Rosa’s bridal gown lies across the wooden bed where Mamá and Papá sleep. It is one of the only real pieces of furniture we own, and that alone makes it opulent and grand.
“Is the dress not beautiful?” Mamá says in that soft voice of hers. I nod, running my hands over the heavy silk brocade; even my crooked stitches marring the hem can’t diminish its beauty. There is something about Mamá’s voice that makes me ache for my younger sister’s pleasant disposition or my older sister’s striking beauty. It is a voice I know I will yearn for throughout the many lifetimes that follow this one. Mamá strokes my hair until her hand gets caught in the tangles along the back of my head. It hurts when she pulls her hand free, taking some of my unruly hair with it, but I don’t say anything. Mamá named me Valeria, which means brave. Because what else could I be?
Later, when the church has been draped in flowers fashioned out of corn husks, and the feast is ready for tonight’s celebration, I am finally allowed a reprieve from the revelry. I am given strict instructions to change into the dress Mamá made for the occasion, but instead I escape through the front gate, my steps startling the chickens clucking nervously in the yard.
When I see James, his hat is tipped low on his head, and all I can see is the back of his sun-kissed neck. In his hands he holds a baby rattlesnake, its tiny head clasped gently between his thumb and forefinger.
“Spooked the vacas a bit,” James says cordially when he finally notices me. The snake is beautiful, its long muscled back patterned in dark octagonal splotches in a multitude of browns. “I should probably kill it, but that seems a bit cruel, don’t you think?” He holds it out to me, cradling it in his hands in a way that is far too reminiscent of the way Maria Elena held out that thread to me this morning. I run my finger down its head, and the snake darts out its tongue.
I glance at James’s boots. They are covered in dust and mud from last week’s rare desert rains. “You don’t quite look the part of the groom, do you?” My attempt at gentle teasing falls short. My voice sounds flat and lifeless, as if it derives from a place of sorrow and bitterness. I take a breath, nostalgic for a time when the cold burned my lungs, and even the simple act of breathing was painful.
“Your sister’s beauty will have to make up for us all.” He smiles and then sets the snake down on the ground. A clangor of church bells fills the air as we watch the snake slink off into the desert. “Adiós, monstruo,” James calls, and for a moment, I am unsure as to whether he is talking to the snake or to me.
I met him first. Few folks remember it this way, or if they do, they’ve realized it’s a truth that’s hardly worth mentioning. Perhaps that’s irony for you; the only love story I’ve ever played any part in, and my role has been reduced to nothing but an afterthought. Back then we were newly young, newly formed, my sisters and I still uncomfortable in our skin. I’ve never understood the claim that folks make around here, that young people act as if they’re impervious to death; I’ve never felt more mortal than when I woke up to that dark sky and the looks of wonderment across my sisters’ now youthful faces.
I remember the cocina was bathed in a gentle quietness, the kind that only comes in the early afternoon when everyone else is taking their daily siestas. The kitchen fire popped and crackled in the hearth, and I could smell the heady, pungent odor of the dried garlic that hung on the walls. A handful of peppers, large and bright green and still warm from the sun, lay splayed on the wooden table in front of me.
And then there he was. This tall lanky boy barely seventeen years of age, strolling into the kitchen like he had as much a right to be there as I did. But then again, his papá might have been as Americano as they come, but his mamá shared the same bloodlines as our mamá. So, by all fairness, he did belong there. Far more than I did. Because what blood could have possibly run through my veins? Maybe folks around here were right. Maybe we were made of stardust. And it was with this thought rolling through my head that I took hold of the knife in front of me and sliced a thin line in the tender skin of my palm.
I’d split open what mortals from lifetimes ago called the fate line. That was the funny thing about people. Didn’t matter when or where my sisters and I landed, whether we were giants who sat at the Tree of the World or three young girls abandoned in the desert, the people around us always liked to act as if their destinies could be found in the palms of their hands. I looked down, mesmerized by the line of red that bloomed in mine, a welcome reminder that I was as much human as I was immortal. Not one or the other, but both.