Woman of Light (81)

When she arrived on the office’s block, a searing smell clung to the air. A crowd had gathered, fifty or more men and women of all ages from the different neighborhoods. They held signs with Estevan’s name, they carried flags with the words LIBERTY and JUSTICE, an old woman prayed the rosary on her knees. There was a truck parked nearby and two men stood on the bed, shouting into white megaphones with the name of a radio station printed on the side. Luz stood mesmerized, listening to their chanting. We won’t be intimidated. We won’t give up.

She stepped deeper into the crowd, wading through the thicket of shoulders. There was the biting stench of charred metal. The sounds of crackling wood. Luz cleared the grouping, the sight jolting her heart.

The law office, burned.

Blackened ceiling beams. Light fixtures among the havoc, pieces of glass, ribs of a steel radiator. A brass drawer handle, the hollow shell of a teakettle. The office remnants had melted and molded into one another, silvery and dark. In some ways, the piles looked sodden, as if joining the dirt. The buildings on either side and above the law office were miraculously still standing. But everything she and David had worked for was in ashes. Luz stood there dazed until someone pushed into her. At that moment she caught sight of something on the ground, a red handkerchief from the remains. She placed it in her pocket.

And where’s that silver-spoon attorney? someone shouted from the crowd, and soon they were chanting, demanding that David explain what would come next.

Luz turned, scanning the dozens of sorrowful faces. She spotted David standing away from the protesters. He was speaking to police officers, who vacantly looked past him. David had taken off his jacket. In his shirtsleeves, he argued with the cops. One of them laughed. Luz wondered if she should rush to David’s side, ask how she could help. But as she watched him walk the line of his burned office, running his hands through ash, she realized that she didn’t want to be seen by David anymore. In fact, she hoped he’d never see her again. Luz slowly backed away then, covering herself in the shadows of people.

From behind her, someone shouted to look to the truck, and through waves of protest signs, Luz glimpsed a woman climbing onto the pickup, her black hair unraveling down her shoulders. She took the megaphone with a terrified shyness. She clutched a piece of paper in her hands.

Since my brother’s life was so viciously taken, Mama does nothing but sleep. Our father is gone and has been for many years—killed in a mining explosion where they only recovered his left hand, the simple wedding ring intact.

Celia, Estevan’s sister. Luz listened and watched as she read her own words in her own voice. First in Spanish and then in English. The crowd moved with each syllable, cries of anguish. A lamp unto my feet, a woman yelled behind Luz. A light unto my path.

This could be your family, Celia shouted in the megaphone. Your bother, your son, your father. This could be your loss. But it’s not. It’s mine, and you might think you’re lucky, but for every lucky person, unluckiness arrives. Our existence shouldn’t depend on luck. It should depend on justice, what is good, what is right.

As Celia finished speaking and stepped down from the truck, her face and hair caught the sun in such a way that she appeared electric. The bolt was profuse and spread around her, an aura of light. Luz followed that glimmering line until she saw the light pulsating throughout the people, in and out of their lungs as they breathed, anchoring them to the earth and flaring into the sky. Luz peered at her own palms. She marveled at the way she shined. It was as if she were dipped in light, humming like the stars. At that, she smiled some and crossed the street, walking in the direction of her family.



* * *



—

The Fox Street home was lively with cleanup. Teresita was in the front yard picking cigarette butts from the bushes, tossing them into a rusty bucket. Her boys were scattered about the stoop, cleaning the concrete with vinegar and rags. They didn’t acknowledge Luz’s arrival, keeping to their tasks, their eyes occupied with work.

The house still smelled of party foods, though the scent of lemon floor cleaner lingered. Parts of the stairs were still wet from mopping. Through the small window at the turn in the steps, Eduardo was visible in the backyard, sitting alone, his hat in his lap, his face calm and still. Luz wondered if he had taken a break from tearing down the cedar arch, but the longer she looked at him, the more she wondered if he was all right. He seemed out of sorts, holding his hands to his mouth, running his fingers through his hair. Of course, Luz thought as she continued upstairs. His only daughter, the person who hung his moon and stars, was leaving their house, and probably forever.

When Luz opened her cousin’s bedroom door, Lizette was seated on the wooden floor before a travel trunk with brass buckles and leather straps. She was glowing in a sunbeam, her movements slow as she folded a yellow dress, neatly tucking the sleeves and wrapping it in tissue paper. She spoke without looking at Luz. “Nice of you to show up.”

Luz stepped inside the bedroom. She closed the door. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. What’re you bringing with you?”

Lizette pointed to the bed. It was piled with dresses and cowboy boots, her new-used fur coat, her red party dress, piles of books. Beside it all was her wedding dress hanging from a hook on the wall. “I’m trying to fit everything, but the house has no closets.”

“That won’t do. Make the living room your closet then.”