Carry Me Like Water (63 page)

“Bones,” Diego wrote, “some rotting bones.”

“I say we open it,” Mundo wrote.

“It’s bad luck to disturb the dead,” Diego wrote.

“We’ll say a prayer,” Luz said. “What have we got to lose?”

Mundo motioned his friends over. “Help me pull her up.”

“We’ll pull it out,” El Guante said. “We can get it.” The T-Birds
helped Mundo and Diego out of the hole and lifted the box out into the open air.

No one said a word as the coffin was lifted out of its place. Luz made the sign of the cross. Indio, El Guante, El Güero, and the others stood around the coffin and stared at it. Mundo poked at it. He looked at Diego and Luz—then looked at the coffin. “You open it, Diego, you should finish what you started.”

Diego’s hands trembled—and for a moment he was unable to move. He placed his hands on the coffin and slowly opened the lid. He shut his eyes, waited, took a deep breath, and then opened it. He stared at the skeleton. So that’s it, he thought, this is the treasure, a skeleton. He walked away from it. No one said a word. Diego looked across at the statue of Cristo Rey and threw his arms in the air. He wanted to curse the statue, to drag it down with his bare hands and break it until it became as fine as desert sand.

Mundo caught him by the arm. “It’s OK,” he said, “no big deal. Doesn’t matter, ese. We found something, huh?”

Diego did not bother to look at his lips. He did not want to be consoled. Diego laughed, just laughed and laughed, tears running down his face. Luz and Mundo listened to the echo of his laughter as it swept across the valley.

12

M
ARIA ELENA SAT
at her desk carefully studying the words she had written on a yellow legal pad:

Juan Diego Ramirez, Your sister has come back to look for you. She misses you. Please come to her at 9000 West Yandell (Sunset Heights).

She crossed out “She misses you.” It was much too public a sentiment to parade in a newspaper ad. As if anyone cared, she thought. She wondered if Diego still read newspapers. He had always been reading something, had always been lost in his books—like Eddie. In high school, Diego was the only one in the house that read the daily news, the only one in the household to understand there was a world bigger than their family.

Maria Elena stared at her note again. It contained all the necessary information. It was enough. She thought of the poem she had dreamed. She hadn’t told Eddie about it. He would gloat. “You wrote a poem!” he would yell triumphantly. He would wear an I-told-you-so look on his face as if her conversion had been inevitable. But she had only written down what she dreamed, had only copied it—and she was only interested in the sentiment it carried. Eddie would be interested in the poem, the form, the words; she and Lizzie were interested in the dream, the voice that had whispered the poem to her. She would keep the poem a secret. She turned
around and stared at him as he sat on the bed, his nose in a book. He looked up at her and smiled, then looked back into his book. She stared out the window at the garden they had started. The rows were neat but they had started too late—it would be a poor harvest. It would take a few years before the ground was fertile again. The twilight was calm, still, hot, Maria Elena brushed the sweat from her face. She wished for a breeze.

“What are you writing?”

“An ad for the newspaper.”

“What are you selling?”

“I’m not selling anything, corazón.”

“Oh, then you’re looking for a new husband.”

She turned around, and faced him. “The old one’s running just fine.”

“He sounds like a car.”

“He snores like one.”

“Sometimes, so does the wife.”

“Maybe you should trade her in.”

“I don’t want to trade her in. She’s running just fine.”

“Too fine.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He had a curious look on his face.

“My body—it works too well.”

“How can a body work too well?”

“I’m pregnant.” She hadn’t intended to tell him—not then anyway.

“What?” He threw the book in the air and let it fall on the floor. “Come here,” he said.

She rose from the desk—the ad she had written still in her hand—and threw herself on the bed.

He kissed her.

“Eddie, do you love me?”

“You still have to ask?”

“You hate my prayers.”

“Hate is a strong word.” He held her tighter.

“You think prayers are silly—innocuous, at best.”

“You think the same of literature.”

“I never said that.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

She pulled away from his embrace and looked into his face. “So what are you going to do?”

“You’re going to keep praying and I’m going to keep reading—and about every six months we’ll give each other looks, yell at each other, you know, it’ll go that way.”

“You don’t want the children baptized, do you?”

He was quiet for a moment. He bit his lip.

“Oh, I know what biting the lip means.”

“We haven’t even had the second one yet.”

“She’ll be here in no time.”

“I hope it is a she,” he said nodding. “We’ll name her Elizabeth.”

She nodded, “But you’re changing the subject. I want them baptized, Eddie.”

“If it makes you happy, amor.”

“Why don’t you just pat me on the head and send me out the door?”

“All I’m trying to do is compromise.”

“Is that the best you can do?”

“Nena, I don’t believe—and that’s not new information. Yes, it’s the best I can do.”

She nodded. She tried to hide her disappointment.

“Don’t be sad,” he said. He placed his hand on her belly. “You don’t want her to be sad, do you?”

She shook her head.

“Do you love me?” His voice was soft as the warm air in the room, as soft as the twilight.

She nodded.

“You want to make love to a godless man?”

“No,” she said—then smiled. She clutched the note she was holding.

He stared at her clenched fist.

“Can I read it?” She handed him the note. “Think it’ll work?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you try the phone book?”

“Of course.”

