by Mary Alice
Luz drove past farms dotted with grazing cows, an amusement park with a spectacular roller coaster, and acres of open fields. An hour later the open fields grew scarce and soon changed to chockablock houses, shopping malls, and office complexes. Closer to the city of Chicago, lanes doubled and traffic grew congested. An elevated train line zipped past, sparks flying from the wheels. Horns honked angrily at the poky Bug, and people cut into lanes without warning.
She wasn’t used to this kind of traffic and her heart pounded in her chest as she maneuvered her way through the downtown framed by skyscrapers and walls of cement. She’d just breathed a sigh of relief as she made it onto the outgoing expressway when she felt the car losing power. Her gaze darted to her speedometer and she watched helplessly as it slipped below fifty miles per hour.
Her heart rate zoomed as she flicked her turn signal and began looking in a panic over her shoulder for a break in the traffic. She grabbed her first narrow opening and darted into the exit lane, earning a chorus of angry honks. El Toro limped off the exit, sputtering like a speared bull. She clutched the wheel so tight her knuckles whitened as she leaned forward and scanned the streets for a gas station.
It was a seedy area with grimy brick buildings and signs for pawnshops, Western Union, and liquor stores. Iron bars covered most of the street-level windows. Please, God, don’t let me break down here, she prayed. A little farther along the street the building windows weren’t boarded, and instead of pawnshops, she spotted small groceries and shops with signs written in Spanish. Luz’s fingers relaxed their clutch on the wheel.
“Thank God,” she exclaimed when she spotted a modest, cinder-block garage with a bright red sign advertising AUTO REPAIR. She pulled in and turned off the engine. While El Toro shuddered, Luz laid her head against the wheel and practically wept with relief. A mechanic promptly came out to greet her, wiping his hands with a rag. He was an older, wiry man, unshaven, and dressed in an oil-stained mechanic’s uniform. But when he smiled it went straight to his eyes. He introduced himself as the owner, Mr. Vera. He listened to her story, then chuckled, putting her at ease. “You came to the right place. I know these old Vochos. I’ll take a look right away.”
Luz sat at the edge of a dented metal chair in the cramped waiting room. The room oozed grease from the old magazines, the car accessories, even the peanuts in the machine. How could this happen to her? she wondered as she slipped her head in her palm. Only two hours into her epic journey and already she had car trouble. How could she hope to make it to San Antonio, much less Mexico, if she couldn’t get out of Cook County? She reached into her purse, pulled out her cell phone, and started punching in Sully’s number. It was like an automatic reflex. Then she stopped. She recalled the long argument she’d had with Sully the night before about the car being safe enough to drive cross-country.
What was all her talk about being able to take care of herself? she asked herself. One of her goals for this journey was to discover her inner courage. To make her own decisions. Did she want to be proven wrong so quickly? Did she really want to be rescued?
With a flick of her wrist she closed her phone, then put it back into her purse and vowed not to call for help at every wrong turn. After half an hour the mechanic came back.
“Well, I have some good news and some bad news,” he began.
Luz cringed. She hated that opening because it always meant bad news.
“The good news is it’s not serious and the part won’t set you back much. It’ll be mostly labor. The bad news is we don’t have the part in stock. We can get it, but we won’t have it in until maybe tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Maybe. Maybe two, three days. I called around but no one had one.”
“But . . . I can’t stay here for two or three days!”
The old man wiped his hands again with an old, ragged cloth. “You could haul it somewhere else, but for this old Vocho . . .” His shrug spoke of his doubt she’d get a different answer.
Luz felt the blood drain from her face and took several slow, deep breaths. She was stuck here waiting for a car for two or three days? Hotel rooms were costly in the city. Then again, what choice did she have—other than picking up the phone and calling Sully?
Luz walked on watery legs to the Volkswagen. She yanked her suitcase from the trunk, then retrieved the box of her grandmother’s ashes from the backseat. Her shoulders, heavy with worry and disappointment, felt as if they were carrying another bag, weighing her down. She looked around, bewildered. Inside her heart, she felt all her earlier excitement and resolve wither.
