by Mary Alice
Sam was more striking than handsome, not that she was interested in attractive men. She wasn’t interested in men at all. She’d been celibate since she’d been released from jail, another line of defense, and she aimed to remain so. Sam was a good man of character, and in her experience, those were few and far between. She didn’t want to screw up their relationship by crossing boundaries.
Sam patted his cowboy hat back on his head, then leaned back, stretching his long arms over the edge of the bench while he surveyed the lake with a proprietary air. “You ready to tell me what’s troubling you?” he asked, his gaze on the lake. “You seemed a million miles away back there.”
She held back her smile, not at all surprised that he’d hit his mark. “Not quite that far. More like a couple thousand.”
“Ah,” he said, turning his head to look at her, pinning her with his gaze. “You were thinking of your daughter.”
“My mother.”
“What’s got you upset?”
She tilted her head. “You know I called her. Or, my sister did.”
“I know.”
“That was three weeks ago.”
“Uh-huh.”
Mariposa stiffened. “She hasn’t called back! Not even to tell Maria that she doesn’t want to see me. Or that she doesn’t care about me and how I should leave her alone and never call again.” She clenched her hands till the knuckles whitened. “Not that I’m worthy of anything more. But I’d hoped . . .” She stopped, taking a breath when her voice shook. “It hurts, Sam. Not a word!”
“Hold on now,” he said, calming her rising voice. “Are you sure Maria even called your mother?”
Mariposa’s brow furrowed in thought. She’d wondered the same thing herself. “She told me she did. She wouldn’t lie. That’s not Maria’s style. She’s very straightforward. If she says she will, she will. If she won’t, she’ll tell you that, too. To your face.”
“But if I recollect correctly, you said you and your sister don’t get along. That she was jealous of your relationship with your mother. Are you sure she wouldn’t try to keep you and your mother apart by not calling?”
“First, she’s my half sister. We were never close, that’s true. But I don’t think she hates me. Maria is a lot older than I am so we didn’t grow up together. You couldn’t say she knew me well enough to hate me. If she didn’t like me, it was more a by-product of her ongoing war with my mother.”
“Sounds to me like Maria has trouble getting along with a lot of people.”
“Well,” Mariposa said, choosing her words carefully, “let’s just say Maria is very opinionated. But this goes way back. Maria didn’t approve of my mother getting married again after her father died. I think she expected Mami to wear the long, black dress and shawl and remain celibate for the rest of her life. But Mami wasn’t even forty when Luis died. She was still so young. Hardly ready to throw herself on the funeral pyre.”
Sam looked down at his boots and smiled. “Hardly.”
Mariposa half smiled at his retort. She was forty and guessed Sam to be a few years older. Neither of them would consider themselves old—hardly! In fact, Mariposa was hoping she was still young enough for a new beginning.
“And what’s more, my mother is a striking woman. She’s small, but she looms large in personality. She has beautiful eyes, warm and inviting like melted chocolate. And her hair. You’ve never seen such long, thick hair. When I was little she’d let me brush it. I still remember the feel of it in my hands, like raw silk.”
He watched her expressions as she talked as his own, hard-hewn features remained placid and impossible to read. But she saw his eagle eyes glimmer with interest.
“Do you enjoy talking about your mother?” he asked.
“Yes. I miss her terribly. She’s very old-world and traditional. She cooks and gardens, skills she believes a woman should have. But that doesn’t mean she’s a dim bulb. Just the opposite. She was wise beyond her years—an old soul, I think it’s called. And generous to a fault. Everyone who met her loved her.”
“Including you.”
She turned her head to smile at Sam. “Especially me. Anyway, it was only natural that someone with her zest for life would find love again. Hector Avila and my mother fell in love quite quickly and, from what I heard, quite passionately. But Maria didn’t like Hector. He was a good, kind man. A professor at the university. So it was a step up for my mother. But I don’t think Maria would’ve liked el presidente if he’d come calling. To her mind, no man measured up to her father. She had a fit when Mami married Hector. Then when I came along . . .”
