How I connected with my mother-in-law

I had dated men from other cultures, but José was someone special. We met in 1992 at a Hempstead school sponsored by a Hispanic advocacy agency, Círculo de la Hispanidad. We taught job skills to Latina women. José was the computer teacher, and I taught English as a second language.

I fell in love with his soft-spoken, tenor-like “church” voice. My voice is distinct, too — loud. The contrast is one reason I was drawn to him.

I was nervous the first time I met the Quiñones family in their Long Beach home. As a native-born German American walking into a Latino household, I admit I expected nothing like my living room in Baldwin, but the Quiñones’ walls were also lined with family photos and replicas of famous paintings.

The tables were filled with lots of tchotchkes. Picture an 18th century-style ceramic statue of a man in a tricornered hat giving a flower to a woman with hair piled atop her head, like Marie Antoinette — with a lampshade on top.

José and I passed through their airy living room and dining room, where a warm Atlantic Ocean breeze billowed through white curtains. It was 5 o’clock, and the family gathered in the kitchen around a small television on the table. They sat elbow-to-elbow at the round table with a floral, plastic tablecloth.

José’s mom captivated me. Toña’s style, her bright eyes and ebullient smile were as inviting as the mid-August sunshine streaming through the windows. She twirled around the kitchen, followed by her swirling, brown-and-black paisley caftan, slowing just enough to place a Peruvian plate of steaming rice and beef on the table in front of José’s dad, Pépe. “Sit down, honey,” she said to me.

José proposed to me on Thanksgiving following a short courtship. While living in a lovely one-bedroom apartment in Freeport for three years, I became close to Toña and Pépe. I think they liked me, too. José asked them if we could move in so we could save money for our own home. They said, “Yes.”

Life with my in-laws presented the usual challenges of living with a fiance’s parents, and then some. José and his dad speak English fluently. But between Toña’s broken English and my broken Spanish, I knew there might be miscommunication. One night, I made my first faux pas.

I had gone to a Stop & Shop on Park Avenue and found a sale on my favorite toilet tissue. I took home a 12-pack and placed it on the kitchen counter, where my mother-in-law would find it.

When Toña and I caught up with each other the next morning, I noticed she did not make eye contact. “Is everything all right?” I asked. After a brief silence, she timidly asked, “You don’t like my toilet paper?” I felt miserable about the awkward beginning to an often-fun, sometimes bittersweet experience for me, encroaching into another woman’s domain. She kept the toilet paper.

We had a lively wedding on a frosty winter’s day at a Point Lookout restaurant and have been married 27 years. We moved south in 2005. The relationship with my in-laws continues to flourish, and we look forward to seeing them every year. In fact, they arrived from Long Island on Oct. 1 to stay with us for a month. Life is really good.

Reader Evelyn Eickmeyer-Quiñones, who lived in Long Beach, now resides in Rock Hill, S.C.