Sam: Relax. Mad?
Me: Not really. Tell Fito?
Sam: Going to text him now Me: What feeling?
Sam: Feeling? Hmm. It’s time, Sally Me: Good girl
Sam: ? Night, Sally Me: Night, Sammy
Sam: Want me to send Maggie over?
Me: Urs for the night Sam: Sweet
I must’ve really been out, because I felt someone pulling on my shoulder, and I kept hearing a voice telling me to wake up. “Wake up! C’mon. Wake up, Sally.” I thought it was a dream—?but there was Sam standing in front of me, holding the urn that contained her mother’s ashes. “It’s time,” she said.
“Time?”
“To spread Mom’s ashes.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s right.”
“You need coffee.”
“Yeah, I need coffee.”
“C’mon, Fito’s already on his way over. So is my Aunt Lina. So is Marcos.”
“You asked Marcos to come?”
“Yup.”
“Look at you,” I said.
“I’m warming up to him.”
“Yeah, you are,” I said.
“You, Sally?”
“I’ll get there.”
“You’ll get there; you’ll get there.”
“Be quiet.”
“You’re still half asleep.”
“Yup.”
“You’re still lying there.”
“Yup.”
“Get up, shithead.”
“’K,” I said, but I didn’t move.
“I’m not leaving this room till you get your ass up, Sally.”
“’K. I’m getting up.” I sat up and put my feet on the ground. “Turn around so I can put my pants on.”
“It’s not as if I haven’t seen you in your underwear.”
“I’m shy.”
“Silly boy.” She turned her back to me. “Shy my ass.”
I put my pants on and tapped her on her shoulder. “You can look now.”
We stared at each other.
“So this is the day,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “This is the day.”
We drove to McKelligan Canyon—?Sam and Fito and Marcos and Dad and Lina and me. We parked the two cars, paid the fee, and started up the trail toward the top of the mountain. Sam was carrying her mother’s urn in her backpack. We didn’t speak. Sam wanted us all to be silent. Sam was good at giving instructions. No talking. No talking was a big deal for her. I mean, Sam and silence just didn’t go together.
When we reached the top of the mountain, the wind was cold, but I didn’t mind. It was strange and beautiful, and I felt so alive. We looked across the gorgeous vista, and it wasn’t hard for me to believe in God at that moment. Who else could’ve made this? We could see the river and the valley and the houses on the west side of town. The houses looked small and far away, and the streets looked like rivers. You couldn’t tell if a house was big and belonged to a rich person or if it was little and belonged to a poor person. All of it was all so large and vast and miraculous. I felt so small, and I didn’t mind that at all. I was small.
Sam took off her backpack, looked at my dad, and then looked at Lina and nodded. Then Sam looked at me. She was shaking and biting her lip, and I knew she was being as strong as hell and that it was costing her something, but she was willing to pay the price because she needed to do this. “I’m ready now, Sally.”
I wiped the tears that were running down her face.
She handed me the backpack. “Will you take the urn out for me, Sally?”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
I unzipped her backpack, gently took out the urn. I placed it in her shaking hands.
She held the urn tightly. “She liked this place.” Her voice was trembling. “She used to bring all her boyfriends here.” She laughed. And then her trembling stopped. “I only know that because I read through her journals. She kept journals. She didn’t seem the type. But that was one of her things.” She was quiet for what seemed a long time. “Oh, I forgot.” She gave me the urn, took out some paper, and handed a sheet to each of us. It was a picture of the mirror where Sylvia had written just because my love isn’t perfect doesn’t mean i don’t love you. “That’s how I’ll always remember her.”
Then she took the urn from my hands, raised the lid. She slowly tipped the urn until the ashes poured out. The wind lifted Sylvia’s ashes and blew them over the desert.
Sam took my hand and looked at it. Then she whispered, “What would I do without this hand?”
O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree
SAM PUT ON some Christmas music, and she was singing along to “O, Christmas Tree, O, Christmas Tree.” Sam could do a lot of things, but she didn’t know how to sing. But she was in a good space, so I didn’t mind.
I was lying on the couch, trying to read about the Civil War. Fito was lying on the floor, right in front of the Christmas tree. He was crazy over the Christmas tree. Loco. Sam was on her laptop, looking at the Stanford website, dreaming her dream.
“I like Christmas,” I said.
“Me, not so much,” Sam said. “You and Dad always went to Mima’s. And I was always stuck with Sylvia, who was usually not in a good mood. For whatever reason, she was usually without a boyfriend around Christmas, so we watched a lot of movies. But we did buy a lot of shoes. I was always happy when Christmas was over.”
Fito was listening to Sam. He was still staring at the lights on the tree. “That doesn’t sound so bad to me. I remember one Christmas, my mom actually got a tree. And me and my brothers decorated it, and I was, like, this happy little kid. And I went around the house whistling. I used to love to whistle. Then one night my mom was in a bad mood, or she was high, or she was, I don’t know, but she was yelling and acting all crazy, which was normal, and then she went off on me and said she couldn’t stand that whistling shit. ‘And just for that,’ she said, ‘I’m getting rid of the tree.’ She tossed it out. Yeah, Christmas was shit at my house. But you know, I still liked Christmas. I liked walking around and seeing all the lights, and I liked to see the mangers with Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus. I liked all that. And there was this song I heard, and I used to sing it to myself as I walked up and down the streets looking at the lights.” And Fito started singing this song I really liked, a kind of sad song, “I Wonder as I Wander.” And the way he sang it—?like he’d written it.
And after he stopped singing, he smiled. “Yeah,” he said. “I like Christmas.” Sam and I were real quiet, and then Sam said, “Wow, Fito, you have a beautiful voice. You can really sing.”
“Yeah,” I said. “How come you never told us you could sing?”
He shrugged. “I guess no one ever asked.”
Sam shut her laptop. “Fito,” she said, “did you know I didn’t used to like you? Shame on me. Shame on me.”
Dirt. Paper Bags. Candles.
“I’VE NEVER MADE luminarias before.”
“Me neither.”
I gave Fito and Sam a look. “I’m kicking you out of my Mexicans-only club. Have you guys ever done anything Mexican?”
“I’ve gone to Chico’s Tacos.”
“Me too.”
“Which one?”
“The one on Alameda.”
“Me too.”
“Well, maybe I’ll let you in.”
“Shut up, gringo.”
I gave them another look. Both of them. “Pochos. You’re both such pochos. Totally half-baked Mexicans.”