Isabel's Daughter

by Judith Ryan Hendricks

  “Thanks for dragging it over here for me. When I figure out how to unlock it, I’ll let you know what I find.”

  Suitcase locks turn out to be almost disappointingly easy. I don’t know why anyone even bothers to lock them. A couple of little twists with the ice pick and they pop right open. I lift the lid of the bag and push it back till it’s resting against the couch in Paul’s office.

  The firelight gleams on a blaze of red material. I pick it up and shake it out.

  A dress. No, not a dress, the dress. Long sleeves, high neck, clingy as water. The left sleeve is embroidered with flowers, dense at the wrist, thinning out as they move up, twining around the arm like some climbing vine. At the shoulder there’s only one—a blue columbine. Like the one on my baby shirt.

  Without hesitation, I kick off my jogging shoes, unzip my jeans, step out of them, leaving them in a heap on the floor. Pull my shirt off. Then pull the dress on over my head. The musty smell of storage fills my nose, and I choke back a huge sneeze.

  I can’t see myself, but it feels like magic. Like an embrace, softly skimming my body. I feel like dancing—a ballet or a waltz, something that would make the full skirt rise like wings—and it’s so out of character for me that I laugh out loud at the image of myself in flight. Like the swing. That’s what it feels like. That moment of weightlessness when I jumped from the swing on the playgound. Before I fell to my hands and knees on the hard-packed earth. Before falling was even an option.

  I pad down the hall to the bathroom, silent in my cotton socks. Light floods the room and I stop breathing as I catch my reflection in the three-way mirror over the vanity.

  Jesus God. I’m her.

  I turn sideways, look over my shoulder. Pull my hair back from my face, twirl around till I’m dizzy. The dress is a little bit too big, and several inches too long, but I still feel an ownership of it. An attachment I’ve never felt to any article of clothing. I stand on tiptoe imagining myself in strappy high-heeled sandals. Or leg-hugging black squaw boots. Or barefoot, running through the garden by the light of a pale moon, like those women on the front of romance novels.

  Then I remember what happened to Isabel running through a garden.

  When I pull the dress off, I notice a hole in the right elbow. I wonder if Cookie could mend it. Shorten it and take it in a little. I could wear it Christmas Eve. I lay it over the back of the chair.

  The rest of the suitcase is full of clothes, naturally enough. I start on the left side, trying to move them without disturbing everything. Underwear. Jeans. Shirts and shoes. A short red toreador jacket, embroidered in the style that I now recognize as hers with lots of vines and flowers.

  On the right side under some scarves and a few pieces of unopened mail is a green plastic box like the one Rita used to store sweaters in. I lift it out carefully, but not carefully enough. Suddenly the lid is all I’m holding. The box hits the tile with a sharp crack and the contents go everywhere, like a giant fireworks explosion.

  Spools of thread—thick, coarse, slender, silky, fuzzy, metallic, iridescent—a flat plastic box full of beads and sequins and buttons and milagros, the little silver charms that represent prayers. Ribbons and trims and fringes unwind from their neat coils like ticker tape, and pieces of fabric—wool and cotton, linen, silk, satin, loose knits, lace, sheer organza, leather, and suede—some no bigger than a patch. Solids and stripes, plaids and prints. All over the office floor.

  Piece by piece, I fold the material and lay it back in the box, starting with the soft, thick wool and felt and velvet. Next the coarse and sturdy canvas, cotton, denim. Next the knits and synthetics, spilling through my hands like liquid, and finally the lace and silk. I rewind the ribbons and trim, the spools of thread, sift the beads and buttons into their separate compartments. Some of them are so tiny I’ll never find them. They’ve ricocheted under the couch, the desk, or embedded themselves in the Oriental rug. Everytime someone walks in this room, something of Isabel’s will crunch underfoot.

  When I lift it—from the bottom, this time—to replace it in the suitcase, I see the manila envelope lying in the bottom. The metal clasp has broken off, leaving a sharp stub that scratches me when I open it and withdraw a stack of papers—some blank, some with sketched designs and scribbled notations for materials and techniques. My hands shake slightly as I hold them up, one at a time, and look at the work Isabel had planned.

