The Last Karankawas(28)
She didn’t run. But she kept the thought tucked close, in the years after as grandmother and granddaughter crafted their own rituals. Became a tribe of two.
* * *
Bay Pines Care Center looks more like a luxe condo building than a nursing home, all soothing beachscape paintings and plush armchairs in clusters atop wide, clean floors. After the pompano incident, Carly pulled strings for weeks. She persuaded a few of the UTMB doctors who liked her to call in favors. It was worth it, she decided, on the day she toured the place. There was a doorman and an intern at the check-in desk to escort visitors to their family member’s room. The room itself is spacious; she paid extra for a solo room, ignoring the twinge of resentment she felt writing the check. She can afford it, but just barely.
The TV has HBO, so Magdalena won’t miss True Blood, and Telemundo, so she won’t miss Más Sabe el Diablo. Carly makes a note to bring the colcha from home to lay on the bed. She will stick a neon-green BOI: Born On the Island! bumper sticker in a place of pride on the mirror, where Magdalena can see it every day and remember she holds that coveted status among islanders. She will hang the replica of the Virgen de Guadalupe on the wall beside the door, ready for the touch of fingers kissed in reverence.
But on the day Carly and Jess bring her to the home, Magdalena takes one look and shakes her head. “I can’t see the beach from here.” She pulls at the ends of her long braid, black shot through with sterile-swab white since Carly’s infancy.
“There’s no beach here, Grandma,” Carly reminds her. “We’re in League City, not Galveston.”
“No. That won’t work. I need to be on the island.”
“Well, there aren’t any good homes there.”
“Our home is there.”
“Grandma, please.” Carly’s fingernails bite into her own palms.
“I’ll wait outside,” says Jess, reading her eyes, and bends down almost double to kiss Magdalena’s cheek. “See you soon, Se?ora. Have fun here.”
“You’re a good boy, Jesusmaría,” she responds, patting him on the arm. “I’ll see you at home.”
Carly sighs.
“I belong on the island,” Magdalena says in a cheerful voice to the young nurse who escorted them—K. Caballero, RN, it reads on her name tag, as noted with approval by C. Castillo, RN. “Somos las últimas Karankawas.”
“This is only temporary, Grandma.” Carly gives the lie she prepared, expecting Magdalena’s stubborn refusal. “Hurricane season, remember?”
“Ah, yes. Our home is going to be very damaged,” Magdalena tells the nurse. “I know these things.”
“I see,” the nurse says politely.
“My granddaughter thinks I’ll be safe here. There is a storm coming.”
“Is there?” the nurse asks. “I moved here a few months ago, so this is my first hurricane season. But I haven’t heard about any coming close.” Her dark eyebrows lift, disappearing beneath a thick fringe of bangs.
“There isn’t one yet,” Carly assures her.
“No, there is. A big one. It’s out there, on its way. Lo sé.” Magdalena turns her head, sends Carly a beaming smile. “My granddaughter has everything handled. She’s very smart. She’s going to be a nurse, too, like you.”
“I am a nurse, Grandma.”
“You will be, ni?a. I wouldn’t miss that graduation for anything.”
It was a pinning ceremony, not a graduation. And Magdalena hadn’t missed it. Carly looked over from her spot on the stage and saw her sitting proudly next to Jess, sandwiched between his six-foot-three frame and another, smaller man. Jess told her later that when Magdalena complained because she couldn’t see Carly walking across to get her pin, he had taken her camera and snapped the picture himself. “Jess’s-eye view,” Magdalena said of the picture later, and the three of them laughed.
Carly rubs the aching spot over her left eye, and the nurse steps back. “I’ll give you some privacy, let you get settled in. If you need anything, my name is Kristin. I’m days around here.” She pauses behind Carly and places a soft hand on her shoulder, pats. She closes the door behind her.
Carly shows her grandmother how to work the remote for the TV, how to adjust the mechanical bed to her liking. Together they arrange the framed photos Carly brought on the dresser, the nightstand, the windowsill that looks out at a tidy courtyard. Carly as a red-cheeked, nearly bald infant; as a child playing on the beach, with frizzy curls and a tan line; with Magdalena at her First Communion wearing a frilled white dress and borrowed lipstick. Magdalena’s wedding photo beside Carly’s grandfather, dead before Carly was born. Magdalena’s hair gleams black as a raven’s wing beneath her veil, her hand, resting gently on her husband’s arm, gloved in lace. Neither smiles.
Carly leans in and kisses the paper-thin skin of her cheek. “It’s going to be fine, Grandma. I love you.”
“I’ll see you soon,” Magdalena says, nodding. “When you finish up at work, come take me home so we can prepare for this storm.”
Jess is waiting for her by the car, beneath the cloudless sky that holds no hint of a storm, only the steam from the sea, a hurricane-less Gulf. He walks around to the driver’s side, snatching the keys from her cold hands.