Five
Monarch caterpillars eat only milkweed. Adult monarch butterflies sip nectar from flowering plants using a sucking tube that resembles a soda straw and is called a proboscis. You can see it coiled under the monarch’s head when not in use.
Luz felt small and insignificant against the overwhelming vastness of a great city. Everything was so loud! She was engulfed in the raucous sounds of engines revving and backfiring, sirens wailing, and voices shrieking, as well as the ubiquitous blaring of horns.
Carrying her suitcase and the box of ashes, she began walking. Mr. Vera had told her if she walked a few blocks south she’d run into a bus stop that would take her near Union Station. There she could catch a train back to Milwaukee. It seemed the logical thing to do, even if it felt to her like running back home with her tail between her legs. She turned the corner and stopped in her tracks. There, dominating the stone wall of the garage, Luz saw an enormous, brilliantly colored mural of La Virgen de Guadalupe.
Luz’s mouth slipped open. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
It was a magnificent mural. The Virgin Mary was resplendent, enshrined in a brilliant gold aura that rained down upon the earth. Gold stars floating in her robe caught the sunlight and sparkled.
Abuela had lit a candle every night before the icon of La Virgen de Guadalupe to say her prayers. She’d told Luz that Mexicans were more devoted to this beloved image of La Virgen than to the national flag.
“It’s a sign,” Luz whispered, and held the box of ashes closer to her chest. She imagined what Abuela would have done at this moment. Or her mother. They wouldn’t have stopped now. Not even a monarch would turn back at its first obstacle. She had to have faith. But just in case, she made the sign of the cross.
Luz walked several blocks but didn’t see the bus stop. A few men in open shirts leaning against a black iron fence eyed her but she ignored them, veering away to follow two women pushing strollers, heads bent toward each other in conversation. Then, like an unexpected gift, there appeared a small taqueria. Outside the door was a welcoming terra-cotta pot overflowing with cheery red and yellow flowers, and above it was a hand-painted sign with a colorful rendering of an iguana and crude letters spelling out EL IGUANA. She recalled how Abuela always said you couldn’t think on an empty stomach.
“Perfect,” she whispered.
One step inside and the scent of chilies, corn, and spices carried her back to her grandmother’s kitchen. Even ranchero music was blaring. On the long wall to the left was a colorful, primitive mural of a mountain village in Mexico with farmers working the soil, women doing laundry at a cistern, and children teasing a dog. Here and there throughout the mural fluttered monarch butterflies.
Feeling more at ease, she took a place in the long lunchtime line. Behind the counter a harried young woman was scurrying at a mad pace to write down the orders shouted out by the customers. Her wild, curly hair was loosely held back by a hot pink headband and elastic. Though very pregnant, she managed the orders with a combination of tough-girl attitude and wise-ass humor.
One look at the cooking area and Luz knew why the little taqueria was so popular. It was what she imagined a taqueria in Mexico would look like. The black iron grill was surrounded by baskets brimming with fresh green heads of cabbage, big yellow and orange peppers, and the ever-present avocados. Beside these were trays of thinly sliced onions, tomatoes, and b
eef. The cook was a burly man standing wide-legged over the steaming grill, a sagging, grease-stained apron double-wrapped around his paunch. But he could flip tortillas with the finesse of a matador.
Luz’s mouth watered and she thought of the bag of uneaten donuts in the car. She hadn’t been hungry since Abuela’s death a week earlier, but looking at all the foods Abuela used to cook, she felt suddenly starved. Most of the people in front of Luz were ordering takeout, so she was able to find a free table at the rear of the restaurant.
Luz had no idea where in the city she was, but embraced by the familiar tastes and sounds of her Mexican heritage, she felt strangely at home. The Spanish language that she’d never wanted to speak at home was comforting to her now. She ate slowly, in no hurry to come to a decision. The lunch rush was ending. Only a few people lingered in the taqueria. Luz stirred her soda with a straw, mulling over her options, which at the moment seemed to hover between calling Sully immediately and calling him after he finished work.
