Commencement concludes and the graduates spill out. Family portraits line the sidewalk, convened by cell phone and tip-toed scans of the crowd. As I make my last-chance circuit, I'm glad to recognize sister, mother, not-exactly-stepdad around my now-former student with an aunt behind the lens.
We do-si-do, snap pictures and pose, and I reach for the mother's hand. She nods through my congratulations and says, "She told me you're a very very nice teacher." And the hesitation in my pleased reply is part polite and part unspoken, "You do speak English!" interfering with my words. She never has, in front of me, before.
In short, present-tense sentences that I could understand in Spanish, I tell her that I think the world of her daughter and that we'll be in touch. It's not the time or place for much more than that, though there's plenty more that I could have said and been glad for her to understand. Maybe now there will be another time. Perhaps before the younger sister graduates I'll remember to thank the woman for the tamales!
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