Red Glass (23 page)

A few minutes into the trail, it started to snow.

Not snowflakes, but flowers, those tiny white flowers. We stood perfectly still beneath the branches and let the white flowers cover us. We felt the rhythm the forest breathed: trees growing, leaves uncurling, petals forming, sap flowing, roots spreading. The little worlds inside fallen trees, fungus and insects making soil. Giant ants slicing up leaves, carrying the pieces to their nests. Life, death, life. And on and on and on.

The flowers fell and fell and I thought, They have to run out, but they kept falling.

Night came, suddenly. One moment there was green light, the next minute, purple shadows melting into darkness. We walked hand in hand now, one foot tentatively in front of the other, stepping over tree roots whose outlines we traced with our feet. Our hands were outstretched, grazing branches and tree trunks. Did our journey last a minute? An hour? A lifetime? For parts he led, parts I led, until we reached the end, where a huge, brilliant moon was just rising over the hills.

The stars are beautiful, because of a flower that I can’t see.

—T
HE
L
ITTLE
P
RINCE

Proposals

On the bus ride back, Ángel sat next to me in the window seat, sleeping most of the time, and Mr. Lorenzo sat across the aisle. This time, the VCR played all G-rated movies. During
Babe
—Pablo’s favorite movie, about an orphaned pig—I kept thinking about him, remembering which parts made him smile, which parts made him squeeze my hand.

Meanwhile, every so often, something would remind Mr. Lorenzo of Dika and he’d lean across the aisle. “Psst.
Oiga
, Sophie, don’t you love how Dika yells at characters in movies?” A few minutes later: “Isn’t it
maravilloso
that Dika knows every cashier at Albertsons by name?” And then: “Did you know she knows even their children’s names?” Then: “And she gives them advice!” He mimicked Dika’s shrill voice. “Oh, Mr. Perkins, you tell to your daughter this ex-husband is bad news!” He laughed. “You must to talk with this crazy uncle, Sheila. You must!” And on and on, Dika this, Dika that, until the credits were rolling.

Then he tapped my shoulder. “Sophie,” he said. His voice had turned serious.

I looked at him.
“¿Sí?”

“Sophie.” He took a deep breath. “You are like a daughter to Dika. So you are like a daughter to me. You are almost family now. So may I tell you something?”

“Okay,” I said hesitantly.

“This is something that used to weigh heavy in my heart.” His face grew somber. “Many years ago, after my wife’s death, I went to peace rallies to protest the army’s massacres of Mayans. And the army came to punish me for that. They broke into my house one night.
Gracias a Dios
, they did not take my son. He was seven years old.”

His voice dropped to a gravelly whisper. “They blindfolded me and threw me in a truck bed and brought me to a bare room. All night they beat me. Each time, just before I blacked out, I saw a picture of my son. As an orphan. The last round of beating was the worst. They told me they would kill my son if I denounced the army again. After the last blackout, I came to at the roadside, where they’d dumped me. It was just before dawn. I was too weak to stand. I rolled onto my back and watched the sun rise. And once the sun was up, I heard my wife’s voice.
‘Take our son to a safe place.’
I looked around, but she was nowhere. From her voice, I found the strength to stand. A month later, my son and I headed north.”

I thought of the scars on Mr. Lorenzo’s back, the cigarette burns, the knife cuts. I felt as if my chest had just been cracked open, the way surgeons break their patients’ ribs before open-heart surgery, leaving everything exposed.

“Don’t be sad, Sophie,” he said. “Remember what Doña Remedios said? That people’s hearts feel good after they say goodbye?”

I nodded.

“Well, my heart feels good now, Sophie.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

“
Mire
, Sophie,” he said. “I heard my wife’s voice again. For the second time since her death. She wishes me to marry Dika.”

I blinked. Now that my chest had split wide open, it was as though hummingbirds were flying in and out, and dragonflies, and butterflies—thousands of shimmering, beating wings.

He cleared his throat. “Sophie, do you give me your permission to marry her?”

“My permission?” My heart fluttered the way her heart would flutter.

“Because you are like a daughter to her.” He looked like a little boy, so eager and earnest. Dika would be ecstatic. I pictured her in a frilly white dress, low-cut, with necklaces nestled in her cleavage. Her hair freshly bleached and curled, topped with a glittering crown. The deep joy on her face matching Mr. Lorenzo’s.

“Yes,” I said. “You have my blessing.”