“Hey, miss?”
Luz looked up at the woman calling her in a slightly annoyed tone from behind the counter. She was wiping her brow with one hand, tapping her fingers on the counter with the other. A few curly tendrils managed to escape the thick ponytail to hang loosely around her flushed face. Her heavily lined, almond eyes looked at her with cool regard.
“You deaf or something? I said, miss?” she called out again. “You want anything else? If not, I’m gonna sit down a minute. My dogs are barking.”
The cook turned his head from the stove and called out in a gruff voice, “Whassat? I didn’t say you could take a break. If you’re done with customers, we gotta clean up.”
“Aw, come on, Mr. Cordero,” she said in a soft whine that mimicked a sob. “If I don’t take a break I’m gonna have this baby right here on your floor.”
Mr. Cordero looked fierce with his acne-scarred face and short, steel gray hair. “You always say that. That baby’s not coming for a month.”
“I dunno. I’m feeling these pains . . .” She rubbed her back meaningfully.
Mr. Cordero waved his hand dismissively in the air. “Aw, go on. You rest. I’ll clean up. I’m only fooling with you.”
Luz caught a small, smug smile escaping from the girl’s full lips. Then she called to Luz again, jutting her chin out. “So, you want something more or not?”
Luz shook her head. She’d been thinking about the flan, but didn’t dare ask the exhausted pregnant girl to get her anything else.
She watched as the young woman stretched her arms behind her back to untie the long, white apron and slip it off, revealing a hot pink spandex top that clung to her very pregnant shape. Then she reached up and, with one yank of the elastic, released a shower of brown curls heavily streaked with gold down her shoulders. She walked from behind the counter with her hand still rubbing the small of her back. She slumped into a chair at a table near Luz.
Luz slanted a glance her way, thinking the girl couldn’t be older than she was. Maybe she was even younger, but flashier, with heavy brown eye shadow and several colored stones climbing her ear like a sparkling crescent moon. A tiny diamond studded her nose.
“So, how far along are you?” she asked in a friendly manner.
The girl slipped off her shoes and bent at an awkward angle to rub her arches. “About eight months,” she replied, not looking up.
“Well, good luck.”
The girl sat back in her chair and said with a derisive laugh, “I don’t need luck. I need a miracle. That no-good Carmen up and quit on us. And now I have to do the work of two people. Hey, Angel says if I do the work of two people, I should get the pay of two people!” Turning her head, she called out in a louder voice to Mr. Cordero, “¿Me oyes?”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard you,” Mr. Cordero mumbled, his back to them.
“It would help, you know? Especially with the baby coming!” she called back. “They need so much,” she said, turning around in her chair. “Those teeny things are expensive.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you got knocked up,” Mr. Cordero called over his shoulder.
“Who was thinking? If I was thinking, I wouldn’t have a belly the size of a beach ball, would I?”
Mr. Cordero turned, smiling, and they shared a laugh. Luz noticed how when the woman smiled, her full lips slipped back over a mouth full of large, straight teeth, revealing bits of pink gum. The smile lit up her face and seeing it, Luz couldn’t help but smile, too.
Luz held out her hand when the girl turned back to her. “Hi, I’m Luz.”
The girl narrowed her eyes and looked at Luz like a dog about to bite. She turned in her seat, giving her back to the hand, and took a sip from her water. “Never seen you before. Are you from around here?”
Luz withdrew her hand, stung. She knew the drill. No one had to ask her to leave twice. “Uh, no. Milwaukee,” she replied, bending to pick up her purse.
“Visiting?”
“Nope. Just passing through.”
“Uh-huh,” she said with suspicion. “Where to?”
Luz stopped fumbling for her keys and thought about saying San Antonio, but thought again. What did she have to lose by telling a complete stranger where she wanted to go, really, in her heart of hearts? There was safety with a stranger, no consequences.
“I’m on my way to Mexico.”
Hearing this, the girl’s wariness slipped from her face like a mask removed. “Really? That’s cool.” She paused, considering, then said simply, “I’m Ofelia.”
