Santiago shrugged his shoulders. “I have lived in Puerto Escondido for the last seven years. I have a boat and I take the tourists out to catch fish. It is a small living. And the town, it is becoming more popular now, especially to the surfers. I don’t make the big money like I made in the United States, but it is very cheap to live there. I have a little house, and when I am not working on the boat, I carve the animals. I bring them to Aunt Teresa and she paints them. They are sold in some shops. I sometimes make more money from the carvings than from the fishing.” He looked at me and Owen. A tiny smile showed on his face. “Do you want to know the name of my boat? It is the Soledad, after my children.”
“Soledad is the saint, right?” I said.
“That is right. You were named for Nuestra Señora de la Soledad. But my boat was named for you.”
“Santiago, there are some things I’d like to talk to you about. Maybe tomorrow? We need some help,” said Gram.
He sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his folded hands. Looking at me and then Owen, he said to Gram, “I have thought of nothing else for years.”
I looked around at everyone sitting in Flora’s kitchen and I felt as if I were in a movie, in a scene that was crystal clear in the middle and soft and blurry around the edges. I didn’t want it to end. I only wanted to be right here, right now. I wanted to remember everything about this night.
Graciela took Owen and Rubén to get ready for bed, and the late hour soon settled on everyone. Santiago stood up to leave.
“Wait,” I said, reaching for the bag on the table and bringing out the lion.
I handed it to Santiago. “For you.”
Santiago looked at the lion, but a sadness overtook his face. He shook his head back and forth. “It is the first year that a León did not carve in the contest.”
Fabiola smiled. “But you are wrong. A León did carve in the contest. Naomi, she did this.”
Puzzled, Santiago looked at me, then at the lion. He examined it carefully, turning it around and touching the nicks and cuts. “It is fantástico!”
Even after I was in Baby Beluga and snug in my bed, I could still see the pride in my father’s eyes when he had admired the lion. The occasional pop of a firecracker kept me awake to revel in my thoughts. I was in my own bed. Gram and Owen were here with me. Everything was the same. Well, almost everything. Rubén was sleeping inside Baby Beluga, too. We were now in Mexico. I had found my father. And a waterfall of happiness had drowned my nagging worries, at least for now.
First thing in the morning, I would make fantástico number one on my “Superb Spanish Words” list.
On Christmas morning Owen and I stood in the yard and looked up. I had to pinch myself to make sure I was not dreaming. A jungle of painted beasts floated beneath the jacaranda tree, the leaves and purple flowers like a canopy above them. Tied to the branches with transparent fishing line, the carved wooden animals appeared suspended. When a warm breeze tickled the dragons, reptiles, birds, and lions, they twirled and swayed.
Owen and I lay down on the ground and watched them. A few minutes later Santiago came out from behind the trailer, where he had been waiting. He lay down next to us and we watched the spectacle to the music of Owen’s raspy laughter.
Later in the afternoon I sat outside, carving with Santiago. He was an expert on wood and had brought some of the special copal branches from the trees in the mountains. I loved watching him carve.
He held up a curved branch. “Each piece has a personality. Sometimes you can look at the wood and see exactly what it might be. The promise reveals itself early. Other times you must let your imagination dictate what you will find. How do you see your soap today? It is a dog, right?”
I nodded. I had been working on it for several days. “This end will be the tail. And here” — I pointed to the bottom corner — “will be one of its legs, running.”
Santiago nodded.
Almost done, I pulled my knife across the soap but dug a little too deep and a large piece crumbled to the ground. With one slip of the knife, I had accidentally carved off the running leg.
I gasped.
“No, do not be sad,” said Santiago. “There is still some magic left inside. Let us say that the missing leg is simbólico of a tragedy or something the dog has lost. Or that its destiny was to be a dog with three legs.” He picked up my carving, and with a few strokes of the knife smoothed the ragged piece into a perfect three-legged dog. “You must carve so that what is inside can become what it is meant to be. When you are finished, the magic will show itself for what it really is.”