He kissed my hand.

“Have you told Ángel?” I asked, glancing over at Ángel. He was still asleep, his head leaning against the window.

“Ángel feels good in his heart now, too. He wants Dika to be his second mother.”

This would make Ángel some kind of distant step-cousin. I imagined us all eating Thanksgiving dinner together, a jumble of turkey and tamales and special beef balls, for years and years to come.

A day later, in the chill of early morning, Mr. Lorenzo and Ángel and I stood in the back of the truck as it bounced around the curve to Pablo’s village. We passed the hill with the cross and the nursery school and everything that Pablo had excitedly pointed out on the way. It felt like years ago. A different Sophie had first turned that curve, a Sophie on the verge of transformation. Rounding the curve now, I felt strong. Sophie la Fuerte.

Almost there. The church steeple came into sight. The cluster of houses in the distance. I missed this place. I missed Ñola’s
heeheehee
laughter and Dika’s and Abuelita’s crazy antics and the smell of Pablo’s hair.

We were on a straight stretch now, and the truck sped up. The stones and bumps in the dirt road sent us nearly flying into the air. Wind whipped our hair, billowed out our shirts. I hung on to the metal beam on the side of the truck.

Ángel smiled at me. “What are you thinking about, lime-girl?”

“About Pablo,” I said. “You think he’ll come back?”

Ángel brushed the wild strands of hair from my face. “You really want him to, don’t you?”

I nodded and moved my hand to Ñola’s necklace. The smooth leather between my fingers made me feel better.

The whole family was waiting as the truck pulled up; they must have heard it coming. Pablo and his cousins raced to us, shouting and laughing. Abuelita raised her arms, praying and crying and thanking God we were back safely. Ñola stood by the house in the shadows, smiling her toothless grin.

And Dika. Dika jogged to the truck in her high heels, a little lopsided with her bruised ankle, her breasts nearly bouncing out of her blouse, a low-cut turquoise number with ruffles flapping in the breeze. She hurled herself into Mr. Lorenzo’s arms. Unbelievably, he heaved her up into the air and spun her around. Then he set her down and bent over, gasping for breath and rubbing his back. Dika threw her head back and howled with laughter. “Look! Look how strong he is, my boyfriend!”

Slowly, Mr. Lorenzo lowered himself onto his knees until he was eye to eye with the varicose veins in her thighs. He looked up at her face, towering over him, and spoke in a deep, romantic voice. “Dika,
mi amor
, with the permission of your great-niece, Sophie”—and here they both glanced at me while I tried not to giggle—“I ask for your hand in marriage.”

Dika shrieked. An impossibly high-pitched sound that echoed through the village. Maybe even as far as neighboring villages. Then she pulled him up and planted a long kiss on his mouth, leaving a smear of magenta. “Yes, yes, a thousand times, yes. I will marry you, Mr. Lorenzo.”

The aunts applauded; the kids jumped up and down, squealing and clapping; Ñola nodded, knowingly; Ángel hugged Dika and let her turn his cheek pink with a shower of kisses. Abuelita clasped her hands together in delight, then pressed my hands between hers.
“Manos fuertes,”
she said. Strong hands.

Pablo ran over and wrapped his arms around my waist. I bent down and nuzzled my nose to his hair and breathed deeply, trying, very hard, to hold on to the smell.

That night we had an engagement party for Dika and Mr. Lorenzo. Dika spent hours primping. She insisted we spread avocado on our faces to make our skin smooth and soft. We sat on the mattress together, and she rubbed green mush on my face. Then I scooped up more green mush and rubbed it on her face. She laughed and twitched. “Oh, that tickles me!”

Once I finished, she said, “Now we must to wait five minutes.” We wiped our hands on a towel and waited.

Dika reached into the pocket of her shorts and pulled out her shard of red glass. “You know, Sophie, when the soldiers take me to the prison camp, I am angry. I hate these guards. I want to kill them. Then I want to kill me. I take my glass.” She held out her left arm and turned up her palm. With the other hand, she held the shard of glass over her inner arm, over the three scars. “I cut my arm. One. Two. Three times. I think, for sure I will to die. But no. I cannot! My heart is too strong.” She held the glass up to the square of light at the window. “And then, I look the glass and you know what I see?”

“What?” I asked. Her eyes were wide and looked extra-white, framed in her green mask.

