An Orange for Lucita
It was Monday and I knew that my son, Pablo, would be out of jail by noon and breaking into my house that night, so I left the kitchen door open and two twenty dollar bills on the counter. I wanted to leave more, but I still needed to buy groceries and pay the electric bill. I wanted to see him, but I knew that if I was awake and he saw me he would not come in for shame. I thought about leaving him a note, but there was little I could say that he could hear.
You will always be my little boy. I will always love you.
No, some things cannot be said, or must be said with forty dollars and an unlocked door instead of words. I put a half loaf of good crusty bread and a chunk of hard cheese next to the bills and walked to the back door. It was open, the screen door shut. Beyond the door: my small cement patio, a cinder block fence, the moonless night.
It was late, but still I heard fireworks and an occasional gunshot, laughter and breaking glass, the distant highway hum. The town of Zapata, Texas gearing up for Día de los Muertos. The air was cool and smelled of mesquite, with a touch of burning plastic from the Bakelite factory on the other side of downtown.
I stood there for a few moments longer, thinking of Pablo, wondering where he was and hoping that he wouldn’t get too drunk or hopped up before coming to steal from his mother.
I will always love you, Pablo. You are still my little boy.
I closed the door, leaving the deadbolt open. I got a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and put a piece of chorizo and a dollop of beans on one of my good plates, thick and heavy with a deep blue glaze. I carried the plate and the bottle into the small living room and set them on the carpet in front of Devante’s altar. I let myself look at his photograph, his handsome face squinting into the sun and the ocean behind him. In front of Devante, a few smooth stones from the beach at Laguna Madre, his badge, the keys to his motorcycle that I could not bring myself to sell. It remained in the garage under a tarp, along with several boxes of his clothes and a set of good tools. I didn’t go in there much anymore.
This was to be my first Day of the Dead without my Devante since before we were married. Twenty-seven years, longer than my son is old.
“Good night, Devante,” I whispered.
I prepared for bed slowly. One part of me wanted to stay up long enough to hear Pablo come in. I could not go out to speak to him. He would be drunk or high, full of shame at the sight of me; the shame would turn to anger and we would fight. I didn’t want that. Not ever, but especially not that night. But I wanted to hear his footsteps, his passage through the house. Several nights before, I had just put up Devante’s altar. I heard Pablo padding softly through the house looking for something to steal. The footsteps stopped in the living room. I heard him sigh and then sounds that might have been weeping.
There was another part of me that simply did not want Día de los Muertos to come. The idea of course is that we banish our fear of La Muerte by welcoming her as a friend and taking to the streets with her. Devante’s job put him close with death many times and because of that, I think, he loved the Day. But I did not feel that way. Death had taken everything from me. I hated her.
I slipped beneath the covers on my half of the bed. I usually do not remember my dreams but that night I dreamed vividly. I was walking down a hill studded with flowers. The air was thick with butterflies. At the bottom of the hill was a lake. A long pier stretched out into the water. As I walked toward the lake, a butterfly landed on my wrist. It was huge, its wings the size of playing cards. It flapped them once and was still.
“Hello, little one,” I said.
“Lucita,” it said. Its voice was deep and mellifluous, like a television announcer.
It flapped its wings again and flew away, darting left, darting right, gone.
I walked out to the end of the pier and looked down into the water. I saw reflected on the water’s surface a great pair of wings folded in a V-shape, framing the bright sun. A small round head, feathery antennae delicate as milkweed.
I flapped my wings and the pier fell away beneath my feet.
When I awoke, I lay in bed for a few minutes full of this dream. The Aztecs believed that the souls of the departed reside on Earth in butterflies and birds. I am one-quarter Aztec and I know this to be true. Still, I did not understand what the dream was trying to tell me. Was I about to die? My stomach clenched in fear. Who would leave bread and cheese for my drunken son? I didn’t think that was it, though. I think the dream was showing me something else, but I did not know what.
I got out of bed and performed my morning rituals. In the living room, the beer and food were gone from the altar, in their place a beautiful paper mâché butterfly, red and black wings the size of dinner plates. Pablo. I smiled and shook my head. This was a strange conversation but better than none at all. In the kitchen, of course, the money, the bread, the cheese—all gone.
