In Perfect Light

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  Andrés looked at him. Waited. He’d started to say something. He looked at him—to let him know he had to finish saying what he’d started.

  “I need to tell you a story.”

  “A story?”

  Dave had a look on his face.

  Andrés nodded. “A story? Okay.” He didn’t know why he was whispering—except that Mister Delgado’s funeral had made him feel soft, and Dave was sober as a morning cup of coffee.

  “I don’t know if you’ll like this one.” He hadn’t touched his food. He pushed the plate away. “I could use a beer.”

  “Me, too.”

  “Why don’t we move out to the patio? We can smoke there.”

  “It was my birthday. Twenty-one-year-old hotshot about to go to law school. Yale. I owned the goddamned world. Well, me and my old man, we weren’t close. He worked. Not because he had to, but because he liked to think he made all that money he inherited. People like to think they work for what they have. The fucking lies we tell ourselves. Well, never mind all that. Anyway, it was golden boy’s birthday. Only that evening, golden boy got into a fight with his old man.

  You’re not taking that girl out—not in that car I gave you.

  “That girl. I knew what he was accusing me of. He was telling me I was only going out with her to displease him. He was right, of course, well, mostly right. Nothing original at all about our fucking little drama. Son needs to get back at father for the sin of being absent. So he does things to make his father mad, predictable things, stuff that took no imagination, things like staying out and drinking, things like picking girls he knows his father wouldn’t approve of. Boring fucking story. So, anyway, golden boy goes out for a spin in his car. Nice evening. Picks up his girlfriend, drives around in his beautiful new car. It’s his birthday. He’s twenty-one and going to law school and has a beautiful girl hanging on his arm who’s even more beautiful because his father doesn’t like her. So he drives and drives, not caring where he drives because everything is beautiful for him, the day, the girl, the car.”

  And then Andrés knows. He knows exactly what he is going to say. And so he watches Dave’s lips as he keeps talking. And Dave, he knows that Andrés knows exactly where the story is going and why the story is being told.

  “And then, in one instant, everything in the world changes. I can still see the car running the red light. I can still see the panic on Marina’s face. I can still see me trying to stop, but I was going so fast, and if I hadn’t been going so fast, it might not have mattered that the car had run a red light. But I was going so fucking fast. And I knew I couldn’t stop—and it was all over in an instant.” He stopped, his hands shaking as he brought the cigarette to his lips.

  “And then they were all dead. Marina. She was only twenty. And Santiago and Lilia Segovia. They were forty-eight. And golden boy. Not a scratch—not a fuck—”

  It was strange to watch tears run down his face, to see him feel. A part of Andrés didn’t care, didn’t care at all. He’d cried his own rivers, but those rivers were dry now, and he was glad about that. What were Dave’s rivers to him?

  “Shut up,” he said. “Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?”

  As Andrés walked home, he kept thinking of the stunned look on Dave’s face. What had he expected him to say? It’s okay, it’s fucking okay. They were forty-eight years old, Dave. You could have at least spared my mom. He could feel his jaw clamping down, his teeth grinding, his fists tightening. He didn’t care the sun was beating down as if it were taking a belt to him.

  When he got home, he changed into running clothes. He didn’t care what the sun would do to his skin or his heart, let it beat the crap out of him—what did it matter, anyway. He was just a dumb thing, a piece of dust with memory, less useful than a computer and less valuable. As he ran, he thought of Silvia, he thought of Ileana and how she was probably a woman now, and he kept saying to himself, be all right, be all right, because even now she mattered when nothing else mattered at all. And for no reason or maybe a reason he did not understand, he pictured the look on Grace’s face, her son dead, dead for no good reason, another angry man imposing his will on the world, but there she was, Grace, and he wondered how she could look so beautiful—even in grief, a woman who had become her name. Some people got uglier, some people became more beautiful, and he wished he knew why. He ran and ran, as if all of the faces that were appearing inside of him would dissipate if he could just run fast enough, as if all the faces might ascend, flinging themselves toward the God who made them and had abandoned them to the hell of his body. He felt an aching in his legs, in his lungs, he ran, his sweat stinging his eyes, he ran and ran, until finally, when the pain was too much, he stopped.

