The Last Karankawas(25)
He and Kayla/Layla’s mother aren’t together, he says, but he sees her every weekend. Luz turns the stone around in her hand. She didn’t know Josh had wanted kids. Things are so different from when he last walked with her by the river, she realizes. He has a child now, and no wife, and she has Carlos and no child. A minute ago she would have said she was pleased with that, but now she is unreasonably angry—she realizes that, too.
The sounds of Josh’s fingers tapping on his phone, swiping for pictures of his daughter to show her. Miles away, her father sits in an empty house, watching a World War II documentary, growing older by the second. Carlos, checking the latest weather forecasts online, waiting at home for her.
She skips her stone against the flat surface of the river. It’s getting late.
He walks her to the parking lot. This was great, catching up, he says. Maybe I’ll see you around.
Cycles, karma. The girl she was who left; this woman, returning.
She presses her lips to his.
He jerks in surprise, draws back from her—just an inch—but she grips his hips and pulls him in. Doesn’t let him step away. Murmurs that she has missed him all these years, a lie, but she makes it convincing: calls him baby, says his name.
When he relents and says hers—when he softens his mouth and hardens his hands—she feels only a glittering kind of triumph. Push down the shame, she tells herself. Push down, too, these things: the metal of his truck door handle beneath her palm; the bitter, mouth-warm smell of Skoal from the spit cup in its holder; the clatter of beer cans and baby toys and goldfish cracker crumbs falling to the floormats as he shoves them from his backseat with one swipe; the cold nose of what might be a stuffed dog digging into the bare skin of her ass; his daughter’s Minnie Mouse toddler seat against the top of her head where she slams it there again and again until she flips, pushes him down on the seat and the stuffed dog, and rides him with her eyes closed so she can’t see Minnie, can’t see his hands on her. This does not work. Carlos’s face burns in her mind, and she opens her eyes, wide as she can. Focus: Josh’s hair curling damply against his brow in the way she remembers. The sounds Josh makes, like sobbing.
* * *
On Fourth of July weekend, she takes Carlos to Utopia to see the fireworks.
Some people bring lawn chairs and picnic blankets, but most just bring a truck, lower the tailgate, perch on the edge. They arrive at the park an hour early and still have to battle over space for Carlos’s Tacoma. New, this traffic—Luz remembers visiting as a child, spreading blankets over a largely empty field. Her father handing her an electric-blue cloud of cotton candy. Her mother wiping her sticky cheeks, pulling her head down to rest in her lap.
You okay? Carlos has opened the cooler and is digging around in the ice for a beer.
I’m fine. She takes a can from him, snaps it open.
You’re not, though, he says, and his voice makes her stop, look closely at him for the first time in a while. She notices now that he is looking at her that way, too: closely. Are we okay?
What do you mean? Do not blush, she wills herself. Do not show him the shade of any of the lies inside.
I don’t know, Luz. I feel like we … He exhales, says again, I don’t know. She opens her mouth to respond, but he raises a hand, dripping from the ice. Forget it. Let’s just enjoy this.
Her husband leans back next to her, pulling his knees up like a little boy. Automatically she tips her head against his shoulder; her cheek rises with the movement of his long sigh. Baby, he says quietly; then he doesn’t say anything more.
There are a lot of people; the fireworks show had become a big deal while she was away. The park is packed with the tourists who have spent a long day on the Frio or the Nueces and now want to see colorful things blow up. So many unfamiliar faces, trucks with license plates from Oklahoma or Tamaulipas. She spots the red-haired boy. He and his family have set up lawn chairs in the grass; he has a fresh sunburn nearly the shade of his hair across his nose and a Welcome to Concan, the Cancún of Texas T-shirt. To the west, the sound of running water, corners of the rivers that will be discovered soon, but right now the tourists are all here in the park, so the corners remain quiet, remain hers.
A black F-250 catches her eye, and she spots Josh on the tailgate, sharing cotton candy with a blond toddler. He bounces her on his lap and wipes her cheek with his sleeve. She is giggling. Something tells Luz he has seen her, too, but they both keep their gazes fixed straight.
The girl is holding a stuffed dog with a black nose, and Luz remembers the cold, hard shape of it on her skin. She pictures texting Josh later tonight, Meet me at the first crossing. She is sure he will come, imagines slipping into the backseat of his 250 again and again, continuing to do so until one of them finally stops—but what she can’t imagine is when that will be, why she wants him at all, why she feels so much pleasure being cruel. She should feel regret, but she doesn’t allow herself to feel much anymore—only to act, to move and keep moving. Because she can. She has to.
* * *
Most nights, when they’re not both too tired, they have sex. It’s still good; Luz enjoys it. Carlos falls asleep after, but she lies beside him with one hand on his chest, the other pressed to her pelvis. Imagining the activity there, grainy health-class VHS-style sperm seeking out an egg. In this private moment, she allows herself honesty, some truth she can share with her own body. Go away, she whispers. Go away.