A muscle twitched in Michael’s jaw as he heard this. He didn’t interrupt, despite his gut urge to tell Bobby to shut up. The rain was coming down in earnest now. He squinted his eyes, flicked on the wipers and cursed the heavens.
“Go on,” he said.
“I told Papa tonight because I had to. To protect him. Because I loved him. I didn’t mind not telling him before. I know it bothered you. You thought I was living a lie.” He closed his eyes and swallowed hard. “I was just living, Miguel. Surviving. I endured because I didn’t want to cause him pain. Or Mama. Or me, either. I didn’t want him to reject me. It’s true, I was afraid. And when I saw that pain in his eyes tonight…” His voice hitched and his Adam’s apple bobbed.
Michael’s jaw worked while tears burned in his eyes.
“It hurts, man. Rejection bites.” Bobby sniffed and wiped his nose again.
Michael passed a weary hand through his hair. “It’s okay,” he said, for lack of anything better. They drove on for a while down the rain-slicked roads, covering the miles quickly, heading out of the dark hills back into the lights of civilization ahead. Bobby moaned from time to time, especially when Michael hit a pothole or took a curve too fast. He wanted to make good time, even in this damned storm. He didn’t like the pallor of Bobby’s face. How could Luis have left his own son? Left him to die?
Then, not because he wanted to know, but because the comparison rankled so deep, he had to ask, “How can you say I’m like
him?
” He spat out the word.
Bobby turned his head, his eyes puzzled over the black leather jacket. Then he lowered the jacket from his nose, dabbing a few times. The blood flow seemed to have stopped. “You really don’t know?”
“No, I don’t know,” he snapped back.
“A goddamn Mayan statue,” Bobby murmured, his eyes blinking heavily. He tilted his weight, slumping into the corner. He licked his swollen lip, wincing, and sighed heavily.
“Miguel, Miguel, Miguel…” he mumbled, slurring the words. “You walked out on Charlotte, too.”
“What?” he asked, turning his head to face Bobby.
“What did you say?”
Bobby was still slumped in the corner, eyes closed and still. Michael’s heart raced and he reached over to tap Bobby’s thigh. But he didn’t open his eyes. Panic set in and Michael leaned over, taking hold of his wrist. The skin was warm. The pulse was weak, but there.
“Thank God,” he cried, leaning over the steering wheel and pushing the pedal to the floor, racing for the lights. He prayed as he roared across the slick highway in Luis’s Buick, the rosaries jangling wildly from the mirror. “Let me get him to a hospital. Please, God, let him be all right.”
His soul felt more battered than his body. He hadn’t prayed in years, yet tonight he’d prayed like an altar boy, fervently and with utter faith in being heard.
At length he spotted an exit for a hospital and took it at breakneck speed, racing into the emergency room lot. He squealed to a stop between two ambulances at the door. “He has AIDS,” he informed the medical emergency team as they raced out.
“Thanks. We’ll take over from here,” one man replied, opening the car door. The team acted quickly, lifting Bobby to a gurney with their gloved hands and rolling him through the double doors into the emergency room.
The gray stone facade of the hospital was barely visible through the torrent of rain. Rivulets cascaded across the parking lot, soaking his shoes, plastering his hair across his cheeks. Michael slunk against the car and bowed his head. No amount of rain would wash the blood off of this night.
Michael hated hospitals, but he loved his brother more. So he waited in the lobby throughout the night while Bobby was in surgery getting his jaw rewired. His own cuts and bruises had been attended to earlier, and he was relieved to find that there were no open wounds. But he would have an AIDS test, anyway, just to be certain. He nodded off a few times in the hard-backed chair, but sleep was elusive. By the time the night shift ended and a fresh batch of nurses had taken their posts, Michael was allowed in to see his brother.
Bobby was resting uncomfortably when he peered into the narrow two-bed room. He was relieved that the other bed was empty. It was more private and he could speak openly. He hovered at the door of the room, lest Bobby be asleep. His brother was hooked up to intravenous tubes and lying still. Peering closer, he saw Bobby’s face and his own face fell in shock. Bobby’s face…It looked like someone had tried to rearrange it with a mallet. His proud, beautiful nose was broken, his cheekbone was beaten so badly it caved in and his left eye was hidden in the massive swelling.
