The Mariachi Band at My Mother's Window

For my mother's seventy-fifth birthday, my brothers and I hired a mariachi band to serenade her at seven in the morning, the way my father used to do every year before he got too shy about it.

Six men in silver-studded charro suits lined up on her front lawn in the dawn light and started playing "Las Mañanitas." The trumpets were so loud the neighbor's dog started howling along.

My mother came to the window in her bathrobe and curlers and put both hands over her mouth. Then she disappeared, and five minutes later came out the front door fully dressed, lipstick on, and danced on the lawn with the guitarist.

Neighbors came out in their pajamas. Someone brought pan dulce. By eight there were twenty people in her yard. My mother said it was the best birthday of her life, and then, quietly, that my father would have been proud we remembered.