I’ll remain in the city, but I will forever be of this village, you know? This is home,” he said.
“You look like a city boy,” she said, glancing down at his fine shoes.
He grinned. “Perhaps, but I have many wonderful memories of this place. Plenty right here at this very pier.” His eyes sparkled as they had in his youth, giving him a look of mischief.
Lilia thought of evenings so distant they seemed more like someone else’s experiences than her own. Of twilights melting into evenings spent lying next to Emanuel in the sand, under the pier, looking for constellations, sharing dreams. She remembered the hopefulness, the optimism, the kisses that hinted at waning innocence. How long ago that seemed.
“Lilia,” Rosa shouted, “Come on. We are going for a boat ride. Come with us.”
“I’ll be right there,” Lilia said.
“A pleasure to see you, Lilia,” Emanuel said. “I won’t keep you from your friends.”
Lilia did not want to leave her spot under the tree. Emanuel did not hold her there so much as the memories of a carefree life, of a long forgotten weightlessness and belief that all would always be right and under her control. When had she last felt this way? Somehow, Emanuel had reminded her. His presence alone had transported her, momentarily, to a time years since forgotten, a time of abundant possibilities. “Enjoy your visit,” she said.
He smiled. “You will see me before I return to the city, Lilia,” he said, then turned and walked away.
Lilia sipped her juice and watched Emanuel disappear into the crowd. A light breeze blew across the beach now as the setting sun dipped toward the Pacific. She made her way to the boat where Rosa’s family waited.
“Was that Emanuel?’ Rosa asked.
“Yes. I have not seen him in years.”
“If I recall he was sweet on you, no?” Rosa said, as her husband, José shoved the boat through the white foam.
Lilia shrugged, trying not to grin. “That was years ago. He was too wild, always running with the bad boys, you know?”
Rosa smiled. “True, but he is all grown up now. People change.” Lilia said nothing more but waved at the crowd on shore, a peacefulness settling over her. Rosa and her children shouted with merriment as they passed other boats, decorated and filled with families.
Lilia wondered if Héctor remembered this was the day the festival began. He would be happy if he were here. She hoped that wherever he was at this moment he was pleased with how his journey was progressing. But she also knew that if he were here today, he would be considering a way to get beyond this place and Mexico, and he would not completely lose himself in the celebration as others could. Héctor had always longed for more. He was a dreamer, wishing to make life better for Lilia and himself and their family.
The breeze blew in Lilia’s face, and she waved at a passing boat. At that moment all seemed just right in Puerto Isadore, and Lilia could not imagine living elsewhere.
LILIA WALKED home alone by the light of the moon. Perhaps Héctor was awake, somewhere safe, pondering the moon, too. As she rounded a bend, she encountered an old man leading a burro so pale it glowed ghost-like in the moonlight. She nodded, and the man returned her greeting with a toothless grin. Neither he nor his feeble burro, a sack of cabbages on its back, made a sound as they traveled the dusty path. The man wore thin sandals, a dingy t-shirt, and baggy trousers. The donkey’s eyes were closed, and Lilia wondered if he had eyes at all, and where the two could be heading at this hour. After they had passed, she turned to be sure she had seen them, that they were not spirits. The burro’s wiry tail did not twitch, but lay against his white hind-quarters perfectly still, as if all the animal’s energy were necessary for walking. Lilia watched them disappear around the curve in the road and wondered if burros experienced emotions. If so, she imagined he felt like a weak soul being led nowhere.
As Lilia neared the courtyard, the sound of Alejandra’s crying startled her. Crucita never let the baby get so worked up, and the wailing disturbed Lilia. “Crucita?” Lilia called, scooping up the child from her basket beneath the tree in the courtyard and whispering, “There, there” and clicking her tongue in the way she did to soothe her.
Stew, bubbling unattended, boiled over and caked on the pot, and Lilia’s foreboding turned to panic. Clutching Alejandra, she dashed to pull the pot from the coals, and in the midst of shouting her grandmother’s name, tripped over a crumpled Crucita. Dizzy and horrified, Lilia nearly dropped Alejandra as she knelt by her grandmother.
“Crucita. Crucita. Crucita!” She was screaming it now, as if the old woman were asleep and deaf and only the loudest shouts would rouse her. Alejandra began to cry, but Lilia ignored her, placing the child on the floor beside her. Lilia took Crucita’s face in her hands, gently at first then with more force, squeezing her cheeks. Her skin was cool and her apron and dress seemed too big, as if they were the oversized costume of a child pretending to be a grandmother. How thin Crucita looked. She did not move. Tears streaked Lilia’s cheeks, blurring her sight so that all seemed distorted. She continued to caress Crucita’s face, her brow, her arms, her hands, repeating her name countless times.
The awkward twist to her limbs, the angle at which her neck bent, all told Lilia her grandmother was in no pain. She knelt, stroking Crucita. She raised her into a sitting position, held Crucita close, rubbing her back gently as Crucita had done to Lilia since birth, to make things better.
The moon passed across the kitchen window, and, still, Lilia sat on the floor, the pot of burnt stew long cold. Crucita’s head fell awkwardly onto Lilia’s shoulder, not as Alejandra’s often did, as if seeking solace, but like something spilled, wayward.
When had Crucita’s weary head last sought a shoulder? With her fingers, Lilia combed her grandmother’s disheveled hair, then slowly unraveled the familiar, gray braid, now loose and damp from Lilia’s tears. She reworked the long strands like ribbons into a tight, beautiful braid, fingering the now-respectable plait until her thumb grew numb, and her tears ceased. Alejandra had long since fallen asleep, but when she began to stir, Lilia held her, too. Clutching her dead grandmother to her side and her infant daughter in her lap, Lilia felt a stranger to herself. She knew her life would forever more consist of three periods: time with Crucita, this day of Crucita’s passing, and the future without her.
3
HÉCTOR TRIED to imagine the words he would use to describe this to Lilia. His chest could explode any moment from the hot air in the cramped compartment, the smell of other men’s sweat, from both oppressive heat and palpable nervousness. When the last couple of men crawled in, Héctor’s chest tightened with panic. The space simply could hold no more. The boots of the men on either side of him brushed against his ears. He tried to remain motionless out of courtesy, to avoid scraping the ears of the heads on either side of his feet. The already dark box in which they lay became seamless as the coyote closed the hole. The unmistakable sound of welding torch hissed beneath them, Héctor’s fate now literally sealed.
At each stage of his journey, Héctor had felt more committed, like he could not turn back, but now, his emotions were different. He imagined screaming, pleading his change of mind. Likely his screams would be ignored if they were even heard at all. And what if, somehow, the coyote were to hear him and open the sealed underbelly, then what? He would undoubtedly take Héctor out back, shoot him, and dump him in the day’s trash. Each man must surely have been thinking the situation through as Héctor did.
The
