“I know you did, sweetie,” Lynette whispered.
“But you know, I picked myself up and I kept going. I don't remember how, now.” She brushed a tear away and breathed out slowly. “That night I lost it, Alejandro came to me and just held me. He washed my face.” She looked at Lynette, suddenly terrified and overwhelmed. “That day that I found him, it wasn't him calling for his niece that made me hide him. He was just so beautiful I needed to look at him some more.” The words came pouring out of her, bottled up for too long. “I never did anything like that before, and I didn't even think about it. I just brought him into my house, like some antique or a beautiful painting, so I could look at him.”
Lynette chuckled and brushed Molly's hair back from her face. “Honey, I've looked at him, okay? He's a lot better than a painting.”
“You know what I mean. I never did that. And then, he woke up and there was something so special about him that I couldn't let him go.” She closed her eyes. “And now he's in every corner of my life. He's changed everything, everything, and it's going to be like it always is, it's going to hurt to let him go, but if I don't, Lynette, if I donâtâ” she swallowed. “Right now, it hurts a little. Later, it would be more than I could stand.”
Lynette laid her head on Molly's shoulder. “Not everybody has to bury their parents and their husbands, Molly. Some people live a long time.”
“But you never know, do you?” Molly said, and she could not hold back her tears. “There are no guarantees in this life.”
“No,” Lynette said quietly. “There aren't.” She put her arms around Molly's shoulders and let her weep. “I'm so sorry, Moll. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you this time. I'm sorry this got so out of hand. I'm...” She stroked Molly's hair. “I'm sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I think you're doing the right thing, letting him go.”
But maybe that wasn't what Molly wanted to hear. Clinging to Lynette, she could only think of the way Alejandro had washed her face with a cool rag, of the way his hands looked when he wrapped Josefina's small hand in his own.
After a moment, she found the rush of emotion subsiding, and lifted her head, a backwash of foolishness making her laugh a little. “I must be PMSing bad, the way I've been losing it today.”
“Maybe,” Lynette said. “But maybe a lot has happened in a short time, too.” She smiled. “Either way, things will look a lot better a week from now.”
“Will they?”
“They will. Now go wash your face. I'm going to get some of that coffee you said is so great.”
Â
When the snow began to come down again in earnest, Josh and Lynette gathered their things to go. Molly and Alejandro both went to the door, as if it was their shared home.
Josh extended his hand to Alejandro. “Best of luck to you, man.”
“Thank you.”
Lynette hugged Molly. “It's almost over now,” she whispered. “Hang in there.” She pulled back, lifted her collar. “Call me tomorrow.”
“I will.” She waved, then closed the door against the cold night.
Alejandro stood where he'd been, his arms at his sides, an odd expression on his face. Noticing her gaze, he summoned a smile, half-hearted. “You are very tired tonight, eh?”
She thought of the bed, thought of him thereâand knew there was no way on earth, no way she could let herself sleep with him again. “Yes,” she said, knowing they spoke in code.
“There's one thing more I would like to do, if you are not too tired,” he said.
“What?”
He held out his hand. “Come.”
And one last time, she allowed herself to touch him, let him take her hand in his and lead her into the kitchen. The table was cleared of dishes, but the flowers and candles, now unlit, remained. “Are you Catholic, Molly?”
“Sort of,” she answered. “Lapsed.”
“Then you know about candles for the dead.”
A ripple of concern moved in her. Warily she said, “Yes.”
“Please,” he said, gesturing. “Sit down.
“In my village, we have a feast for the dead on their day.” He uncovered a dish filled with multicolored cookies and brought it back to the table, then poured more coffee, releasing the cinnamon steam into the air. “We eat all their favorite things, because we believe that they can see them and smell them. I made
posole
because it was my sister's favorite. And she liked these cookies, too.”
A true bolt of fear went through her. “Alejandro, I donâtâ”
He put his hand on hers, firmly, holding her in place. “I know. It's not always easy, to think of them, the ones who are gone. Butâ” he lit a match and held the flame to the wick of a candle “âI like to do it anyway. It's only a day or two early. The spirits won't mind.” He put the candle down. “This one is for my sister, Josefina's mother, Silvia.”
Against her will, Molly felt herself softly snared by the flickering gold candle flame, by the lilting rise and fall of his voice. “Silvia was one year older than me. She loved these cookies. She loved anything American. She was very beautifulâJosefina looks like her very much.” His long fingers touched the edge of the jar. “I love her.”
He raised his head, lit another match. “These two are for my parents. My mother, who loved flowers and her patio. My papaâ” he grinned “âwho loved to make money.”
