the papers. “Strong. In heart and character.” He patted his son firmly on the back, and it shamed Michael to feel such joy in his father’s pride. “You will not turn your back on me. You will help the family, no?”
“Help, yes. You need me, that’s true. And I’ll do what I can. But I didn’t ask for all this in return.”
“Ask? Miguel, I give you everything. The lawn maintenance company, the nursery, the spring, everything! I give you freedom. Your own place makes you your own man. Nobody to tell you what to do, to make you feel small. With this a man with skills such as yours could be rich.”
He exaggerated, but to some extent, Michael knew it was true. The land was very valuable now, and the springwater could be tapped for untold amounts. He was humbled by the enormity of the gift.
“Gracias, Papa. Truly. However, I need time to think this through.”
“Think? Think?” Luis’s eyes were wide with shame and embarrassment that his most precious gift was refused. He swung his hand down like a machete. “You always need to think. Sometimes you think so much you don’t see with your heart. It turns to stone.”
Father and son stared at each other across a familiar impasse. It was always this way between them. Hot temper versus cool stone. Luis abruptly turned toward the Christmas tree. The lights were flashing green and red against the white and black of his father’s hair. His eyes were mournful. Michael thought he looked like a great bull that had just received the sword.
“Papa.” Michael moved to speak.
Luis cut him off with a backward wave of his hand. He glanced sharply at Marta. She stood quietly with her small hands clasped meekly before her apron, her eyes cast downward. Then, with a shrug of his wide shoulders, he turned and stomped from the room.
“So, you think this is fair, little brother?” Rosa said, her sharp voice breaking the brittle silence. “Is this why you came home? To get it all?”
“Rosa!” Marta exclaimed, horrified.
Michael, saddened and insulted by her bald-faced resentment, met her sharp gaze evenly. She was hurt, he knew this, and she was very angry to be ignored by her father. Poor Rosa, she would never be happy filling the traditional female role in their culture, despite their mother’s determination. She was too bold, too smart. She deserved better treatment than this. But so did he.
“First off,” he began, his voice low, trembling with control, “I only came home because our father asked it of me. Second, I don’t want any of this.” His hand angrily slashed the air. “And if you’d listen instead of shout, you’d have heard me turn it down. Third, and pay good attention, hermana. If you paid half your mind to building up that husband of yours instead of tearing him down, perhaps Manuel would be able to take over the operation.
“As it stands, Papa is right. I am the only one in this family who can rebuild this nursery, and if you’d quiet your waspish tongue long enough to consider it, you’d realize it’s true. I didn’t come here to take anything from anybody. I came here to help my family. And I intend to honor that promise. But when I’m done, I’m out of here. It’s clear nothing has changed. I’m still ‘pobre negrito’ in your eyes. Undeserving. But I’ve learned something in that wide world out there. I deserve everything I work hard for.”
He scanned the faces of his family. They were flustered and silent. Then he followed his father out to the front porch.
He found Luis standing, one foot before the other, leaning against the porch railing. His eyes stared out at the dark. Michael knew it must seem to the old man that in rejecting the land he rejected him. Was it true? he wondered, gazing at the fertile property stretched out before him. Was he rejecting his father or the land?
“I will give you one year,” he said aloud. “This I will do out of love for you and my mother.”
“One year is not enough. We cannot rebuild in that time. Two. I need two. We can do much in that time.”
Michael set his jaw, realizing that a two-year leave would jeopardize all he’d worked for. Yet his father was right. Two years would be enough time to begin again.
“Agreed,” he replied. “If you promise not to hound me about my decision. After that—” he placed the papers firmly back into his father’s hand “—we will talk again.”
His father turned his head and studied Michael, staring intensely into his eyes, as though to catch a loophole. Whatever he found must have satisfied him because he nodded, squinting, and at last accepted back the papers.
“Starting when?”
“March. In time to complete orders for the spring.”
“Not soon enough! I begin in two weeks.”
“Mail me the materials. I’ll do it from Chicago.”
A loud, boisterous laugh burst from Luis’s lips and he wrapped his arm around his son’s shoulder, squeezing possessively. “How can I lose?” he asked in a voice gruff with emotion. “I know my land. She is like a fine, fat woman. All fertile and sweet smelling. You will plant your seeds in her and she will make you hers. See? I know you, too. You are my son. You are machismo. You will never turn your back on her that you love most.”
In Chicago, Ascension Church was ablaze in light and song as the jubilant congregation celebrated midnight mass. Though it was packed to the rafters, Charlotte and Helena sat in the reserved section near the altar, a boon for spending the day decorating the church. Charlotte looked with a proprietary air at the yards of crisp white linen trimmed in green embroidery, the six handsome balsams twinkling in white lights, and clustered around them the scores of fresh red and white poinsettias.
“Beautiful,” Charlotte sighed.
Father Frank offered them a wink of approval from the altar.
Charlotte’s heart was filled with thoughts of beauty this Christmas. Dr. Harmon had presented his final plan and, though she was shaken, the composite of her new face was so beautiful he could have wrapped and tied it up with a bow as a gift.
She’d stared at the sketches. “I can’t believe that will be me,” she’d said, breathless.
“Believe it. I can make it happen.”
“But the nose. You’ve changed it. It isn’t mine.”
“It will be,” he replied, persistent.
“I don’t know. My mother, she won’t like to see me so changed.”
“How do you like it, Miss Godowski?”
Her gaze lingered on the beautiful curve of the jaw. “I love it.” She then slipped a piece of paper over the face so only the eyes were left showing. “Is it still me?”
“Of course it is. And how clever of you to look at the eyes, Charlotte. That, my dear, reveals the real you.”
I wonder, she thought to herself. Yet, she had agreed to the design, refraining from telling her mother about the nose. Her new face was her gift to herself. Her gift to her mother was her new job. Dr. Harmon had kindly offered her the position of accountant for his practice