  Maybe they had all gone away. All of them.

  He felt odd, almost nervous, a rumbling in his stomach. He couldn’t quite get at what it was he was feeling. He pictured Dave telling him a story and then pictured himself saying, “Shut the fuck up.” He pictured his father, probably angry about something, such an impatient man, impatient with his wife, with his children, with his life. He pictured the whole damn scene, his father smoking a cigarette and saying something mean to his mother, something rash, his mother turning away, the wedding gift on her lap. And then his father, speeding up because he was careless and in a hurry, and then just gunning the engine in his new, secondhand car through the red light. Shut the fuck up. And then he understood what he was feeling. He should’ve recognized the shame sooner than this, he who had such an intimate relationship with that word.

  He lit a cigarette and stood in front of the window. He wasn’t looking for anything, just looking out. He was suddenly moved by Dave’s tears. He was sorry, sorry that Dave had carried this thing in him for years, sorry because no one should carry such things, and certainly not carry them for so many, many years. And he felt them, those tears, and it made him sad, the pained look on Dave’s face, and he knew he’d worn that helpless look himself—a hundred times, a thousand times, and he remembered Grace’s voice and her definition: To affect the emotions of; move to tender response. And it seemed that the anger had left him—if only for a moment. And it was heaven, not to be angry. And he was glad that he was carrying Grace’s voice inside him, because the voice he usually carried around with him was burning and filled with self-hatred and he was tired of hating himself, tired of hating Dave, tired of hating everything in the world. He realized that the minute he’d met Dave, he’d known that he suffered from something, but he had never cared to know what that something was. And now, as he stood there, looking out his window, it was so strange to discover that he cared for this man, that he liked him—because he was a good man. Not perfect, but who needed perfect? To know a good man, that was enough.

  He smiled to himself because it was a beautiful thing to know that he had more than just hate and loathing in his heart. Maybe there was something good in him, too. Maybe Grace was right.

  He walked toward the phone. He found Dave’s card in his wallet—then called his cell. He heard Dave’s voice.

  “So this is your apartment?”

  “Yup. You wanna beer?”

  “Sure.”

  Andrés walked to the refrigerator, opened two beers, and found Dave sitting on his beat-up couch. He didn’t even seem out of place. Andrés handed him a beer. He wanted to tell Dave he was sorry—for walking out on him at the restaurant, for telling him to shut the fuck up. “Sorry I haven’t had you over before,” he said. He laughed.

  “Sure you are.” Dave laughed, too.

  “It was an accident,” he whispered.

  Dave nodded.

  “It was, Dave. It was an accident.” Even he, Andrés Segovia, who could be as hard as cured cement, even he was surprised by the softness in his own voice.

  “I wanted to tell you, Andrés—and then I didn’t. And then I thought I should leave it alone.”

  “So that’s why you’ve spent your life stalking me.”

  Dave smiled, then laughed. “
That’s an interesting way to put it.”

  “You always managed to find me. No matter where I’d go, or where I’d move. I never even knew how the hell you always managed to find me.”

  “You find people you want to find.”

  “You sent me to Grace, didn’t you?”

  “I thought she could help you.”

  “Did she help you, too?”

  “After the accident, I refused to talk. I mean, I didn’t say a word. Not to anyone. I refused to go to law school. I refused to do anything. I would sit and stare and say nothing. And I don’t know how my mother learned about Grace—but she did. And she took me to her. And I would go every day, but only because my mother would take me. And I would sit there for an hour, every day, and say nothing. Grace would ask me questions. I liked her voice, but I still didn’t talk. And so even she stopped asking me questions. But she told my mother to keep bringing me. And this happened for weeks and weeks. And one day, when I came in, Grace handed me a book. And I began reading it. And I took it home and read it. And when I came back the next day, she asked me what I thought of the book, and I shrugged and I didn’t say anything. And then she gave me another book, and I started reading that book, too—and I stayed up all night reading that damned book. When I went in to see her, I sat there and I cried. For the whole hour. And when my mother came, Grace sent her away, and I kept crying and crying and crying and Grace held me and said, and said, ‘Sshhhhhhh.’ I don’t know how long I cried, I don’t, but it was hours and hours. And when I stopped, her blouse was soaked with my tears. And she smiled at me and said, ‘My name is Grace. And your name would be.’

