The young woman’s eyes filled, and she turned to give him a last hug. Father Burns reached his arms around her, and as he did, he slipped a roll of tightly wound bills covered in a pink casino receipt into the pocket of her coat.
“Vaya con Dios, amiga. Vaya con Dios.”
The woman opened the door of the sedan and stepped in. She didn’t roll down the window, and she didn’t wave good-bye. She was heading south. To her familia, to the life she had abandoned, to the row of stucco houses on a dirt road where she would wear a huipil and wrap a reboza over her shoulders, and where she would stay even if her younger brothers decided to go north. Perhaps there would be a day when nobody who met her would suspect that she had ever left, that she had run away and become a mother and had a son, and left him all alone in los Estados Unidos. Padre Burns said that she had not left him: that Diego came with her and would go with her wherever she was, as his blessings for her would, as the grace of Dios would. These things were not geographic.
What she did not yet know was that she and Juan would have another child, and then another. She didn’t yet know that her youngest brother would go north and go to college, and then would come home and be the doctor who cared for those children. She didn’t know that her papa would die shortly after she arrived in the village, and that she would be with him, and that before he died, he would tell her of his own years in the United States, when she was a little girl, and when all she knew of him was that he sent the money that her mama collected when she made the long walk to Jerez.
He would tell her that if he had been able to write, and that if her mother had been able to read, he could have stayed in the North. That’s why he had insisted Engracia go to school, even when it was such a long walk, even when her mother needed her help at home. It had been too hard to be away from his esposa and his daughter all those years, to rely on the news that came from other Zacatecans—news passed from one to another, shared carefully with everyone who might someday meet someone who wanted to know. He had not been able to do it. He had been ashamed to come home, to not have enough money, but he was glad he had done so.
He had said that Engracia belonged to this land as well. He wished that he could stay longer and help her to know this. But now he was going to meet his grandson, and he would hold Diego for her. He would make sure her son knew how much he was loved. He and Diego would have some fun.
38
Today I had a brain scan. An MRI.
It was Marshall’s idea, of course. I have seen lots of doctors, and they suggest different diagnoses. Alzheimer’s. Senility. A form of Parkinson’s. I don’t quite fit any of these. Aphasia. For sure, I have aphasia, though I am not sure Marshall or the doctors understand this as clearly as I do.
Anyway, there is a new clinic in town. A brain center. And Marshall has given them money in my name, and now I have to do more tests. With the brain doctors. Though I’ve been seeing doctors all along. I don’t mind, if it makes Marshall feel better, though I don’t think these tests are going to help. Maybe there is a medicine for me, but it seems more likely that I’ll be one of the ones that help the doctors figure things out for the next generation. That’s okay. That pleases me.
I had a good life. A long life. And we all have to die.
I don’t want to die, though. I wish I could have been like my Aunt Ruth, who died last year at ninety-nine and lived on her own, without help, until just before. But Ruth was extraordinary. Most of us aren’t like Ruth. I’m not. It’s a funny thing. To know there is nothing left but to die. To know that one has already gotten the good life, already missed all the things that might lead to an early death, and still, for life to seem so short. Still to want more. Even with an existence like mine. When I can’t do anything I mean to do. When I spend my days with people who are paid to take care of me. Yet I still like it. Living, I mean.
I still hear the birds sing. I still notice the sunlight dappled on the table, the way the light moves when the leaves tremble. I still love music. I still have memories. I dream. In my dreams, I sometimes see them all. Del and my father and my mother. Marshall and a tiny, pink-swathed girl. Even if I am not dreaming, even when I am just remembering, it’s all so vivid. My life comes back strongly. So many sounds: music and laughter and tears and Marshall’s toddler voice: “This way, Mommy! Let’s go this way.” The feelings come back. All of them. Excitement and rage and contentment and fear. I’m not ready to give it up. I don’t suppose I ever will be. And even now, it still seems like there must be something I could do, there must be some way to slow it down. But of course there’s not. There never was.
Helen took me to the appointment. We had to be there early, before seven. And Helen couldn’t figure out how to get into the place, though we could see it from a long way off. A bizarre, curving building, with a metal roof folded in on itself, and the walls appearing to tip, as if it were all about to slide, or implode, or collapse upon itself. No wonder Helen couldn’t figure out how to get to it. It was disorienting to look at. Which is kind of funny, for a brain center. Like when some of the newer casinos piped in oxygen to get rid of the smell of cigarette smoke, they said, but really, because it made people feel good, and so it was just one more way to keep them inside the place. Maybe this crazy-looking building makes its patients feel a bit crazy, like they belong there more than they had thought they did. I laughed, and Helen said, “It’s not funny. Marshall told me not to be late.” Which, of course, was funny to me.
The technician took me into a little room with Helen, and explained that I would have to wear nothing but the robe, and that the most important thing was for me not to move during the testing. Was I claustrophobic? Had the doctor given me something to take? What time had I taken it? Helen explained that I had taken something to relax me at six—I didn’t know that—and also that it was best for him not to tell me what to do. It would be better not to give me instructions. Maybe it had something to do with whatever Helen had given me at six, but this made me laugh too. It was true, of course. Giving me instructions was a disaster. But then, my mother would have said the same thing. I laughed and laughed. Helen looked a bit exasperated; she was still upset about not being able to find her way into the parking lot, and the technician started reading the notes on his clipboard. Maybe it was notes about me; he stopped telling me what to do.
His name was Ahmad, and he helped me lie down on a narrow table in a room that was glaringly white, and he placed my head on a pillow, and fit some earphones over my ears, and put something in my hand to hold. It was all very easy. My body didn’t jerk or cramp. I just lay there and he silently positioned me, and pulled a sort of metal frame over my head. Then I heard a small motor, and the bed on which I was lying slid slowly backward until I was encased in a white tube.