The Inexplicable Logic of My Life

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  Me: I’m the last to know? Really?

  Sam: Relax. Mad?

  Me: Not really. Tell Fito?

  Sam: Going to text him now

  Me: What feeling?

  Sam: Feeling? Hmm. It’s time, Sally

  Me: Good girl

  Sam: ☺ Night, Sally

  Me: Night, Sammy

  Sam: Want me to send Maggie over?

  Me: Urs for the night

  Sam: Sweet

  I must’ve really been out, because I felt someone pulling on my shoulder, and I kept hearing a voice telling me to wake up. “Wake up! C’mon. Wake up, Sally.” I thought it was a dream—​but there was Sam standing in front of me, holding the urn that contained her mother’s ashes. “It’s time,” she said.

  “Time?”

  “To spread Mom’s ashes.”

  “Oh, yeah. That’s right.”

  “You need coffee.”

  “Yeah, I need coffee.”

  “C’mon, Fito’s already on his way over. So is my Aunt Lina. So is Marcos.”

  “You asked Marcos to come?”

  “Yup.”

  “Look at you,” I said.

  “I’m warming up to him.”

  “Yeah, you are,” I said.

  “You, Sally?”

  “I’ll get there.”

  “You’ll get there; you’ll get there.”

  “Be quiet.”

  “You’re still half asleep.”

  “Yup.”

  “You’re still lying there.”

  “Yup.”

  “Get up, shithead.”

  “’K,” I said, but I didn’t move.

  “I’m not leaving this room till you get your ass up, Sally.”

  “’K. I’m getting up.” I sat up and put my feet on the ground. “Turn around so I can put my pants on.”

  “It’s not as if I haven’t seen you in your underwear.”

  “I’m shy.”

  “Silly boy.” She turned her back to me. “Shy my ass.”

  I put my pants on and tapped her on her shoulder. “You can look now.”

  We stared at each other.

  “So this is the day,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “This is the day.”

  We drove to McKelligan Canyon—​Sam and Fito and Marcos and Dad and Lina and me. We parked the two cars, paid the fee, and started up the trail toward the top of the mountain. Sam was carrying her mother’s urn in her backpack. We didn’t speak. Sam wanted us all to be silent. Sam was good at giving instructions. No talking. No talking was a big deal for her. I mean, Sam and silence just didn’t go together.

  When we reached the top of the mountain, the wind was cold, but I didn’t mind. It was strange and beautiful, and I felt so alive. We looked across the gorgeous vista, and it wasn’t hard for me to believe in God at that moment. Who else could’ve made this? We could see the river and the valley and the houses on the west side of town. The houses looked small and far away, and the streets looked like rivers. You couldn’t tell if a house was big and belonged to a rich person or if it was little and belonged to a poor person. All of it was all so large and vast and miraculous. I felt so small, and I didn’t mind that at all. I was small.

  Sam took off her backpack, looked at my dad, and then looked at Lina and nodded. Then Sam looked at me. She was shaking and biting her lip, and I knew she was being as strong as hell and that it was costing her something, but she was willing to pay the price because she needed to do this. “I’m ready now, Sally.”

  I wiped the tears that were running down her face.

  She handed me the backpack. “Will you take the urn out for me, Sally?”

  “Yeah,” I whispered.

  I unzipped her backpack, gently took out the urn. I placed it in her shaking hands.

  She held the urn tightly. “She liked this place.” Her voice was trembling. “She used to bring all her boyfriends here.” She laughed. And then her trembling stopped. “I only know that because I read through her journals. She kept journals. She didn’t seem the type. But that was one of her things.” She was quiet for what seemed a long time. “Oh, I forgot.” She gave me the urn, took out some paper, and handed a sheet to each of us. It was a picture of the mirror where Sylvia had written just because my love isn’t perfect doesn’t mean i don’t love you. “That’s how I’ll always remember her.”