Be well, Pablo, I thought. I would have liked for us to be together on this day, to remember together his father, but that would not happen. As I stood there in the kitchen, bright with morning light, I remembered a day from his childhood. I don’t know why I thought of this particular day because although it was a good day it was not a particularly good day, just one of the thousands that we string together to make our lives. We had spent the day at the shore and returned tired, sweaty, our clothes full of beach grit. I cleaned the perch Pablo and Devante had caught, while they sat at the kitchen table: shirtless, joking back and forth, drinking glass after glass of ice water. Pablo looked like a miniature version of his father, the same smile, the same gestures.
That was it; that was what I remembered. The tight feeling on my forehead from too much sun. My hands slick with blood from the fish, the sharp smell of its organs. Pablo and Devante like echoes of one another, smiling, laughing. For a moment it was as if I was actually there, back in that day again, and they were there with me.
I shook my head again, filled with sudden anger. La Muerte toying with me.
Not today, I thought, not now. I will not give you my sorrow.
There was a knock on the front door. As I walked through the living room I saw a police car through the window, so I was somewhat prepared when I saw Fernando Garcia Luna, who worked for Devante before he died and was now Chief of Police. He had his hat in his hand and his expression was grave.
“Hello, Lucita.”
“What’s happened to Pablo?”
He looked away, then returned his eyes to mine. He had known Pablo all his life, had coached his Little League team, had helped him out many times when Pablo was too addled to help himself.
“Pablo was apparently sleeping in the road, up on County Six, and was struck by a newspaper truck. He was dragged several hundred feet before the driver realized.”
Dark patches swam in my vision. Fernando’s voice sounded far away. I leaned against the doorjamb for support. I felt his hand on my elbow.
“Lucita,” he said. “He is alive.”
A weight left my chest. I sobbed and he put his arms around me. It had been a long time since I had been held by a man. There was nothing of a lewd nature in our embrace, just his warmth, his breathing, the smell of his after-shave, a different brand than Devante had used, equally unpleasant but oddly comforting. I did not want to be a burden, the hysterical woman, so I made an effort to compose myself and pulled back. He kept his hands on my shoulders, as if to keep me from taking flight.
“He is alive,” he repeated. “But he is very badly injured. Many broken bones, his side laid open from being dragged for so long, internal damage. He is in the intensive care ward at Saint Francis. I can take you there if you like.”
I nodded quickly. “Thank you, Fernan.”
I never liked the smell of the inside of a police car. Gun lubricant and Lysol. Spilled coffee. From behind the wire mesh separating front and back seats, the faint smell of unwashed bodies. I did not allow Devante to take me anywhere in the police car, even if it was convenient to do so.
None of that bothered me this time; I could think only of Pablo.
I noticed a flickering in the air all around us and it took me a moment to realize that it was butterflies, our butterflies, back from the North for the winter protection of the oyamel fir trees.
I remembered my dream and had I not been sick with worry I would have smiled.
“The Monarchs,” I said to Fernando.
“Yes,” he said, a little sadly. “Not as many as last year. And then not as many as the year before. I think the pollution is killing them. It is good to see them, though.”
Revelers were already flocking the streets, even though it was still morning. Fernando drove slowly past a procession of ghouls, faces greasepaint white with black circles around the eyes, dressed in black shredded suits. At the front of this small parade, four ghouls carried an open coffin. A young man in street clothes was sitting up in the coffin, drinking from a brown paper bag and shouting directions to his pallbearers. Oranges and flowers were piled and scattered around him in the coffin.
Several children dressed as skeletons capered about the procession like dogs worrying a flock of sheep. On the sidewalk, a mummy in ragged bandages kept pace, moaning melodramatically and dragging one leg behind.
We passed two similar processions on the way to the hospital.
With Fernando leading the way, I was allowed to see Pablo immediately. He was surrounded by machines, threaded with tubes and wires. The bandages swaddling his head were mottled with irregular purple stains. There was a slit in the bandages for his eyes, but they were closed. The machines hummed and whirred.
