Woman of Light (74)
It wasn’t long after Maria Josie began to bathe herself that she felt like weeping into the reddish water. She couldn’t go back now. She had made her choice. It struck her then that this night was the beginning of her new life, one without anyone else. She worked the sides of her belly with Ivory soap. She listened to the dings and tics of the house sighing beneath the water. When she sat up again, Millicent and Noche stood in the doorway, a cold breeze pushing into the washroom. She held a towel. “You’re not carrying anymore, are you?”
Maria Josie dropped her hands from her breasts to her belly.
“The father?”
Maria Josie watched the black dog, how its tail coiled like a snail’s shell. “Hauenstein. He’s a German man, a doctor.”
“These things can be so complicated.” Millicent then did something peculiar. She leaned over the tub, wrapped Maria Josie in the towel, and kissed her hair.
Before dawn, Maria Josie dressed herself in a change of clothes she carried in her satchel and walked several miles in the dark. As she approached the main road, the sky purple with dawn, a brown pickup truck slowed its crawl over the mountains. A white-haired farmer carrying a load of chickens said in Spanish, “Where to?”
“Denver,” said Maria Josie, and hobbled into the truck bed, where she found a pile of wool blankets surrounded by feathers.
THIRTY-TWO
To the Wedding
Denver, 1934
On the Sunday afternoon of Lizette’s wedding, Luz sat with her in the stone-walled bridal chamber of Saint Cajetan’s Catholic Parish and watched as her cousin stepped into her gown as if dropped into a pail of cream. Teresita was there, too, a relative’s baby affixed to her hip in her mother-of-the-bride silver gown. Maria Josie stood nearby dressed in her finest pin-striped suit, a red rose clipped to her hair. Girl cousins in lilac dresses moved in and out of the chamber, women convening in an underground tunnel.
There was a knock on the door, and Lizette turned in her billowing dress. “Who is it?”
“Your papa,” said Eduardo, croaking as if he were choking on tears. “I’ve brought a visitor.”
“It better not be Al,” said Lizette. “He ain’t allowed to see me till the big show.”
“Pete’s come to offer his well-wishes, mija.”
Lizette motioned for her mother to open the door.
Eduardo stood there teary-eyed.
“So emotional,” Teresita said to her husband, ushering him inside. “Come on, you still have to walk her down the aisle.”
Papa Tikas trailed Eduardo into the chambers. He wore a white tuxedo and smiled under his mustache as he carried an enormous bouquet of peonies, roses, and carnations. It must have cost a fortune.
“My my,” said Lizette. “Christmas came early—thank you, Papa Tikas.”
“What a beautiful bride you make,” he said, handing the flowers to Teresita, who placed them on a side table. The petals absorbed light, as if competing with Lizette to be the center of attention.
“Lizette,” said Papa Tikas, taking her hands in his. “You’ve grown into the most exquisite woman. Our community is proud. And I wasn’t always so sure that’d be the case.”
She opened her mouth in mock anger.
“And, Luz,” said Papa Tikas, glancing her way, “how lovely you are, as well. I can’t stay long, and I’ll miss the party, but here—” He pulled from his coat pocket a white envelope, handing it to Lizette. “That should cover all of the meats. My treat for my beautiful girls.”
“Wow,” Lizette said. “Thank you so much, Papa Tikas.” She handed her mother the envelope and Teresita tucked it safely into her handbag. Papa Tikas leaned over and kissed Lizette on the cheek. She studied him for a short while. “I wouldn’t say your girls,” she said playfully, and then with some measure of thought: “I’m Alfonso’s now. But really,” she said, eyeing herself in the chamber mirror, “I’m no one’s. I am my own.”
The men laughed, and Eduardo edged Papa Tikas toward the door. Before they left the chamber, Lizette’s father turned around. “You belong to me and your mama. You’ll always be ours, mija.”
Luz smiled. She admired the closeness of family, how deeply they loved.
After the men had left, Lizette fanned her face with a printed homily, groaning about the heat causing her eye makeup to run. Luz laughed, imagining Lizette with smeared mascara looking like some enchanted clown. She stood, adjusting her underpants beneath her bridesmaid’s dress, then the lace collar covering her shoulders and chest, and finally the small bonnet affixed to her hair. She glanced at herself in the solemn mirror hanging in the corner.
“Someone get water in here, will ya?” Lizette rattled the homily in her hands. “This heat!” She lifted her arm, revealing sweat marks, and made a face.
“Right away,” Luz said, dutifully. All morning she had run errands for Lizette, waking up at four-thirty to prepare the pig for roasting. She had decorated the Fox Street home with a cedar arch, red and gold ribbons, white streamers like fringe. She had checked with Avel that his mariachi band could play well into the night. She had organized the younger cousins in teams, assigning tasks, finding chairs, filling jars with walnuts, stuffing paper bags with tea candles. The next morning, she was expected to return to the Fox Street home by eight o’clock to help tear down party decorations, but David had said he needed her in the office first thing. Lizette was irritated by this, and if there was one thing Luz knew that her cousin wanted to get right, it was her wedding.