Michael stopped short, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides, breathing heavily. He felt an urge to run outside, run all the way back to the hills and find those who’d done this to his brother. He wanted to see them lying in a hospital bed, looking just like Bobby.
“You can go right on in. He’s on some pretty heavy painkillers, so he’ll be a little groggy.” The nurse—a tall, dark woman with hair swept back and glasses that slipped down her nose—nudged him forward. “You have company, Mr. Mondragon,” she said in the cheerful, loud voice endemic to nurses.
Bobby pried open his right eye and made a muscle twitch, which Michael could only guess was a smile. “Hey…”
“Hey, big brother. You look pretty good for someone who had the stuffing kicked out of him.”
“Look who’s talking. Still, we did okay, eh?” His voice was raspy and hoarse, and he could barely articulate.
Michael chuckled and held back the tears. “Yeah. We’re alive.”
“Yeah, barely.”
“I’m sorry, Bobby. I should’ve been there for you.”
“It happened. I’m not a victim.” Bobby’s words were slurred because of the wired jaw and swollen lips. He closed his eyes with a twisted grimace. “Never again…”
“Has this happened to you before?”
“Not this bad. But the body remembers.”
“Aw, Bobby…”
He sighed. “They got my nose. I was always able to save my nose before.”
“It’s okay. They tell me they can fix it.”
“Good. I’d like to breathe through both my nostrils….”
Michael looked at his shoes, not wanting his brother to see the flash of tears. His face was a remnant of what it had once been.
“Does Mama know?” Bobby asked, his one eye visibly sad.
“Yeah. Sure. She’s on her way.”
“What does she know? About the other…”
“She knows everything. I talked to her on the phone. Papa was drunk by the time he got back. He forbid her to come. But this time—” he smiled slowly and patted Bobby’s hand “—this time she packed a bag and left.”
Bobby turned his head a bit, his bandages and broken ribs preventing him from moving far. “I didn’t want that.”
“She had to take a stand. She couldn’t
not
come. Frankly, I’m damn proud of her.”
“I don’t want her to see me like this.”
“How can you even think that? You’re her son. She loves you. You’ll always be beautiful to her, no matter what.”
Bobby slowly brought his gaze to Michael, and when their eyes met, they both understood what was unspoken.
Will Charlotte always be beautiful—no matter what—because you love her?
“I heard she’s engaged now,” Bobby said softly. “To that agent guy.”
“That’s what they say.”
“And you’re just going to let it happen?”
“It’s over, Bobby. Things have happened that you don’t understand.”
“All I understand is that you still love her.”
“She left me.”
“No. You let her go.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“If love doesn’t matter, then what does?”
Bobby smiled then, that slight upturning of swollen lips in misshapen cheeks. But it was his eyes that held Michael. Deep pockets of sympathy—and a wisdom there that belied the few years’ difference between them. Michael understood then that his brother had always been there for him, not the other way around. Whenever he needed someone to mend a bird’s broken wing, to hold his hand when he walked into the first grade, to stand in the bleachers and cheer him on to victory when their father was too busy to go to his games—Bobby was there. Bobby had understood why he needed the leather jacket, why he had defied the family and taken the scholarship, and why, too, he had returned home.
Taking the punches to the body, that was easy. Michael had always thought he was doing the big favor, playing the hero when he stood, fists at the ready, between Bobby and whoever tried to hurt him. But as Bobby said, he was not a victim. He was the hero all along. Michael saw that now. The body blows couldn’t hurt Bobby. His was a greater strength. He loved his father and mother, his brother and sister, unconditionally.
Michael’s shoulders drooped “I don’t know what to do,” he confessed.
“You will,” Bobby replied, closing his eyes.
A few hours later, Michael awoke feeling a nudge on his knee. He pried open an eye to see his mother bent over him, her eyes soft with concern.
“Miguel, wake up. Miguel…”
He mopped his face with his hands and yawned, then stretched his stiff shoulders. Looking around, he saw that he was still in Bobby’s hospital room. Bobby was in the bed beside him, asleep. The room was a dark gray, rain still splattered angrily against the windows, and in the distance, he could hear the low rumble of thunder.
“I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?”
“It is almost noon.”
“So late?”
“Sí
. Virgencita…” She crossed herself. “The roads are very bad. Many are closed. It took forever to get here.
Si Dios quiere.
The water is rising in the river.
Muy mal.