The trio of lights danced on his dark eyes when he handed her the box of matches. For a moment, she hesitated, then opened the box and took out a match. From the remaining holders on the table, she chose a matched set of round red glasses, and lit the votives within, an odd calm settling over her. “These are for my parents,” she said, and her voice was strong. “My mother will be loving the smell of this coffee, and my father will be snorting over this foolishness, even though it pleases him to be remembered.”
She looked at Alejandro, and he waited patiently, his hands resting easily on his long thighs, then she lifted one finger and went to the fridge, took out one of the beers her brother had left behind and carried it back to the table.
Amid the mostly glass candle holders was one carved of pine, one she'd picked up at a church bazaar one Christmas. Molly moved it in front of her, and opened the box of matches before she could chicken out, then lit it and held the match to the unburned wick. It caught and flared in a wide, wax-fed blaze, then settled into a steady yellow flame. She shook out the match.
“This one is for Tim,” she said, and as if he heard his name, the essence of him filled her. It was not a sad feeling, but a joyous one, and she touched her chest in wonder. “He smelled of wood chips and soap.” She opened the beer. “He loved beer and making things with his hands.” A sweetness moved in her. “He was sturdy and strong and he loved this land with all his heart. Almost as much as he loved me.”
Alejandro listened, a gentleness on his face. “He would have liked you very much, Alejandro. You could have talked roosters.” Some of those tears, the ones she thought must be finished by now, slipped over her face, and she left them, because he would have liked that, too. “I loved him. I miss him a lot sometimes, still”
Alejandro leaned over the table and took her hand. “You love him. The dead, they never leave us. Not as long as we remember.” And suddenly he picked up a cookie. “For Silvia!” he said, and mugged eating it with great gusto.
“For Tim!” she said, and took a great swig of beer, drinking it as he would have, in a big thirsty swallow, once, twice, three times. Some spilled over the side of her mouth, and she laughed, wiping it away with the back of her hand. “I'll have to practice that part.”
He made a face at the cookies. “I never liked these very much.”
“Oh, I do! I'll eat them for her.” She reached for them and put one in her mouth, and ate it. “Thank you, Alejandro. For everything. The dinner tonight, and this.” The entire evening had broken down her walls, and she said impulsively, “I'm really going to miss you. You've changed my whole life.”
He bowed his head, as if the words pained him.
“I'm sorry,” Molly said. “I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Forget I said anything.”
“No, I want to remember.” He gave her a somehow wistful expression. “I want to remember all of these days we have had here.”
For one long moment, she ached to close the distance between them. She even saw herself, in her mind, kneeling before him, touching his face, kissing his hands, saw it so clearly it was almost as if she'd done it. But there was, tonight, an odd sort of distance between them, and it was impossible to reach over it, as it would have been to kiss a stranger in public. “So do I,” she said, and then, hesitantly, “Alejandro, are we making a mistake?”
He stood, his face closed. “No mistake, Saint Molly. This is best.” He blew out the candles, all of them. “For both of us.”
Chapter 15
J
osh couldn't sleep, but it wasn't for the same reasons that had caused his insomnia the past week or so. Confession evidently was as good for the soul as they always said, because stating out loud that he'd been the one who fired a gun into a group of terrified migrant workers had eased his conscience. It still shamed him, but it wasn't festering in the same way tonight.
It also helped, he thought wryly, looking out to the piles of snow in his yard, that the guy hadn't died.
No, what kept him awake tonight was his sister. The funny light-struck expression in her eyes whenever she looked at Alejandro. Over and over, he played one moment: when they'd been at the stove, moving easily around each other as if they'd been married a hundred years. Then Molly had put her hand on his sleeve and lingered there. In that moment, the tall Mexican had looked at Molly as if she'd hung the damned moon. And just for a second, Josh had seen the same thing in his sister's eyes.
Love. Not a mistake. Not for show. Not even admitted, he thought.
The clincher had been when Alejandro spoke to him about the house. That falling-down old white elephant Molly had been in love with as long as Josh could remember. Alejandro wanted her to have the house so she would have something that belonged to her. So she wouldnâtâhow had he put it?â
go hollow.
Stirring sugar into a cup of tea, he pursed his lips. Hollow. That was such a damned good word for the way Molly had been since Tim died. The only time she'd really come alive was when she started on that house again, wanting to buy it and fix it up. But Josh, too, had been grieving his brother-in-law, and it hurt him that Molly would leave the land she and Tim had bought together.
Damn, but he was a self-centered SOB at times. Stubborn and stupid and sure he had all the answers. Guilt moved in him over his part in the separation of Molly from Alejandro. What right had he had to do that?
