“That’s fine, don’t worry, Father, I’ll get this,” says Walt.
Now Luz burrows in her mother’s neck whispering.
“No, Luz. For my help we have many smart doctors like you will be when you are grown. She wants to light candles in the church.”
“Only turn on the porch lights for the people who are coming to the meeting, then straight to the diner, Lucy Luz,” says Father Bill.
“We turn on the porch light then go straight to the diner,” Walt says. “Agreed?” Luz looks at him but does not reply. The diner—the last place Walt wants to be tonight—though it is late and perhaps most of the regulars will have left. Still he knows Bobbie will not let him off easy. He will have to swallow his pride for Luz’s sake. Let them say what they will about his window or his manhood. Let them think what they want about how he’d been hoodwinked by Zoe. Because right now this evening and until Josefina is well, the main thing is Josefina and Luz.
But the diner is nearly empty; the regulars have long since gone home. Two solitary strangers sit at opposite ends of the counter, finishing their meals. Bobbie looks up from the cash register and comes out to greet Walt and Luz with transparent false cheer, leads them to a window booth and takes their order.
By the time their meals are served, the strangers have left. Luz eats her meal, chicken strips and fries. Walt indulges himself in a beer and a burger, piling on onions, tomatoes and lettuce, along with copious amounts of ketchup and mustard. They eat in silence looking down at their food. When he asks Luz if she wants dessert, she says yes. Walt signals to Bobbie. Luz orders strawberry pie.
“So where’s your friend Zoe?” Bobbie asks Walt when she comes back one final time to give him the check. Walt says nothing.
Luz looks up from her strawberry pie. “We don’t know,” says Luz. “Maybe looking for her husband.”
“Who?” says Walt.
“Michael,” Luz says, and drinks a long swallow of juice, then puts down her glass, running her tongue over her lips.
Walt looks at Bobbie. “Who?”
“Her husband,” says Luz.
“How do you know this?” Bobbie asks. Now this is a choice piece of gossip.
“From Mami and Father Bill talking. She looks for him in the mountains, in the deserts, and maybe the sea. And every place where the carpenters work.”
Bobbie gets up, smiling. “Well, what do you know?”
Walt puts on his best poker face to disguise his ignorance, no less his pride. His mouth has gone dry.
Outside the diner Luz stops in the middle of the dark parking lot and looks up at Walt. “Are you taking me to see the window now?”
“What?”
“Is it a surprise for me that now you have your window?”
He has nearly forgotten it was Luz who first brought up the subject the night of their dinner at Father Bill’s.
Walt is tired and not a little ashamed. He needs no more reminders of Zoe. Still, he can surely indulge Luz this. In the Civic they wait for the traffic to pass, then make a U turn across the freeway and enter the wash. Habit leads him to his parking spot at the rear of the office; the path to the sidewalk is hard to see in spite of the clarity of the night, the profusion of summer stars. Walt takes Luz’s hand and she lets him.
When they get to the window it looks perfect, as if it has suddenly corrected itself. Walt does not know what to make of the thing. Quiet gathers around Luz like a thin dusky powder, and, for a while, she simply stands there looking. When he bends to her, though, he sees she is crying and reaches to smooth back her hair, “Luz, I’m so sorry. I promise you Mami will be well,” though he shouldn’t be promising. He knows nothing, not even what’s wrong; still the words form themselves without thought.
When he tries to get her to return to the car and go home she refuses, a flash of stubbornness that surprises him. When she begins to speak, he can’t tell what she’s saying. It’s all Spanish. He lets her be like this for several minutes. Then he insists, reminding her that it’s late.
“Luz,” he says when she does not respond, and kneels to her. “I hate to see you so sad. Let me take you home.”
“I am not sad,” she says. Then Luz reaches out and touches Walt’s face, looks deep into his eyes. He wonders how it is that she is looking at him like that, as if he, and not she, is the one who is sad. And suddenly it is not Luz’s face that he sees before him. It is a woman’s face, such beautiful strong features, he thinks, such an expression—a woman powerful and kind, Native American, or perhaps some other indigenous female. It happens so quickly his mind cannot grasp it, his eyes far ahead of his brain. A powerful joy fills his chest. Now Luz is Luz again and she is speaking and Walt is grappling with the gap.
“You are going to be very happy from all the business,” she says.
“What business?”
“When the people all come to your car wash.”