And the rain, it no stopping.” She looked worn and stooped.
“The National Weather Service says flood warning.”
“Damn, when did they call it?”
“This morning. They say it is the flood of the century!”
“Yeah, the third one.” He scratched his head, waking up. “Okay, so where is Papa?” He sat up in the chair, alert now.
“He won’t leave his land. When I leave, he is putting plywood on the windows and getting emergency supplies. He said he no going to be chased away by a little water.” She shook her head and clutched Michael’s shoulder. “I pass the river on way here. It is not a little water, Miguel. I am frightened. The children are still there.”
“Where are Rosa and Manuel?”
“They won’t leave Papa.”
Michael swore silently, not wanting to increase his mother’s already overflowing anxiety.
“
Aiee,
Miguel. Cisco and Maria Elena—We must to—” she stuttered, too flustered to continue in English. She burst forth in Spanish, imploring Michael to save the children.
“Sit down, Mama,” he said patting her hand, then standing. “Stay with Bobby. He needs you now. I will go out and make sure the children are taken to high ground.”
She reached out quickly, taking hold of his shoulder with her small hand.
“
Mi hijo,
I am proud of you. Your father, he was wrong to do this to his son. I, too, am guilty. But Luis, he is a good man. He—” Her voice broke and she looked away.
“I promise you,” he said, placing his hand over hers.
“Everything will be okay. You don’t have to worry. I won’t leave him there. I’m going to drag that old man’s stubborn ass off the land if I have to carry him to do it.”
T
he storm was a hellion, screaming and hollering wind through the mountains and dumping a torrent of rain on the already waterlogged land. The speed and intensity of the storm was alarming. The river was cresting and the weather service was calling for families to evacuate immediately. Michael held the steering wheel to the Buick tight as he fought his way back up the mountains to the nursery, praying all the way that his family would have already heeded the warnings and left. In his gut, however, he knew his father wouldn’t go. Damn fool, he’d risk the lives of his family over a plot of land.
He had to concentrate on the road. In spots, the car hydroplaned in several inches of water. Would he even make it back? The radio reported that, farther to the north, the levee of the Prajaro River had broken, sending eight feet of mud lurching through the center of town.
Approaching his exit, he spotted a yellow barricade. The police were waving people away, telling them over loudspeakers, in both English and Spanish, that they could not pass. That they should turn around and seek higher ground. Michael gritted his teeth, pressed the gas pedal and roared past them. In his rearview mirror he saw one policeman wave his hand, calling the other cop back in disgust. They no doubt thought that anyone who was crazy enough to head into the valley now deserved to die.
Common sense told him to turn back. Beyond the highway he could see the swollen river, already overflowing the banks and raging forward in a hell-bent current. He was far beyond the constraints of rational thought.
The clicking window wipers barely kept the torrents of water from his windshield. Thunder raged overhead, daring him to continue. Squinting, he leaned far over the wheel to track where he was going. A long trail of cars were inching their way in the opposite direction, leaving the valley for higher ground. He had to swerve to avoid hitting two dogs that were running alongside a pickup truck crammed full with people. Children waved from the windows at the dogs, crying out their names. So, he thought, steadying the car and gritting his teeth, it has come to a choice between people and their pets. It had gotten as bad as that.
As he toiled past the long line of cars, many people called out to him, honking and waving wildly, “Go back! Go back!”
He bit down hard, seeing only the road ahead. For once he wasn’t going to think, or analyze, or plan. He knew these hills. He knew the roads. His family was up there. He’d use his instincts. He just had to go on.
He pulled up to the house to find the windows boarded up with plywood and plastic sheeting, and Manuel’s truck parked outside. Michael slammed the car door behind him and ran inside. Water was dripping into his eyes, but he could still see Cisco and Maria Elena, sitting in front of the TV, watching the weather bulletins. They jumped up and ran to him when he entered the house, wrapping their thin arms tightly around his waist.
“Tío Miguel, they say we should leave the house now. We should go!”
“Yes, yes, I know. We will. Are you all packed up?”
“Yes,” answered Cisco, trying to be manly despite the fear shining in his eyes. “Mama has our bags in the truck. And some food.”
“Good. Where is your mama?”
“She’s at the nursery. They’re carrying the stock to the top of the hill.”
