Sisterchicks in Sombreros (17 page)

“Joanne.” I halfway sat up, reaching in the darkness to grasp her shoulders and wake her from the all-too-understandable nightmare. “Joanne, it’s okay. Wake up.”

“The baby,” she whimpered. “He fell in the water.”

“Yes, I know, Joanne. It’s okay. Shhh. It’s okay. You’re both safe now.” I slid my arm around her back and held her, as if she were the terrified toddler wrapped in the blanket and not blinking.

I could hear her breathing slowing and returning to a steady, light rhythm. If the outburst woke Rosa Lupe, she didn’t indicate it by moving or by entering into our squished comfort session.

Lying back on the lumpy mattress, I kept my arms around Joanne in a loose circle.

“Melly,” Joanne whispered, “don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” I promised.

M
orning came as luminous
as a searchlight, wearing unveiled sunlight and slipping in through a large crevice in the adobe wall. I watched the brightness of the new day reveal the startling surroundings without making any apologies. The beauty was in the light. Simple splendor rode on those sunbeams.

I was surprised to find that I was the only one in the bed. Joanne’s soft voice floated from the other room. I could smell the wood burning in the stove. A moment later I heard the sizzle of the melting lard followed by the rhythmic pat-pat of Rosa Lupe’s skilled hands shaping the morning tortillas.

At home I’m always the first one up. I make the day come. I am the rooster, awakening everyone else. Ethan says I’m a regular “Miss Merry Sunshine.” He’s sarcastic, of course, because usually there’s nothing “merry” or “sunshiny” about
me in the morning. I’m all business. The list of daily tasks always is long, and daylight always is short.

Here, on the flipside of the great western hemisphere, I woke with a stiff neck, a flattened arm, a cramp in my calf, and a smile in the sunlight. The contentment made no sense. I should have lain awake all night fretting that if I fell asleep and opened my mouth, a cockroach the size of a baby dill pickle would fall in, and I’d choke to death.

Instead of moaning and dreading the untold adventures that awaited us in the new day, I lay quietly in the solitude of that uneven bed. I thought about Joanne, my only sister. I thought about her sterling heart, a heart that had through the night beat right beside me for the first time in many years. I knew that it had been in the rapturous celebration of sisterhood and the gracious hospitality of these humble people that I had slept well.

“Good morning.” I stepped into the other room and smiled at Joanne and Rosa Lupe.

“
Buenas dias
,” Rosa Lupe greeted me.
“¿Tienes hambre?”

“That means,
hungry
, right? Yes, I would love one of your fabulous tortillas.”

“Did you see how fast she makes these?” Joanne asked.

“I know. She’s amazing.”

“How are you doing?” Joanne asked.

“Good, actually.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

“Yes, I did. How about you?”

“Off and on.”

“You had a nightmare. Do you remember that?”

Joanne nodded with her lips solemnly pressed together. She lowered her eyes to the journal in front of her, and I told myself this was a topic I definitely should bring up later.

“I was just reading the señora some verses I copied several months ago. After we saw the stars last night, I was trying to remember where I’d read about God’s making the stars, and here it is in my journal.”

“Does Rosa Lupe even understand what you’re reading?”

“I told her it was from the Bible.”

“
La Biblia
, sí.” Rosa Lupe nodded and indicated that Joanne should keep reading as Rosa Lupe flap-flapped her hands, creating an abundance of tortillas.

“Here it is,” Joanne said.

“That’s in the Psalms?” I asked.

Joanne nodded. “Psalm 33, the New Living Translation, I
think. Not all the chapter. Just some of the verses. I love the part, ‘He made their hearts, so he understands everything they do.’ ”

“¿Gloria a Dios!”
Rosa Lupe exclaimed.

“Yes,” Joanne said. “Glory to God.”

“Is that what she said?”

“I think so, Mel. After listening to Spanish for a while, enough words sound similar to figure out what she’s saying.”

Rosa Lupe followed Joanne’s comment with a long string of sentences that didn’t contain a single similar-sounding word to our untrained ears.

Joanne laughed. “Well, so much for that theory!”

I went over to the ceramic water pitcher to wash up and found the pitcher was empty. “May I get some more water for you?” I asked Rosa Lupe, holding up the pitcher.

“Ah, sí, sí.” She bustled over to where I stood. “
Necesitamos mas agua
.”

I tried to explain again that I could get the water, but she seemed to prefer that I keep the breakfast preparations going while she went for the water. Handing over the pitcher, I joined Joanne by the smoky stove and tried to nimbly flip one of the frying tortillas without burning my fingers.

“How does she do this? I need tongs or something. I can’t believe she lives here with so little and is so giving and content.”

“I know.” Joanne stood beside me and tried her fingers at flipping the tortilla. She did it with more ease and speed than I could. “There’s a lot about this place that reminds me of India.”

“The poverty?”

“Yes, but also the peace and the generosity.”

“I’ve never seen hospitality like this.” I reached for another flattened tortilla and eased it onto the grill.

“You
amaze me.” Joanne looped her arm around my shoulder.

“Me? Why? Because I can cook tortillas?”

“No. I thought you would come undone when we pulled in last night. I didn’t think you would be able to cope with all this.”

“So I surprised you, huh?”

“Yes, you definitely surprised me.”

Rosa Lupe returned with a full pitcher of water and a trail of hungry men behind her.

Hambre hombres
, I thought to myself. None of them appeared too worse for wear after their night without a bed. I wondered who ended up on the table and who spent the night on the bench or floor. Since we hadn’t needed our coats, I felt bad that I hadn’t offered them when Joanne turned over our blankets.