He'd make it right in the morning. Whether she knew it or not, Molly was crazy in love, and with a man who deserved her. Who would take good care of her. Who worshiped the ground she walked on. He'd call the sheriffâ
Cut it out,
a voice said wryly. What he had to do was step back and stop meddling. Let Molly make her own decisions. Claim her lifeâask for what she wanted.
He could do that. But he suspected she might need at least a nudge. He'd beat her down pretty hard this time. The least he could do was fix that part.
She could take it from there.
Â
Josefina could not believe the sight outside her windows when she woke up. There was snow. Tons of it. Piles and piles, and more of it coming out of the sky. She wanted to go out and play in it so bad!
It took awhile for her to notice the other thing: it was quiet in the hospital. And the lights were not on. In surprise, she looked at the machines with their tubes and blinking lights and bleeping noises, and they were still, too. A nurse hurried in, frowning, though she brightened when she saw Josefina was awake. “How you doing, sweetie?”
“Good. Look at all the snow!”
“Yeah,” she said, and didn't sound happy about it. “Three feet and it's still coming down.” Quickly, she disconnected the machines and, giving Josefina warning, pulled the needle out of her arm and put a bandage on it. A pink one with doll faces.
“Am I going home now?”
“In a little while.” She rolled up the various tubes. “The electricity is off in here and the machines won't work right. We have a generator to make electricity, but it's not working the way we want it to. There are some people who are really sick, and we have to save the power for their machines.”
“Oh! I'm not so sick now.”
The nurse patted her hand. “I know.” She bustled out.
They brought her a breakfast that was cold. Kinda cold, anyway. Cereal and milk that tasted as though it might have been sitting on the counter for a little while. Still, she found she was hungry enough for a bear, and ate all of it. When she was finishing up, a man came to her door.
She frowned. He did not wear a uniform, but she thought of a policeman, anyway. But he was pretty nice. “Hi, Josefina. I'm Molly's brother. Can I come in and talk to you for a minute?”
She nodded, deciding to wait and see what he had to say.
He had on a heavy coat with sheep fur on the inside. He had another one in his hands, littler, and she got scared, afraid it was for her. “What do you want?” she said, mean as she could.
“I need your help, kiddo.”
“With what?”
“It's kind of secret. Let me ask you something, first. Do you like Molly?”
“Yes,” she said fervently. “Does she like me?”
His smile was nice, Josefina decided. “Oh, yeah. She talks about you all the time. And about your uncle.”
Josefina giggled. “She likes him a lot!”
“I know. He likes her, too.”
“No,” Josefina said gravely. “TÃo is in love.”
He made that expression grown-ups always got when they thought they were so much smarter than kids. “Really,” he said. “What makes you think so?”
Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to tell him. He might just laugh at her, and she knew what she knew. “Lots of things.”
“Like what?” When she didn't answer, he sat on the edge of her bed. “It's important, Josefina.” He said her name wrong, but Anglos did that a lot. Like they were embarrassed to say it right.
“Ho-se-
FEE
na,” she said.
“Oh. Sorry.” He said her name again, right this time.
“Okay, this is how I know TÃo is in love. One.” She held up a finger. “He kissed her. He does not kiss women, not ever, even when there is a dance and they really want him to, bad. He says kissing leads to other things.”
The man nodded, a little frown on his face. “I see. He's right.”
“Two.” Another finger. “He sang her the song about love. I don't know it in English, but he keeps that one for secret between us.” Another finger. “He never stops looking at her when she's there. He tries to stop, but then he's doing. it again. And there's so much happiness when he does.”
The man was smiling now. “You know what, Josefina, that's exactly what I saw, too. And you know, my sister looks right back at him the same way.” He got up and closed the door. “We have a problem, and you're gonna help me fix it.”
“What problem? They got married.”
He sighed. “I know. But it was only to get a green card.”
“But theyâ”
“My turn to talk. I know. They're crazy in love. Loco,” he said, and she smiled. “But they don't know it, so we have to help them find out.”
“How?”
“We got lucky. You see that snow? My sister can't drive. in it. Her truck got buried. So there they are, stuck.”
Josefina grinned. “Ah-ha! So they probably have to kiss a little, huh?”
He laughed, and the sound was big and wide, like sunshine. Josefina liked him a lot better. “Exactly. You're pretty smart, for only being eight.”
“I'm old for my age.”
“Yeah.” For some reason that seemed to make him sad. “Anyway. I have a better truck than my sister, and I can drive there. You get to get out of the hospital because they're worried about power failures, and I'm driving you up to Molly's house.”
“Really? Is my dog there?”