“Okay. Listen up. I need your help. Maria Elena, go gather up some first aid supplies, flashlights and batteries. And a portable radio if you have one. Then listen to the news report for the road they’re advising us to take to higher ground. Cisco, go downstairs and turn off the electric, water and gas utilities. You know how to do that?”
His chin went up. “Of course I do.”
“Good. Do it. And see if Mama has any emergency drinking water down in the root cellar. If it’s flooded down there, forget it. Stay out. Understand? Okay then. I’ll be back.”
Cisco nodded, relieved to have a job to do. Michael went to the back room, where he found himself a thick rain slicker and knee-high rubber boots, then, seeing that Maria Elena and Cisco were busy with their tasks, he went out in search of his father.
Michael found him standing on the deck of a Mondragon pickup, defying the rain, waving madly as he directed Rosa and Manuel in the loading of perennials into the back.
“What the hell are you doing?” Michael roared, climbing up in the back of the truck to stand in his face. He had to shout to be heard over the storm. “It’s dangerous! We have to evacuate.”
“It’s not dangerous!” Luis roared back. “How’s a little bit of water going to hurt me?”
“You stupid old fool, it’s not you I’m worried about. It’s those children!”
Luis slowed down and wiped the water from his face.
“They’ve called for an immediate evacuation,” Michael called out to Manuel and Rosa when they approached, each carrying an armload of hosta. “The river is cresting, and when it overflows, we won’t be able to get out. There’ll be water up to our necks.”
“I’m not leaving,” Luis shouted angrily. Lightning split the sky, illuminating the grim determination on his face. There was the glint of madness in his eyes.
“Then stay,” Michael shouted back. “But you—” He turned to Manuel and Rosa. “You have to take care of your children. Leave now and take the recommended route. Go on!”
“I’m not leaving Papa!” Rosa shouted over the storm. She set the plants down in the truck, the mud leaving black streaks down her yellow raincoat. Her face was as determined and defiant as Luis’s. “I’ve never left this place and I won’t leave now. You go. You’re good at leaving.” She was shaking with the current of her resentment, unleashed now at this desperate moment. Her anger was a raw, frightening thing. A maelstrom raging inside her chest.
“You see, Papa?” she cried out. “It’s
me,
your daughter, who stays by your side. Who does what you want her to do. Not your sons. Look at me, Papa!
Me!
Not your sons!”
Luis climbed down from the back of the truck and held open his arms. Rosa ran into them.
Michael jumped down and walked past his father and Rosa to Manuel. His brother-in-law’s eyes were dark with mistrust. Michael approached him slowly, as he would an animal with its teeth bared.
“Manuel,” he said, stopping before him and speaking in a low voice. “Now is the moment not to be a son, but to be a father. Don’t be like him,” he said, waving his hand to indicate Luis. “Rosa won’t go. You know she won’t. Don’t turn your back on your children now. You’ve got to take Cisco and Maria Elena to safety. It’s not too late. Save your children, Manuel.”
“I need him here!” Luis shouted angrily.
“Go,” Michael urged. “I’ll take your place here.”
Manuel tightened his mouth in a grim line of determination. He stuck out his hand and Michael took it; they shook firmly. Then Manuel took off at a brisk clip to the house.
Luis raised his face to the sky and laughed out loud at the thunder in the clouds. “This woman,
she
is the man of the family. She is macho, no?”
“Man? Macho?” Michael called back with disgust. He saw the dark, insidious side of macho. It could turn ugly.
“What is a real man? Does a real man turn his back on his son? Does a real man abandon his children to danger? If you don’t protect your children, what kind of man are you?”
“I am a man who will fight for what is his,” he bellowed loud enough for the heavens to hear. “This land is everything to me. Do you hear me? Everything! I will not leave it.” With a wild fury, he began stacking the containers of hosta into the back of the truck, the rain pouring down his face as he labored.
“Nor will I.” Rosa disappeared into the nursery, bound for more containers.
Michael swore under his breath. At least Manuel would get the children out to safety. The water was already at their ankles. In a few hours more, it would be slithering toward the house.
“Father, we should go!”
“You go! You are nothing. You have no culture. No language. No family. You go!”
Michael gritted his teeth, remembering his promise to his mother. “I’ll help you for a few hours. That is all. Then we’ll all leave.”
His father raised his eyes to meet Michael’s gaze, triumph shining clear. But he didn’t reply.
