by Paul Pen
He crossed his arms.
Each time he changed the distribution of his weight, a floorboard creaked under his feet. Sitting on the bed, Rose was biting her thumbnail.
They remained in silence.
Until Rose got up. She went and stood next to Elmer.
“They’re coming.”
“How do you know?”
A purple haze floated over the road, dust clouds colored by the moon and the night. At the tall cactus, the vehicle making them turned down the track that led to the house.
“Let’s go,” said Rose, tapping him on the shoulder.
She picked up the shotgun that was resting on Melissa’s desk. Elmer inserted his arms under Rick’s and pulled him up from the bed by the armpits. He bit his tongue to counteract the unpleasant sensation that the crunch of broken bone induced in him.
“Open it,” he instructed his wife—his lower back wouldn’t take the weight for long. “Come on.”
Elmer’s knees began to give way, and his legs trembled. The plume of dust had become a storm cloud that threatened to unleash itself on the house.
“Hurry.”
Rose opened the door. She headed with the weapon to the marital bedroom. Elmer followed her. Rick’s head flopped from side to side in front of his face. The hanging feet entangled with Elmer’s legs. He almost tripped in the hallway.
Melissa looked up at the living room ceiling. Her parents’ footsteps reverberated above. They moved from the bedroom where Rick was to their own. Her rock asked her a question.
“I don’t know, Doris.”
Outside, the headlights of a vehicle approaching flashed among the cacti, between the rocks. Standing at the window, Melissa saw her own elongated shadow climb the living room wall and crawl along the ceiling. Socorro’s truck stopped, braking hard. Grit rained against the porch.
Iris got out from one side and helped the teacher get out on the other. Melissa had never seen Socorro with her hair down. Holding hands, they climbed the porch steps. The truck’s lights were still on, its doors open.
“Come on!” Iris shouted. “They have him tied up!”
Before they reached the door, a gunshot went off upstairs. Socorro covered her head and retreated, dragging Iris with her. Melissa dropped her rock on the floor.
“Riiick!” Iris yelled.
She pulled on Socorro’s hand, fighting to go in the house, but the teacher resisted. She held Iris back against her will.
“I have to go! It’s Rick!”
Through the front door, Melissa saw them arguing. Socorro grabbed hold of a porch post to pull Iris back with more force. Upstairs, there was a loud bang. Mom screamed. The ceiling shook when something heavy landed on the floor. A body. Then glass shattered. There was the sound of wood breaking. The teacher’s face contorted with each noise.
There was a second gunshot.
“I need to go up!” A painful howl tore Iris’s voice.
She freed her hand with a jerk that sent Socorro back against the porch handrail. Then she went through the front door and ran upstairs. Outside, the teacher panted as she steadied herself again. After a deep breath, she followed Iris up to the top floor. Neither of them noticed Melissa, who picked up Doris from the floor and went up after them.
She found them huddled in the doorway of her parents’ bedroom, looking into the room at whatever had happened in there. Iris turned around, covering her mouth with her hands. Socorro knelt, with difficulty, beside two blood-soaked bodies.
“Dios mío, Rose.”
Melissa couldn’t make sense of the scene she found in the bedroom. Mom’s arm was poking out from under Rick’s naked body, which was crushing her against the floor. Dad was writhing in one corner, sprawled on top of the wreckage of a bedside table. He was holding his head.
“Rose, por favor, answer me.” Socorro spoke with her cheek pressed against the floor. “Rose. Rose.”
Mom let out a deep groan, pushing Rick from on top of her. He fell to one side, into the pool of blood. Between them there was a shotgun.
“I’m all right,” said Mom, regaining her breath. “The blood’s his. I’m all right. I had to shoot him. He just appeared in our room. All of a sudden.”
“Ay, Rose.” Socorro wiped the splashes from Mom’s face. “I’ve just had the scare of my life.”
Dad fought with the splintered wood to get to his feet. He planted a hand on the wall to regain his balance.
