In Perfect Light

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  And this, this is a refrigerator. You don’t get to open it. And as he held him in his arms, Mister kissed him and kissed him. Vicente kissed him back. And he thought that love was beautiful and infinite and he remembered how Sam had held him as a boy. And as Liz watched the two of them, she wondered why she had fought him about this. She remembered the rage inside her, Why do you want a blind and abused boy? and she was ashamed. And she thought about her father and how his life had come to end in a loveless marriage, but today, in her house, her husband was holding the beginning of something. Oh, I love you, she wanted to whisper—not just to Mister but to Vicente. She watched as they walked to and fro, up and down the house, up and down, not a big house, and she smiled at Mister’s voice, My room, your room, bathroom. Hall, kitchen, porch.

  They made peanut butter cookies with white chocolate. Because those are the ingredients they had in the house. They washed their hands. Always wash. And then Liz stuck Vicente’s hands in the cool, soft flour. Flour. This is flour. From flour, we make bread and cake and cookies. And these are eggs, Mister added, feel, yuck, and this is vanilla, smell, it smells like summer in Mexico, that’s where this comes from. And this is white chocolate, taste, umm, and Vicente repeated, ummm, their hands all dirty, mixing the batter with their hands, and God, Vicente had a laugh on him, and, stay, don’t move, let me put these in the oven. And, God, they were a mess, all three of them, and so, he thought, maybe a bath because Mr. Rubio said Vicente loved baths and he’d brought a change of clothes so in we go, a bath and in the middle of the bath, Vicente felt Mister’s face with his wet hands and Mister kept repeating, Dad. Dad.

  He dried off Vicente’s little body, then Liz took him and slipped on a diaper. That was next. Peeing standing up. Took you long enough, Mister. That’s what Grace had said. Of course, Grace had probably expected him to know everything by the time he was four. Of course, that was exactly the age he’d started calling her Grace.

  Mister and Vicente sat on the rocking chair, eating from the same cookie. Vicente fell asleep and Mister counted the beats of his heart. Liz took a picture. “The first one,” she whispered. And they stared at each other and listened to Vicente breathe. At first his slumber was peaceful, his breathing easy, and Mister fell asleep to the steady and regular rhythms of his breathing. He woke to the shaking and crying, to the bad dreams. Mama, mama. “Shhhh, Shhhh.” This boy would dream her forever.

  Liz took him in her arms, “Shhh. Shhhh, my baby, shhhh.”

  “How was your date?”

  “Calling to check up on me?”

  “I waited till eleven.”

  “You could have called me any time this evening. I changed my mind.”

  “You stayed home?”

  “I was tired.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. Are you worried about me? First you drop in to visit, and now you call to check up on me. This from a son who could go weeks without calling me.”

  “Are you lecturing me?”

  “No. I’m done with that.”

  He laughed. “Sure.” He paused. “You look a little thin, Grace.”

  “I work too many hours.”

  “You should slow down.”

  “I’m trying. I’m reading a book.”

  “What’s it about?”

  She wasn’t going to tell him it was about cancer. “About a woman who works too hard.”

  He laughed. “Grace?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We brought him home this evening.”

  She stopped for a moment. Then she realized who Mister was talking about. “And?”

  “We showed him the house. We walked up and down the whole house. Not that it took very much time to do that. His room, my room, the hallway, the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room. His bed, my bed, the couch, the rocking chair—he loved the rocking chair. Over and over, we walked the house. He smelled every room, smelled some of my books. We held hands. His hands are so small, Grace, and Liz showed him how to bake cookies….” She pictured them in his house. She pictured the look on Mister’s face. She was almost envious of his happiness. “I bathed him, Liz changed him, I read him a book, you know, the one Sam used to read to me…” Some people knew how to parent by instinct. Sam had been that way, too. Like he was born knowing what to do. “He likes to laugh. He doesn’t fight me, Grace. He just, well, he just sort of leans into me. He’s photo tactic.”

