Endless Affection
They arrived early. Olivia knew her boyfriend Mateo liked to be prompt but she hadn’t come with him to meet his family before. They were forty-five minutes ahead of their schedule.
“It’s a big holiday,” he explained at the door to his parents house. “I want to make sure I can help.”
"Do I need to do something, too?" she asked. "I thought your parents wanted to feed me food and ask questions.”
“That's definitely part of their plan.”
As they stood outside, she worried about the size of the house. It wasn’t located in what she thought of as a good neighborhood but it was clearly the biggest residential building in the area. Maybe his parents ruled this section of town and would expect to control her, too.
As soon as they ushered her inside, her fears eased. His parents were thin, short, and dressed informally. They had filled the main room of the house with four tables. She couldn’t tell how many chairs they'd used. Except for the overwhelming presence of so many other early guests - the room seemed half full already - there was nothing to intimidate her. The walls and shelves were filled with cheap art and sentimental knickknacks. The chairs appeared to have been scrounged from a dozen different sets of furniture.
“Welcome, welcome!” said his father.
His mother took their jackets and handed them to a younger woman, who ran off somewhere to hang them up. The younger woman barked a quick hello as she left, friendly even in her rush.
The mother of the house took care of the introductions but there were so many, so fast, at least twenty people in a minute, that as a guest Olivia assumed she wouldn’t be expected to remember most of them. When the greetings finished, she felt lost, nearly abandoned. However, the cycle began again each time more guests arrived. Olivia found herself enlisted as one of the coat check girls. She didn't mind. It gave her something to do and she got to see more of the home.
Rather than enduring the inquisition of suspicious parents, which she had half expected, she fielded questions from the younger generation. Some of them were Mateo's sisters. She couldn’t tell for sure who were related to him and who not, but she thought she identified four siblings.
When it came time to sit for the meal, the sisters shooed Olivia away from joining them in the kitchen. They told her to find a chair next to her boyfriend. It was a rare moment of relief. Mateo immediately started introducing her to more family guests. She tried to concentrate on the names she'd heard from him before. Those were probably the most important.
She realized that despite the throng developing around her, the family had not assigned seats to anyone. Everyone sat in a rough circle around the tables with one or two unlucky guests crammed in at the corners, as sometimes happens when there are too many invitations sent out.
“I’m going to get the last of the wooden stools,” Mateo announced. “You had better occupy both our chairs for a minute to make sure we can sit together when I get back.”
Olivia expected the other guests to be irritated with her but in fact they laughed and seemed to sympathize. She found herself feeling jealous of the affection his family had for one another and for Mateo. She had forgotten more than half of them already but she knew at least one of the older men nearby, at the main table, was a neighbor. She strongly suspected that some of the others in the room weren't family either but had become traditional guests because they had nowhere better to go.
When Mateo returned, he arrived in the company of two pretty, young women. One of them, definitely not a sister, grabbed him by the elbow and whispered in his ear while he was putting the wooden stools in place. They both laughed. Then, before Mateo could make his way back to Olivia, a young man came roaring over to him and gave him a bear hug. The two fellows exchanged slaps and laughter. Olivia folded her arms, feeling excluded, and wished her boyfriend's friends would leave him alone for a few minutes.
Even after Mateo sat next to her and introduced her to more of his schoolmates and neighbors, she felt uncomfortable. She could see how close and how relaxed his old companions had become with their places in his life. His mother dropped by, too, to give Mateo a few minutes of her open admiration and love. She hugged him twice.
Another woman stopped by. She looked younger than most of the relatives but she gave Mateo a sisterly kiss on the cheek.
"Who was that?" Oliva asked after the woman had left, bound for a seat at a different table.
"That's an old girlfriend." He nodded thoughtfully. "You've heard about her."
"You have old girlfriends here?"
He glanced around. He nodded at another young, pretty woman. "I guess so."
"Why isn't the other one with her family?"
"Ah. She got pregnant a couple of years ago." Mateo looked sad about it. "I've no idea who the man was but she had the child. Her family don't visit with her so much anymore. She comes here instead. You can see her with the other young mothers. There are four of them are in the corner with their kids. Why, what's wrong?"
"I don't know. Is there any room for me?"
"You're sitting right next to me. My mom saved you the prime spot." He looked sheepish. "Or at least, she sure seems to think so."
"I mean, in your life? How much of you is there to go around?"
"Your family is pretty small." Mateo sighed. "And I thought they were quiet."
"I didn't think so before this."
"Watch the kids." He gestured to a group of similarly-aged youths, all larger than toddlers but smaller than teens, and all dressed for a holiday meal. They traveled as a pack. They jostled one another at the elbows as if they were vying among recognition within their group.
"What am I supposed to notice?" The children seemed ordinary. They differed in age quite a bit, which had to be awkward for them, but they didn't seem put out by it much.
"They're going around the tables."
In a minute, a group of the children arrived in front of her. All of them, girls and boys, took turns hugging Mateo.
"Who is this?" one of them asked, pointing to Olivia.
"My girlfriend," he replied. He introduced her several times to his cousins, nieces and nephews, always as his girlfriend.
"Hi." One of the youngest boys stepped forward and hugged his uncle.
"Do you want to give her a hug, too?" He nodded to Olivia. She gestured with open hands to show it would be all right. However, the boy gave them both a frightened look.
"It's okay," she reassured him.
The boy stared her in the eye for a few seconds. Then he hopped forward and hugged her waist.
"Are you going to be my aunt?" he asked.
"Um, I don't know yet."
"Hey, here's a question," Mateo said to his nephew. "Have you used up all of your love?"
Surprised, the child laughed.
"Isn't that how it works?" Mateo insisted, pressing for an answer.
"You're being funny." The boy wasn't fooled for an instant.
"If you love your mom, how can you love me? Or your cousin?" Mateo put his right fist on his hip in a gesture that seemed to mock adult lectures to children.
"That's silly!" The boy put both his hands on his hips, as if sassing back. "I love everyone and it's never used up."
"Not ever?"
"Never and never. There's just more and more."
"That's what I think, too." Mateo looked over the head of his nephew to catch Olivia's gaze. She took a deep breath and nodded, although her gaze drifted across the packed room.
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