“That’s what I’m waiting for, honey. Let’s hope it happens soon.”
“It will,” she says.
CHAPTER 5
Father Bill and Zoe stand in the harsh light of the hospital entrance. He reaches for her hands as if it is she who is going to need comforting. “Chronic renal disease, irreversible,” he explains. Zoe says “Huh!” and takes back her hands. “If Josefina had a sister, a brother, but no,” he goes on, “Josefina has no one but Luz. No money, no insurance. She is only thirty-two. A transplant would save her. Her chances for transplant are nil. Nil,” he repeats. There, at last, it is out of him, witnessed by one who barely knows them, knows nothing of their past or the complicated deceptions of their lives.
Stripped of its meaning the word sounds like music to Zoe, the name of something wonderful, a rare silver plant. Nil cannot mean death, that Luz will be motherless and fatherless both—that vibrant Josefina, only a year older than Zoe, a woman she hardly knows, is at her life’s end.
Now Zoe’s own life falls from her as surely as the shakes fall from the trunk of the hemlock, thick and intact and ready to be used in a whole new way, her life layered onto theirs.
“Isn’t there anything they can do?”
“We are going to put her on dialysis. We are going to go through the transplant registry. We will do whatever they say to do. That may buy us time. And we are going to keep the truth from Luz for as long as we can.”
He has omitted any mention of prayer. Even she, who has had no experience of it, has the urge to ask something, this starry profusion above them to shift just a little. Though she knows that only the desperate talk to stars. Only the helpless think their lives have been marked out by fate. Zoe looks up at the desert night sky. Too many, she thinks. Father Bill looks up with her. The sky that usually gives him such solace is again the sky of El Salvador, the same one under which all the sorrows on earth have been told.
“We need someone to stay with Luz now. Three, four days at the most is what they’re saying it will take to get her stabilized. And Luz has been asking for you.”
“To stay with Luz?”
“Yes.”
“Starting when?”
“Right now. We’ll pay you. No, Josefina insists.” Josefina who does not trust. Who does not even like Zoe, he thinks. Why has she picked Zoe for Luz? Luz cannot stay with the Platz’s who have known her since she was three. Patty Platz who would welcome Luz with her house filled with diversions, all Tommy’s toys. The pool, Josefina says. The swimming pool with its danger of drowning, and Luz cannot swim. Only Zoe. Zoe in the blue house. Luz in her own bed. You, William, close. It is the least he can give them, the one Luz asks for. A great deal to ask of a stranger, but she is no longer that. He has given her this secret.
Zoe feels the cold night air on her back, along her arms. She’s not the right one for this. She has never taken care of a child. Should she say so? But, she thinks, ashamed of the thought, they need help and she could really use the money.
“I’m sorry. I have made you a party to this.”
“Don’t be so
rry for that, please,” says Zoe. “Will you tell me what to do with Luz? What she needs? I’m not exactly experienced with children.”
He laughs. He, who has struggled for months with this question: what to do with Luz.
“Yes, I’ll tell you. When we get to the house you can write it all down.”
“Okay. That will be good.” A book of instructions for Luz.
“We can start talking in the car. Do you mind if we take mine? Once you two are settled I need to come back. I’ll have Platz and Chico drive down here and bring the Dart to the house for you. You’ll need it in the morning.”
They have no one, thinks Zoe. He must be all that they have. When they are close to his car, he gives her the keys and asks her to drive. On the ride to the house he leans back on the headrest and closes his eyes and says nothing more until they reach the hill district, when he suddenly sits up. “Turn here,” he says at the rise. Small stucco houses line both sides of the street, separated by concrete driveways. Halfway up he says, “Here,” and points to a house indistinguishable from the others except for its pale blue color, bars on the windows. All along the curb there are weeds, three feet tall, moving in the night air like miniature wheat.
“Wait, please,” Father Bill says after Zoe has turned off the engine. “I need a minute.” They remain in the darkened driveway, the car windows rolled down to the cold night air. In this way they begin to hear it. A sound like the beating of hands on the skin of a drum. And then through the lighted front window they can see Luz’s dark head rushing past, and then they hear Walt’s voice calling her name.