“Why don’t you try a detective?”

“Can we do it my way?”

“Stubborn.” He slipped his hand under the T-shirt she was wearing. Her skin was damp. He kissed her neck.

“Eddie, can I ask you a question?”

“Can I stop you?”

She pushed his hand away. “You hate E! Paso, don’t you?”

“It’s a strange place,” he said.

“Meaning it’s ugly.”

“Yes. It’s ugly.”

“You wanted something nicer.”

“I didn’t say that, Nena, I’ll make it home. California’s gone now. I’ll never get it back.” He brushed her hair back with his thumb. “California used to be the future, didn’t it?”

“I always thought the border was the future.”

“You were right,” he laughed, “ours anyway.”

Lizzie looked up from rereading what she had just written in her journal. She knew Jake was at the door wondering whether he should knock or not. She rose from her bed, opened the door and stared at him as he stood motionless. He stared at her, almost pleading.

“Are you lost?”

He started to turn away.

Lizzie pulled him into the room. He let himself go wherever she led him. “You don’t want to go,” she said. She saw he was afraid, saw he was shaking as if he had been out in the cold for a lifetime. Not even the heat of the desert morning could warm him. She led him to her bed. When he started to cry, she held him tight, though she could not keep him from shaking.

“Sometimes,” he said, “I’m falling, I dream I’m falling—and there’s nothing but an endless hole. I just want to hit the ground and break—
I
just want to do anything except keep falling. Sometimes I get night sweats. That’s the way it begins.”

She let him speak, he who was not used to speaking. “I’ll miss my body—just like I miss his.”

“It’s just a body,” she wanted to say, but said nothing.

She lay down on the bed, and held him until he stopped crying, until he stopped shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said, “I don’t know why I came to your room.” He could not say he needed comforting.

“It doesn’t matter why you came,” she said.

He started to rise from the bed.

“You can stay,” she said.

“I’ve never slept with a woman,” he said.

“Well, now you can say you have.”

Jake smiled. He fell asleep exhausted as he leaned into her.

As Lizzie held him, she remembered a dream she had once had, a dream she could not remember for a long time, a dream that had frightened her. She had not had a body, and she was in a church, and her mother had become Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrows. Jake had been in that dream—though she had not known him then. That dream had come to pass, only in the living of it. She had learned not to be afraid.

That night, in Lizzie’s arms, Jake did not dream he was falling. He dreamed of the thunder and the rain, of the desert being gifted with water. He was standing alongside the bushes and the yucca, holding his nephew in his arms—and they were being washed by the downpour. He was as clean as his nephew. When he woke, he was surrounded by Lizzie’s smell. He slipped away softly—and she did not wake. He laughed to himself. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept in all his clothes. Thunder echoed through the room and he took in the smell of the falling rain; he held it in lungs. He walked to the window and stared out into the dawn. Peace was this moment—it was only this moment. He unlatched the screen; he stuck out his hand and felt the rain.

“I’ll say one thing about this place, Nena—lots of drama in the sky.” Maria Elena dug her head into Eddie’s chest. “Ummmmm,” she said.

“Is that a go back to sleep ‘ummm’?”

“Just listen,” she whispered. A bolt of lightning seemed to hit
right outside their window. The loud crack of the thunder startled her. She jumped instinctively.

“Guess that woke you,” he said. The rain pounded the ground like millions of nails being pounded into wood.

“God is busy today,” she said.

“Did you pray for rain?” Eddie teased.

“As a matter of fact I did.”

“So we can attribute what’s going on outside to your evening prayers.”

She laughed. “Well, I won’t stop you. Whose turn is it to make the coffee?”

“Yours,” he said.

“No fair—I’m pregnant.”

“I forgot,” he said as he kissed her. “It’s cold,” he said, and pulled her closer.

They listened to the rain for a long time. He was happy listening to the rain and feeling the warmth of his wife’s skin. He wanted to tell her that he loved her, that he would always love her, that his life had been a long drought and that he would always be thirsty for her, thirsty and grateful. He was happy.
Who’d have thought that I’d wind up in El Paso listening to a morning thunderstorm? Who’d have thought I’d ever be happy?

“Where are you?” Nena shook him gently.

“Just thinking. This place,” he said, “it could be mine.”

“Good,” she said, “because we’re not moving.”

Maria Elena rose from their bed and went into the bathroom. Eddie watched her as she moved from the bed. He always liked watching her move about the room in the morning. When she disappeared into the bathroom, he looked toward the baby’s crib. It felt odd not to have the baby with them. He fought the urge to go into Rose’s room and get him. She had insisted on watching him for the night. “Do it for me,” she’d said. “I don’t always want to spend the night in an empty room. And he loves me, you know?” Eddie wondered if the baby was sensing the rain. He was such a strange and calm and intelligent child.
What a lucky man—what a lucky, lucky man.

Maria Elena came back into the room. “I miss the baby,” she said.

Eddie didn’t seem to hear her.

“Where are you now?”

He stared up at her blankly.

She slapped him gently. “Are you there?”

“I was just thinking about Lizzie.” he said.

“And?”

“I was just wondering if she was out and about in the rain.”

“Sans her body, you mean?”

“Yeah—sans her body.” He paused for a moment. “What do you think about all that, anyway?”