One Thousand Miles (Story) “Gather around,” Abuela Lola yelled from the first floor. “It’s time for the annual family picture.”

Footsteps thundered from all corners of the house. Marco and Javier—cousins that Alejandro hadn’t seen since the last time that he and his mom had been in Los Angeles a year ago—got to the stairs before he did. He was unaccustomed to their energy, to the way they tackled each other and made boisterous comments over the dinner table. In his quiet house, the only noise during dinner came from the clink that his fork made against the plate.

“Hey, Alejandro,” they said as they knocked him to the side. He waited for them to pass and then walked gingerly down the steps of Abuela Lola’s house.

He always looked forward to when he and his mom visited her side of the family, but now, a few days after arrival, he had played soccer for more hours than he could count. All he wanted to do was find a puzzle somewhere quiet. But soon there would be the family picture, and then dinner, and even though he wanted to soak in the noise that he wouldn’t get for the rest of the year, it was too much right now.

“Alejandro! Venga,” Abuela Lola said as he rounded the corner to the kitchen. He looked for his mother in the crowd of relatives and calmed when he saw her towering above everyone else. He gave her the wide-eyed look that he always did when he felt overwhelmed. She laughed and put her hand in front of her mouth as though to squelch it.

Sandwiched between Marco’s elbow and Javier’s shoulder, Alejandro smiled until his mouth went numb. One pose, then another, then a silly pose, and finally, Tío Juan’s favorite: one where everyone jumped and was captured in suspension in the air for a fleeting second. When everyone scattered after the photo, Alejandro found his mom. His hands flew in front of his face, telling her about Marco and Javier. She nodded and signed back, telling him that it was only temporary.

He always wondered what these visits were like for his mother who was deaf—to be around moving mouths whose voices she couldn’t hear and music whose beat she could only feel through the floor when the volume was way up and her shoes were off. But there were other parts of the visit that had nothing to do with hearing—when she stood in front of the kitchen counter rolling balls of dough to make tortillas with Abuela Lola. Or when she held tiny tiles in front of her face to get the highest Scrabble score. After she inevitably won the game, she jumped up from the table and shouted, doing a little dance that Alejandro knew by heart.

He knew that these visits were different for her—that while Alejandro used these trips to absorb what it felt like to be in a noisy house, his mother got a chance to reconnect with family that she hadn’t seen in a year. To meet new babies that she’d only seen pictures of when the letters arrived at their house in Mexico. How she stayed up late rocking infants, tracing their delicate features with her finger, breathing in their baby smells. That for her, these visits closed the gap on the thousand miles that separated her from the family that had moved to Los Angeles ten years ago. “Sometimes,” she had signed to Alejandro once, “the thousand miles feel like a world away.”

“Alejandro, are you coming?” Javier called. He was standing in the backyard with a badminton racket in his hand.

Alejandro sighed. He wanted silence, wanted his quiet house with his mom, but he knew that would come sooner or later. For now, he had his extended family with their noise and their yelling and their laughter. He knew he would miss it when they were on the plane tomorrow morning. He peeked across the table at his mother who was looking back at him as though she knew just what he was thinking.

Go, she mouthed and signed at the same time.

“Coming,” he yelled back to Javier. He ran outside to join his cousins in one final game. “Who’s serving first?”

Which statement best explains how the author develops Alejandro's complex view of his extended family in "One Thousand Miles"? (Question)

A) At first, she shows how polite and gracious they are when talking to Alejandro, but then she reveals the mean things they say about him behind his back.

B) She captures both the minor annoyances his family members cause him with their loud and boisterous behavior, but also the happiness they bring his mother.

C) She shows their gentle and caring nature at the start of the story and then shows how they can also be unaware of how their behavior affects others at the end.

D) At first, she suggests that they are totally comfortable at Abuela Lola's home, but then she shows that the rest of the family is just as homesick as Alejandro.