Mariposa rolled her eyes. “I think even my parents were surprised when she got pregnant. Hector took us back to Mexico. They tried to convince Maria to join them but she was stubborn and refused to go. She stayed in San Antonio, married the boy she’d been dating, and that was that. I grew up in Morelia and never saw much of her. Only the obligatory family visit to San Antonio or when she’d come to Mexico. She was always critical of my mother and complained bitterly that she loved me best.”
“Did she?”
A wry smile crossed Mariposa’s face as memories rushed back. Maria hadn’t been an attractive girl. She’d had her good points—her mother’s beautiful hair and skin. But she also had her father’s round, flat face and small, beady eyes that always reminded Mariposa of an armadillo and made her glad Luis was not her father. In contrast, Mariposa had been an exceptionally pretty child and grew into a beautiful young woman. Mariposa had discovered early how beauty gave her power over males. She’d been a terrible flirt, young and foolish, without a clue about the pain of heartbreak. That harsh lesson she’d learned later, and learned well.
“Did Mami love me best? I liked to think so.” She leaned back and crossed her arms, remembering the fireworks between her mother and half sister that eventually fizzled out to cold noncommunication. “Their rift went deeper than that, though. Maria was furious when Mami came to Milwaukee to live with me. She felt it was selfish of me to ask her to come. But the truth is, I never did. I didn’t have to. Mami just showed up when I needed her most.”
“That’s when you were pregnant?” Sam asked.
Mariposa tightened her lips and nodded, feeling suddenly the same shame now, so many years later, that she felt when her lover had skipped out on her, leaving her as if she were a pet he’d grown tired of and left by the side of the road.
“Mami never meant to live in Milwaukee permanently, just until I had the baby and was strong enough to travel. But she got a job as a cook at a nice restaurant and made good money, more than she ever could back home. She needed a job. She was a widow at this time. My father died a few months before.”
Mariposa looked up at the sky. Soft, white cumulus clouds floated by like masts on a sailboat. She’d always wondered if her running away from college with Max had caused her father’s sudden heart attack. Her mother said he’d been hurt, of course, but no, it wasn’t her fault. Mariposa didn’t believe her, and it was yet another guilt she’d have to carry.
“So she stayed,” Sam prodded.
Mariposa looked back sharply. “Yes. Mami sold her house in Mexico and with that plus some money she’d saved, she bought a little house in Milwaukee for us to live in. Maria went through the roof. She’d wanted us to move to San Antonio. By staying in Milwaukee with me, I think she felt Mami took sides. Things fell apart between them.”
“Maybe she felt abandoned,” Sam said.
Mariposa’s face clouded at the word, which elicited a world of guilt in her heart. She struggled to keep her voice even. “Maybe. I don’t know . . .” She looked off in the distance. “It was a long time ago.”
“But when you came out of rehab, when you felt ready to make that important first contact with family, you called your half sister, who you felt estranged from. Not your mother.”
Mariposa nodded slowly.
“Why? Why not your mother, if you were close to her?”
“It’s because I
was so close to her,” she exclaimed in a heated tone. She stood up and walked a few paces to stand beside the trunk of the nearest tree. “When I left, I hurt her. Badly. And it’s been such a long time.”
“How long? Fifteen years? Twenty?”
Shame shut her down. She felt the old coldness slide over her. Her face was impassive and her voice empty. “Sixteen. I left when my daughter was five.”
“After all that time, why didn’t you want to call her yourself?”
“I thought”—she felt her back stiffen and she turned to meet his gaze—“I hoped maybe it would come easier for her to hear from Maria first.”
“To hear what?” Sam’s dark eyes held hers, unyielding.
Mariposa looked down at her boots. They were scuffed and dusty and the heel was worn low. She said nothing.
“To hear that you were alive?”
