Free The Sum of Our Days by Isabel Allende

we didn’t fit in. We knew almost no one there and Nico had warned us that his bride’s relatives did not feel kindly toward us. We were political refugees and had escaped Pinochet’s dictatorship, and therefore we were probably Communists with no social standing, or money, and we didn’t belong to the Opus Dei. We weren’t even practicing Catholics. The newlyweds moved into the house I had bought when I was still living in Caracas, though it was too big for them, and Alejandro, your first nephew, was born a year later. I shot out of San Francisco, flew hour after hour—counting the minutes and shivering with anticipation—and in Caracas took into my arms a newborn smelling of mother’s milk and talcum powder while out of the corner of my eye I studied my daughter-in-law and my son with growing admiration. They were two little kids playing with dolls. Your brother, who only a short time before had been an irresponsible boy who risked his life climbing mountains and swimming with sharks in the open sea, now was changing diapers, warming bottles, and cooking pancakes for breakfast, side by side with his wife.
    The one worry in the lives of this couple was that the criminal element in Caracas had targeted their house. They had stolen things countless times; they had taken three cars right out of the garage, and now alarms, bars on the windows, and electrically wired grilles that would roast a careless cat that brushed them with a whisker had no effect. Every time they came home, Celia stayed in the car, holding the baby and with the motor running, while Nico, pistol in hand, got out and, the way you see in films, checked the house from top to bottom to be sure that some cold-blooded intruder wasn’t hiding somewhere. They lived in fear, which worked out well for me since it made it easier to convince them to move to California, where they would be safe and could count on our help. Willie and I fixed up a wonderful little bohemian garret with a tower overlooking the panorama of San Francisco Bay. It was on a third floor and there was no elevator, but they were young and strong and they could fly up and down the stairs with baby paraphernalia, shopping bags, and the garbage. I waited for them with all the nervous anticipation of a bride-to-be, prepared to squeeze the last drop out of my new status as a grandmother. More than once I wound the little music boxes and the mobiles hanging from the ceiling of Alejandro’s room and sang in whispers the nursery songs I had learned when you and your brother were little. The wait seemed eternal, but time inevitably passes and finally they arrived.
    At first my friendship with Celia stumbled along in fits and starts. Mother- and daughter-in-law came from widely divergent ideologies, but if we had any idea of bickering over differences, life eliminated what might have been bad blood with a few knocks to the head. Soon we forgot any germ of discord and concentrated on the demands of raising a child—and then two more—while adapting to a new language and our situation as immigrants. Although we didn’t know it then, a year later we would have our most brutal test: caring for you, Paula. There would be no time for foolishness. Celia very quickly cut the strings that bound her to her fanatic Catholicism and began to question other precepts that had been hammered into her head in her youth. As soon as she realized that in the United States she was not considered white, the racism faded away, and her friendship with Tabra had swept away her prejudices against artists and persons with leftist leanings. Of homosexuals, however, best not to speak. She hadn’t as yet met Sabrina’s mothers.
    Nico and Celia enrolled in an intensive English course, and the happy task of taking care of my grandson fell to me. As I wrote, Alejandro crawled around on the floor, kept captive by the dog gate we installed at the door. If he got tired, he would stick