“Not yet. He's still with Mr. Wiley. But listen, sugar. You and me, we're going to trick them, so they both see that they really are in love.”
Josefina grinned. “Okay!”
Â
Molly dreamed of a rooster. A big black one with a flare of red feathers at his chest, sitting on a fence post. For some reason, Tim was there, and her brother, Josh, and they were so happy to see the rooster, boasting about it. It was a Mexican rooster, they said, and very rare.
Behind them, she saw goats and sheep, and something green waving its fronds in the fields of her land. She frowned, confused. “I haven't planted anything. How did that happen?” she asked them, but they were already gone, and Molly was left to puzzle it out herself. The rooster crowed, and she turned to it, thinking he had the silkiest feathers she'd ever seen.
When she woke up, she half thought she'd heard the rooster, that it had been her alarm clock, and it took a long moment to realize it wasn't a rooster at all. It was the light.
Snow light. She sat up, surprised, and pulled open the curtains. “Holy cow!” she cried, half laughing, half appalled. Leo leaped up on the windowsill, his tail switching. “You won't be going outside today, my dear,” she said to the cat. “You'd be buried.”
The snow that had begun falling last night had evidently not ceased the entire night. It fell with deceptive sweetness, giant fluffy flakes, piling up. And up. And up. There was at least three feet in low spots, much more where the wind had piled it into drifts, and it showed no sign of slowing.
Secretly pleasedâshe loved these wild, surprise snowsâshe tugged on heavy socks and a pair of warm sweats and bundled her bathrobe around herself and went to make a pot of coffee. Padding silently down the hall, Leo rushing ahead to his food dish, she paused by Alejandro's half-open door to peak in. He slept, oblivious, his black hair scattered over the linens. She found herself smiling, thinking how lucky it was that fate had sent the snow today, so she could keep him a little longer. The phrase made her smileâkeep him. Like Josefina's dog.
Please can I keep him?
Silly. She shook her head, smiling, and went to make the coffee, moving quietly so she wouldn't disturb him. Although he seemed to possess an almost superhuman constitution, sleep was the body's way of repairing itself, and there was still a lot of healing going on in Alejandro's body.
As she fed Leonardo and waited for the coffee, she looked out the windows and thought about the rooster. In the bold light of morning, she had to chuckle a little at the imageryâa black rooster with red chest feathers.
Gee, wonder who that could be?
Certainly not Alejandro, with his black hair and red shirt. The only thing the rooster had lacked was a guitar.
Crossing her arms, she stood before the glass door and saw the land the way it had appeared in her dream: fertile, productive,
alive
. Alive with sunshine and growing things and animals. In comparison, the dullness of empty fields filled with cactus seemed almost criminal, and for the first time, she understood how Tim and Alejandro viewed the potential of the land.
And Josh.
Josh. Of course. He was struggling so desperately to make ends meet, the kind of grueling, day-to-day struggle that wore a man out too soon, made him bitter and small. She'd seen the tension of it in his face often the past couple of years, and had repeatedly offered to help himâgive him money, pay off his mortgage, whatever was best. Pridefully, he refused everything.
But if he worked the land, it would be the labor of his own back that would bring security. As much as possible anyway. She thought of what Alejandro had said about self-sufficiency. Maybe the land would never make a fortune, as Sunshine Farms and Wiley Farms, but at the very least, it could provide chickens and eggs and food of all kinds. It could bring in some extra money to be set aside for emergencies and eventually college for the kids.
She heard a step behind her, and Alejandro emerged, his hair tousled, his torso bare. She beamed at him. “Good morning!” she said, and without a single hesitation, she moved across the room, put her hands on his chest to brace herself and kissed him full on the mouth.
He was startled, but sleepy enough he didn't immediately protest. His hands went to her arms, and he gave her a quizzical look. “Molly?”
“It will wait,” she said, and gestured toward the view. “Look! We're snowed in!”
He blinked at the brightness, and a hand went to his chest. “It snowed a lot!”
“And still coming down.” She heard the gurgling of the coffeemaker. “Go wash up and I'll get some coffee.”
Humming under her breath, she pulled out the makings for pancakes and stirred together dry ingredients, a sense of complete rightness in her. Josh and Lynette, Tim and Alejandro, the old house in town and the puzzle of her own landâall of it seemed so perfectly clear this morning that she couldn't imagine how she'd missed seeing it before.
Alejandro came back, buttoning his red shirt. She grinned at that, and he stopped. “What?”
She gave him a cup of coffee. “I'm just happy this morning. I was thinking about my brother and my land. He loves to work the land. He and Tim were going to do it together.”
“A good idea. You need more than one man for so much land.”