Santiago considered an odd-shaped piece of wood. “When the promise does not reveal itself early, your imagination must dictate your intentions. Then the wood, or the soap, it will become what you least expect. Sometimes the wood fools me. I think I am carving a parrot, and when I am finished it has a fish tail. Or I begin a tiger, and in the end it has the body of a dancer.”
With the small machete, he scraped at the layers of bark that had built up over time, exposing the innards of what used to be a tree branch and revealing the unprotected heart meat. He traded the machete for a knife and chaffed at the wood with quick strokes. Soon he handed me a rough figure.
I held it up in the air. I could see that it was a lion’s body with a human’s head, maybe that of a girl.
As I turned it around, admiring it, Gram came out of the house and slowly sat down in one of the chairs. She stared at her folded hands and cleared her throat. “I just checked in with Mrs. Maloney. The mediator, a young woman, showed up at Avocado Acres yesterday to interview her. Imagine showing up on Christmas Eve! The woman asked Mrs. Maloney where we were because she needs to talk to all of us by Friday, January third. Mrs. Maloney told her we’d return from our family vacation in time for the interview, which is what I had told her to say if anybody asked. That’s in nine days, and what with four or five days’ driving ahead of us . . . I’m sorry, Naomi, but Bernardo said we should leave the day after tomorrow.”
I took a deep breath and looked around the yard. “Can’t we just stay here?” I asked, my hands suddenly quivering. “You like it here. You said so yourself.” I heard Owen’s and Rubén’s giggles coming from the garden. “Owen loves it and we could . . . we could go to school here. We’re learning Spanish real good. Or . . . or we could go to Puerto Escondido and live in the little house and help sell the carvings. . . . I could learn to paint them, like Aunt Teresa . . . and . . .”
Santiago pulled me from my chair to his side on a small wooden bench. He put his arm around me.
“Naomi, I would love for you to come to my house, but right now your life is in California. I have written the letter for the judge. I told the truth about your mother and that my wishes are for you and Owen to live with María. I told that I want to be a part of your life and see you . . . maybe in the summer for vacations if that is all right with you and Owen. More, if it is possible.”
My lips trembled. I stared at the ground.
“I did not fight for you when you were little,” said Santiago. “It is something for which I am sorry. I should not have believed your mother when she said I would never be able to see you. If I had been stronger, maybe things could have been different, but maybe they would not have been so different. . . . How will we ever know?”
I looked at him. “But why can’t you come with us?”
“For that to happen,” he said, “I would have to prepare. Much would need to be done. Sell my house. My boat. Much of my money comes from my carvings, which are sold only in Oaxaca. My work, it is here.”
“But what if the judge — ”
“Naomi,” said Gram, “we are not going to consider the worst that could happen. Thinking that way does not help self-prophecies.”
Since we’d found Santiago, Gram was wearing her fierceness again. At least on the outside.
“I guess I better tell Owen,” said Gram.
“I will go with you,” sai
d Santiago, and they headed toward the garden.
Alone, beneath the jacaranda, I stared at the threelegged dog and the lion girl in my lap.
We rode home to Lemon Tree silently. The truck and Baby Beluga seemed to drag along the highway. We traveled with less than we had brought, choosing to leave many things for Flora, Pedro, Graciela, and Rubén. So why did we seem to plod along? Did the weight of our memories slow us down?
For hundreds of kilometers, I held the lion girl and thought about all that I wanted to tell Blanca, especially about my father.
On our last days in Oaxaca, Owen and I had gone everywhere with Santiago: to visit Aunt Teresa, to el zócalo, to el mercado for pineapple-coconut ice cream. And to admire the statue of Soledad in la basílica.
I would never forget that day. The statue with the long robe, a crown of gold, the sparkling stained-glass windows. Our footsteps echoing on the floor. Holding Santiago’s hand and listening to his adoration.
