by Ruth Wind
"Bet it isn't a T-bone."
"Well, not exactly."
"I just turned this one over. Oh, it's beautiful … and you should smell it, Sarita. Onions, that grilled steak scent, the garlic."
"Not going to work, Eli." She dropped raisins into her mouth. "I now have food to fortify me."
* * *
Eli loved talking to her on the phone like this for the same reasons he had as a youth. It was intimate without being overwhelming. He was not distracted by the physical details of her body or mouth, or the constant need to put his hands on her. It freed them to ramble, explore, share anything and everything. The conversation rose and fell simply, sometimes slipping into an easy silence for minutes at a time, minutes he felt no need to fill up, minutes neither of them seemed to think signaled an end to the conversation, because it didn't. They dipped into the past, remembering things only the two of them had ever known about each other, about their private times. They'd had very few public times, after all, They wound around his business dealings for the day, slid into Teresa and her dual gifts, then into more general subjects, then drifted back to Taos or their shared history, or the unshared history they felt moved to share.
He ate his steak and his potato, trying to be polite. Years ago they'd shared not only television, but the snacks that went with it, and he'd perfected a technique of eating without noise.
When he heard the doorbell ring, he grinned. "I'll wait," he said.
"It's weird not having a remote phone now. I'm not used to being trapped in one spot. Hang on." The clatter of the phone as she set it down.
He listened carefully, hearing only murmurs, then the sound of her feet as she came back. "Eli, you are the king of all men. The emperor of the world. The god of my stomach."
He had called for a burrito to be delivered to her from a restaurant she'd always loved. "I couldn't let you starve."
"Oh, it's beautiful! Just the way it's always been."
"So eat it."
"Don't rush me. It's worth savoring, okay?" The sound of a silverware drawer. "You know what I missed while I was gone?"
"Tell me."
"Beans the way they're made here. Most everywhere, the beans are so squished up, you know, there's not even one recognizable pinto in the whole pile. They're like mashed potatoes. And I ate them, but it's not like here." A pause. "Mmm."
The sound was almost sexual in its enjoyment, and Eli shifted his shoulders a little, trying to keep his mind clear.
"Eli, really, thank you. Is that what you did when you put me on hold? Ordered takeout for me?"
"Yeah, but I was mainly hoping it would make you grateful enough to come over here and illustrate your gratitude."
"What, you want me to draw on you?"
He laughed. "Depends on what you're drawing with."
"You are really on tonight," she said.
He sobered. "Not just tonight. You're all I think about, all day. All night." He paused. "Flowers smell like you."
"Eli, please quit it!"
"Are you weakening?"
She sighed. "It's always been wonderful when we only had to worry about each other. But we have to let the outside world in."
He winced at the way that felt like a slammed door. A well of frustration rose in him, and not only over her challenge to him to put down his hatred and take up forgiveness. The very idea made him feel faintly panicky.
But there was more, too – his mother and brothers, his family and the past. So many roadblocks. "Let's not talk about that."
"It's a deal." She chuckled. "We've already been on the phone for more than an hour. Aren't you talked out yet?"
"Are you?"
A slight, small hesitation. "No," she said in a husky voice.
"Then don't hang up. Eat your burrito and do your work and I'll just stay on the phone with you all night."
She laughed. "My ear might not hold up."
"When it gets tired, put the phone down, and so will I."
"This is really silly, you know. We're reverting to adolescence."
"I don't care. Do you?"
"No. Who's going to know?"
"Exactly." He settled in a comfortable armchair and kicked off his shoes. A breeze blew in through the open door, remarkably cool after the very hot day. It was the fifteenth of September, not long now until the cooler days of autumn. He looked forward to them. "So," he said, "tell me about the most exotic place you ever visited."
Sarah felt restored after the burrito, and went back to work, tucking the phone under her ear. It was odd to work with the material at hand with him on the phone. As she matted a newspaper article from the mid-1920s about the brutal beating death of a Santiago youth, or a photo she'd shot in town, she couldn't help wondering how he would react to all of it. She wondered how all of them would react – her mother and father, Eli's family, the town itself, which loved its dramatic old story.
In the end, she had to get off the phone because she needed both hands. "Eight o'clock, Eli. Don't forget."