  “And then I laughed. And she laughed. And I said, ‘My name is Dave.’ And for the first time in my fucking life, I heard my own name.”

  Andrés nodded. He wanted to thank him. For sending him to Grace. But he didn’t say anything.

  As they sat there, they settled into a quiet. They seemed to have no words left in them. “Well, I guess, that’s my story.” Dave shrugged. “I should go.”

  Andrés nodded. He walked Dave down the hall, then just kept following him as he went down the stairs and out the door of his apartment house. It was a warm night, as still as a summer night could get, all the winds gone.

  “Dave, you asked me once where I learned to be so fucking ungrateful. Maybe I’m not as ungrateful as I seem.”

  That made Dave smile.

  Andrés stood there as Dave drove away. He thought of the funeral and Grace. He thought of Ileana, and suddenly he felt that she might really be alive. And maybe, he thought, he would ask Dave for one more favor. Help me find my sister.

  He walked into his apartment, opened a window, and looked out into the night. He remembered the boy who used to count stars. He sat there, on the windowsill, trying to picture Ileana.

  He had never been this tired.

  He threw himself on the bed, and slept.

  He didn’t dream.

  When he woke, he thought of Mrs. Fernandez. He was certain she still lived in the same house.

  Who Was She Now?

  Grace spent the night organizing all of her photographs. There were hundreds of them. Perhaps thousands. Pictures of her and Sam before they were married, a picture of the two of them dancing at a club in Juárez, a picture of her and Sam at Venice Beach. And hundreds of pictures of Sam and Mister, of her and Mister, of her and Sam and Mister. The photographs outlasted them.

  The thought occurred to her that she’d always thought of herself in terms of her men—Sam’s wife, then Sam’s widow. And of course, she was Mister’s mother. Who was she now? She wasn’t the woman in the pictures. Whatever she had been, she was something else now. Someone else. A childless widow with breast cancer—she laughed to herself. To wind up like this, she who had spent her life telling other people that their job was to live.

  She walked past Dr. Richard Garza’s receptionist without signing in. “Excuse me, but do you have an appointment?” Grace didn’t bother to turn around and address her. She just continued walking toward Richard’s office. She ran into him, face to face, in the hallway. “Grace?”

  She could see condolences written all over his face—but she wasn’t in the mood this morning. She glared at him so he’d know she wasn’t here to be pitied or condescended to. It was as if she was grabbing him by the collar with that one look. She looked him straight in the eye. “You said it wasn’t too late. You said you had a plan.”

  He looked at the stubborn woman standing in front of him, her hair uncombed and wild, her eyes red with tears, her face wounded. In that moment, he thought, she was as beautiful as she had ever been.

  Timing and Order in the Universe

  A man of forty-eight is boarding a plane. He is going back to Portland, Oregon. His brother has agreed to take him in—under certain conditions. The man is hopeful he will be able to meet his brother’s demands. Perhaps it is his last chance. In the last two weeks, twelve men have left El Paso, all of them having arrived here seeking children and asylum.

  An underpaid lawyer who works for Legal Aid has worked tirelessly toward sending these men back to where they came from. She read, by accident, a magazine article on sexual predators who were being dumped on the border. She swore she wouldn’t rest until she made the practice stop. By chance or by design or by coincidence, she ran into an attorney at a cocktail party. His name was Dave. Nice looking. He wanted to have dinner. She had something else in mind. He was more decent than she’d expected—and ripe for what she had to say. He lent a paralegal, a secretary, his office, his phones, his faxes, everything he had. Let’s embarrass the shit out of those assholes who think it’s fine to dump their trash in our front yard.