“Our Lady of Solitude is loved by sailors and fishermen,” he said. “She protects us at sea: when our boats are rocking in a storm, when it is foggy and we cannot see the way, when we need to get home and our motor fails us. Then we ask for her assistance. She is part of Oaxaca. And since you have her name and have been here to see the wonder of this city, Oaxaca is part of you.”
The morning we left, Santiago came early to help Bernardo load the last of the luggage. He cut down all the animals hanging from the jacaranda and gave them to Owen and me.
It was a long good-bye, what with Flora running back and forth to the kitchen with one more bundle of tamales and Pedro rechecking the tires on the truck and the trailer. And Graciela and Beni chasing Owen, Rubén, and Lulu around the yard. It was the kind of good-bye where everyone hugged and kissed every single person, then stood around talking and looking at each other, then all of a sudden started hugging and kissing everyone again, crying a little each time.
When we were finally ready to climb into the truck, Santiago hugged me and said, “Be brave, Naomi León.”
I nodded, but when he took me in his arms one more time and rocked me back and forth, I didn’t pretend to be brave.
“Do not be sad,” he whispered. “We have found each other. I will write. You will write. We have much for which to be thankful and everything will be the way it was meant to be. You will see. I promise. I promise. Now you must promise.”
“I promise.”
The truck jolted as Bernardo downshifted on the highway. Oaxaca had long disappeared from our view. I opened my notebook to make a list of all that I hoped to remember, but I closed it. My pen seemed too heavy to lift.
The day before school started, we arrived at the courthouse too early, which didn’t help my jitters. Gram, Owen, and I waited on a bench outside our assigned room. The mediator lady had come to Lemon Tree on Friday, just as planned, wearing a suit and hugging her clipboard. She had been nice, but all business, asking Owen and me each privately about a million questions, like: What did Gram feed us? How many times a week did we take a bath? Had we ever contracted head lice? Now, sitting in the courthouse and staring down the long hallway with the perfectly shined floors, I hoped I had answered correctly.
There was no sign of Skyla or Clive.
A man approached Gram. “Are you Mary Outlaw?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“I’m the clerk. Right this way. The judge will be here in a few minutes.” He opened the door and held it while we walked inside.
The courtroom did not look like the ones on television with the wood railings and oak chairs and a tall box for the witness. It was a small room with a desk at the front. Builtin seats, like the kind at the movies, were arranged in three short rows. One lone seat was positioned next to the judge’s desk.
I looked around the room. Posters of children hung on the walls: teenagers playing basketball, a little boy and girl hugging a very old lady, children sliding down slides with their hands in the air, and a circle of babies in cute outfits. I guessed it was like those friendly rooms at Children’s Hospital. The court wanted the room to feel not so scary when they gave you the bad news.
Skyla walked in at the last minute with Clive, but at first I wasn’t sure it was either one of them. Skyla wore a pale-pink skirt and sweater set, nylons, flat pink slip-on shoes, and a strand of pearls. Her hair was natural-looking light brown and she wore hardly a lick of makeup, except for a bubble-gum pink lipstick. Clive’s hair had been buzzed short, as if he was enlisting in the military. He wore slacks and a shirt with a button-down collar.
Gram leaned in to me. “Well, don’t they look like the all-American couple.” I didn’t know if Gram was trying to make a joke or if she was as scared as I was.
When Skyla saw me and Owen, she waved at us as if nothing was wrong. As if she wasn’t trying to do something horrible and mean to our family.
“I have missed you so much!” she said from across the room. Her voice was so sugar-coated that I wondered who the show was for. The only other person in the room was the clerk, and he wasn’t paying a nickel of attention.
The judge came in and sat down and we did the same. Skyla and Clive on one side and Gram, Owen, and I on the other. Even though the judge looked friendly with smile wrinkles around her eyes like Fabiola’s, as soon as I saw that black robe, I shuddered inside. It meant the law, that whatever the judge said would have to be carried out.
“Let’s get started,” she said. “Ms. Skyla Jones, I’ll hear from you first. I see here that you left Naomi and Owen in the care of your grandmother seven years ago.”