“What happened?” Iris spoke without uncovering her face. “Rick . . . he’s . . . he’s . . .” She sobbed into her hands, her shoulders shaking. “I can’t look. What have you done to him?”
“Look at your mother. Look at me!” Dad showed her his stained, torn clothes. “With the little performance you put on, we forgot to lock the door, and now look what happened.” He gestured at the floor. “Try telling me now that the kid wasn’t dangerous.”
Iris’s eyes were wide open, her eyelashes wet, her jaw hanging. She wasn’t blinking.
“Lucky I managed to defend myself better this time.” Mom used the shotgun as a cane to pull herself up. “I knew I was right to keep it under the bed.”
With her dress, she wiped the blood from a cut on her arm.
“Mom . . . I’m sorry . . .” Iris sputtered. “But it . . . it can’t be . . . He was tied up.”
“Tied up?” Dad asked.
“That’s what she told me.” Socorro gestured at Iris. “She called me from the gas station, told me that there was”—she screwed up her face as if about to say something strange—“that there was a boy tied up in her sister’s bed.”
Melissa looked at Rick’s wrists. The blood masked the chafe marks the rope would have made.
“And did she also tell you that she was in love with him? With a boy she doesn’t know? Who we offered shelter for a night and who shot at my wife so he could rob us?”
“No.” The teacher spoke through clenched teeth. “She didn’t tell me that.”
“I . . . it’s just that . . .” Iris couldn’t find the words. “This . . .”
“We were taking care of him, Socorro.” Mom gave herself a few seconds to take in air. “They didn’t want to send us an ambulance here, so far away, and we looked after him as best we could. Elmer only hit him in self-defense, with the truck, a few days ago, when he saw him escaping from the house with a shotgun, after he fired at me . . . and now he shows up here, in the bedroom, like an animal, in the middle of the night.” Mom sat on the bed, fighting to breathe. “And my daughter thinks she’s in love with him, and that we’re against them being together.”
“All very Romeo and Juliet,” added Dad. “It’s because of all those books she reads.”
“Iris . . .” Socorro whispered. She held out a hand to touch her, but she moved away. The teacher turned to Mom. “Did I or didn’t I warn you?”
Mom lowered her head, accepting the blame for something she had been warned about.
“But . . . but it can’t be,” Iris said. “His ankle was broken, his leg was bent. He couldn’t have made it here, it’s impossible.”
Mom’s hands squeezed the mattress hard. Socorro tilted her head to one side, observing Rick’s body from top to bottom.
“They look bad,” she said. “Did he come from the other bedroom to here? With those legs?”
From behind Iris, Melissa didn’t manage to see her parents’ faces, or whether they were exchanging looks, but she did hear them rush to respond, stumbling over each other.
“He appeared all of a sudden . . .”
“It was at the door . . .”
“Yes, that’s right, when we were coming in . . .”
“No, he was coming out . . .”
Socorro let out a grunt of suspicion. Melissa hugged Doris, pressed her against her belly. Wordlessly, she asked Rick to forgive her for what she was going to say. She covered her rock’s ears so that she wouldn’t hear her lie.
“It’s true, he did,” she said. “I saw him.”
All the f
aces turned to her. Melissa looked only at Mom’s. At how her eyes widened in surprise. At how she frowned, not understanding why her daughter was backing up their lie. She also eased her grip on the mattress.
“Melissa, what’re you doing there?” Socorro held her hands to her mouth. “Turn around, don’t look at this.”
The teacher ran to Melissa and blocked her vision with a hug that buried Melissa’s face in breasts that suffocated her. Melissa turned her face so she could breathe.
“What a situation you’ve put me in.” Socorro’s bust reverberated when she spoke. She was looking at Iris, her eyes narrow. “You told me they were letting him die.”
“She also says she’s in love.” Dad sat on the bed, beside Mom. “With a thief capable of firing a gun at a mother of three, at my wife.” He kissed her forehead. “To take what? A twenty-year-old truck? A jar of coins?” He paused to underline the absurdity of every alternative. “How right we were to live so far away from everything. Sometimes I think the world’s full of bad people.”