Mariposa cracked. “Yes! Okay? Yes!” She turned her back to Sam, unable to face him. “She didn’t know if I was alive or dead. I’d called a few times at first, just to let her know I was okay, but later I got in with a bad group. I . . . I couldn’t call. Or write. After a while, I was too ashamed. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her what I’d become. Better that she thought I was dead.”
There was a long silence. Sam knew her history. Knew she got caught up in the world of drugs—using and selling. It was a vicious circle that was near impossible to break from without dying or being killed. For her, landing in jail turned out to be a blessing. Hard time and rehabilitation had led her to this moment of reconnection. But first she had to own her history. To accept it and talk about it. No more running or escapes. Sam wouldn’t allow her to hide any longer in her silences.
“So,” he said in a soothing voice, “it was easier for you to contact Maria because she meant less to you than your mother did.”
Mariposa swallowed the emotion rising in her throat and shook her head. After a minute she said vacantly, “I didn’t think of it that way. I don’t try to make things easier for myself anymore. It just made sense to call Maria. She was here in San Antonio. I could talk to her face-to-face.” She stopped, rubbing her arms in thought. “In a way, it was like a practice run. To see if I was strong enough.”
“Strong enough to confront your mother.”
Mariposa nodded and closed her eyes. “And my daughter.”
There it was. Sam didn’t have to reply because they both knew this was the crux of it. Her daughter, Luz.
“And are you? Strong enough?”
“I thought I was. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe it was too soon.”
“But you met your sister. How did that go?”
Mariposa recalled the day she took the bus to Maria’s house. She’d been extremely nervous. They’d only talked a bit on the phone, largely because Maria was shocked speechless to hear from her sister after so many years of thinking she was dead. Likewise, Mariposa was shocked to see Maria. The years had not been kind to her sister. Maria had gained a lot of weight after her divorce and her eyes were now gleaming slits in her face with dust-colored smudges beneath. But when she smiled her face lit up and they hugged spontaneously. Maria’s fleshy arms held Mariposa tight and she smelled of vanilla, a scent reminiscent of their mother. In that moment all the disagreements of the past had dissipated into the ridiculous.
“It went well. She was kind and considerate. Gracious, even. I was surprised by that. She’s divorced and her children have moved off. After all these years, after all our differences, we both ended up alone and in San Antonio.” She shrugged in a manner that spoke of the irony of fate.
“So you asked her to call your mother for you,” Sam said.
Mariposa took a breath and leaned against the tree trunk. “Yes. And she did. Maria told me she called the next day. She said Mami had broken down in tears when she heard I was alive.” Mariposa looked off at the lake. She couldn’t think of that scene without getting choked up.
“What happened next?”
“Maria and my mother talked for only a few minutes more when they were interrupted by Luz coming in.” Hearing the name of her daughter cross her own lips gave Mariposa pause. She pushed her hair from her face, feeling the moisture gathering at her brow and lip. “Mami didn’t want Luz to find out about me like that, so suddenly and unprepared. So they got off the line quickly. She told Maria she’d call back.”
Mariposa swung her head around. “But she never did! Why wouldn’t my mother call back?” she demanded to know, straightening to stand with her fists at her sides. “Could she be so angry with me that she wouldn’t want to see me again?”
“Yes,” Sam said evenly.
Mariposa’s eyes flashed with pain. Sam’s calm suddenly infuriated her.
“You don’t know her!” she shouted back at him. “You don’t know anything!”
At the sound of Mariposa’s high-pitched shouting, Opal immediately jerked up her head and eyed her with worry.
Once again, Sam gave her time to collect herself. She didn’t look at him. She picked up a stone and tossed it into the lake. It made a soft, plopping noise as it fell into the water. Mariposa watched the ripples spread out, farther and farther. The effect was, she knew, like her decision to leave her daughter. She had to face the consequences of so many ripples from that one selfish, irrational decision.
“I’m sorry,” she said, still facing the water. “I didn’t mean to yell. I was taking out my frustrations on you. But you’re wrong.”
Sam didn’t reply.
