Woman of Light (15)

“Why’d they do it, Diego?” Luz asked. “Tell me what happened.”

Her brother wouldn’t answer. He tilted his face, straightened his shoulders. Diego pointed to the window. “Look,” he said. “Reina won’t sit with me.”

“Of course she will,” said Luz.

Diego reached toward Reina, but the snake slinked behind the curtains, fluttering as if by a breeze. “No,” he said, “she’s afraid.”



* * *



—

Within a week, most of Diego’s things were cleared out of the main room. No velvet capes, no satin dress shirts, no hawk feathers or colognes. He had packed a yellowed satchel given to him by Maria Josie. The bag’s leather was worn smooth and resembled a dried kidney. Deceptively large, it swallowed bars of soap, a boar-bristle brush, trousers, and dress shirts. Most everything else Diego sold or gave away. As for the snakes, on his last night in Denver, Luz followed Diego as he carried them in their wicker basket down the tenement’s stairs and into the street. It was twilight. The streetlamps were lit. The air was crisp.

“You can come with us to the creek,” he said. “Or stay. It’s up to you.”

“I can’t watch,” said Luz.

Diego tipped his hat. “A quick spade to the head. That’s all.”

“Why can’t they stay with us?”

He raised the basket some, lightly twirling it by the roped handle. “They aren’t meant to be without me. Besides, Maria Josie would kill them anyway.”

Luz greeted the snakes one last time, giving their basket a tap before sliding off the lid. At the bottom, Reina was on top of Corporal, sleeping over his back as if he were a cot. Luz had known the snakes almost half her life. She’d miss them, awake in the middle of the night, cold and sifting like soil, a bedroom away. They seemed like protection. Against what, Luz wasn’t sure.

“They’re mine, Little Light,” Diego said, as if he could feel Luz’s questioning.

“Fine,” she said. “Goodbye, snakes.”



* * *



—

It was a little after eleven when Diego returned. Luz heard his key, the creak of hinges. She was alone at the kitchen table, the radio on a news program. Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were wanted again, this time for murder. They had been hiding out in Dallas, but risked everything to see their families. Luz understood why outlaws would do that. It must be lonely going from town to town. A Dallas grand jury had just delivered a murder indictment, and Luz wondered what that meant.

Diego shot Luz a look of dread, and the room charged with a new feeling. Grief. He had on coveralls and his hair was cut short. His face was clean-shaven and he walked, slump-shouldered, in a pair of new work boots, taking a seat across from Luz. He tossed an envelope onto the table.

“Go on,” he said. “Open it.”

Luz tore the seal with a fork’s prong, revealing fifty dollars and the silver bear claw pendant. “Thank you, Brother.”

“I pawned the chain, but the charm is nice. Should cover some of the rent next month.”

“Was it quick? Reina and Corporal?”

Diego rubbed his face with both hands, as if he could wipe off his skin, remold his expression into something less revealing. “How about you read for me?”

“Your leaves?”

“Nah, the ending of Don Quixote. Yes, my leaves.”

“I don’t want to, Diego. I don’t want to see nothing else.”

On the radio, a woman howled and the detective shouted, In all the alleyways, you crept into this one, you son of a bitch. Diego leaned from his chair and shut off the radio. “Send me away with some hopefulness.”

Luz finally agreed, boiling water on the stove, the kettle screaming. She poured the steaming water into a porcelain cup with blue flowers along the brim. The tea was rooibos, and Luz watched carefully as Diego sipped. She studied his face, told herself to remember. Who knew when she’d see him again? Across his neck was a crease, a faint wrinkle cutting his throat. His lips were scabbed purple along the bottom. He had healed somewhat, and Alfonso had found a friend who fitted Diego’s mouth with porcelain teeth, paid for with a debt. His jawline was nearly back to normal, though it appeared more square than before. It was strange, Luz thought, how one night altered so much.

Diego finished. He handed his sister the cup. “Before you go in, how’s it work? The things you see.”

Luz was surprised. It wasn’t like Diego to ask questions about other people. The cup was cold, as if it had never been filled with tea. “You know how it works.”

“You see the future?”

“No, it’s like a road. Sometimes, even with my memories, I get confused. I don’t know if something happened, or if it could have happened. People are unpredictable, but there’re only so many roads.”

“That’s no fortune at all,” he said with a smirk. “Go on with it then.”

Luz considered the cup. The black leaves were pushed to one side, leaking brown like spewed tobacco. The dark flakes blurred and soon Luz heard the sharp sounds of a pearl-handled razor against skin. It seemed like early morning and in her mind she saw their father standing in a singular column of sunlight before an open window. He wore no shirt and gazed into a wire-hanging mirror to his left, his suspenders resting against his thighs, circles of light beaded over his pale body. As the hairs fell from his face, Luz could see his cheeks, their delicate bones and deep dimples a wonderful surprise. She was a little girl again, before her father had left them, before he broke her heart at eight years old, and she cried herself to sleep every night until Diego would hold her, telling his sister it would be okay. Luz shook her head. No matter how many years had passed since their father had left, the image of him made her want to cry.