  Three months ago, today, Grace buried Mister next to Sam. She is looking at herself in the mirror. She no longer has breasts. She’s shaved her head. She is standing before a mirror as Liz hands her a red scarf to wrap around her head. Grace wraps it expertly. “Red suits you, Grace. You sure you won’t let me get a wig for you?”

  Grace turns to her and laughs. “Sure. Make me a blond.”

  Today, another chemo treatment. She thinks she hears Mister laughing at a joke.

  Vicente is asleep in Mister’s old room. He is a sleeper, like Mister used to be. He wakes and cries, Mama Mama. His voice is deep for a child. Liz and Grace rush into the room. Liz sits on the bed and takes him in her arms. She breathes in his smell.

  Grace watches them. She thinks that life is crueler and more beautiful than she had ever imagined.

  Andrés is studying for a history exam. He is lost in his books. He is the best of students, a good and hungry mind. He still feels explosions in his gut—but Grace reminds him that anger’s not so bad. Just don’t go around hitting people. He smiles at Grace’s voice in his head. Cancer has made her softer.

  He looks at the photograph he keeps on his desk—a gift from Dave. “This is you, Andy, before anyone ever touched you.” He looks at the photograph every day. It is like a book he is learning to read.

  He looks at his watch. He works in Mister’s coffee shop—Liz’s, now. He promised her he’d work the morning shift, so she could take Vicente to the doctor.

  Good Man, Take Me Home

  All that’s left is for me to deliver my closing arguments. I sense this jury will refuse to punish Andrés Segovia another minute. I see the faces of the women on the jury. They reach out to him. I saw their look of horror as I showed them William Hart’s trophies. Sad little boys looking up at the camera.

  The DA called. He said, “He does a year. We’ll call it a day.”

  I hung up the phone. Quietly. I’ll invite him to lunch. And invite Andrés to tag along. Afterward, I’ll give the bastard the check.

  When I put Andrés on the stand, he appeared stoic, almost arrogant. He was trying too hard to hold himself together. I could see the trembling in his hands, the slight quiver in his voice. All this time. All this waiting—it’s worn him down. He’s changed in these ten months. He smiles mo
re. At times, he almost seems like he’s become a boy.

  He knew all the questions I would ask. We practiced. Practiced and practiced and practiced. And yet, for all our practicing, even I was not prepared to hear the rawness of his words. It was as if I was hearing him for the first time. I heard in his voice a man who had decided that he was going to live. He had learned how to spell out the word enough. And so he told us everything. Of how it was he came to live in Juárez. Of how he fell into the hands of a man named Homero. Of how he was forced to become food for hungry men like William Hart to feed off. I saw the anguish on the faces of the men and women sitting on that jury. They were brought to tears at what they heard. They won’t convict.

  How many times have I closed in front of a jury? At least a hundred times. Twice that, for all I know. And yet tonight, I feel as if I’ve never done this. All night, I’ll pace and think. I’ll prepare my words. I’ll organize my thoughts. I’ll write them down. I’ll practice, practice, practice. This matters more than I can bear.

  Grace says she’ll pray tonight. Grace, pray that God will send his light into my heart. Pray your Catholic God will give me words.

  I was thinking of Silvia today. She was born with a compass. I wonder how you get to be that way. I’ve always felt so lost. I hated Dave last week. We were going over my testimony. Going over it and over it and over it. And I was so fucking sick of it all, sick of recalling and recalling and recalling. When do I get to forget? But I didn’t hate Dave for making me remember. I hated him for giving me this hope. He’s so convinced I’ll walk. And if I don’t? Five or ten or fifteen years in jail? But I killed a man. I killed a human being. Dave shakes his head. Andrés, I don’t believe that. He wanted to die—can’t you see that? That man committed suicide. He could’ve saved himself. At worst, you hit a man. At worst, it was an accident. He gives me hope.