Here, where Luz knelt for nearly two hours, there is nothing but a palpable sweetness hanging over the sidewalk fronting the office of Walt’s Immaculate Autos. It reminds Father Bill of the after effect of many prayerful hours on the part of the most faithful souls.
“They’re inside,” Emily Otto tells them, getting up from her chair as she sees them approach. Josefina, the frightened mother, who clings to the arm of Father Bill as if she has been given bad news. “She’s fine. Bobbie brought food from the diner. Your child was starved.”
Josefina responds with a nod. Yes, that is my daughter, what an appetite. Luz is eating? A good sign. But still, she thinks, as they go from sidewalk to the walkway to the door of the office, past strange men and women (with these strangers so close, she will lose her mind), until she sees Luz with her own eyes no word of assurance can have substance. Only with her eyes, with her own subtle touch will she know what has happened to her child.
CHAPTER 26
There is such turmoil inside Walt’s office. Much chatter, many people, and the place smells like the diner, of tuna and roast beef, of Walt’s cinnamon coffee. Laughter and noise, and yes, it is true! Even her daughter’s unmistakable high cadence, her daughter who sits on the couch between Bobbie (why is she not at the diner?) and the Felangela. Luz on the couch, reclining: a sandwich in one hand, a drink in the other, and not just a drink, Coca-Cola, which is forbidden; Luz knows this. Her child who appears on first glance, at this distance, to be suffering from only an excess of spoiling.
“Mami,” Luz cries in surprise, “why didn’t you stay at your work?”
Ah, thinks Father Bill with relief. His petition has been answered. Here is Luz. Luz herself. She is back.
Josefina feels a fire from deep in the earth; it moves through her heavy white shoes, through the soles of her feet, through the whole of her body, fanning into her hands. For the first time Josefina understands how a woman is able to strike her own child. She strides through the office and stands before Luz.
“Get up.”
“Look! Zoe is here!”
“I see Sewey. I see all your friends. Get up right now.”
Never in her life has Luz been asked to stop in the middle of eating, Bobbie’s sweet tuna fish, crunchy lettuce, skinny tomato, the untoasted honey bread. She has never known hunger like this. Every part of her wants to eat food and more food. She feels hungry enough to keep eating for the rest of the day. After roast beef and tuna, Bobbie has brought Luz’s special dessert: whipped cream on strawberry pie.
And now, without warning, comes her mother. Luz feels hot right away at the neck. Blood floods to her cheeks so they burn. The pee comes sharp in her down parts. She presses her thighs close in case some might spill out on the couch.
Someone has told Josefina that Luz did not get on the summer school bus.
“I did a bad thing,” she whispers to Zoe who takes the soda can from her.
“Just go,” Zoe says.
But she doesn’t. Luz only sits up.
“What are you waiting for? Didn’t you hear me?” her mother commands as if there is no one in Walt’s office but herself and her impossible daughter.
The happiness of her eating has gone quickly away. Her mother is angry. She had to leave work and lose money. It is all Luz’s fault. Luz did not go to Mass. She did not get on the summer school bus.
Bobbie puts the white paper bag with the whipped cream–topped strawberry pie on the floor next to her coffee.
A scramble of voices from the folks at the snack bar, then Father Bill leans over the counter, conferring with Walt. “Folks,” Walt says as he comes out from the counter and walks to his entry door, opening it just a crack on account of the heat. “Could you do us a favor, step outside for a minute. We’ll have you right back. You too, Chico. If you don’t mind. Just wait outside till you’re called.”
They do as he asks; Chico Platz shuts the door.
It has turned quiet as a grave in the car wash office, only the hum of the refrigerator case and the slow drip of the air conditioning. And still Luz Reyes does not move, the half-eaten tuna fish sandwich held in her upraised right hand.
“You can walk one mile from the house to the car wash and you cannot walk ten steps to me?”
Bobbie takes the sandwich from Luz and whispers, “Go on, honey, Mami is waiting.”
“What if I pee?”
