Ana remembered the story from a distant conversation. “They sent her to live with Erasmo and Norma for a while, didn’t they?”
“Yeah. But they were still newlyweds then, and they couldn’t be bothered. I mean, Norma was having problems. She was pregnant with Angie, and it was hard on her. They spent a lot of time in the hospital—Angie was a preemie. And then ’Apá got sick, and ’Amá in the middle of all that, and the other boys were all working and getting on with their lives, and Perla—Perla just got lost.” Beatriz dropped the whisk. There was more to the story, but that was as much as she could say for now.
“But where was she?” Ana asked.
“They sent her to Corpus. She liked it there, living with our tía. She liked being near the water. But then some boy broke her heart and she wanted to come back. She came back home the same year I left for college. But she wasn’t the same. She was very headstrong, and my parents just couldn’t deal with her. So…”
Beatriz began to chop the onion, pepper, a jalapeño, and a few potatoes so clumsily, Ana thought she might cut herself.
“Here, let me do that,” Ana offered. She took the knife and finished chopping. “What did you mean last night?” she asked lightly. “In the living room, before Celeste came. Something about Perla?”
Beatriz was hoping Ana had forgotten. She turned for a plate to place some of the wedding cookies on and stared at the teakettle, willing it to boil.
“You’re not going to tell me?” Ana said. “It seemed pretty important last night.”
“It’s nothing,” Beatriz said. “I had a dream. I had been dreaming about her, about Perla. When I passed out, I thought—I don’t know. How much did I drink last night?” she joked, but Ana was not convinced. Beatriz scooped up a handful of chopped potatoes and dropped them into a heated skillet.
“You didn’t drink that much,” Ana said. “And you’re not a very good liar.” She would have pressed Beatriz more, but Celeste came back into the kitchen.
“There you are!” Beatriz said grandly.
The girl’s hair was wet and limp. She had on a new top, thanks to Ana, but still wore her jeans and her white hoodie. She felt so much better after a hot shower.
“Celeste, I have a hair dryer you can use. Why don’t I show you. You don’t mind, do you?” Beatriz said to Ana.
“No, I got this. Go on,” Ana said, stirring the potatoes.
Beatriz took Celeste through the house and up to the bedroom she shared with Larry. The girl shyly followed her aunt, shocked at how large the room was, how it had its own bathroom and a huge closet. The bedroom was bigger than the entire casita she had shared with her mother. But what really shocked Celeste was how Beatriz would not stop talking—about the house; the color and type of paint to redo the guest room, just for her; window treatments, pillows, shams, and duvets—whatever came into her mind. Beatriz spoke so quickly, Celeste didn’t think she took a breath. Her excitement began to unnerve Celeste.
“Why don’t you sit here and we’ll scrunch your hair dry,” Beatriz instructed. She sat Celeste in a small chair in front of her dresser and used a fresh towel to squeeze the excess water from the girl’s hair, shaping portions of damp curls with her hands. All the fuss over her hair was kind of nice, Celeste thought, but she was just as happy to pull it back into a ponytail, like always, like her mother did.
“There are so many people for you to meet,” Beatriz said, as she worked. “Everyone will be so…” She couldn’t continue. Thinking about the reality of her sister’s death, and with it, all hope that she would ever see her again, made that stone fall into her chest again. When she realized Celeste was waiting for her to finish her thought, Beatriz careened away from the painful topic so quickly the screech was nearly audible.
“Everyone will be so happy to meet you!” Beatriz said brightly. Celeste was working hard to believe that her aunt Beatriz meant well, but the more Beatriz spoke, the tinnier her voice sounded.
“We hadn’t heard from your mother in so long. We, I…” Beatriz’s voice began to crack, but she was determined to be cheerful. She thought that that was what Celeste needed from her. Beatriz wondered what Perla had told Celeste about the family and what, if anything, Perla had told Celeste about her. She shifted gears again, making Celeste’s head spin a little.