By four o’clock, they abandoned the rest of the nursery stock. They’d managed to transport a large number of pots to higher ground. Out in the fields, the winds had wrecked the orchards and the floods loosened the vines and dragged the stock out of the soil. By twilight, the containers were floating in the floodwater, a colorful flotilla of perennials, shrubs and ground cover.
Michael, Luis and Rosa stumbled through the thigh-high water up the hill, then waded through earth as spongy as chocolate pudding to reach the house, which was well situated on a high point overlooking the valley. They kicked off their boots on the porch and pushed into the silence of the darkened house, the storm still raging behind them. They stood panting in exhaustion.
“The electricity is out,” said Rosa, testing the light switch.
“I had Cisco turn it off.”
“Well, let’s turn it back on! It’s freezing in here. We’ll die of the cold.”
“Water conducts electricity like a wire. If we step into the water anywhere we’ll be fried. The only way to be safe is to shut off all the power to the house.”
“I’ll wear rubber boots.”
“No, that won’t work.”
“Miguel is right,” said Luis in a low, tired growl. “Keep it off. Where’s a goddamn flashlight?”
Michael found his way to the dining room table and fished around until he found what felt like a flashlight. His hands were stiff from the icy cold outdoors, but he managed to flick his puckered thumb on the switch. Suddenly, welcome light pierced the darkness. Good for Cisco and Maria Elena, he thought. They’d gathered up a table full of supplies: jugs of water, tins of food, a first aid kit, four emergency lanterns and a stack of candles and flares.
“A radio,” exclaimed Rosa, spotting one on the table.
“Thank God. I’ll turn on the weather.”
The three gathered around the table, shivering, listening to the grim report. The day had seen record-level rainfall, double the biggest storm so far. The levee had broken, sending ten- to twenty-foot-high walls of mud and water lurching down roads and heading straight for the center of town. All the inhabitants had been evacuated. They were asking anyone who might still be in the area to seek the highest point and prepare for the worst. For a tense moment no one spoke.
“We’d better get out of here,” exclaimed Rosa, her voice high with fear.
“We can’t,” Michael cut her off as she headed for the door. “The roads have changed to rivers. All hell’s broken loose out there. Even the major arteries are cut off. We’re trapped here now. We’ll have to try to ride out the storm somehow.”
“We can’t do that!” Rosa exclaimed. “They said people were dying out there. It’s worse than the storms before. The water almost got to the house then. It’ll come for sure this time. I’m not going to sit here and wait to die! I’m calling for help,” Rosa declared, running for the phone. She picked up the receiver and listened. Her face drained of color. “It’s dead.”
Michael saw her panic swell up and moved to wrap his arms securely around her. “We’ll be okay, Rosa. We’ll be fine. Look, there’s plenty of supplies. We’re on high ground. We might get wet, but we’ll be fine.”
He kept his voice calm, not feeling the least bit comforted himself by the empty words. He knew they were in trouble—big trouble. When he sensed that she was calm, he stepped back and smiled reassuringly. He was pleased to see her smile back without any of the anger he had come to expect.
“Let’s try and get dry at least. We’re in for a long night.”
Rosa nodded stiffly, trying to believe. “I’ll go get some of Papa’s clothes. I don’t think either of us will fit in Mama’s or Bobby’s.” She forced a choked laugh and headed for the bedrooms.
“Shit, this crazy California weather,” Luis cursed, removing his coat. Underneath he was soaked to the skin.
“One year there is no rain and we have a drought. Then there is too much rain and we have floods. In between we get earthquakes and fires. Goddamn California weather.”
Michael walked to the door and opened it, shining his light into the storm. What he saw made his heart lurch and his skin break out in a sweat, despite the freezing cold rain. Water was crawling up the slope of the drive—and it was moving fast.
“Papa, there’ll be water in here in no time. Come on,” he said, closing the door tight and heading for the supplies.
“Grab this stuff and bring it upstairs.”
“You don’t think the water’s going to get that high?” Rosa was walking back into the room, her arms filled with jeans and flannel shirts.
“It’s just a precaution. We’d better get this stuff upstairs.”
She nodded, but her eyes were wide with fear.
For once, Rosa did as she was told. Her light disappeared up the staircase. Michael thought to himself that this was the first time in the past three years that the three of them were working as a single team. That was something, he thought to himself. It took a natural disaster, but what the hell?