"I won't."
In spite of the fact that she'd had practically no sleep for more than twenty-four hours, and in that time she'd worked almost nonstop, she felt a wild, exhilarated sense of accomplishment in her task, unlike anything she'd ever felt for work before. It wasn't simply the chance to right old wrongs, to set right a story that had ruined too many lives already. She loved the way it was coming together, loved the way the multimedia images would mesh to tell a story simply and clearly. It was emotional material, and after so many years of working with commercial images, there was a surprising amount of satisfaction in that.
Finally, well past midnight, she was finished. She propped up the images, the photos, old and new, the letter and newspaper accounts, against the wall of the long room, and rearranged them over and over. She shifted this one to offset that one, stepped back, narrowed her eyes, moved another.
It was nearly dawn before she was satisfied, and as if waiting for that exact moment, her exhaustion belted into her like a sledgehammer. She showered twenty-four hours of grime from her skin and fell into bed without bothering about clothes, and slept the dreamless, dark sleep of a conscience assuaged. She had done all that she could possibly do.
The rest was up to them.
* * *
Joanna helped her hang the show, and she was strangely silent as she began to understand what the material was meant to accomplish. Sarah didn't prod her, but she felt a wave of nervousness. Oddly, it wasn't over the reactions the material itself might rouse, but a more egotistical, artistic anxiety. Was it good work?
When it was hung, a simple series along one adobe wall, Sarah stood back to evaluate it, and once again she felt a swell of excitement. "It's good, isn't it?" she said, her voice barely a whisper.
Joanna turned. "It's better than good, Sarah. I had no idea you could do this kind of work."
"Thank you." She smoothed her dress over her thighs. "My parents should be here soon."
"Do you want me to go or stay?"
Sarah took a breath. "I think tonight has to be intimate. Unobserved."
"Okay." Joanna hugged her. "Call me and tell me how it goes, okay? I'm going to be thinking about you every second."
"I will."
Sarah walked with her to the door of the tiny gallery. She saw her parents pull up down the street. Her stomach turned over. "Please," she whispered.
All at once the full reality of what she was doing hit her. She was gambling everything on this show, in a single, dramatic gesture to force her father and Eli into some kind of confrontation that might shake them both. Seeing her father on the street, panic hit her.
If this did not work, she would not be able to stay in Taos, just as she'd grown to realize how much she loved her hometown. She would lose the tenuous, fragile relationship with her father, and her newborn love with Eli.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, remembering Octavia's words – only Sarah herself had the tools to end this war. She might not suc
ceed.
Even if she failed, she had at last uncovered the truth of the terrible injustice done to two young people long ago, and the world would know it. That was something to be proud of – whatever it cost her personally.
The knowledge gave her courage enough to open the door and smile at her parents. "Come in," she said, and gestured to chairs she'd arranged for this purpose. "Would you like some coffee? I have some made."
"Not right now," Garth said. "You've got us both nervous, wondering what you're up to tonight."
"Well," Sarah said, sitting across from them, "I'm a little nervous, too." She folded her hands to steady herself, and plunged in. "I have put together a completely new kind of show, something I haven't done before. There aren't going to be many guests here tonight, and I wanted you to come early."
She looked at her father and took his hands. "Dad, I want to put the past behind us. I'm hoping you can forgive me for my anger, for all the lies I told, for all the awful things I said to you."
"There's nothing to forgive, Sarah. I was in the wrong more than you were. If I hadn't been so bullheaded—"
She smiled. "I may be a little bullheaded myself." She swallowed, bracing herself. "I've been thinking a lot the past few days, and we can talk as long as we need to when this is over, but first I want to take you both over here, and show you something." She sobered and looked at each of them in turn. "If any of this upsets you, I apologize in advance. But I really, really need you to listen to me before you say a single word."
Mabel spoke for the first time. "Just show us, Sarah. All this talk is making me even more nervous."
"You're right." Sarah rose. "Come with me, and listen while I tell you a story."
They followed her around the partition. Mabel made a soft, startled sound, but said nothing more.
Sarah picked up a sheet of paper. Tomorrow, the text from Deborah Lucero's book would be divided into paragraphs and hung beneath the appropriate pieces, but Sarah had wanted to guide her guests herself tonight.