  Then she took the urn from my hands, raised the lid. She slowly tipped the urn until the ashes poured out. The wind lifted Sylvia’s ashes and blew them over the desert.

  Sam took my hand and looked at it. Then she whispered, “What would I do without this hand?”

  O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree

  SAM PUT ON some Christmas music, and she was singing along to “O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree.” Sam could do a lot of things, but she didn’t know how to sing. But she was in a good space, so I didn’t mind.

  I was lying on the couch, trying to read about the Civil War. Fito was lying on the floor, right in front of the Christmas tree. He was crazy over the Christmas tree. Loco. Sam was on her laptop, looking at the Stanford website, dreaming her dream.

  “I like Christmas,” I said.

  “Me, not so much,” Sam said. “You and Dad always went to Mima’s. And I was always stuck with Sylvia, who was usually not in a good mood. For whatever reason, she was usually without a boyfriend around Christmas, so we watched a lot of movies. But we did buy a lot of shoes. I was always happy when Christmas was over.”

  Fito was listening to Sam. He was still staring at the lights on the tree. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me. I remember one Christmas, my mom actually got a tree. And me and my brothers decorated it, and I was, like, this happy little kid. And I went around the house whistling. I used to love to whistle. Then one night my mom was in a bad mood, or she was high, or she was, I don’t know, but she was yelling and acting all crazy, which was normal, and then she went off on me and said she couldn’t stand that whistling shit. ‘And just for that,’ she said, ‘I’m getting rid of the tree.’ She tossed it out. Yeah, Christmas was shit at my house. But you know, I still liked Christmas. I liked walking around and seeing all the lights, and I liked to see the mangers with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. I liked all that. And there was this song I heard, and I used to sing it to myself as I walked up and down the streets looking at the lights.” And Fito started singing this song I really liked, a kind of sad song, “I Wonder as I Wander.” And the way he sang it—​like he’d written it.

  And after he stopped singing, he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I like Christmas.” Sam and I were real quiet, and then Sam said, “Wow, Fito, you have a beautiful voice. You can really sing.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “How come you never told us you could sing?”

  He shrugged. “I guess no one ever asked.”

  Sam shut her laptop. “Fito,” she said, “did you know I didn’t used to like you? Shame on me. Shame on me.”

  Dirt. Paper Bags. Candles.

  “I’VE NEVER MADE luminarias before.”

  “Me neither.”

  I gave Fito and Sam a look. “I’m kicking you out of my Mexicans-only club. Have you guys ever done anything Mexican?”

  “I’ve gone to Chico’s Tacos.”

  “Me too.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one on Alameda.”

  “Me too.”

  “Well, maybe I’ll let you in.”

  “Shut up, gringo.”

  I gave them another look. Both of them. “Pochos. You’re both such pochos. Totally half-baked Mexicans.”

  They just laughed.

  I’d taught Fito and Sam to fold the tops of the paper lunch bags. You had to be careful because if you were in too big a hurry, the bags would rip. No bueno. So they started getting the hang of folding. I grabbed a shovel and poured about six inches of sand into each bag. As I was doing that, I started thinking of the shovel at my grandfather’s burial, and I hated that thought living
in my brain, so I just shut it down by thinking of a song. I guess that was another way of whistling in the dark.

  We were in my Uncle Mickey’s backyard. He had plenty of dirt, since his dog, Buddy, had dug up half the lawn.

  There we were, the three of us, making luminarias.

  “Who the hell thought of this luminaria stuff anyway?”

  “The Spaniards in northern New Mexico. They used to put little fires on paths to light the way to midnight Mass on Christmas. I think that’s how it goes. They were the original streetlights. Then the fires became paper bags, just like paper lanterns. Sort of. Only they sit on the ground.”

  Sam gifted me with one of her looks. If she hadn’t been folding paper bags, she would have crossed those arms of hers. “Thank you, Professor Silva, for the little history lesson.”

  “You don’t believe me? Wikipedia it.”

  She stopped folding, took out her cell phone, and started her thing. She read it, then looked at me. “So yeah, big deal. You know a few things.”