  Some of the sketches are so rough that no one but the artist could see what they are. Others are more detailed and recognizable. One is a long apronlike thing that ties on the sides. She calls it a pinafore, and the design is incredibly intricate, like the view through a kaleidoscope. There’s a reversible kimono with a sort of quilt pattern on one side, all straight lines and hard edges, and a lush tropical landscape on the other, full of sensuous curves and graceful flower forms.

  The image on the next page immobilizes me for a few seconds. It’s a drawing of a woman in a long skirt and hooded cloak. Underneath the figure is printed La Llorona. Every child in New Mexico knows who she is—The Weeping Woman. Juana told me her parents used to threaten to leave her out for La Llorona to take if she misbehaved. But Esperanza always said the woman who walked by the river at night, crying and calling for her lost children, wasn’t scary, just sad.

  I lay everything back in the suitcase, as close as possible to the meticulous way that she packed it, hoping I’ll be able to get it closed again. Then as I start to lower the top I notice the elasticized cloth pocket inside the lid. I slip my hand down inside and pull out two items.

  A blue passport. An airline ticket jacket.

  I draw in one long and shaky breath and open the passport. Isabel Marieta Colinas looks back at me, beautiful even in her passport photo. She looks like she’s trying to be serious and dignified, but her eyes seem to sparkle with some private joke. Her address is listed as 2501 Rivera Street—Liza’s house.

  I pull out the airline ticket. Albuquerque to New York. And New York to Madrid, Spain, on September 15, 1991. The return portion says “Open.”

  I sit back on my heels and stare at the papers in my hand. Isabel was going to Spain, but for what? Was she going alone? Meeting a friend? A lover? Was it a working trip? A vacation? Was she planning to come back at all?

  The only thing I’d be willing to bet on is that, whatever her plans were, they didn’t include Paul DeGraf.

  Sunday night just before eight, I hear him in the hall. The door shuts and a minute later Paul walks into the kitchen where I’m sitting at the work island surrounded by cookbooks and notepads, crumpled lists, and a stack of index cards. He has the skier’s tan, complete with white goggle marks.

  “Avery.” He comes straight to me and for a second I think he’s going to hold me, but he puts his hands on my shoulders, plants a chaste kiss on my forehead. “Are you all right?”

  “Of course. I’m just finishing up the menu for Christmas Eve. The insurance guy came yesterday and left an envelope for you. I put it on your desk. That guy Travis said you should get a different water purifier.”

  “I did,” he says. “It must have something to do with the water pressure.”

  So how was the trip?” I ask when we’re ensconced on the leather couch with big bowl-shaped glasses of red wine.

  He smiles ruefully. “Exactly like I told you it would be. Great skiing, but Hemmings was hotdogging down every run, going much too fast, wiping out on the moguls, shouting that the rest of us didn’t have a hair on—” he breaks off and blushes to his scalp. It’s really quite charming.

  “Three-hour dinners every night—”

  “I thought all you Frenchmen were into that.”

  “Not every night. Not when you have to be in the lift line at eight A.M.”

  I look at him sideways. “You have to be? Because…someone’s holding a gun to your head?”

  “Well, we were only there four days. Of course we wanted to get the most—”

  I laugh. “You’re so full of shit, DeGraf. Ad
mit it. At heart, you’re a down-and-dirty jock.”

  Then he laughs, too. He leans his head against the back of the couch. Sighs. “You are so good for me, Avery. You really are.”

  I stare at the yellow flames behind the black fire screen and take a drink of wine. “How was the food at Whistler?”

  “Very mediocre.” He smiles. “Especially given what I’m used to. And the bar had the worst selection of brandy and cognac I’ve ever seen.” He hesitates for a minute. “So I bought some bas Armagnac and had everyone up after dinner Saturday night.”

  I want to ask who “everyone” is and why he’s decided to tell me this. But instead, I say, “You’re probably tired. I should go up and get my things out of your room.”

