Puerto Isadore.”
“Can you get this message to Lilia? Tell her I have crossed into Estados Unidos de América, and I will call again when I am able. Tell her this, Armando. Tell her I am safe. Tell her I made it, and I will call again soon.”
“Sure, sure. I will do this. I must go. I have customers here. Take care, Héctor.”
Héctor replaced the receiver and went inside to find Miguel, to learn how they would get to this tomato farm in South Carolina.
5
CRUOITA’S CHEEKS looked waxen. Was this the natural look of death, or had the women who’d prepared her body applied something to the skin? She lay in a simple casket inside the house, and Lilia sat in a wooden chair beside her.
The old widow from down the lane arrived with a small boy. Lilia recognized him as one of the children she’d often seen chasing mongrels and chickens around the village. The woman tottered with a cane, and her right cheek sagged severely from an unnamed ailment. Her eye was like a dying fish’s eye, bulging a milky blue. Lilia thanked God Crucita had died with her grace and beauty intact until the end.
The old woman pulled from her dress a pocketful of dainty, white lilies with stems too short for a vase. She did not speak but nodded to Lilia as she offered her the flowers with a shaking grip. With one hand on the boy’s shoulder, she leaned over Crucita, studying her face for several moments. The old woman ran a finger along Crucita’s stiff knuckles, then turned, nodded to Lilia, and with the boy beside her, hobbled from the house.
Lilia smelled the pale, waxy flowers from where they lay in her lap, a strong scent from such tiny blossoms. She placed them on Crucita’s breast, so she could enjoy them on her journey to the afterlife.
Rosa handed Lilia a small cup of mezcal and a dish of cake and said, “Eat and drink, Lilia.”
The girls who sold fruit and juice beside the pier entered the house and spoke to Rosa’s husband in the kitchen. Glasses and dishes clinked and music played from a cassette player in the courtyard. Maybe the music had played all afternoon; Lilia could not be certain. She tasted a small bit of cake, sweet and so delicate it dissolved in her mouth before she chewed.
“Crucita would like this,” Lilia said.
Rosa smiled and stepped to the kitchen to refill her cup and to greet the orange seller and his wife who had just arrived. They handed Rosa a basket filled with limes and three small green melons. The orange seller remained in the kitchen, but his wife came to Lilia.
“May I?” she asked Lilia, opening her leathery hand to reveal a shiny, green lime.
“Of course,” Lilia said.
The orange seller’s wife placed the lime beside Crucita. “Your grandmother always liked our fruit. She used to say our limes were her favorite.”
Lilia smiled and nodded in agreement about the quality of the limes.
The orange seller’s wife stood squat and round with oily cheeks and a mouth that always smiled. Lilia wondered if the deep creases beside the woman’s eyes were from her constant grinning or from many years of tending fruit in the severe sunshine.
“Your grandmother looks at peace,” she said, as her husband called to her from the kitchen. She patted Lilia’s shoulder then went to her husband.
The shy girl from the fields—was her name Veronica?—stood in the doorway, a paper sack in her arms. The girl wore a thin brown dress, and sunlight shone through the gauzy fabric, revealing her slender legs. When she approached Lilia, she said, “I have brought you a fish.” Her golden eyes had flecks of dark in their irises; they were pretty eyes, but they were sorrowful as well. The girl paused only a moment, when Lilia thanked her, then turned away. Lilia wondered if the girl considered another’s passing, perhaps her own mother or a sibling.
Lilia watched Veronica leave, grateful for the many who had come today to mourn Crucita’s passing. Rosa’s daughter Rosita appeared from the bedroom, carrying Alejandra. Rosita placed her hand on Lilia’s shoulder. “I think she is hungry, señora.”
Lilia stood to take the infant from the girl. Alejandra sniffled, red-faced and agitated in Rosita’s arms. Lilia’s nipples prickled at the sight of her hungry baby, and she felt her milk letting down. “Thank you, Rosita.”
The girl nodded. “Can I do anything for you?” she said.
“No, no, please. Go eat. You are very good with Alejandra, Rosita. Thank you for helping me today.”
“Of course,” Rosita said. “I’ll join Mama in the kitchen, but fetch me after you have nursed.”
Lilia took the baby into the bedroom and changed her quickly. By the time she’d secured a fresh diaper on Alejandra, the child’s whimpers had turned to wails, her face as wrinkled as a newborn’s in her frustration, though she was nearly six months old.
Lilia unbuttoned her dress, milk already streaming from her breasts, and pushed her left nipple into Alejandra’s mouth. The baby hungrily sucked, barely able to keep up her gulping with the flow of Lilia’s milk.
Lilia’s shoulders relaxed. She closed her eyes and wondered which of them comforted the other more: she or Alejandra. Never had Lilia felt as fulfilled or as needed as when she nursed her child. Never had she experienced such a connection to anyone. She considered her own mother and how Crucita had once been a smooth-skinned new mother, too. Lilia imagined a young Crucita, her breasts full and rounded with milk, cradling Lilia’s mother in her arms, nursing her as Lilia now nursed Crucita’s great-grandchild. The circle of life and the passions it aroused bewildered Lilia. How odd the swings of human emotion could be: only moments ago Lilia had grieved with plentiful tears beside her grandmother’s corpse. Now she wept tears of joy at providing sustenance for her infant.
When Alejandra had emptied Lilia’s breast, Lilia burped her and put the infant to her right breast. The child soon lost interest, her hunger satiated. Not wanting to change clothes, Lilia pulled a butter-yellow shawl from her dresser to cover the small wet circles of milk on her dress. She kissed Alejandra’s brow, then carried the child into the front room where Crucita’s casket sat.
Lilia saw through the kitchen window the village priest in the courtyard, speaking with some men who played cards beneath the shade tree.
Rosita came to Lilia to take Alejandra from her. “You have more visitors,” she said, reaching for the child.
Rosa had followed Rosita over to Lilia and placed another chair beside Crucita’s casket. “The priest has arrived and no doubt he will want to visit with you. Are you going to eat your cake?” she said, motioning toward the small, square table where Lilia had placed the dish and her cup.
Lilia shook her head and handed the plate to Rosa.
“Keep that cup and sip from it, girl. This is a celebration of your Crucita’s life,” Rosa said.
“A festive occasion, a time of celebration of a full earthly life,” the priest said as he approached Lilia. When she stood to greet him, he motioned for her to sit.
“Our Crucita now dances in heaven,” he said, placing a candle beside the casket and lighting the wick with a match. He was an old man and had been the village priest Lilia’s entire life. Lilia
