36
On the way back to the hotel, Isidro remembered a shorter route that avoided the long loop around town and instead cut through the country, skirting alongside the orange groves that buzzed with workers up in and around the base of the trees. Don Celestino and Socorro held hands but spoke very little along the way. They kept all four windows rolled down in order to stay somewhat cool on what was easily the hottest day of their trip. Then later, when there was another vehicle on the road, usually a truck loaded with oranges, they would quickly roll up the windows on the driver’s side until the dust had settled behind them.
Once they were back in town, Isidro took some of the less-busy streets until he pulled up in front of the jardin. Don Celestino paid him for his services, including a little extra for his efforts in locating the ranchito, and reminded him to come around early in the morning. After stopping for dinner in the same restaurant as the first day, they crossed the street and walked to a pharmacy so Socorro could buy a calling card. Back in the jardin, he waited on a bench near the pay phone while she dialed her mother’s number. The phone was still ringing when she smiled back at him, then cupped a hand over her other ear and turned away to say hello.
As Don Celestino had missed his afternoon nap, he was having trouble keeping his eyes open. Their visit had lasted much longer than he had imagined it would. The lunch had led to coffee and more talking, mainly between his brother and the old woman. Twice more she invited him to spend the night, forgetting that he had already accepted her offer. Don Celestino finally stood up and excused himself and Socorro, saying they’d be back early tomorrow morning. Now he worried if he had done wrong in leaving his brother out there. If he fell or got sick in the middle of the night, they probably wouldn’t have a doctor nearby. Though his brother wouldn’t need his medicine again until the morning, Don Celestino would have felt better knowing he hadn’t left the pills back at the hotel. They had come all this way with him still healthy, and he could just imagine getting back the next morning and learning that something terrible had happened to him. Then how would he explain it to Amalia? Against your wishes we took your father from the nursing home and went to Mexico, but then left him to spend the night at a ranchito with a confused old woman and her granddaughter, and it just happened that he got sick on us. What did she care about some old promise her father had made to their grandfather a lifetime ago?
“That was fast,” he said when she came back. “Was she mad?”
“She wasn’t the one who answered,” Socorro said, and sat next to him on the bench.
“So you talked with your tía?”
“No, with my brother Marcos. He came to visit the day after we left.”
“And he plans to spend some time with your mother?”
“He said two more days,” she said, “but that before he leaves he wants to meet you.”