Hearing him say that, Melissa burst into tears. She cried because of the way Rick had smiled in the bed when he felt Elizabeth’s presence. Because of the way he’d breathed in to enjoy the honey smell of hair he’d never had the chance to touch. She also cried because of how he had stopped breathing, long before the supposed attack on her parents.
“Don’t worry, it’s over.” Socorro kissed the crown of her head. “You’re not in danger anymore, the boy can’t do anything to you now.”
But Melissa’s crying intensified. The rate of her sobs quickened until she choked. Socorro rocked her like a little girl.
“There, there. There, there,” she whispered in her ear.
“I don’t know what to say . . . Dad . . .” Iris was shaking her head. “Mom, I’m sorry, I didn’t think . . . he seemed so nice.”
“Go on, go fetch the first-aid kit.”
Mom’s eyes found Melissa’s as she was drying her tears on Socorro’s dress. Melissa noticed slight changes in the focus of her mother’s pupils, the subtle work of her eyelids. Mom was still trying to decipher the reason for her daughter’s actions. The twins’ voices interrupted their dialogue of looks.
“Mommy?”
“Mommy?”
They both spoke in Socorro’s presence. Iris stopped sniffing. Dad cleared his throat. Mom straightened her back. Everyone’s eyes sought everyone else’s.
“The little one,” said Socorro, speaking in the singular. “Please, don’t let Lily see this.”
Mom leapt up and headed in the direction of the twins’ room with the key in her hand. Melissa separated herself from her teacher and took the key from between her mother’s fingers.
“You deal with Rick.” She gestured at the body with her chin. “I’ll take care of Lily.”
In Mom’s eyes, she made out a flicker of wonder, of pride. Melissa herself was surprised at how grown up she’d sounded.
She went into the twins’ room with a finger on her lips.
“There were gunshots again,” the little girls were saying.
Melissa shushed them.
“Don’t worry, everything’s fine,” she whispered. “But you have to be quiet—Socorro’s here.”
They looked at one another, frowning.
“Do we have class?”
“Of course not.”
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“So why’s the teacher here?”
Melissa took a deep breath, preparing to lie again.
“She came to take the man away. She’s going to take him to the town, so he can keep on walking from there.” She said the words as if her mouth didn’t belong to her. “He’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“Yippee!” they both yelled in unison.
Seeing them celebrate Rick’s absence made her sob again.
“Why’re you crying?” Daisy asked.
“What’s the matter?” asked Dahlia.
Four little hands dried her cheeks, tidied her tangled hair.
“Do you have tummy ache?”
She shook her head, forced a smile.
“And now, quiet as mice.” She covered their mouths with her hands.
“It’s just that he was really scary,” Daisy whispered, warming Melissa’s left hand with her breath.
“And he wanted to steal our pictures.” Dahlia’s tongue moistened the right one.
Melissa hugged her sisters. She kissed their little heads, imagining how many times Rick must have wished he could kiss Elizabeth’s.
Rose turned off the kitchen light. There was no need to keep it on now that the pale yellow of dawn illuminated the room. She returned to the table where Iris and Socorro were. The three of them had sat there to share some tea when it was still dark. Iris was gripping her cup, blowing on the edge, her gaze lost in the valerian infusion as if the liquid was as deep as an ocean.
“Imagine how bad my husband felt.” Rose sat down, retrieved her cup, and continued the conversation where she’d left off. “But I would’ve run him down, too, if I’d arrived home and seen him running away with a shotgun in his hand.”
“Dios mío, how horrible.” The teacher sipped on the tea, half closing her eyes. “That must have been horrible for your husband.”
“We’ve been caring for that boy to the best of our ability, we removed our own daughter from her bedroom so we could tend to him . . . and look how it all ended.”