“You know what? We’re going to make this day as fun as possible! We’re going to have a little party for you. We’ll have a welcome-home party! And we’ll go shopping and get you some new clothes. We’ll have cake! And we’ll put you in school…” Beatriz was saying things as they came to her. “It will all work out. This is your home now.”
Celeste looked at Beatriz in the mirror through the curls tumbling over her eyes. Beatriz caught her looking and smiled, and Celeste turned her glance to the floor. She could tell Beatriz was trying very, very hard, but all this talk about parties and shopping and pillows struck her as a feeble substitute for the wound she was carrying inside. Celeste’s anxiety about her aunt was growing with each word Beatriz spoke, but she knew she wanted to honor her mother’s last wish: that Celeste return to the family in San Antonio and live with her aunt Beatriz. It didn’t make sense to Celeste that her mother wanted this, after all the years of not talking to the family and barely mentioning Beatriz until the year before she died. But Celeste would honor her promesa to her mother. Except now that she was in this strange house, in a strange city, with this woman nervously fluttering over her, the absence of her mother suddenly felt as raw as the day she died.
One of the few documents Beatriz and Larry examined before they went to bed was Celeste’s birth certificate. Beatriz remembered that her father was listed as “unknown.” She didn’t want to know if there was a man who was now gone or a man who just wasn’t mentioned. That would be like Perla, Beatriz thought, to cut out what was unnecessary or, in the case of Beatriz and the family, had gravely disappointed her.
“Oh, this looks great!” Beatriz said, as she fluffed the girl’s hair.
Celeste bit her tongue, watching her curly hair grow into a frothy cloud instead of the simple, sleek ponytail she was used to.
Beatriz suddenly remembered good times with Perla—helping her with her hair, painting each other’s nails. Occasionally, when Beatriz was in a playful mood, she’d let Perla “fix” her hair with ribbons and bobby pins and half a can of Aqua Net. Her wistful memory was suddenly interrupted by a terrifying thought:
What if there is someone Celeste had left behind? Someone who might want to claim her? Now that she had Celeste—and, in a sense, her sister—back, she didn’t want to lose her. Not again.
“So,” Beatriz began carefully. “Did you… do you… it was just you and your mother? No brothers, no sisters?”
“No. Just us,” Celeste said.
“Y tú padre? Was he around?”
Celeste knew she must have a father, but whoever he was, wherever he was, she didn’t know. For other children, this might have been the cause of late-night pining, the start of a long journey to discover who he was. For Celeste, it was just the way it was: her and her mother, until she was taken from her in the worst way possible.
“No. She never talked about him,” Celeste said plainly.
“Do you ever wonder?”
“No.”
“So, how did you know to come here?”
“She told me to. Mi ’amá.”
This information heartened Beatriz. “I wish someone would have called us. We would have come for you instead of you coming out here all by yourself,” she said. She wasn’t meaning to, but her voice was taking on a singsong quality, like she was talking to a young child or an adorable puppy. “Who decided it was okay for you to come all the way out here by yourself?” She did not wait for a response. “Well, you can’t live where no one can take care of you.”
Celeste watched her aunt part her hair one way and then the other, neither of which Celeste particularly liked.
“Yes, yes! To the left I think,” Beatriz decided
, looking at Celeste in the mirror but completely oblivious to the dismayed look on the girl’s face.
Celeste could feel her frustration and her loneliness and the still-raging grief for her mother all rolling together. So when a slip of Celeste’s hair got caught in Beatriz’s ring, she shrieked much louder than was necessary. But that wasn’t what startled Beatriz. It was that fierce spark that flashed through Celeste’s eyes. She knew where she’d seen that look before.
“Lo siento!” Beatriz said. “Perdón!” Celeste began to cry, allowing Beatriz to believe it was because of having her hair yanked. Beatriz quickly separated the twisted hair from her ring.
“Oh, my God! I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Should I get you some ice?” Beatriz swooped in to hug Celeste and could instantly tell that the girl did not want to be touched. She withdrew from the girl immediately. She thought she’d imagined it, but no. There in the girl’s watery eyes, the message was clear: Don’t touch me.