“Talk to me, not to Sewey and Bobbie!”
Luz slides off the couch and stands up. She takes one step forward, then two, her legs thick and lazy as if she has been given the body of some heavier child in place of her own. At last like magic she can walk and the pee goes back up where it came from. She moves toward the door where the customers went out, and Father Bill watches and her mother now waits in a barely held rage.
As she walks, Josefina studies Luz’s upright posture, the proud little chest thrust out like a pigeon’s that threatens to send a lifetime of uncontrolled love careening out of Josefina’s fast-beating heart. The yellow dress shows no sign of blood, the limbs intact, the skin unmarked except at the knees, which are chafed red from hours of kneeling. Luz’s gait is unnatural. She is ready to cry.
It takes twenty-one steps for Luz Reyes to reach her mother near the door of Walt’s office, with Luz standing close enough now to be kissed or slapped. Instead of kissing her or wiping the crumbs off her daughter’s face, Josefina sinks to her knees. Father Bill, having just prayed his way to the fourth decade of the Glorious Mystery—Her body as well as her soul taken up to Heaven—is blessed by a second bout of realized grace on this day of all days, the fifteenth of August, the day of Our Lady’s Assumption, removes his hand from the rosary in his pocket, Esperanza’s, he thinks, the one he has taken from Luz, and quickly bends forward in bliss to catch Josefina in case she has fainted. To the dismay of the few who remain in the office, Josefina is running her hands up Luz’s legs, then under the skirt of the yellow dress, feeling her way to the warm unbroken thigh flesh. As she reaches the damp cotton underpants Luz flinches, then shuts her eyes. Her thighs tighten. Inside herself Luz pulls back.
“What are you doing?” Father Bill cries. His cry is ignored.
“No one touched you? No one hurt you? You swear to me?”
“No one hurt me. I promise,” Luz says in a whisper, and in Spanish. “Nadie.”
Now Josefina smells her fingers, finding nothing, no taint of semen. Blind to the shock of those who have witnessed Luz’s shame. Father Bill and Walt, Bobbie on the couch, mouth half agape, Zoe feeling more than a little bit sick.
“I am sorry if this insults you,” says Josefina then she slowly stands up. “Mejor es mio que los médicos.” Better me than the doctors, she says and holds up her hands to stop Father Bill from interfering. “Who drove you to the car wash, Luz?”
Luz starts to shiver. She has gone cold as a corpse. Her mother has trespassed her body. It happened. It was real.
“Give me the name of this person.”
“Mami, no person, the feet again,” Luz says softly, no sense of conviction.
Walt has come out from behind the counter in a blue-blotched white tee shirt, moving as close as he dares. He could reach past her mother. He could bend down and raise Luz with his arms. He sends out a net over Luz, a gentling smile, so much kindness Luz cannot hold it. She has sealed up her body of light.
“I am getting sick from your lies.”
“Please, Mami, I have to go to the bathroom very bad.”
“You go nowhere until you answer my question.”
“No one took me. I swear the truth to you Mami. The feet.”
“You walked to the car wash all by yourself? Like you walked to the campgrounds on those feet? Luz, you do this two times to me?”
Now Luz stands silent, dark eyes shining with withheld tears. But her feet, she thinks, and waits for the words to come into her mind. But no words arrive to tell her mother how fast they can go.
“What is your reason this time to do such
a dangerous thing that makes me think something has happened to you again?”
How can she speak of the speed that came back to her feet, of the light that came down and came through her heart on the sidewalk when she opened and opened in a floating of gold? Our Lady, thinks Luz, and her heart moves like wings with wild flutters. So much gold she can’t understand who could give this to her but Our Lady herself that her mother will not allow.
Father Bill bends down close to Luz as he did on the sidewalk. She remembers his words. Luz, don’t do this to us. “Can you answer the question for Mami?” he asks. “Can you tell us what made you go to the car wash?”
But Luz does not trust Father Bill.