CHAPTER 6
Father Bill is out of the car in an instant. He is running up the walk, fishing for the house keys in his pocket. He must open three locks before he can see inside to her. There is Walt standing helpless, Luz speeding down the hall past the calendar Madonnas, one for each month of the year. Father Bill moves in quickly past Walt, yet lets Luz run on ahead, into Josefina’s bedroom. His heart hammers hard and he panics, unable to remember what to do to bring her back.
The social worker had said, “Hold her, wrap your arms around her so she cannot move. Show her she is safe.” He is afraid to put a hand on her; any human touch might push her over the edge. But now Luz stands in the doorway staring past him. Then she races down the hall again. “Whoa!” says Zoe, as Luz rushes past Father Bill and throws her arms around Zoe’s waist. Zoe Luedke with her yellow-brown eyes and strong white arms and her missing fingertip. The Felangela who has given her the window. Who has given the gift.
“How long has she been like this?” Father Bill asks Walt.
“A half hour, maybe less. I was sure she was sleeping. And then she was up and running through the house. I don’t like what I saw of those feet.”
“Luz,” says Father Bill gently, but she won’t go to him. She is still dressed in the clothes of the day.
“You came back,” Luz says, looking far up at the shining white face of Zoe, the Felangela.
“Yes, I did.”
“Is she all right?” murmurs Walt.
“Luz, look at me, please,” Father Bill commands. “Mami is sleeping. She is feeling a little better.”
Luz does not look at Father Bill. She clings to Zoe like a chimp to its mother.
Isn’t it unnatural, Zoe wonders, for a child to take so quickly to a stranger? Remembering the experience at Father Bill’s dinner, the way that she felt when Luz touched her arm, for a moment, looking down at Luz, Zoe is afraid. When she turns to Walt Adair, he looks away.
“Can you come to the couch and let Zoe sit down?”
“No,” says Luz.
“It’s okay,” says Zoe, patting Luz on the head,
“Maybe,” says Father Bill, “Zoe can help wash your face.”
“Shall we do that?” asks Zoe.
Very quickly Luz is washed, her teeth brushed, she is in her summer pajamas, saying goodnight. She does not want to talk to her friend, Father Bill. She takes Zoe’s hands, dragging her from the living room.
Luz can sleep now. She will ask for a dream, though she already has more than she’s asked for. Once again Our Lady has given her a visit. But how did She know to come on the same day that Mami was taken to the hospital by ambulance?
“Rest well, honey,” says Walt. “It will be okay.”
Yes, thinks Luz. The window is in. The Felangela is here. Our Lady is coming and soon.
Luz walks with Zoe into her white room with its white canopy, lace curtains, and four white pillows.
“How lovely,” says Zoe, the canopy has gold butterflies, tiny flowers of gold that glint in the dark. Luz turns on a lamp and climbs into bed. Above her toy shelf her best writing has been displayed, her best second-grade work, a Tortoise Report with twenty-seven true facts and several accompanying photos. “You can read it,” says Luz.
Zoe turns back to Luz. “Let’s wait till tomorrow. Father Bill needs to talk to me now. He’s going to tell me all about Y-O-U.”
“All right, but stay with me just a little while,” says Luz.
Zoe sits down at the foot of Luz’s bed. “Okay,” she whispers. “Do you want the light on?”
“Not now, Walt,” Father Bill’s voice insists. “Can’t it wait?” And then the voices grow soft.
By the time Zoe has left Luz and come into the living room, Walt has gone. Father Bill is alone on the couch, his legs stretched straight out before him, his hands over his prominent stomach. “She settled down pretty well,” Zoe says softly.
“You see? You are just what she needs.” Then he stands up. He does not trust it. He goes to Luz’s room and looks in. The room is dark. Luz is silent. “Are you asleep?” he says. Luz does not answer. He goes back to the living room, finishes a whiskey, and has a second. Zoe declines the whiskey but accepts a beer. When Zoe reminds him he was going to give her a list, he goes into the kitchen, finds a pad and a pencil, and hands them to her, sits down beside her, and dictates Luz’s routine. Zoe is grateful, though a little surprised at how well he knows Luz’s life. She can’t help but wonder, is it possible that Father Bill is also the father of Luz?