Mr. Cordero ambled toward them, drying his hands on a towel. “Hey, did I hear you say you’re going to Mexico?” he asked with sudden interest. “Where?”
“A little town called Angangueo. It’s in the mountains,” Luz explained, not expecting anyone to know it.
He lifted his arms exuberantly. “Sure, I know where that is!”
“You do?”
“Yeah. I’m from Zitácuaro. Not far from Angangueo.” He tossed the towel over his shoulder, crossed his arms, and rocked on his heels, warming to the subject. “That’s where I was born. It’s beautiful there. Man, I miss being in the mountains. Well, whaddya know. You got family there?”
“Uh, yes.”
He beamed at her. “What’s their name? I might know them.”
“Gimme a break,” Ofelia said with a roll of her eyes. “Everybody says something stupid like that.”
“No, no, it’s a small town,” Mr. Cordero argued.
Luz had to think for a moment of the family name in Angangueo, since Manolo was the son of Abuela’s first husband. “It’s Zamora,” she replied. “My uncle is Manolo Zamora.”
He rubbed his jaw, then shrugged. “There are lots of Zamoras.”
“Told ya,” Ofelia chimed.
Luz noticed that Mr. Cordero took Ofelia’s incessant teasing in stride. “My grandmother’s family is from there,” Luz continued, and found it comforting to be talking about Abuela. “She moved to America with her first husband. To San Antonio. But after he died, she married my grandfather, Hector Avila, and moved back to Morelia. Then after I was born she came to Milwaukee to take care of me. She was a cook in a restaurant, too,” she added, pleased to see Mr. Cordero’s brows arch like two woolly caterpillars over his eyes. “She always talked about going back one day.”
“Yeah, we all do. I go back and forth when I can.”
“This is my first trip. I’m taking her ashes home.”
Ofelia shrank back in her chair as she pointed to the box on the chair beside her. “Is that her?”
Luz nodded, thinking that Ofelia was acting like a child as she shifted in her seat to scoot farther from the box.
“Acepte mis condolencias. You’re a good kid, you know?” Mr. Cordero said as a pronouncement. “Not everyone would go through the trouble.”
“Yeah. I’d use FedEx,” Ofelia said.
“Oh, shut up,” said Mr. Cordero, but there was a laugh in it.
“I’m just saying,” Ofe
lia said in mock defense. “It’d be easier.”
“If you knew my abuela,” Luz said to Ofelia, swallowing a lump of indignation, “you’d understand why I’m doing this. She was pretty amazing. And she raised me all by herself. She meant everything to me.”
Luz looked over to see the monarchs painted on the mural. “Abuela loved the monarch butterflies. She used to tell me stories all the time of what it was like when the butterflies returned to the mountains near her village in the fall. She always wanted to take me to the sanctuaries to see them. We talked about it all the time. But . . .” She felt the sadness bubble up in a spurt.
It was the way it was with grief. One moment she was fine, and the next, a comment, a thought, something trivial would waft by to spark a memory and grief would surge. She didn’t want to cry in front of these strangers and struggled to pull herself together. “She passed away before we got the chance. So I’m taking her home.”
Mr. Cordero seemed moved. He cleared his throat and stared at his boots. They were thick soled, worn at the heels. “Yeah, well, your abuela was right about them butterflies,” he said. “I remember them real clear. Man, I tell you, the way they shoot through the villages on their way up the mountains. Thousands at a time!” He shook his head as though to emphasize the point. “When I was a kid, just a schoolboy, eh? We went up to the mountains to see them high up there. You never forget it, you know? Millions of them, roosting so thick they look like clumps of brown leaves hanging on the trees. It’s the kinda thing that stays with you.” He pounded his chest near his heart. “Right here.”
He tugged the towel from his shoulder and began walking back to the counter, then stopped. “You’re doing a good thing, taking your abuela back to Mexico. Shows duty. Fortaleza, eh?” he added, nodding with his encouragement and approval.
