good people and fear that he wasn’t worthy.
He realized, as the processional began, that today he didn’t feel sadness that he was not walking down a longer and wider center aisle to the music of the one-hundred-voice chancel choir of Savior’s Church.
* * *
Adoncia Garcia’s home was crowded with toys and furniture her mother-in-law had given her. The mother-in-law, and Adoncia’s two children, Maria, age three, and Fernando, eighteen months, were the only good things to come from her marriage to Fernando Garcia the first, who now rested permanently under a headstone on which his mother was still making payments.
Fernando had been a bad choice for both Adoncia and the woman in whose bed he’d been shot by a jealous boyfriend. Adoncia, who had been courted by half a dozen faithful, hardworking men in her home city of Guanajuato, had been blinded by Fernando’s smile and promises of a better life in the United States. Both the smile and the promises had been lies. Now she was in Virginia, and her family was in central Mexico. For better or worse, her children were U.S. citizens and her home was here.
“Maria, you put away your toys now, so we can get ready to go.” Adoncia demonstrated by dropping Maria’s favorite teddy bear in one of three bright plastic tubs along one wall. “You do it like this.”
Maria complied. She had her father’s smile and her mother’s energy. Elisa was certain the little girl would go far.
“Today is an English day,” Adoncia told Elisa, who had the day off and was letting it unfold slowly for a change. “Today we speak to the children in English only. Tomorrow, Spanish.”
“Does Diego agree to this system?” Diego was Adoncia’s boyfriend, a good-natured, intelligent man who was determined to get ahead in the world. He was the polar opposite of Fernando the former.
“Diego will do anything I say.” Adoncia made a face. “Almost anything. But he will speak English today, or I will not speak to him.”
Elisa dusted the few vacant surfaces as Adoncia moved into the connecting kitchen to do dishes from their late breakfast. She and the children had an outing planned with Diego, something she had looked forward to for days. Adoncia worked five difficult shifts each week at the chicken plant south of Woodstock in Edinburg, while the children stayed with their grandmother. The overly attentive Mrs. Garcia spoiled her grandchildren as badly as she had spoiled her son, but Adoncia made sure they obeyed the rules at home.
Fernando toddled over and raised his arms to be lifted up. Elisa settled the little boy on one hip and finished dusting with the other hand.
“The good thing about a small house is that it takes no time to clean.” Adoncia pulled the plug in the sink and let the dishwater drain out. “I should be grateful for poverty, huh?”
“After Diego moves in, you can save enough to buy a little house of your own. As hard as you both work, it shouldn’t take too long.”
“That’s what he says, only he says big house. He wants a big house for all the children.”
Wisely, Elisa said nothing.
“Many children.” Adoncia began to rinse and dry the dishes she’d washed. “A hundred children.”
“Probably only ninety-five.”
Adoncia laughed. Whenever she did, the responsibilities that weighed so heavily on her twenty-four-year-old shoulders seemed to disappear. Elisa thought her friend was beautiful. She was too plump by this country’s anorexic standards, but she had black hair that curved around her face in shining layers, and warm brown skin she enhanced with bright cosmetics and clothing. It was no surprise to Elisa that Diego Moreno had fallen in love with Adoncia the first time he’d set eyes on her.
“He would keep me pregnant until I’m an old woman, if he had his way. I tell him ‘one baby will show the world what a big man you are, Diego,’ but he doesn’t see it that way.”
“You think he’s trying to prove his manhood?”
“You know a man who isn’t?”
Elisa thought about Sam Kinkade, who twice last Wednesday had been forced to prove his. She doubted he had wanted or relished either experience.
“No,” Adoncia continued, “Diego is determined to show everyone he is a big man. In every way,” she added slyly.
Elisa laughed. “And you’ll be a big woman if you have all those children.”
“Bigger.” Adoncia pulled the elastic band of her pants away from her waist to illustrate. “Much, much bigger.”
Elisa genuinely liked Diego, who often complained of missing his extended family in Mexico, just as Adoncia missed hers. “I don’t really think he wants a large family to prove anything. I think he wants a family to love.”
“The effect is the same. Me, pregnant. Over and over. And he wants it to happen soon.”
This was new information for Elisa. Adoncia had enough stress in her life, and although she was an exemplary mother most of the time, her temper was already too short by the end of the day. “Soon?”
“Marry him, have his baby the next year. No compromise.”
“But you have your hands full, Donchita,” Elisa said, using her pet name for her friend. “He doesn’t see that? Working, taking care of two small children?”
“He says once we’re married I can quit my job, that he makes enough money to keep us happy. But I know better. We will struggle. We need a year, two, maybe even three, to make things right, to save for a house, to get Nando out of diapers. Then maybe we could have a baby of our own, even two. But no more.”
Elisa was sorry to hear that her friends were locked in disagreement about something so fundamental. “Is birth control the problem, do you think? Because there are ways that the church approves of. Not perfect ways, but better than nothing.”
“One of the problems, yes.”
“I hope you and Diego can agree about this.”
“So do I. He wants to marry just as soon as—” Adoncia stopped. “As soon as we’re able,” she finished after a moment.
Elisa realized what her friend hadn’t said. Until Elisa moved out of the mobile home, there was no room for Diego here. Right now Adoncia shared the master bedroom with her children, while Elisa slept in the tiny second bedroom.
“I’m going to look harder for another place to stay,” Elisa promised.
“You are a good friend, and I am in no hurry.”
The debate was interrupted by a crash, then a wail, from the corner by the toy baskets. Elisa spun around to see Maria surrounded by shards of the ceramic lamp that had once resided on an end table.
“Don’t move, Maria,” Elisa commanded, reaching her in three strides. She scooped the little girl against her vacant hip and away from the broken lamp.
“I’m...I’m bleebing!” Maria looked down at her hand.
Elisa whisked her to one of two