  “Photo tactic? Is that a Sam word?” It had to be a Sam word. He loved photo words.

  “Of course it is. He’s like a sunflower, Grace. He leans into me as if I were the source of all light.”

  Photo tactic. Yes. Of course. Sam and his words. He loved to play games with them. Once, he’d left her flowers in her office with a note. Amor, you are as photophilic as the desert. She’d hadn’t thought of the note as being particularly romantic. But that had forced her to look up the word. Growing or thriving best in strong light. It was true. She was photophilic. Mister, too.

  “Maybe you and Liz will be all the light that matters.”

  When Liz and Mister had left him off at the Rubios’, Vicente hadn’t wanted to let go. He’d cried, reached for him. “Mama, mama.” He’d given him and Liz the same name: Mama. Not that Mister cared. He didn’t mind one damn bit. He’d put him to bed at the Rubios’, talked to him, told him a story—one that Sam had made up for him. About a boy who had a beautiful heart, and how that boy could make plants grow and how he could make people say good things—even people who liked to say only bad things. Vicente fell asleep listening to his voice, clinging to his arms.

  It was almost time to bring him home.

  Until His Heart Bursts into Flames

  I want you to lose that guy. I fucking mean it, Yolie.”

  “Screw you, Mando, you’re not my dad. And what about you, you asshole?”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, every time you bring your girlfriend over, you’re moaning all goddamned night long like a couple of dogs in heat. No one can sleep, and you send Andy out to count the stupid fucking stars and Ileana wants to know if you’re in pain and whether or not we should check on you and she keeps whispering to me that she thinks you’re really sick and shouldn’t we call a doctor and what the shit am I supposed to tell her?”

  “Xochil is none of your business.”

  “Eddie’s none of your business, either. Asshole.”

  “He just wants to get into your pants.”

  “So what if he does? What if I want to get into his? Ever think of that, you pinchi macho asshole?”

  They were arguing again. Since the week after his birthday. Since Mando caught Eddie and Yolie in bed. They’d had their clothes on, and they were just kissing. But Mando had gotten really mad. Mad like he used to get mad at Dad. That’s how the arguments started—with Eddie. Just like when Dad was around. The fighting. It was as if they couldn’t live without it. It was as if they’d called a truce, but had decided to call the truce off because the peace was too much for them—so they started again.

  Andrés took Ileana out of the house. He had enough money to buy them both paletas. “You want a paleta, Ellie?”

  “Piña.”

  “Me, too.”

  She took his hand.

  “Why do they fight so much?”

  “That’s how they love each other.” He winked at her.

  She laughed, then leaned into him. “Will you always take care of me, Andy?” He thought of his mother.

  “Siempre.”

  “You promise?”

  “Siempre.”

  “Say it in English.”

  “Always.”

  “And we won’t fight like Yolie and Mando.”

  “No. Never. We’re not like that.”

  “And will you take me back to El Paso? When you’re big enough.”

  “Yes. When I’m big enough.”

  But wasn’t he big enough now? That’s what Andrés asked himself that night when he lay awake in the courtyard. Wha
t was he waiting for?

  The breeze was cool, and he was glad that summer was ending. It had been so hot. He tried not to think about school. He wrote on his typewriter every day. He pretended it was his job—to write something. Mando bought him two dictionaries, one in Spanish and one in English, and sometimes he wrote sentences using the new words he looked up. Sometimes, when he got tired of writing, he made some sketches on his drawing pad. They were okay. He was an okay artist, he guessed. The things he sketched looked more or less like the things they were supposed to look like. But he wished he had a teacher.