  I have to say I was feeling a little cocky. I dropped the shovel and started dancing around, waving my hands in the air like a super dork. And then I started singing a tune I made up in my head: “‘Call me gringo, now. Call me gringo, now.’”

  And Fito, he’s laughing his ass off. “Vato, you just proved that you’re, like, white, white, white. You can’t dance worth a shit.”

  “Ah,” I said, “get to work.”

  We were having fun. I wondered why one of our hobbies was giving each other a hard time—​part of the friendship thing. The heart, yeah, sometimes I didn’t get it. But if we were making each other laugh and smile, maybe it was part of the way human beings loved each other.

  When we finished folding and filling all the paper bags, Fito looked at our handiwork. “You and your peeps, you’re up to your ass in traditions, you know that?”

  “You want that I should apologize?”

  “Is that your way of saying  fuck you?”

  “You’re quick, Fito. You’re very quick.”

  We placed a hundred and fifty luminarias all around Mima’s house and put a votive candle in the center of each bag. “Ah,” Fito said, “the sand. I get it. That way the bags don’t catch on fire.”

  “Like I said, Fito, you’re quick.”

  “You say that one more time, and I’m gonna do to you what I did to my brother at the funeral home.”

  “I’m not sure that therapist is working out for you.”

  Sam started laughing, and she said maybe Fito and I should take our show on the road. “Anywhere,” she said, “as long as it’s far away from me.”

  Dad and Uncle Mickey and Uncle Julian lit the luminarias as the sun was setting. It was a clear night, and there was only a slight breeze. Perfect weather for luminaria lighting. Mima was no longer walking, and my Aunt Evie and my Aunt Lulu helped her into her wheelchair and bundled her up, and they kept asking her if she was sure she wanted to go outside. “What if you get sick?”

  Mima gave them a look. I mean, she could still give looks. “I have cancer,” she said. “I am sick.”

  She winked at me. I wheeled her outside and we stopped at the end of the driveway so she could see the luminarias. The lanterns made everything seem so soft, as if a few candles in paper bags could tame the night. Sam and I and Fito started singing her song in Latin. We’d practiced it a bunch of times, but it was Fito who carried us along: “‘Adeste fideles laeti triumphantes, venite, venite . . .’” When we finished, Mima had tears streaming down her face. I knew they were the good kind of tears.

  She took my hand, holding tight—​as if she never wanted to let go.

  Now I knew why people said things like I’ll take that to the grave. I had always assumed it was a bad thing. Just then I realized that it could sometimes be a good thing. And not just a good thing, but a great thing.

  The luminarias lighting up the winter night.

  Candles in paper bags.

  Mima’s tears.

  Christmas.

  Midnight Mass

  MIMA HAD GONE to midnight Mass every year of her life. Not this year. Not ever again. Dad told us to get dressed, so we did.

  Mima sat in a chair in the living room. She was awake. She was thinking. She held Aunt Evie’s hand.

  We stood in front of her.

  Sam and I waved.

  Dad kissed her. “We’re going to Mass.”

  Mima’s face lit up. Like a luminaria.

  Christmas

  CHRISTMAS MORNING, and I was sitting next to Mima in the living room. My Aunt Evie and my dad had to help her into her chair, the one she liked to sit on. Dark clouds were moving in. It wasn’t cold enough for snow.

  Rain.

  Rain was bad for paper bags.

  Rain was bad for luminarias.

  Mima and I were looking at my book of photographs. The one I made for her. She looked at them and smiled, and I knew she was remembering.

  She didn’t talk much anymore.

  A word here.

  A word there.

  Sometimes a full sentence.

  She pointed to a picture of me and her and Popo. I must have been about ten. We were all dressed up. “Dad’s birthday,” I said. She laughed at my caption: Mima is prettier than Popo.

  She was staring at a picture of me and Sam when we were seven. No front teeth. We were standing in the front yard. It was summer and the leaves of her mulberry tree were behind us. The caption read: She was always my sister.