  For a second he looks blank. Then he remembers I’m camped upstairs. “I can sleep in the guest room,” he says.

  “No, all your clothes and…it’ll be easier if I move.”

  “Not tonight.” He touches my arm. “Let’s deal with it tomorrow when Mrs. Martinez comes. Tell me how your holiday was.”

  “Oh…” I have a flash of Isabel’s suitcase, stashed behind a pile of dirty linens in the laundry room, and my eyes go automatically to the small picture of Malinche over the computer table. “It was fine. Quiet.” I get to my feet. “I’ll just go finish up in the kitchen.”

  “Wait.” He stands up, too, suddenly closer now. I can smell his soap—a clean, glycerin smell—and my heart seems so loud to me—not a beat, but an embarrassingly noisy throbbing sound. “Avery…” The firelight flickers in his eyes. “I wanted to ask you…”

  I’m absolutely certain that if I moved two inches closer I’d be in his arms. Not even two inches. All I’d have to do is lean toward him, and it would happen. Part of me wants that. Craves the comfort of it, the resolution of this tension between us. There’s a kind of inevitability, like the end of a story or the last line of a song.

  But there’s another part of me. Something that pulls back, gazing into the distance at a greenish-black line of advancing storm clouds.

  For a minute I hover, caught between push and pull. The piñon wood pops in the fire, and the room seems to expand and contract with my breath.

  When the phone shrills, I jump.

  It rings again, more insistently. Paul waits, frowns, then turns and picks it up.

  “Yes, fine, thanks. And you?”

  It’s the woman who answered the phone in his room Saturday night. I wonder fleetingly if I know because I have “the gift,” or if it’s just what Rita always called women’s intuition. Not that it matters. I pick up the wineglasses and carry them out to the sink.

  As I’m washing them, he comes into the kitchen. I turn around. He’s looking in my direction, but past me. Over my shoulder, out the kitchen window, into the night.

  “What was it you wanted to ask me?”

  His eyes rest on my face. “I—I was wondering what your thoughts were about Christmas Eve.”

  I turn back to the sink, twist the stopper, and watch the water spiral into the drain with a soft sucking noise.

  “I think we should do…Noël. A French Christmas Eve.”

  “Really?” He sounds dubious. “But the Canyon Road walk is so traditionally Santa Fe, don’t you think everyone will want something more New Mexican? Or Mexican?”

  “Not necessarily.” I smile stiffly at him over my shoulder. “I think that’s what they’ll expect. Personally I’m not into giving people what they expect.”

  It’s amazing how much efficiency you can buy if you have enough money. Within a week, the guesthouse is repaired and cleaned and I can move back in. But there’s a lingering dampness in the walls and floors that seeps into my bones at night, chilling me so that I wake up cold and stiff in the mornings. The place just doesn’t feel the same as it did before.

  I drag Isabel’s suitcase over there one morning when Paul’s at Pinnacle Gallery and push it under the bed, out of sight behind the dust ruffle. I don’t want him to see it, but I also don’t want to think about why.

  I find myself spending more time in the kitchen of the main house, only going back to the guesthouse at night after I finish cleaning up. I’m hardly there at all during the day except to use the telephone.

  On the first Friday in December, I finally connect with Nancy Wethersby at Katalysis. When I give her my name, it obviously rings no bells.

  “I talked to someone there while you were in Honduras and they said I should contact you—”

  “Is this regarding the funding for the knitters in El Salvador?”

  “No. Actually it’s regarding my mother. Isabel Colinas.”

  “Ohmigod. Avery James, yes. I’m so sorry. Alice told me you’d be calling. Please excuse me for being so distracted. I’m doing my end of fiscal year reports and I don’t know where my head is.” She laughs. “I’m really pleased that you called, but Alice didn’t say exactly what you wanted…”

  I sit down on the edge of my bed. “This is probably going to sound a little strange, but I’m trying to find out about my mother.”

  “To find out…what about her?”

  “Anything you’d like to tell me. I never knew her.”

