“Please,” Coral said. “I want to help her.”
“I don’t know anything. She didn’t tell me she was leaving. Maybe she comes back tomorrow.”
“Okay. Did she say anything?”
“No. But Engracia and I . . . When I see Engracia, I say a prayer. We say it together. Because of her son.”
Arturo’s eyes were very sad, and Coral felt her own throat tighten. Poor Engracia.
“Thank you. Thanks for your help. My name is Coral. If she comes back.”
“If she comes back,” he said.
Coral was about to leave the casino and hike back across the abandoned construction lot to her car when she realized she had left her sunglasses on the table at the cafe. She walked in, and immediately, the waitress called to her from across the room.
“Your sunglasses?”
“Yes. Did you find them?”
“I have them. On my way. Let me just drop this plate.”
Coral turned and looked at the large black-and-white photo nearest to her. It was Del Dibb, of course, Del Dibb as large as life, standing with a big grin on his face, his hand resting on the shoulder of his wife, who was seated in a chair below him. June Dibb was a slight woman. Coral remembered the one time she’d seen her, when Augusta took her to Del’s funeral: more than thirty years ago, the day she first learned who her father was. June had worn a hat and sunglasses, and Coral still remembered her motionless small foot in a high heel.
She looked at June now, mostly to look away from Del. She was very pretty, with curly, dark hair and a long, pale neck. She sat with one knee crossed over the other, and Coral recognized the slim foot in the high sandal that she had fixated on so many decades before. June had her hands in her lap. She was wearing a big diamond ring. But it was the oddest thing. Her hand was so familiar. It looked exactly like someone else’s hand. Like a hand she knew.
And with a sudden, sickening jolt, Coral realized that June’s hand looked exactly like her own. Long narrow fingers with wide shell-like nails and the wrist unnaturally thin, the bones on the top of the hand visible and the thumb with its disproportionately large first joint. With something like horror or exaltation or maybe just shock, Coral followed the line of that hand, of those fingers, of June’s laughing, delighted face, right to where she was looking: to the third figure in the photo, a man, who looked back at June, and there was no mistaking the feeling in his eyes. The man was Eddie Knox, and here they were: her parents.
37
Engracia had stayed in Las Vegas because she could not leave Diego there alone. Juan had to go back to Mexico. It was dangerous for him in the States. He could end up in jail for much longer than a month. And her mother, her father, her brothers, they had not been able to come to the funeral. Juan had offered to bring them, but it was harder than one imagined it would be. They didn’t have passports. They didn’t even have identification cards. There was no way to get them there in time. Her mama could not come with a coyote.
So the padre had been there. And Juan. And Engracia. And Mary from the El Capitan, with a whole group of maids. And the man who cashed her check. One of the nurses from the hospital came too. And the mother who had given Diego breakfast each day, and Mateo, the boy with the gun. Pilar drove up from Pomona with Maria and Javier and Oscar. When Pilar saw Engracia, she started to keen: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I should never have told you to go.”
And through all of that, Engracia had been numb.
She had said hello and accepted their hugs, and even answered as to whether she had eaten, or whether she was cold in the air conditioning, and as to how beautiful the flowers from the ICU team were. None of it was real.
It had been real in the hospital.
It had been real after she and Juan had said the doctors could stop the machine, after the nurse had explained that Engracia could stay with Diego, could get in the bed and hold her son, but that as soon as he died, as soon as his heart stopped beating, they would have to take him away fast. Because of the organs. Because Juan and Engracia had said they could take their son’s organs.
It was Padre Burns who said that would be okay. Who said he thought it would help. He said that child-sized organs were so rare, they would probably keep another child alive. Juan had said no, he would not allow it, but Engracia had said yes. Somewhere there was another mother, so she had said yes.
“No, Engracia. No, not this!” Juan had cried.
“Si, mi amor. Si.”
And so she was all by herself in a city she barely knew and hated deeply. Now that Diego was not with her, the street in front of her apartment did not frighten her. The sounds of the sirens, the shouts, people running at night—these felt right now. The world should be falling apart. There should be shouts and sirens and wails in the night. How else could the world be?
At first, she had not been able to imagine returning to the El Capitan. So the padre had found her some work in people’s homes. And then there had been the strange day at Ms. Navarro’s house, and after that, she had not gone back to those jobs. She wanted to be home with her mama, with Juan—who was fixing her uncle’s abandoned house for them. He wanted her to return to Zacatecas, to her village. Juan no longer wanted to have his own business and make a lot of money in the States; he wanted to stay on the dry hot land, grow beans and eat tortillas, and play in a mariachi band as his father had done.
Yet Engracia could not leave Diego, the only American in the family. So she had returned to the El Capitan. She rarely spoke to anyone. She went to Mass every day, and sometimes she went twice. Most days, the padre came and offered her some tea, and they talked about the Mass, or the way it was taking so long to get cold this year, and sometimes, but not enough, they talked about Diego.
But now it was done.
She would have to leave.
She couldn’t face the teacher. She didn’t want to know anything about Ms. Navarro or her daughter or the man with the gun. She didn’t care about a gift. She had called the woman named Coral because the priest had asked her to, and she had agreed to meet with her because she didn’t know what else to say. But as soon as she had done it, she knew that she would leave. She would finish her shift, cash her check, and go to Padre Burns. Then she would say good-bye to her son, lie down on his grave and eat some of the dirt, and she would go home. To her mother. To Juan.
A few days later, she stood talking with the padre while a sedan idled nearby.
“I’ve paid them already,” he explained. “They’ll take you all the way.”
“Si.”
“Do you have any money?”
“Si.”
“Engracia, I will pray for you every day of my life. Wherever you are, know this. I am praying for you.”
“Gracias, padre.”