“Buenas dias,” Señor Valdepariso greeted us. He continued to talk, and our delightful interpreter, Matthew, jumped right in to let us know what our host was saying. It was refreshing to know what was being said.

“Miguel is not doing very well this morning,” Matthew said. “By any chance did you find those aspirin?”

“Oh, I forgot. Let me get them.” I rifled through my purse and found the bottle of generic ibuprofen. “It’s not much, but you’re welcome to keep it.” I handed over the pills to Matthew.

I noticed that Rosa Lupe and her husband eyed the bottle as if it were a generous gift. I couldn’t imagine what life would be like without the freedom to grab a couple of painkillers whenever a headache started up. What did these people do if they had an infection or a sore tooth? I never had visualized life without antibiotics or dentists. Clearly Matthew’s arrival was a huge blessing. I also understood more why Joanne decided to stay so many years in India.

Matthew left with the ibuprofen and two tortillas for the recovering patient.

The three of us remaining “honored guests” were directed toward the rickety chairs around the wooden table where Rosa Lupe delivered warm tortillas to a platter in front of us as quickly as she could prepare them.

Cal updated Joanne and me on how poor Miguel had woken up moaning in the middle of the night and begging for more tequila.

“I wish I’d given you the bottle of painkillers last night,” I said.

“I don’t think they would have stayed down.” Cal made a graphic facial expression for us.

Thankfully he didn’t go into detail. Joanne quickly changed the topic and asked if Cal and Matthew were going back to San Felipe that morning.

“I don’t know.” Cal shrugged. The boy apparently had no need of plans to jump into this new day wholeheartedly. Had I ever felt that way, even as a child?

When Matthew returned with news that Miguel was much improved, Rosa Lupe offered him more tortillas, but he only took one. I wondered why this compassionate medic wasn’t grabbing at the offers for food the way the rest of us were. I suspected he held back not because he was afraid the food wasn’t sanitary, but rather because he was reluctant to take from the Valdeparisos’ scant supply. He seemed the sort of man who would quietly go without rather than demand his fair share.

As he sat across the table from Joanne, I noticed the intensity of his warm brown eyes. He had to be at least our age or a little older, with the telltale feathery touches of gray hair showing above his ears. I liked the way he was leaning forward slightly, listening to my sister answer his question about where she served in India.

For someone who hadn’t washed up or even brushed her hair this morning, Joanne looked lovely. She really did. I concluded that her glow had something to do with the filtered sunlight leaking through the scattered cracks in the cool adobe brick walls. She looked good in early winter light.

“Are you two eager to be on your way to San Felipe?” Matthew asked, automatically repeating his question in Spanish for the benefit of Rosa Lupe and her husband.

“Yes,” I answered for both of us, although I wasn’t in as great a hurry as I’d been the day before.

“Do you need a ride back to San Felipe?” Joanne asked.

“No, we’ll stay a little longer.” Matthew went on to explain in both languages that Señor Valdepariso had a truck and was
experienced at repairing broken engines. He would drive them back to the stalled Baja bug to see if anything could be done on the spot to fix the car.

Señor Valdepariso nodded and continued to talk, looking at Joanne and me.

Matthew interpreted for us. “He says he has a brother who lives in San Felipe, and if you need anything, he would be honored for you to contact his brother, Juan Valdepariso.”

“That’s very kind, but we won’t be in San Felipe long,” Joanne said without providing any details. I was glad because, in the midst of such simplicity and hospitality, it would have sounded arrogant to announce we were the owners of beachfront property.

“Remember his name just in case. Juan Valdepariso. There’s a reason for everything, you know,” Matthew said.

“I agree.” Joanne slipped me a see-someone-agrees-with-me look.

I would have gone along with their shared philosophy, but how does one explain what we had been through in the past twenty-four hours as having some special meaning? A delayed departure from the ship, the return to Ensenada for gas, the stop to watch the sun go down, and then this detour with Matthew and Cal. The course of events seemed far too complicated and random to be part of a divine design.

However, my sister was convinced God was in the midst of dreaming up something special for her. I was merely the “almost twin” who happened to be occupying the same sombrero-of-grace
space with her at the moment.

“By the way,” Matthew said, turning to me. “I understand you were admiring the beautiful guts last night.”

“The what?” I had barely glanced at poor Miguel’s broken leg last night. I didn’t see any of his guts.

“Apparently you were admiring the night sky and said it was full of ‘beautiful entrails.’ ”

“Oh no!” I covered my face with my hands. “I meant stars. Beautiful stars.”

Matthew grinned, and his smile seemed to ignite Joanne’s smile. “I think they knew what you meant.”

“Good. Now how do I tell her good-bye and make a gracious exit?”

Matthew laughed. “I’m sure you’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

The time for good-byes came within twenty minutes of my asking. Joanne and I hugged Rosa Lupe as we stood in the full sunlight outside her home. The humble hacienda seemed even more dilapidated in the daylight. I paused to take a firm mental picture of this place and these people. Without a camera, my memory would be my only reminder of this extraordinary moment.

“The señora says that, if you’re ever here again, you are welcome to come to her home,” Matthew told us. “Her house is your house.”

“
Mi casa es su casa
,” Rosa Lupe repeated to us with tears glistening in the corners of her eyes.

“Gracias,” Joanne said. “Muchas gracias.”

“Sí,” I echoed. “Muchas gracias.”

I shook Matthew’s hand and gave Cal and Señor Valdepariso a wave before slipping into the driver’s seat. Joanne was too busy shaking hands to notice that she ended up in shotgun position.

The Jeep’s engine started right up, and I rebuked myself for being so critical of our slipshod car rental dealer in Ensenada. At least the lemon yellow beast ran. We could have been stuck in a wheezing Baja bug like Matthew and Cal.