  “Oh. Well…”

  “She had me when she was very young. Just out of high school. She gave me up for adoption.” It sounds so ordinary, so usual, I hardly recognize my own voice, talking about the defining fact of my life. “I just recently found out who she was, and someone in a Santa Fe gallery gave me your brochure.”

  By this time, Nancy Wethersby has recovered herself. “It makes me very sad that you never knew her. She was a wonderful woman. We worked together on the Katalysis board for several years. She was a very warm, generous person. Very open and giving. She was also, as I’m sure you know if you’re in Santa Fe now, an incredibly talented artist.”

  “Yes, I knew she was an artist. And I’ve seen pictures of her…I was just wondering…you know—I realize you might not have known her that well, but…”

  “I still miss her. We made several trips together—Guatemala, Honduras.” Her voice gets slower, loses that “strictly business” edge. “Those were very special times for all of us. All our clients—do you know about what we do?”

  “Yes, I read the brochure.”

  “All the small-business people we worked with, they loved Isabel. She was so beautiful and of course she spoke Spanish fluently. Whenever we couldn’t find her, we knew she’d be in somebody’s kitchen. Down on the floor playing with their kids. The children were crazy about her—” She stops abruptly. “Have you seen much of her work?”

  “Most of it, probably.”

  “I’ll have to see if I can find some of the back issues of our newsletter to send you. There were undoubtedly pictures of her and articles about her work on the board.”

  “That would be nice, if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. It may take a few weeks though.”

  “Did she—I mean, did you guys ever talk about personal things? Do you think she was happy?”

  There’s a hesitation.

  “Well, she mentioned the man she was in love with. I think she was happy with him—I mean, you know—as happy as any relationship is.”

  “Look, Ms. Wethersby. I know you probably feel like this is an invasion of privacy or something.”

  “No, I don’t,” she jumps in. “Not at all, it’s just that I don’t know you. You say she was your mother, but I feel strange talking about her like this after all these years.”

  “Believe me, I can relate to that. Well, thanks. And if you could send the newsletters to 505 San Tomás. Santa Fe 87505. I’d appreciate—”

  “Avery, wait. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound paranoid, but you just don’t know these days…” Her voice trails off. “I didn’t know Isabel that well, but there’s a certain closeness that develops when you travel with someone, and also the kind of work we do. It can be a very emotional thing for some people. It was for her. I guess I could
be totally off base, but I sensed a sadness in her. Like an emptiness in her life. Obviously I had no idea that she’d had a child, but, now it all sort of makes sense…” She sighs. “I’m sorry. I hope I’ve helped somewhat.”

  “Yes. Thanks very much for your time.”

  I lay back across the bed. Oh, shit, Isabel. You were just so warm and generous and giving, weren’t you? Just not to me.

  You had this great sadness in your life, right? You remembered me on December 21, didn’t you? Of course, I was wondering about you every day. Who you were and where you were and why you didn’t come get me.

  In all the fantasies I had about finding you, it never occurred to me that you might be dead. It’s not fair. I wanted you to explain it to me, how it happened. So I’d understand how you got to be Isabel Colinas the famous artist, and I got to be Avery James, named for a necklace.

  I think I would have enjoyed seeing you cry.

  I stuff the Katalysis brochure into the folder and sling it onto the floor in the corner by the fireplace. I consider burning it, but somehow I’m not quite there yet.

  The sun pours into the little apartment in back of The Good Earth, making the dust in the air glimmer like gold dust. It haloes around me as I stand in front of the full-length mirror, staring at myself in Isabel’s red dress. Cookie kneels on the floor beside me, pins bristling from her mouth like fangs.

  I can’t believe what she’s done with the dress. Unable to mend the right sleeve to her own satisfaction, she’s simply eliminated it. The neckline now begins under my right arm and sweeps gracefully up the diagonal and over my left shoulder, setting off the embroidery on the left sleeve to perfection. It’s as if the dress should have been cut that way to begin with. She’s taken in the darts so it barely skims my waist, molds to my hip.