Rose stretched her arm out on the table, showing them the cut that she’d given herself. An ocher line revealed the wound’s dimensions through the bandage. Iris came out of her trance. She stroked the dressing.
“Does it hurt?” she asked. “I’m sorry, Mom . . .”
Rose took her hand. “Don’t blame yourself.” She stroked it with her thumb.
“How couldn’t I? Of course, I must take responsibility.” The fact that Iris had renewed her elaborate way of saying things was a good sign. “If I hadn’t escaped in the truck, you wouldn’t have left the door open, and if you hadn’t left the door open—”
“I said, don’t blame yourself,” Rose cut in. “It was us who invited a stranger into our home.”
“But it’s not your fault, either,” said Socorro.
“I know, I know. He certainly had us fooled. He seemed like a good kid who just wanted to talk to people. We invited him in with the best intentions.” Rose clicked her tongue. “You just can’t be good, Socorro, you can’t be good to people.”
The teacher took her hand.
“Yes, you can. Of course you can. You have to be good. Like you are, like your girls are. Please don’t lose your kindness. There’re bad people everywhere. Even here, in the middle of the desert, would you believe? But we can’t let their evil infect us. We win by responding with more kindness.”
Iris sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to trust a boy again . . .”
“Iris, please.” Socorro took her free hand—the three of them formed a closed circle. “Don’t let this episode torment you. What happened here, with this boy, it’s an exception. Don’t associate the love you felt for that young man with tragedy. Love is beautiful, it’s not tragic.”
“In a good book it’s almost always tragic.”
“And do you want to experience tragic love like in your books? Or real, wonderful, uncomplicated love, like your parents?” She squeezed Rose’s hand.
Iris looked deep in thought. “I think I’ve had enough tragic love . . .”
In Rose’s eyes, the slight smile that appeared on her daughter’s lips lit up the kitchen more brightly than the dawn sun.
“I’m sorry, Socorro,” Iris said.
“Sorry? What for?”
“For the fright I gave you.”
“Don’t be silly. You were acting through love.” The teacher guided Iris’s hand to her heart. “Don’t ever apologize for that. Not ever.”
Rose nodded, applying the message to herself.
“You’re very young. You
still have a lot of love to give,” Socorro went on.
Iris looked out at the landscape. Rose knew that her daughter was imagining the love she would find out there, far away from the house among the cacti.
“And you have a lot of boys still to meet,” the teacher added.
Iris’s eyes opened wide with shock. She let go of their hands to hold in the laugh that exploded in her mouth.
“Socorro!”
“Hey now,” Rose intervened. “Not too many.”
The three women laughed over their cups, like old friends who’d met up for tea. Rose’s laughter set off the pain in the bruises she had from when Elmer let Rick’s body fall on top of her.
“Are you OK?” asked Socorro.
“It’s nothing.” She massaged her neck, pressed on the painful area of her abdomen. While she moved, she took the chance to check whether the teacher had finished her tea. “One thing I do need is some rest. It’s been an exhausting night. Well, four exhausting days.”
Socorro got the message. “Time for me to go,” she said. “But if you want me to stay, Rose, to take care of the girls while you sleep . . .”
“There’s no need, really.” She took a last sip of tea. “Thank you.”
“Sometimes all you need to feel better is to be alone with your family, don’t think I don’t understand that.” Socorro got up, the chair scraping the floor. “But one thing I can do for you is call the police when I get home—one less thing for you to worry about.”
Rose dropped her cup.
It was left balancing on the edge of the table.
“I’m . . . I’m going to . . . send Elmer to his workmate’s house now,” she said. “It’s closer than the gas station, than your house, so it’ll be quicker.” She watched the cup teetering, about to fall. “The sooner the police are called, the better for everyone.”
“That would be better,” said the teacher. “Best they come as soon as possible.”
Rose grabbed the cup the moment its weight tipped it over the edge, avoiding disaster. She gathered up the other two and left them all in the sink.
“We’ll come with you to your truck,” she said, inviting Iris to get up.