  “Beautiful,” she said.

  I turned the page, and she smiled. It was a picture of the day when we built the human pyramid in my backyard, and I was at the top. The caption read: One day, all these Mexicans built a pyramid to the Sun.

  “You were my pyramid,” she whispered. “All of you.”

  Dream

  I WOKE UP in the middle of the night. I dreamed I was opening my mom’s letter. And my mom was sitting next to me. She took the letter and said, Here, Salvador, let me read it to you.

  What if I started remembering a mother I had no real memories of?

  I couldn’t fall back asleep.

  I looked around the room and remembered that we were still at Mima’s. I was sleeping on the couch. I wanted to walk into her room and tell her about my dream.

  But she was asleep.

  I didn’t want to wake her.

  Home

  THREE DAYS AFTER Christmas, my dad was sitting on the front porch with Mima, who was having a good day. Dad looked at the mulberry tree. “I remember when Dad planted that tree.”

  “I remember too,” Mima said. “It’s a beautiful tree. I’ve sat in the shade of this tree for many years.”

  Mima was like the tree. In this desert where I’d grown up, Mima had shaded me from the sun.

  She was a tree. How would I live without that tree?

  Sam took the wheel and drove us home. “I want a car,” she said.

  “You have to pay for cars,” my dad said. “Are you ready to make payments on a car?”

  “I’m ready,” she said.

  I believed she was.

  Fito turned off his phone. He was always fooling with it. “It’s almost New Year’s,” he said. “That means we get to start over.”

  “You believe that?” I asked.

  “Maybe. Maybe I just wanna believe it.”

  “I wanna believe it too.”

  “Then believe it,” my dad said. “What’s stopping you?”

  “I believe it,” Sam said.

  “Let’s do something great this New Year’s Eve.”

  “I’m for that,” my dad said.

  “Me too,” I said.

  New Year’s Eve

  I WAS HANGING OUT with Maggie and Dad after our morning run. Dad was looking at the cigarette he was holding. “I hate these things.”

  “But you love them too.”

  He laughed. “Yeah.”

  “You said it was an uncomplicated relationship. That wasn’t true, was
it?”

  “Guess not.” He lit his cigarette. “What’s the plan for New Year’s?”

  “Me, Sam, and Fito were thinking of going across the border to New Mexico and getting some fireworks and shooting them off in the desert.”

  “Oh yeah? You got a car?”

  “Don’t be a wiseass, Dad.”

  “That’s a sore subject with you, isn’t it?”

  “I’m the last boy in America who doesn’t have a car.”

  “Not true.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Wow, I guess I’ve sent you straight to the therapist’s couch.”

  “What? Are you taking lessons from Sam?”

  “You have money in the bank. You can buy a clunker if you want.”

  “You never said that.”

  “I never said you couldn’t have a car. All I said was that I wasn’t going to buy one for you.”

  “Oh shit! You mean I could have bought a car?”

  “Yeah.” My dad was laughing. “Not my fault you didn’t think of it.” He rubbed my hair. “Joke’s on you.”

  I didn’t have a choice. I had no one to blame but me. So I sat there laughing at myself.

  Then I looked at my dad. “How come you didn’t want to buy me a car?”

  “I gave you everything you needed. But not everything you wanted. I didn’t want you to grow up to be an entitled brat. A lot of kids, their parents get them everything and the kids do a new kind of math: I want equals I get. As you like to say, no bueno.” He put out his cigarette. “Anyway, we have reservations at Café Central tonight. Marcos is treating us to a New Year’s dinner.”

  “He must be in the bucks.”

  “He does all right. Everything he has, he came by honestly. I respect that.”

  “Does this mean we have to dress up?”

  “Yeah. What, you married to your jeans?”

  “You’re funny today, Dad.”

  “I got up feisty, I guess.”

  “Well, can Fito go?”

  “He’s included. The reservation is for five.”