  He wondered why he just didn’t take himself and Ileana back to El Paso. They could find their way back to the Fernandezes’ house. They could cross the bridge and ask for directions. If the Fernandezes weren’t home, they’d wait. And they would beg for forgiveness for having run away. Maybe they would forgive them and take them in. Maybe they would. And he and Ileana could go to school. And Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez could take care of them and buy them the things they needed. And they could be a family, and they wouldn’t have to listen to fighting all the time. Mr. and Mrs. Fernandez—they didn’t fight. They were like him and Ileana. They just didn’t need to fight to feel like they were alive. Couldn’t they just run away, him and Ileana? Why not? And they wouldn’t be in the way anymore, and Yolie could be with her boyfriend, Eddie. And Mando could be with his girlfriend, Xochil. And Mando wouldn’t have to make so much money to pay for everything they needed. But he remembered that he’d promised Mando. And he’d promised Xochil, too. He promised them that they would always stay together because Mom and Dad would have wanted that. For them to be a family. That’s what they would have wanted, Mom and Dad.

  That night, he argued with himself. He argued with his dead mother and father. He argued with Yolie. He argued with Mando. So many arguments, and all of them in his head. He made up his mind. He and Ileana would leave. They would take nothing with them—that way they could travel fast. Just get away. He would get on his hands and knees at the Fernandezes’ doorstep if he had to. And they would forgive him and Ileana when they saw he was truly sorry, and they would give them a place to live. But what if Mando and Yolie came to take them away again? And what if he never saw them again? Hadn’t Mando and Yolie taken care of them? Hadn’t they been good? Hadn’t they been a family? Why was he doing this, breaking up their family? “You’ll never be happy with anything.” That’s what Yolie had told him one day. When she was mad.

  The next day, he walked toward the bridge. By himself. In the late afternoon. So he’d know the way. He passed some bars as he walked. There were women in some of them who sold their bodies. She had heard Mando and Yolie talking. Whores. Prostitutes. Putas. That’s what they called them. He knew they worked out of those bars. And he felt bad. Because they needed the money. That’s what Yolie had said. But couldn’t they sell burritos or tacos instead of their bodies? And how exactly did you sell a body? He asked Mando about that, and Mando said it was more like renting a body. “You rent your body out so someone else can use it for a while. For pleasure. And you charge by the hour. You get it, carnalito?” Yeah, he got it. Sort of.

  So that afternoon, he wandered through the streets and he found his way to Avenida Benito Juárez. And he saw the bridge ahead and El Paso. And he wanted just to walk across. He knew no one would stop him. He would tell the man at the booth that he was an American. “U.S. citizen,” that’s what he would say. He would say that and smile and give him the names of all the presidents he could think of—Washington and Lincoln, and Jackson, and Johnson, two Johnsons. And Kennedy and Roosevelt—two Roosevelts, too. And they would let him back in. And he walked toward the bridge and he wanted to go back to El Paso—run there, run until he was safe. But he couldn’t because he hadn’t brought Ileana with him. And he would never leave her behind. Because he loved her more than anything in the world, more than the stars he counted or his books, more than his typewriter, more than the bicycle his father had left for him, more than his dead mother and father.

  He traced his steps back to his house, remembering the names of the streets and the names of restaurants so he would know he was on the right road to go home again. It was getting dark, and as he walked past a bar, a woman smiled at him. “Que lindo,” she said. She said it nice. And he wondered if she was a prostitute. She was dressed up, and she smelled like she was wearing lots of perfume—all dressed up like she was going to a dance.

  He thought of his mother and father, and he remembered he hadn’t prayed for them for a long time. So he went to the cathedral and lit a candle and hoped they had found the right road, the one that led to the light. The one that took them into the arms of God.

  When he was walking back home, a man smiled at him. It was dark, but he could see the man perfectly from the light streaming from the store window. He didn’t like the man’s smile. The man motioned him to come closer. But he didn’t. He didn’t come closer. “Ven,” the man said. “¿Como te llamas?” He could tell the man wasn’t Mexican. The way he spoke. And then he waved a five-dollar bill in front of him, like an offering. The man came closer. And Andrés couldn’t move. He couldn’t. But finally, when he felt the man’s breath on him, he ran. He ran all the way home.