“Please, Mami, take me into the bathroom. I don’t want to tell Father. I will tell you only inside.”
Her mother has the face of a demon and fingers like ice, no hands to hold Luz. They are folded to cover her breasts just under the bandage and the tube. “I am waiting for the truth from you,” Josefina says, “I am prepared to wait here all day.”
Luz prays to Our Lady for help with melting the heart of her mother, for showing that Luz tells the truth.
“Something was going to happen. I knew it from my body. And something did happen, but I don’t know the words.”
“What did you know from your body?”
“The sweet place came back,” Luz says. The place that got bigger and bigger until Luz was a dark speck, a burned thing, the sweetness so big like a fire of gold blazing out of her heart. “Please, it was something, not a person. I don’t know the name, just the sweetness. You can even ask Walt. Walt knows I’m not lying. He knows I am saying the truth.”
CHAPTER 27
He is going to disappoint them, Walt thinks. He is late beyond help now. He will make the third inning if he leaves right now. If he speeds. And he is a mess, wearing a blue-blotched tee shirt he keeps in the office to use as a rag, dirty chinos; he will have no time to change if he wants to get to the Fullerton Stadium. He has missed his son’s opening pitch. He stands with his back to the counter having told Josefina all he can about Luz, but his words don’t begin to explain what has happened and, anyway, she does not believe them. She has turned her relentless gaze upon him, her relentless questions. She has stupefied Zoe to silence. She has caused even Bobbie to withhold her opinion. There they sit on his sofa, Zoe dozing, Bobbie leaning forward, feet planted, head cocked, taking in every word.
“But what happened?” Josefina demands of him. “What was it, this sweet place? I don’t understand.”
What can Walt say that will make sense to this woman? He throws up his hands.
Josefina turns back to Luz. “You think this sweet place comes from the Virgin?”
“Maybe,” Luz says. “Maybe She sends it. I don’t know.”
Josefina looks up to the ceiling for patience, the corrugated tiles, very ugly, she thinks, very cheap. Walt can do better than this.
“Luz spoke Our Lady’s name on the sidewalk?”
Walt hesitates. “Not exactly. She did say there had been a voice. Isn’t that right, Luz, do you remember you told me something called you?”
“You see this girl?” Josefina accuses Father Bill. “You see what this is again?”
Father Bill, leaning against the freezer case, a safe distance. He nods, tries to rise from his bliss, but it hangs on to him like a virus. The truth is, he’s so grateful that Luz is herself she can say anything and he won’t be fazed. As long as she does not fall into rapture, as long as Josefina is spared this.
“Come here, Luz. You have crumbs on your face.” Josefina reaches into her pocket for a tissue and spits on it, wipes her daughter’s face. “So that is why you kneel for two hours like a penitent? Our Lady calls you to run with the traffic? After all I have been through with you since the spring, you are still running to Her?”
“I didn’t run. I told you it was the feet.”
“The feet don’t decide for the body. The brain tells the feet!”
“You never believe me!” Luz says.
“Who can believe you with that dirty face? Everyone knows you are lying.”
How much easier if Luz had seen Our Lady today, Walt thinks. How much easier if he’d seen the Virgin flashing across Luz’s face. He could call it a holy appearance—a vision. Our Lady of Infidelity. Dump the whole thing on Father Bill. Instead, he is stuck with the mystery of those nameless holy faces. Stuck with the mystery of Luz, with Luz’s feet, which he may well have seen, or not seen, they were moving so fast they could hardly be seen, not this morning but two weeks ago. The night she had scared him silly.
“What time did you see Luz?” Josefina asks Walt with a sigh of disgust.
“Do you want to sit down?” he asks. “This must be exhausting. How ’bout something to drink?” He is never going to get out of this office. Hold on Ryan, he prays, keep on seeing the seams of the ball.
“What time?” she repeats, waving away his offer. Though her feet are beginning to ache, her ankles to swell, she will stand up. All her strength, she thinks, all the good strength that she woke with this morning is going to disappear any second. She must finally get to the bottom of her daughter’s running away.