She looked over her shoulder at him. His face was as brown and weathered as a well-worn saddle. When he squinted in the sunlight, as he did now, long lines carved his skin from the corners of his eyes to his jaw.
“It’s pretty here,” she said calmly.
“Yep,” Sam replied, his gaze shifting from her face to the lake beyond. “I do believe this is one of the prettiest spots in the Hill Country,” he said without boasting.
A gust of wind stirred the dust around them and lifted the ends of Mariposa’s long hair. She blinked and turned her head. Her attention was caught by the sight of a single monarch flapping its wings against the breeze to reach the blue sage a few yards away.
“Look!” she exclaimed, heartened. “A monarch!”
Sam turned his gaze to where she was pointing. “We should be getting a lot of them passing through soon.”
She nodded.
He smiled. “That’s right . . . you raise monarchs, don’t you?”
“It’s no big deal. It’s just something I’m interested in.”
“Your name . . . Mariposa. That means butterfly in Spanish, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. So? You think that’s why I like the butterflies?”
Sam smiled again. “Just curious, is all. Did your mother love butterflies, too?”
Her face softened at the memory. She could still see her mother in her mind’s eye, out in her beloved garden, searching for caterpillars, bringing them indoors to raise in her habitats, teaching Mariposa how to clean the cages, watching with her the metamorphosis in wonder. Over the years she’d witnessed the cycle hundreds of times and never grew tired of it. “Oh, yes. She taught me everything I know about butterflies.”
“Ah. The mother-daughter cells at work.”
“The what?”
“The mother-daughter cells. Basic mitosis. Each time a cell divides, the mother cell passes on genetic material to the daughter cells.”
“Are you implying I’m like my mother? I’m not a fraction of the woman my mother is.”
“Don’t be so sure. The cells are not exactly alike. It’s complicated, and I’m sure I can’t explain it very well. But I’ve always found the passing on of information from one generation to the next fascinating. A great mystery. Just look at the butterflies you’re so fond of. If I remember correctly, in the spring the female monarch mates, then leaves the sanctuary to travel north, to right here in Texas. She lays her eggs on milkweed leaves, then dies. It’s the next generation, the daughter, that
follows the milkweed north to lay eggs again, then her daughter continues the cycle, leapfrogging north to repopulate. There’s no map handed down, no powwow to discuss the plan. Just knowledge, instinct stored deep that guides the butterfly north. That’s the mother-daughter cells at work.” He looked off into the distance. “Nature is so beautiful.”
Mariposa thought that somehow, the cells got screwed up in her. Where was the genetic link motivating her to love and care for her child? She couldn’t bear to talk about anything that had to do with the connection between mothers and daughters. What was Sam doing with this mother-daughter cell discussion, anyway? Falling into an old habit, Mariposa put on a blank face and looked out at the lake.
Sam spoke again. “Why don’t you try calling your mother yourself?” he asked. “Today?”
She shook her head brusquely.
“Why not?”
“For all your talk about genes, I’m not like my mother. I’m not that strong.”
“Yes, you are. You’ve gone through rehab and stayed clean. That takes plenty of strength. And courage.”
“Don’t praise me, Sam. I can’t bear it.” Her voice was low and trembling as she fought for control.
“So now you’re beating yourself up again?”
Her fragile hold on composure broke. “Sam, I let my mother and daughter think I was dead. I left my child!” she blurted, furious with herself for the tears burning in her eyes. “My little girl. She was only five years old and I left her for some man I can’t even remember. He was just a link in a chain, who promised me a new life, away from the drudgery of the foundry and the machines. And the cold. I hated the cold.”
“And, of course, there were the drugs.”
He said the words plainly, with the cool precision of a surgeon, and they cut like a scalpel, leaving her raw and exposed. She turned to stare straight into his eyes. They were like two deep, dark pools of water, without judgment or condemnation. She wanted to shock him. To see his placid face stiffen with disgust. To make him hate her, like she deserved.
