my mother, sister, and I went to California to spend a couple of months with my maternal grandparents. My father would join us for the last few weeks and we would all return together.

Growing up, I never questioned the stability of my family. In fact, as I saw friends who had divorced parents, I always felt fortunate that my parents were together. My sister and I did not see my father much, though. During the week he was always at work, usually coming home after we had gone to bed. He also worked at least half a day on Saturdays, and Sundays we would go to my grandmother’s house where my sister and I would mingle with my cousins and the adults retreated to a different part of the house.

It was June 1993. The school year was coming to an end and I was relieved to have all my exams behind me. I was looking forward to escaping the summer heat and pollution of the city and spending a quiet summer in Sierra foothills of California with my grandparents. One morning I walked past my parents room and I saw them sitting on the edge of the bed talking. My mother looked upset and my father looked nervous. This is one of those images that will remain with me forever. Every detail is still there, the ugly orange knit cardigan my mother was wearing and the ratty yellow bathrobe my father had on. The stale smoke that wafted through the air from all the cigarettes my father had been smoking. They told me to go somewhere else, do some chore probably. So I left.

During that talk, my father told my mother that he was going to move out that summer while we were in the US. He needed time and space to think. He wanted to evaluate his marriage and what he wanted from life. He told her, however, that my sister and I were not to know until we got back.

My mother, devastated, tried but eventually could not keep this news from us. We knew something was wrong and she finally shared what she knew. That was one of the most difficult summers I ever had.

More to come...