For nearly an hour Father Bill waits with his heart in his mouth, but Luz does not wake. There are no outcries; the odor of sanctity, thick as rosewater, fails to materialize. It will be fine, he tells himself. Luz has had a shock. He has to be careful what he lets himself think. “Dissociative Disorder,” he repeats over and over like a prayer, the social worker’s name for it. He has never seen an ecstatic. He is not even certain he believes in such things. He prefers not to deal with the mystical strain of his faith, suspect to him as to most. Too dangerous. Too hard to control. Revelation in the light of reason, that is the teaching of his Church. His as well. There, he is calmer. “If there’s something you think you can’t handle tonight or tomorrow, just call me at the hospital,” he says, leaning across Zoe to write down the numbers on top of the list. “Just ask them to find me. Don’t hesitate.”
“Yes,” says Zoe, “Thanks. I will. That makes me feel a lot better.”
Zoe who knows nothing. Who has never been alone with a child, let alone a child like Luz.
When Father Bill leaves, Zoe has a moment of panic. There is a child in her care. A strange child at that. There is a list, so much to do just to step into the day. There is Josefina in the High Desert Hospital, whose chances for transplant are nil. Zoe picks up the list, the dry reassurance of paper. She will read it and read it, study the bathroom, open cupboards, search for towels, for sheets, memorize the kitchen, try to remember where everything is, rehearse the day that’s to come. In this way she will prepare for the morning, deluding herself that she can.
CHAPTER 7
At last Zoe lies down on the brown couch, slips off her white cotton trousers, slips the pale green sheet under and around her, and closes her eyes. All night she skirts the edge of sleep, watching the desert sky change color: black to indigo to ash. Watching through the barred windows as the blue-white summer stars fade out
.
The house of Josefina and Luz Reyes is well guarded, but from what, Zoe wonders as she sits up. What would a thief take? The house is spare, scarcely furnished. The brown couch, a nondescript end table beside it, a small television in the corner on an old metal stand that Zoe will not turn on lest she wake Luz. But Luz does not stir. In spite of all she has been through and seen, Luz’s sleep is unbroken. It is Zoe who is awake.
Now Zoe stands up and goes barefoot into the kitchen, feeling her way in the dark to the counter and a small shaded lamp, switching it on. The light it gives off makes the kitchen feel golden and intimate, smoothing the uneven walls, which are thick with old layers of paint. There are red plates and colorful mugs, a small shiny pot on the drain board, and a pile of clean yellow cloths folded on the counter beside an immaculate gas stove. She goes to the refrigerator and pours some milk into the pot, heats the milk, then pours it into a mug and sits down at the table—its chrome legs polished to a high silver sheen—sipping her milk. It’s a lovely room at night. A small island of safety that Josefina has made. But Josefina is not safe. Zoe sees her lying sleepless in her hospital bed, displaced in her body, with what unthinkable fears? Soon Zoe is fighting off grief for a woman she hardly knows. She will have to be able to hide it by morning or Luz will know everything without being told. Josefina, Zoe thinks, and tries to see only her name. Before her on the table is the list that will guide her through the fast-approaching day. How can she possibly manage it all? She will start now. And so, at three in the morning Zoe decides she will make Luz’s lunch. Back to the refrigerator, which is full of fat plastic tubs. She opens the largest, searching for the sweet corn tamales, finds plump blue-green peppers stuffed with cheese in a thick red sauce. The food of the dead, thinks Zoe, before she can stop herself. She has only four hours to shut down her mind.
In the next tub she finds the tamales. Then in the cabinets to the right of the sink, the small plastic containers with bright colored tops, the little red boxes of raisins, the Yoo-hoos, the brown sacks and napkins. The kitchen is well organized; her task is quite easy. Now Zoe slides all the items into the sack and folds down the edge, Luz’s summer school lunch is complete. Feeling satisfied, she puts the sack on the top shelf of the refrigerator next to the milk, washes the tamale tub, and goes to the back door and peers through the glass. Through it she can see the gutters hanging loose from the mountings of the neighbor’s roof and wonders who lives there, and what she could charge to fix them. And then Zoe remembers Walt’s window. Was it just yesterday she installed it? The whole thing seems dreamy, something she has done ages ago or did not do at all, a thing she imagined. It has been weeks since she has been able to work fully absorbed, without once thinking of Michael, she realizes. And how happy Walt was in the end, and how generous. (And what was wrong with him this evening that he was so cold?) Even Chico Platz surprised himself. In spite of his awkwardness, his thin chest and arms, he was an excellent helper, careful—a good eye. She was glad that she chose him. A good job all around.
Our Lady of Infidelity Page 6
