And perhaps it was these fears, these unknown possibilities, that tipped Honorata over some days. Perhaps this was why she would occasionally wake up, after a year—or even longer—of perfectly normal mornings, and the light would shine in acidly, and the sound of a cup rattling on the tile would grate, and she would feel it about to happen, an instant before it did, and then it would be there, full on top of her, and unbearable, and no way to lift herself back up. There was nothing to do but wait, and take one leaden step after another, until one day, just as inexplicably, the light would shine clear again, and she would hear the three-toned trill of a bird out her window. Honorata would stand up, startled at how easy it was, at how gravity had somehow shifted, and how she did not have to press against nothingness, but instead almost lifted, almost elevated, with each step she took.
On those dark days, everything would stretch out impossibly. She would pick up her toothbrush, and the puddle of whitish gel at the bottom of the cup would accuse her: you can’t even keep this clean. She would step out the door, her fingers gripped a little too tightly on Malaya’s, and her daughter would protest: “Ina, stop touching me!” She would make herself a cup of strong, sweet coffee and allow herself to sit in the thickly padded wrought iron chairs she had bought for the patio, and she would not be able to push the chair into any position at which the sun did not shine too brightly, or in which she was not looking at something left undone, or from which the pool did not beckon like a siren: come in, come here, give up, give in, sink, forget, sink. So she would not sit down but would go to her desk and finally call about the outside sprinkler that still did not have the correct water pressure, even though she had paid a garden service twice. And when she talked to the receptionist, her voice would quiver, and then she would bark angrily at the young man who was not sure which house she meant, and then she would hang up the phone and feel mortified at what they must be thinking, what they must be saying, about the crazy Pilipina with all the houses on Cabrillo Court.
And day after day, it would go on like this. After awhile, her mother would start making Malaya suman for breakfast, and she would hear Malaya say, “Lola, I don’t want tuyo in my lunch,” and she would hear the murmur of her mother’s voice, “Ang pagkain na ito ay mabuti.” Then Malaya would call, “Mommy, get out of bed!” But Honorata would not. She would lie there, tight like a stick, and she would hear the door open and close, and then awhile later, hear her mother return, and Honorata would not answer when her mother called to her. Only when the house was completely quiet—when she had counted dully to a thousand and then two hundred more—would she get up and dress and follow the to-do list she had made for herself the night before, exactly.
And then one day she would get out of bed when Malaya called to her, and she would thank her mother for helping, and she would make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for Malaya’s lunch, with an apple and two pieces of candy. And when they walked out the door to the bus, her fingers would rest lightly in her daughter’s hand, and Malaya would tell her about the boy at school who could do a backflip, and about the teacher who had been to Rome and seen the Vatican, and about how she might grow up and sing onstage like Madonna. “Isn’t Madonna a pretty name? And her dresses are beautiful, Ina.”
And that night after dinner, when Malaya would wrap one of Nanay’s scarves around her middle like a sari and totter into the kitchen in Honorata’s heels, singing, “Nothing like a good spanky”—and Nanay, her English suddenly much better than it had ever been in the supermarket, would ask, “What? What is she saying?”—that night, Honorata would laugh. She would laugh until the tears leaked down her cheeks, and Malaya, delighted that she could make her mother laugh, would sing louder and louder, “I just wanna hanky panky!” And Nanay would look more and more dismayed, and Honorata would think that probably she should not be laughing, and that this might be one of Malaya’s bad choices, but she would not be able to help herself. The laugh would boil up from somewhere far below reason, and it would bellow out of her, unstoppable and cleansing and bringing with it a joy she had so recently believed she would never feel again.
And what was this? How was it that she could not predict these feelings? Or direct them? And what did it matter, if right this minute she could feel this elation, she could look at her perfect, improbable, irrepressible child, and know suddenly that if she had not been so irrepressible, she would not have existed at all? It was all part and parcel of one thing: the fear and the horror inextricable from the beauty and the joy, at least for her, at least for this family. And really, if she had been given the choice—the whole choice, the good and the bad, the pain and the glory—she would have taken it. She would have said yes. Who knows, maybe she had been given that choice; maybe there was a reality in which she had chosen this life, somehow, someway, in that realm in which the truth was grander than anything one could know with the mind, but which did not, for Honorata, have anything to do with religion or a church or the way in which people spoke of these things.
ENGRACIA
The one whose heart was broken
MAY 8, 2010
In the Midnight Cafe
There was a bill on the floor of the almost empty Midnight Cafe. Arturo could see it through the bars of his cashier cage, and since it was slow, he watched it flutter in the slight breeze from the air-conditioning, and wondered who would find it. His guess was that whoever picked it up would immediately put it into a slot machine, probably Megabucks, since there was one nearby. To a gambler, found money was lucky money.
It was one of the maids. She looked tired, coming off the night shift. She had stopped to get a fifty-cent cup of coffee, and the old man watched as she lifted her eyes from the Styrofoam cup, spotted the fluttering bill, and then leaned over to pick it up. It was more than a dollar; he could see it in the way she straightened. But she didn’t play the money. She tucked it into a pocket of her pale-blue dress.
She leaned against a pony wall that separated casino cardholders from the regular line when the cafe was busy, which wasn’t often anymore, and finished her coffee. Then she shifted her purse, large and cracked, with an oddly bright buckle at the center, and dug around in it for her ID and an envelope. She approached the cashier cage.
“Cash check?”
“Small bills? ?En billetes peque?os?”
“Sí.”
“Una noche difícil, ?eh?”
She looked startled that he had spoken about something other than her check. She must have worked alone all night. The hotel was even slower than the casino.
Her eyes caught his, but she did not speak.
She was young. She hadn’t looked young, stooping for that bill, but she was. Arturo wished he could say something to her. He was an old man now, and he knew what it was like to work in a hotel, to work all night, to move from room to room with a heavy cart—and here was a room trashed by someone on a Vegas binge and there was a guest, weaving down the hall, drunk and unpredictable. And all night long, she would have worked silently; she would have observed and been mute. Perhaps she had felt nervous, perhaps she had felt irritated, perhaps she had simply moved through it all, leaden, as she looked right now.
Why did his eyes water as he stamped her check and opened the till to count her cash? Getting old had made him foolish. She was lucky to have a job, and there was nothing wrong with working as a maid.
“Gracias,” she said, taking the small stack of twenties.