Beatriz stepped away from Celeste and stood there a moment before slowly turning away, her heart sinking as she hung the towel to dry. Celeste cried silently, rubbing her scalp.
Why am I here, ’Amá! Celeste screamed inside her head. I don’t need anyone! I can take care of myself. I hate being here!
Beatriz was no mind reader, but even she could tell that Celeste’s silence was not because she was extraordinarily polite, compliant, or shy. She was overwhelmed. Of course she was overwhelmed! Beatriz knew, with that fleeting flicker of fire she saw in Celeste’s eye, that there was more to this quiet wisp of a girl than what was visible on the surface. She felt as if she were separated from her niece by a thick piece of glass that she desperately wanted to pass through. If only Celeste would let her in! She would make things better! She would make up for everything, all the lost time, all the misunderstanding between her and her sister. She knew she could! Her desire to connect with this girl was thick with want and fueled with good intentions. But the one thing Beatriz failed to realize was that while Celeste was her mother’s daughter, she was not Perla. Perla was gone. Celeste was a different person entirely, one whom she would have to learn to know, just as much as Celeste would have to learn that Beatriz was just as human and vulnerable as anyone else, no matter what her mother told her.
FIVE
The waitress was clearing plates from the table where Larry and the boys were seated, piling them like clattering leaves on her tray. She was amazed. Except for leftover swirls of syrup and melting globs of butter, the plates were picked clean. Larry was wedged in the corner of the booth where he sat with the boys, all of them leaning back, their bellies full of eggs, waffles, juice, and sausage. Larry and Carlos ordered coffee, while Raúl mindlessly rolled the corner of his paper place mat with his fingers. Seamus gulped the last of his milk and let out a big, contented belch, wondering if his uncle Larry would let him order coffee, too. Wally scanned the restaurant for his mother, who was finishing her shift.
“So,” Larry began. “I guess you’re wondering why I called this meeting.” He was trying to sound playful and cool, but underneath he was anxious. He didn’t know how he was supposed to tell the boys what he had to tell them, or if he wanted to. It was big news, and even he hadn’t come to understand all that it meant and who it would affect.
When Carlos saw that the younger boys were not turning their attention to his father, he nudged his brother, Raúl, under the table. Raúl lightly elbowed his cousin Seamus, who did the same to his brother, Wally.
“So, about who you saw this morning, Celeste. She got here last night. She’s your cousin. She belongs to your mother’s sister,” Larry began.
“Aunt Norma?” Raúl asked, knowing that couldn’t be right.
“No, your mom’s sister,” Larry said to Raúl and Carlos, then to his nephews, “Your aunt Beatriz’s sister, Perla.”
“Perla? Who’s Perla?” Wally asked.
“Well, she—okay, look. This is kind of weird. I don’t want you to ask your mom,” Larry said to Raúl, and then, turning to Seamus and Wally, “or your aunt Beatriz a lot of questions about this, so pay attention now.” Larry yawned. He hadn’t slept most of the night, keeping an eye on Beatriz, leafing through the papers Celeste had brought, wondering if there were some answers to be found there about Celeste, about Perla, and what should happen next.
“Perla was the youngest girl after your mother,” Larry said. “She was kind of a last-minute addition to the family.”
“You mean an accident?” Wally said, rubbing his swollen belly.
“Yeah, like you!” Seamus cracked. No one else thought the joke was funny. Larry looked at Seamus the way he did so the boy knew he’d better be quiet and listen.
“Perla was a kid, like you guys,” Larry began, nodding at Raúl and Seamus, “when Beatriz went off to college. Her brothers, Erasmo and the rest, they were already grown up and gone. And Perla—” He stopped talking when the waitress brought their coffee to the table and didn’t begin again until she was long out of earshot. “So, anyway, Perla, well, there was some trouble. I don’t know all the details and I don’t know that I need to, but I know you don’t need to know. Anyway, she ran away from home. I don’t know why. Something happened between her and the family and she left.”