“I saw Luz a couple of minutes after I opened the wash, eight o’clock, give or take a few minutes.”
“Eight o’clock I was kissing Luz good-bye at the door. She was just starting to go for the church. Eight o’clock is impossible for a one-mile walk, even for a child with such talented feet. You must have been sleeping on that couch, Walt. I am telling you, you are wrong.”
“I was watching the clock. I have someplace important I need to be.”
“Where for the first time since I know you are you needed someplace?” Josefina demands.
“My son has a game. I told you, remember? Little League play-offs.”
“He is pitching the game today?”
“Starting pitcher. Yep, it’s happening now.”
“He invited you to go?” Luz asks.
“Last week.”
“You are missing it?” Josefina turns to her daughter with disgust. “Do you see all the problems you are causing? Now you have made Walt late for his son.”
“I’m sorry.” Luz’s voice is muffled. She stares at the floor, her fingers worrying the backs of new teeth.
If he leaves in five minutes and he’s lucky with traffic, he will catch the fifth inning and Ryan will still be pitching. “You had us fooled. We really thought you were going to make it today,” Gwen had said when he called to say he’d be late. “I intend to be there. Something is going on at the car wash.” How could he describe what it was without sounding like he was insane? “Fuck you and your car wash,” Gwen had said and hung up the phone.
“Be sorry also for being in two places at once,” Josefina chides.
“No, because I wasn’t!” Luz looks up at her mother. Now Luz is angry. Her mother is ugly and mean.
“Then Walt and I are crazy. Or maybe you make us crazy.”
“Josefina,” says Father Bill.
“What?” Her face is hot. She can feel the blood rushing at her temples.
“Have some consideration for Walt. He is already late.”
“How ’bout we take a break and figure this all out later?” Walt says. He wants to touch Josefina, wants his touch to reassure her since his words cannot, knows she cannot abide it, cringes when he is too close. But what is this child of hers? What is he? He has just seen the wisdom of the ages on her daughter’s shining face. It pains him that he cannot reveal what he saw. Maybe later, he thinks, maybe when the crowd has disappeared and he has come back from the game he will go to the blue house, sit down at her clean kitchen table, and tell Josefina the truth. He will tell it in a way that makes it seem right, this thing that he thinks Luz may bring. Apart from those faces it is just what Luz said—a sweet place, some new geography of feeling. A little off the map, he’ll concede, but nonetheless lovely, kind of innocent, deeply sweet. We could all use a p
lace like that, Walt thinks.
“Why don’t you two go home? Take it easy for the rest of the day. Okay, Luz? Later we can talk more. When I get back.”
CHAPTER 28
Zoe watches Walt leaving the office in a hail of white lights. Something is wrong with all of them. They have turned kind of starry. Everything so bright. Streaks of white light shooting out from Father Bill, from Josefina, from her own arms and legs, and blazing out of the belly of Luz. She has to put a hand over her eyes as Josefina and Luz come toward her, asking if something is wrong.
“Maybe because she fell on the sidewalk,” Luz says.
“She fell? What happened? Did you do something, Luz?”
Zoe can’t find the words. Was it Luz or was it the force in the window? Force without a face, Zoe thinks. Without a face but with a voice. She hears herself laugh.
“It wasn’t my fault,” says Luz. “She did it like this,” and plops down on the floor then tips her head back and back.
“Did you eat today, Sewey?” Josefina asks.
“Have a tuna sandwich,” says Bobbie, who is thinking that she really must get back to the diner.
But Zoe declines it.
“Sewey?” says Josefina, “What day is this?”
“The day I must pick up my car.”
It is clear to Josefina: the Felangela is not acting right. In truth she looks dazed, but still she saw Luz on the sidewalk. There may be something she remembers that Josefina should know. “Tell me the truth. You sat close to my daughter before falling? She talked to you?”
“She’s a beautiful child,” Zoe says. She has said this before, in what context she can’t quite pin down.
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