Valentine(84)
Tonight, most of these women and men will cross the river again, heading home to the sounds of water birds and wrens and starlings, cattle and coyotes, ocelots and bobcats. They will listen to music drifting back and forth across the water, Tejano and country, ranchera and norte?o, and from the living-room window of one old woman who puts on a record every night just before sunset, pours herself a glass of whiskey and sits out on her front porch to watch the sun go down, jazz—Billie Holiday and John Coltrane, and the doomed boy from the dead center of Oklahoma who could make a horn sing.
No one asks any questions when Victor and Glory drive onto the ferry at Los Ebanos. No one asks to see any papers. Boxes of produce are stacked in the middle of the wooden platform, along with several steel pipes and a pile of lumber. A skinny yellow mutt stands atop the wood and looks across the river. There is so little space between the two sides, Glory sees now. Even after the recent rains, the river is not much wider than a four-lane highway, not much farther than the distance from her door at the Jeronimo Motel to the swimming pool. And sure enough, when a man on the other side calls across the river to say they are ready, and the men standing on the ferry grab the cable and begin to pull, one hand over the other, the journey is hardly longer than the time it takes Glory to braid her mother’s hair before she leaves for work in the evening, or for Alma to look through her purse in the morning for a handful of change to give to her daughter. Crossing the river is enough time to sort through a stack of bills in search of a letter from home, to walk down the hall and check on the kids, to flood the engine on a car bought with military pay. It is enough time to stare down an old snake in the desert, to start wondering what comes next. When they reach the other side and one of the men sets down two thick wooden planks for their wheels to pass over, Victor and Glory look straight ahead. Neither of them looks back at Texas.
They drive south with the windows rolled down and the sun in their eyes. Glory sits with her legs crossed. At the Río Bravo Delta, also known as the Laguna Madre, they will turn west and start driving into the heart of her mother’s country. If they move steadily forward, they can be in Alma’s hometown for the Feast of St. Michael at the end of September. Imagine, Victor tells her, you and me and your mom standing at the water’s edge with our feet in the sand, lanterns burning on the deck of every fishing boat in the harbor, a thousand candles floating among them. Can you see it, phoebe?
No, she tells him. She rubs her thumb against one palm and then reaches down to touch her feet and ankles. Victor calls them battle scars. Something to be proud of. It means you fought hard, means you came home from the war. Can you see that?
Not yet.
Try.
She rolls her eyes and looks out the window, but she is trying to imagine her scarred feet moving steadily forward, carrying her where she needs to go. Away from a pickup truck parked in the middle of the oil patch. Across the desert and up a road to someone’s front door. Down a flight of metal stairs where she pressed her hands against rough concrete and lowered her body into the water, where she pushed away from the side and learned that if she moved her arms in gentle circles, she could drift until she touched something solid.
Glory looks at the two small scars on her hands, one in the center of each palm, the body doing its work. In a year, they will have flattened and grown softer. In two, they will be gone. But the scars on her ankles and feet will thicken and grow longer, dark red cords that tether her to a single morning. The girl who stood up and fell back down, who grabbed onto a barbed-wire fence and stopped herself from falling again. The girl who walked barefoot across the desert and saved her own life. She can’t imagine any other way to tell the story.
Acknowledgments
For the gifts of money, time, space, and quiet, I am indebted to the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, the Illinois Arts Council, Hedgebrook, and the MacDowell Colony as well as the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund, Amy Davis, and Writers Workspace, Chicago.
Two chapters appeared in earlier versions as short stories. Many thanks to the editors at Colorado Review and Baltimore Review for publishing “Valentine” and “Women & Horses.”
For writing lessons, wisdom, and encouragement, I want to thank Chris Offutt, Marilynne Robinson, Luis Alberto Urrea, Lan Samantha Chang, James Alan McPherson, Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Bret Lott.
For their brilliant insights, endless patience, and steadfast support, I am indebted to Helen Garnons-Williams, the copy-editing and production heroes at Harper, and all the good people at Georges Borchardt, Inc.
I will be forever grateful to Samantha Shea and Emily Griffin, who believed in Valentine from the beginning, and worked tirelessly to make it better. Thank you for loving books, and for loving mine.
For reading my stories, and sharing yours. For watching my kid so I can write. For moral support and encouragement, particularly of the early sort—Caroline Steelberg, Skye Lavin, Karyn Morris Brownlee, Jon Chencinski, Mildred Lee Tanner, Ellen Wade Beals, Joan Corwin, Rochelle Distelheim, Tammi Longsjo, Christie Parker, César Avena, Tim Winkler, Ellen McKnight, Chris Pomeroy, Mike Allen, Casebeer, Mark Garrigan, Tim Hohmann, Seth Harwood, José Skinner, Joe Pan, Johnny Schmidt, Nick Arvin, Jeremy Mullem, Steve Yousha, Tayari Jones, Rebecca Johns, Brandon Trissler, Michelle Falkoff, Dan Stolar, Jessica Chiarella, Amy Crider, Bergen Anderson, Nick Geirut, Lindsay Cummings, Kelly and Jason Zech, Nathan Hoks and Nikki Flores, Chad Chmielowicz and Katie Wilson.