Skyla stood. “Yes, your honor, I did leave them with my grandmother after some rather awful circumstances.”
“And what were those?”
“I was getting out of a bad marriage. I didn’t have any money and I needed time to make a life for myself . . . and my children.”
“So this separation was not something you wanted?”
“Oh, no! No mother wants to be apart from her children.” Skyla glanced over at us. She looked like an angel.
Gram took my hand.
“Ms. Jones, can you explain what you’ve been doing during the past seven years?”
“I have had some trouble, your honor, but that has all changed. I admit I have been in rehabilitation but I have recently been successful in completing a” — she looked at Clive — “a comprehensive program.”
Clive nodded and smiled at Skyla.
“There are doctors’ reports here about alcohol-induced mental illness,” said the judge. “Were you going to leave that out?”
“No, of course not. I am on medication and I have not missed one dose. And part of my rehabilitation is to establish a relationship with my children. More than anything, that is what I want.” Skyla looked lovingly toward us.
“I applaud your efforts, Ms. Jones,” said the judge. “You may sit down.”
I bit my lip. If Skyla had acted like this when she was interviewed, what had been the mediator’s recommendation to the judge?
“Mrs. Outlaw?” said the judge.
Gram stood up. “Yes, ma’am.”
“How old are you?”
“I am sixty-nine years old.”
“And you are in good health?”
“Yes, very,” said Gram.
The judge’s voice softened. “But the reality is clear, isn’t it? You are not a young woman.”
“Yes, ma’am, that’s true, but I take good care of myself and if something happens to me, their father, Santiago León, will step forward and help. He wants the children to stay with me and he hopes to visit them as much as possible. He wrote a letter saying as much.”
When they heard our father’s name, Skyla and Clive put their heads together and started whispering.
The judge raised her eyebrows and looked through the file in front of her. “Let’s see . . . I have here notarized letters from a Ms. Morimoto, a Mr. Marble, both teachers at the children’s school, commending you for your dedication to Naomi
and Owen. I have a similar letter from a Mrs. Maloney, a neighbor, and reports from Naomi’s counselor and two doctors at Children’s Hospital. And . . .” The judge put one paper in front of the others and studied it. “Here it is . . . a notarized letter from the children’s father. It says he was discouraged from trying to contact the children by Ms. Jones but has continued to send financial assistance and now wants to establish a visitation schedule to maintain his relationship with them.”
“That’s right,” said Gram.
“Ms. Jones, what do you have to say about this?”
Skyla looked at Clive and nodded, then faced the judge. “I was very young and immature when I left the children with my grandmother. I regret many of my actions during that time of my life.”
“And you would be fine with a visitation schedule for your ex-husband.”
“Oh, yes, your honor. I only want what’s best. That’s what I told the woman the other day when she interviewed me. That’s why Naomi, especially, needs to be with me. She needs her mother, not a great-grandmother, who is so far removed from the . . . from the . . . contemporary issues of her life.”
“That’s very good, Ms. Jones.” The judge gave Skyla a peculiar smile, then looked back at the papers in her hand. “I have the recommendation of the mediator before me, but before I make the final decision, I would like to hear from the children. Naomi, would you come up here, please?”
I stood up and looked at Gram. She patted my arm and pointed to the chair next to the judge’s desk. I walked over and sat down, facing directly across from Skyla. I couldn’t take my eyes off the perfect M of her lips.
“Naomi?” The judge’s voice finally got my attention. “Look at me, please.”
I turned toward the black robe.
“I need to explain something. I am always very hesitant to separate parents and children. I feel they should be together whenever possible, except for unusual circumstances. As long as your mother refrains from alcohol and takes her medications and has a good-faith intention of caring for you, I could not, with any good conscience, deny your mother her parental rights, unless I heard a compelling reason. So can you give me any reason why you shouldn’t be with your mother?”
Becoming Naomi Leon Page 12