Fernando brought me a chair and I sat next to Pablo, holding his unbandaged hand. I don’t know how much time passed. I am sure Fernando said something before he left, but I don’t remember what. Nurses in crisp white habits came to check the instruments from time to time. I was empty of thought and memory. There was only Pablo and me and the machines.
I must have dozed off because I realized suddenly that someone was speaking to me.
“—take him to surgery now.” An elderly man with a round face leaned towards me, spectacles perched halfway down his bulbous nose. He wore a white coat and smelled of expensive cologne. A stethoscope dangled from around his neck.
“You can wait in the lounge on the first floor, or leave your phone number with the nurse and we’ll call you.”
“What’s going on? Will he be all right?”
He pursed his lips. “I can’t tell you that. We’ll probably have to remove his spleen at the very least. Beyond that, we’ll have to see what we find when we go in.”
When we go in. I waited, hoping he had more to tell me, but he was done.
“I’ll wait,” I said.
They wheeled Pablo away and one of the sisters took me to the lounge. There was a television and several vending machines. A man in a skeleton costume sat on one of the couches, his face covered in greasepaint to resemble a skull. He was perched on the edge of the couch like he was about to rise. He looked at me as I entered the room, his eyes moist pools set within circles of black. I nodded, and he nodded back, but he did not smile.
“I will tell you if there’s any news,” the sister said.
“Thank you,” I said. I took a seat near the door and stared blankly at the television. The sound was a low murmur; pale, ghostly images chased each other across the screen. I looked at the skeleton man again. He was staring off into space, still balanced on the edge of the couch.
After a while, a sister came in the room, a young girl in tow, and approached the skeleton man. He stood up, very tall, and bent down to the little girl. He said something I did not hear, nodded gravely, and offered his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, she reached out and grabbed onto his index finger. Together they left the room.
A little while later, a heavy woman in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt came in with an infant bundled in a colorful blanket. She smiled at me and I nodded back. Time passed as it does in waiting rooms.
The skeleton man returned, alone, and sat across from me.
“Where is your friend?” I asked.
“Esmeralda?” His voice was low and soft. “A very sweet girl. She is with her family.”
I nodded again. I wanted to say something else to him but I did not know what to say. I felt suddenly nauseated with the close hospital smell. I could feel La Muerte all around me—in the waiting room, her crushing weight in the hospital rising above me. I stood up.
“I need to get some air,” I said.
He smiled gently.
“Don’t worry,” he said.
Outside, La Día was in full swing. Firecrackers and gunshots echoed in the small streets surrounding the hospital. Butterflies filled the air with flickering motion. A mock funeral procession made its way down the street in front of the hospital entrance. I moved closer to get a better look. As I approached the head of the procession, it stopped and the pallbearers set the coffin gently on the street. They smiled shyly at me and stepped aside.
Sitting in the coffin, propped up against a satin pillow: my Devante.
He wore his funeral suit, midnight blue with grey pinstripes. He brushed his curly black hair away from his forehead in a gesture that was uniquely his, and smiled sadly at me. On his forehead was a puckered scar the size of a nickel from the bullet that had taken his life.
I opened my mouth to speak and he raised his hand to me, palm out. Another Devante gesture. Then he reached under the satin bedding, brought out an orange, and handed it to me. It was a good one, large and round, its pebbled skin unblemished. When I looked up again, Devante’s funeral procession was gone.
I felt a feather touch on my wrist. I looked down. A butterfly rested there, wings spread.
Oh, God, I thought. Please. Who are you? Devante? My Pablo? Please, please, not Pablo.
“Hello, little one,” I croaked.
“Lucita.”
I jumped and whirled around. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the butterfly darting left, darting right, gone.
Fernando put his hands on my shoulders.
“Lucita,” he said again. “I have just spoken with the doctors. Pablo is going to be all right. The recovery will be long and difficult, but he will live.”
I stepped back. Fernando’s hands fell to his sides. I looked down at the orange again, wrapped both my hands around it and squeezed gently. It was firm and slightly yielding; warm, as if full of blood.