The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (46)

“It was on her altar,” Rey explained.

“What does it mean?” But even as she asked her mouth felt bitter with all the things she did not know.

“I’m sorry.” He kissed her forehead and started the engine.

Don’t leave me, she thought, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it out loud.



* * *



After Rey left, the fall chill rolled in. Marimar drove into town for supplies: food, water-cooler barrels of water, underwear, sweaters from the thrift store, and new sheets. She hired Chris to put in insulation and fix the shed door and roof. When Chris told his uncle that a Montoya was staying behind after the fire, he and two of the local farmers came by and put in a small wood-burning stove to keep her warm during the winter. They’d come by when she was clearing away the dead leaves in the orchard, and they’d gone without saying a word.

The kind gesture undid her.

“Don’t cry,” Chris told her. He was bashful in a way he hadn’t been when they were in school. It was like being in the real world had put a permanent crack in his confidence. He raked his fingers through dark waves and searched the valley for help because he didn’t know what to do when a girl was crying. “It was supposed to be a good surprise.”

She thanked him, and then she kissed him. She hadn’t planned on doing so, but he was there, and he was beautiful. He took off his T-shirt and they walked back into her refurbished shed. It didn’t smell like pigs’ blood and iron anymore. It smelled like sawdust and clean linens. She pushed him onto her air mattress, which squeaked. It made her laugh, which made him snort. They kissed for hours. Fast at first, like she wanted to devour his goodness. Then slowly, tracing the length of his neck, his torso. They kissed until she was familiar with the places that made him hiss or grunt. Until she was clawing at his back and an urgency snapped within her, a heady need to lose herself in someone. To be needed.

They’d slept curled against each other, under a wool blanket she’d bought at the general store with grizzlies and horses on it. Chris’s calloused finger traced her shoulder bone, but he always stopped just shy of touching the very alien part of her that existed at the base of her throat. He didn’t ask about it. This thing that felt more intimate than sex.

But he was working up the nerve, she could tell. He left in the morning when she’d pretended to be asleep to avoid any awkward conversation. When he was out the door and driving up the hill, she got up to do her chores.

Marimar had never so much as had a plant in the City, and now she had a valley to tend to. A house to rebuild. She made her rounds, and when everything became overwhelming, she’d climb up on the massive roots of Orquídea’s tree and sit a while, listening to the breath of the land, the flutter of wings.

That night, Chris surprised her with dinner because he’d noticed that she always forgot to eat. And she let him in because she’d liked the feel of his lips on hers. They ate burgers from the diner, and he dunked his fries in mustard, which made her wrinkle her nose. She was relieved that he did most of the talking, and when he asked things she didn’t want to answer, like about her mother’s drowning accident or what had started the fire, he didn’t press.

He’d only approach her slowly, like she was a deer he didn’t want to scare off. But she didn’t feel like the doe. She wasn’t even the hunter. She was something else. A spider, perhaps, letting him tangle himself in her.

In the morning she pretended to be asleep again, and he pressed a kiss on her naked shoulder before leaving. She thought that he knew what she was doing, and she wondered if he was genuinely giving her time and space or if he was perhaps a little more clueless than she thought.

The next day, after she’d set fire to the heaping pile of mulch, she grinned at the sound of his giant truck ambling down the hill. Her heart gave a tiny flutter when he stepped out of it, jean shirt open over a tight white T-shirt. She pulled him onto the grass and they fucked right there on the side of the hill. Every day he arrived a little earlier, always bringing food. Drinks. A crate of used books to keep her entertained, even if she didn’t want stories or music or movies. She wanted him and silence.

Eventually, he’d stay completely, and she couldn’t pretend to be asleep in the morning. He’d wake up and make coffee and start her chores. They’d bathe in the freezing cold lake and warm up in her shed. When he’d suggest that she could stay at his house, that his parents would love her, she’d go quiet again.

Marimar knew she needed to end things with Chris. That she hadn’t healed enough yet to give him what he needed. That she didn’t even consider what she wanted. But he was beautiful and charming, and he felt good inside her.

“Is this a family thing?” he finally asked. They’d brought a blanket out to the clearing near the orchard. The trees looked like witch claws coming out of the dirt, but Chris said they looked more like chicken feet. He made a fire and then they lay side by side to watch a meteor shower. He propped himself on his elbow and traced the collar of her sweater, careful not to touch the flower bud at the base of her throat.

“Sort of,” Marimar said. The fire crackled and she rested her head on his bare shoulder. He had a leopard tattoo on his side. It was shoddy work and faded.

“Some of my cousins have webbed feet,” he said. “And I have the same mole on my belly button that every one of my brothers and sisters have. You should meet them one day.”