“She was knocked up,” Seamus said plainly. Wally’s eyes widened. Carlos and Raúl looked at each other and then looked at their cousin, thinking he’d better watch himself.
“Like I said,” Larry said. “It’s not anything you need to know about.”
“Why didn’t they go look for her?” Raúl asked.
“They did. They tried. It was like she fell off the grid,” Larry said. “It’s one of those things that families don’t like to talk about.”
The boys sat silently staring in every direction, letting the information sink in until Seamus spoke again.
“So, what’s she doing here?”
“Well,” Larry sighed. “It looks like her mother died.”
“Perla? The one who ran away?” Raúl asked.
“Yes, according to some of the documents she brought with her, that’s what it looks like.”
“You don’t believe her?” Seamus asked.
Larry didn’t know what he believed.
“So now what?” Carlos said, making all heads turn toward him, since it was the first time he’d spoken since they sat down.
“Well, she’ll stay with us for a while, and then she’ll go back to El Paso.”
“Why can’t she stay forever?” Raúl asked, suddenly feeling tenderhearted toward the frail girl he startled in the bathroom earlier. “Can’t we keep her?”
“She’s not a pet,” Larry barked. He didn’t mean to be so brusque, but the arrival of Celeste and all it might mean was beginning to dawn on him.
“I’m sure someone is waiting for her,” Larry said, as he reached for his coffee. At least, that was what he was hoping.
“Yeah, and what do you want with a wetback in the house anyway?” Seamus said. All heads snapped toward him.
“I beg your pardon?” Larry said with an arched brow.
“Well, I mean, you know… she looks like she just crossed over, right?” When no one answered him, Seamus sat up in his seat defiantly. “Well, she does!” The boys pulled away from Seamus like he’d just let out a loud pedo.
“What the hell, dude?” Carlos said. “In case you hadn’t noticed, you’re sitting with a bunch of Mexicans!”
“Nuh-uh! You’re half-breeds, ’cause you married into our family,” Seamus proclaimed, like he was making all the sense in the world.
“You all married into our family,” Raúl countered.
“All right, all right, all right!” Larry said. He wanted to get back to the original subject. “Look, we don’t have all the details, but I can tell you this: her mother just died, so be nice to her.”
“Okay,” Wally said. “So, that means don’t hog the bathroom so long.” He shoved his brother, and Seamus pushed him back harder than he needed to.<
br />
“I don’t hog the bathroom as much as you, you perve.”
“Well, that’s not going to be a problem,” Larry broke in, “because you’re going to be spending more time at your house.” He looked around for his sister, Lucy. When he finally saw her, he pointed at his watch. Lucy held up a finger and ran off in the other direction.
“You mean we can’t come over anymore?” Seamus picked up the metal rack that held small jelly packets with the hook of his index finger, twirling it back and forth. Larry put his large palm over the boy’s hand, pushing the rack back on the table.
“Of course you can come over, but probably not stay overnight as much.” This unnerved Larry almost as much as it did Seamus and Wally. Lucy had been having a hard time keeping her boys under control. Larry knew he was the closest thing to a stable male presence they had. Not like the long line of losers Lucy had been bringing around.
“So, we have to watch her when you and ’Amá go on your trip?” Carlos asked. “I mean, I have to watch her?” Carlos was worried. He and Marisol had saved their money to go apartment hunting near the culinary school soon—something he hadn’t gotten around to telling his parents.
“She’s not going to be here that long. Don’t worry. You are not going to miss that orientation,” Larry said.
Carlos’s heart slumped. He still had to break the news to his dad that he had no intention of going to orientation or going away to college. The words were fluttering inside his mouth.
“Thanks, Dad” was the only thing he could sputter, sinking into his seat like a ground-in stain.
Lucy came to the table and fell into the booth with the boys. No one said anything, and she looked around the table.
Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over Page 6