  When he walked back inside the house, his heart was still pounding. He went into the bathroom and washed the sweat off his face and neck. He promised himself that he and Ileana would be gone before the week was over. That night, Andrés dreamed he was waving good-bye to Mrs. Fernandez. She was waving at him and Ileana. And they were walking to school. He was smiling when he woke.

  Mando didn’t come home that night. But that happened a lot. He was out. He liked to go to bars. He liked to go out with Xochil and have a good time. Sometimes he was gone for days. One time for a week. It was normal, him not coming home.

  “He left us a lot of money,” Yolie said. But the way she said it. As if, somehow, he had left them too much money. She sounded worried.

  “Did you fight again?” Ileana asked.

  “No. He said he had to do something. But I could tell it was something he didn’t want to do.” And then Yolie stopped herself from saying anything else. She nodded. “It’s late,” she said, “let’s go to bed.” But they all had a bad feeling. So they lit a candle, and listened to the wind. The first cold wind of the season. And Yolie sang a song. And Andrés and Ileana listened, and Andrés thought that maybe Yolie could be a singer. He thought that everyone should listen to her voice, because there was so much sadness and happiness in it, all at the same time. And he knew she could make the world be quiet, and he thought that maybe the world needed to be quiet. That was the problem with the world—it never stayed quiet long enough to listen.

  He wanted to tell Yolie that her voice was so beautiful. But he knew that Yolie didn’t like people to tell her things like that.

  So he just listened until he fell asleep, listened to the first cold wind and to Yolie’s singing.

  In the morning, Yolie was gone. She left them a note saying she would be back in the evening. And she left some money so that they could go to the market. And Andrés thought it was the perfect day to leave. The door was open. They had a chance. All he had to do was grab Ileana’s hand and walk through the open door.

  But he couldn’t leave Yolie alone. Not like this. Not when something was wrong. It wasn’t right. Just to leave her all alone in the world. They couldn’t. So they went to the market, him and Ileana. And they bought everything they needed to make dinner. A big chicken and fresh tortillas and avocados. And the house smelled nice with the chicken in the oven. He knew how to make it—he’d watched his mother and Yolie. Easy. God, the house smelled nice. With the chicken in the oven.

  That night, Yolie didn’t come home. And so they were alone, Andrés and Ileana. And it rained and rained. And even though rain was a miracle because this was the desert, that night it was not a miracle because the rain sounded like a thief trying to break into the house.

  “I’m scared, Andy.�
�

  “Don’t be scared. I’m here.”

  She cried, Ileana. She cried and cried. “They’ll never come back,” she said. “Never.”

  “They’ll be back tomorrow, you’ll see.”

  “No. No, they won’t. It will be just like Mom and Dad. They went out and they never came back. And they left us all alone.”

  “No, it won’t be like that.”

  “Everyone will leave us. And then you’ll leave me, too, Andy.”

  “No, I won’t. I’ll never leave you.”

  He pulled her close to him, and she cried and cried until he thought she would never stop crying. And he thought the rain would never stop, either. The rain that should have been a miracle but wasn’t. And finally Ileana fell asleep, too tired to cry anymore. She dug herself into Andrés’ ribs, and Andrés held his sister. His tiny sister. And he didn’t sleep until the rain stopped. And when he woke, it was raining again.

  “If I would have just been brave enough. None of this would have happened. But I was afraid.”

  “You were eleven years old.”

  “But I knew better.”

  “Okay, go ahead, take all the credit. It’s all your fault.”

  “I know that trick, Grace.”

  “I know the trick you’re pulling, too. The trick of taking all the credit.”

  “I’m not taking all the credit.”

  “Yes, you are. That’s arrogant, you know.”

  “I’m tired.”

  “That your way of getting out of this debate?”

  “Maybe. But I am tired.” He suddenly felt naked revealing something about himself that was so simple and true. He felt awkward and self-conscious, and he was glad he was tired—too tired to worry too much.