“The happy life. With a man I will to marry. A man I do not know yet. And a new family. In a place that is never cold.” She patted my knee. “And now I am here. In the happy life.”

I smiled and wiped the avocado off her face with a towel. The skin underneath was soft and coated with a layer of grease.

“How my face looks?” she asked, excited.

“You look sixteen, Dika,” I said.

She beamed, and then, with surprisingly tender hands, wiped away my mask.

For the party, we dug into the seventh fruitcake. The night was festive, with laughing and singing and dancing. I even danced with Mr. Lorenzo and Pablo and his cousins. After a while, we collapsed in our chairs, hearts pounding and blood flowing and sweat dripping. Ángel sat on one side of me, and on the other, Pablo, who was holding his new prized possession—the lizard slingshot that Ángel had brought back for him, as promised. I pulled Pablo onto my lap, expecting him to squirm away because, after all, his cousins were around and they might think he was a baby. But he stayed in my lap and settled his arms around my neck. I held him and felt the rhythm of his chest against mine.

Abuelita sat down and asked Pablo the question that had been stuck in my throat all day. “
Mi amor
, you must decide soon. They are leaving tomorrow. Will you stay or go, my child?”

I wrapped my arms around him tightly. Ángel smoothed his hands over my braid.

Pablo frowned. “
Pero
, Sophie, can’t you all stay here?”

“No,
principito
,” I said. “Ángel and I have to start school soon. And Dika and Mr. Lorenzo need to get back to their jobs.”

At the sound of their names, Dika and Mr. Lorenzo headed over with a pile of fruitcake slices balanced on cups of coffee. Little bits of sugar and crumbs sprayed out of Dika’s mouth as she talked. “Oh, finally Pablo decides, poor boy.”

“So what do you want to do, Pablo?” Abuelita asked, her voice gentle.

He stared at his lap. “I don’t know.”

Dika patted his head with her freshly manicured nails, hot pink and gleaming. She spoke in Spanish. “I have loved you from the minute you ate my Fig Newtons in the hospital.” She took another bite of fruitcake. “I will love you always, little boy.”

Mr. Lorenzo put his arm around Dika’s great shoulders, and said, “Pablo, you are like a grandson to Dika and me. And whether you live here or in Tucson, we will spoil you like all grandparents spoil their grandchildren.”

Ángel got on his knees so that he was eye to eye with Pablo. “Choose what will make you happiest. Either way, I’ll visit you and tell you stories and play ball with you.”

Now it was my turn, and I didn’t know what to say. My mouth wasn’t working. It flat-out refused to open. I was afraid if I opened it, I would cry and beg, trying to bribe him with videos and trips to the bowling alley.

I held Ñola’s Virgin between my fingers. “
Principito
,” I said. I steadied my voice, pushed the tears down inside my chest. “You do what you need to do. You’ll always have enough money to live well. I’ll make sure of that. And you’ll always have more love than you know what to do with. And no matter what, I am always your sister.”

“Sophie.” He buried his face in my shoulder. “I want to stay here.”

A moment of pain, a deep stabbing sensation in my chest, and then, a watery feeling, the hurt rising to my eyes and dissolving into tears.

That night, I stashed my hundred dollars of emergency money in the eighth tin of fruitcake, which Dika had given to Abuelita. They would find the money after we were gone, when it would be too late to refuse. On my way back to the bedroom, I encountered Pablo, brushing his teeth at the cistern.

“Sophie,” he said, toothpaste foam dripping from his chin. “Will you sleep with me and the chickens?”

“With pleasure,
principito.
” We carried blankets to the patch of dirt by the chicken coop. We lay together and watched the sky, and as he drifted off, I whispered, “Whenever I look at the stars, I will hear you laughing and it will be the best sound in the universe.”

Early the next morning, when the sky was purple-blue, growing lighter pink in the east, my eyes opened. Only a few stars left. I was curled around Pablo, but suddenly I noticed another presence behind me. A steady breathing. I turned over.

It was Ñola. At some point in the night she must have settled down beside us. She patted my hand and said something in Mixteco.

At that moment, Abuelita emerged from the house and headed up the path to the outhouse. She glanced at us, surprised.

Ñola repeated her words in Mixteco.

Abuelita laughed and shook her head.

“What’s she saying?” I asked.

“She says she’s happy you went after your
amor.
She missed her chance, but you didn’t. Now she can die in peace. And I told her she’ll probably live another twenty years.”