Then Dalton called “action,” and Diego wound up the crooked street of that village now, and his wife saw him, and she walked on, toward him, stunned, unbelieving.
“You’re back,” she said. “Please tell me you’ll stay now. For me. For your son.” She said to the boy, “Look. It’s your father.”
Diego reached out, tried hugging him, but the child recoiled, hiding between his mother’s legs.
“Don’t be frightened,” his mother said. “It’s your father!”
Diego looked at the boy, and in his face he saw his own, still forming, on the verge of becoming what it would eventually turn into. He saw Fiona’s face and his child’s face and knew this to be his own. And he finally understood, finally knew what they’d lost, and knew what they’d done to find themselves here, in a vague place, a shadow on a map. He could hear his thoughts now, his and this strange boy’s and Fiona’s child’s, all of them mixing together, ringing so loud in his head. He would not let the boy inherit that legacy of hardship and death, of humiliation and hunger carved into his skin and his father’s own skin.
He reaches down and picks his son up, his mother pleading with his father to stay this time, to stop fighting, to stop searching. Diego cradles his son in his arms, the boy’s sobs growing louder and louder. He knows he’s home. I’m here, he tells him, this stranger, this boy, this child, his. His. I see you. I remember you now. I won’t let you go.
There’s no need to go back, he thinks. There’s nothing left to fight for but this.
Only this.
For my mother, Maria Luz Espinoza Carbajal (1927–2007),
who taught me to question everything,
to forget nothing, and to live without fear or regret
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you, first, to Elyse Cheney, my literary agent and friend, for her unwavering faith in my work and in me. To Gillian Blake for her thoughtful advice during an early point in the process. To Millicent Bennett, whose zeal was limitless, whose knowledge was superhuman, and whose passion for this project was lifesaving. At Random House, my most grateful acknowledgments to Kate Medina, book godmother tried and true, and to Steve Messina and Benjamin Dreyer, copy editors extraordinaire. A million thanks to Lindsey Schwoeri for stepping in and for never failing to surprise me with her brilliant insight and advice. Every writer should be so lucky.
Thanks to the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Macondo Writers Workshop. At Fresno State, my thanks to Vida Samiian, dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, Dean Luz Gonzalez of the College of Social Sciences, and Provost William Covino for their collective support and guidance. To my colleagues and friends: Blain Roberts, Ethan Kytle, Kathryn Forbes, Doug Gordon, Roan Forbes-Gordon, Honora Chapman, Benjamin Boone, Alice Daniel, John Jordan, Cristina Herrera, Maria Lopes, Saúl Jiménez-Sandoval, Yolanda Doub, Meta Schettler, Brad and Flo Jones, Lori Clune, Dan Cady, Lisa Cady-Bennett, Julia Bradshaw, Laura Meyer, and Kris Clarke. To everyone in the English Department, especially Lisa Weston, James Walton, John Beynon, Analola Santana, Dixie Salazar, Kathleen Godfrey, Samina Najmi, Tim Skeen, and Randa Jarrar. To Lisa Galvez, Margaret Cardiel, and Dianna Meyer for the enthusiastic nods, smiles, and pats on the back, always delivered when I needed them the most. To Lillian Faderman for asking me, quite pointedly one night at her house, a question that would come to shape the course of this novel in a profound way. Thank you to Peter McDonald, Dave Tyckoson, and the Henry Madden Library. Un mundo de gracias a Norma Ogarrio y el Fideicomiso Archivos Plutarco Elías Calles y Fernando Torreblanca en Mexico City for letting me pore over hundreds and hundreds of documents, land deeds, telegrams, letters, account books, and photographs from the Mexican Revolution and the Cristero Rebellion. Their information proved absolutely essential, and I would have been lost without these incredible fragments of history.
Thanks to my friends and allies in the writing and academic worlds, especially Tod Goldberg, Wendy Duren, Dagoberto Gilb, Susan Straight, Sandra Cisneros, Gabriella Jauregui, Julie Minich, Amelia Montes, Deborah Miranda, Carla Trujillo, Leslie Larson, Deanne Stillman, Michelle Latiolais, Geoffrey Wolff, and Ron Carlson. And to you, Kyle Behen, for sticking with me from the first breath to the last word, for holding a candle over my shoulder when it was too dark for me to find my way, for demanding of me the impossible, for seeing in me that which I couldn’t see in myself, and for never letting me go no matter what, no matter when, no matter where. Patria est ubicumque est bene.
ALSO BY ALEX ESPINOZA
Still Water Saints
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALEX ESPINOZA was born in Tijuana, Mexico. He came to the United States with his family at the age of two and grew up in suburban Los Angeles. Author of the novel Still Water Saints, he received an MFA from the University of California, Irvine. A recipient of a Margaret Bridgman Fellowship in Fiction at the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Espinoza is currently an associate professor of English at California State University, Fresno.
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