"This is the story of the Santiagos and the Greenwoods," she began in a voice as cool as a museum guide's. "In particular, the story of Manuel Santiago—" she pointed to the miniature "—and his tragic love affair with Emily Greenwood."
"Good heavens," Mabel said, leaning forward. "He looks exactly like Eli, doesn't he?"
"Love affair!" Garth protested.
"You have to listen, Dad."
He scowled, but allowed himself to be led. She revealed, with text and illustrations, the history all of them had thought to be true … the rape and hanging, the suicide, the long history of war between the families, a war that had eventually reduced two proud, wealthy families to nothing. The story was documented with newspaper articles and old photographs taken both from the library files and Mabel's cedar chest. The final article detailed Eli's arrest twelve years before.
"And all of this," she said, "was built on a lie. Manuel and Emily were in love. She hanged herself not out of a misguided sense of disgrace, but out of grief." She stepped aside to point to the copy of the letter Emily had written to her Philadelphia friend, a letter Sarah sensed Emily had written out of a need to share something with someone who would not judge her. In it, Emily had poured out her feelings of passion for Manuel Santiago, who had asked her father's permission to marry her and had been brutally refused. Emily was not giving up hope, however. She suspected she would be able to force his hand. "According to neighbors' reports, she was almost five months pregnant when she killed herself."
Garth and Mabel were both utterly silent, staring not at the letter, but at the picture of Emily. Her father's face flushed, and he reached out one hand, as if to put his hand on the picture.
"Don't say anything yet." She took a breath. This was the hard part. "You know, for years I blamed myself for not fighting for my daughter. I was furiously angry – not at you, but at myself, for giving in." She looked away, focusing on Emily's happy face. "I really didn't think I'd ever get over it. But when I understood what had happened to Emily, I realized I was better off than poor Emily. Eli is still alive, and so am I. And somewhere, out in the world, is our child." It was the first time she'd spoken the words aloud, and it made her throat tight. "If fate is kind, maybe she'll come looking for me someday. But even if she doesn't, I gave her life. It has to be enough."
Mabel looked utterly stricken. "But Sarah, it wasn't your fault. We forced you. I don't know if I forgive myself."
Sarah shook her head, and took one hand of each parent into her own. "I forgive you both. You did what you thought was right at the time."
There was a suspicious moistness in Garth's eyes. He squeezed her hand almost painfully, and she realized he didn't want to speak for fear of giving himself away. With a mute gesture, he pointed at the last three photos. The first was Eli in the courtyard of the cottage, from the ones she'd taken of him standing against the post. The other two were shots Teresa had taken – the one when Eli had wanted to kiss her, and another, of the two of them the same day, standing side by side. Around them, sunlight gilded the grasses and edged the leaves of the cottonwoods, and overhead stretched the blue, blue Taos sky. A wind blew their hair from their faces, and they looked at each other with sober hope.
Sarah let them both go and stepped back. "These," she said quietly, "are exactly what you think they are. I saw him by accident the first night I came back."
She heard the gallery door open, and her nerves roiled again. Urgently, she looked at her father. "I need one more thing from you. Twenty minutes without losing your temper."
He looked as if he would dig in his heels and say no, but Mabel nudged him and, chastened, he nodded.
"Thank you. I'll be right back." She rushed around the partition and ran – hard – into Eli. In her nervousness, she laughed, grabbing his arms to steady herself.
Without missing a beat, he hauled her into him and kissed her. Not lightly. Not sweetly, but with passion and depth. "You had to be wearing that dress," he said. "Whew."
From behind the partition came the sound of her parents' voices, and Eli straightened, instantly wary. "What's going on, Sarah?"
"Sit down for a minute," she said, discarding her original plan. "I want you to see this show before the rest of the world sees it, but I don't have time to take you through it the way I thought I would, so I'm just going to say it really fast. I found out the rape was a lie. Manuel Santiago did not rape Emily Greenwood. She loved him. She was pregnant. She killed herself when he was hanged."
He stared at her.
"Now, I want five minutes, Eli. Can you give me that? Five minutes to just listen to me?"
"Sarah, I don't understand—"
"Five minutes, Eli?"
He gave her a puzzled frown, then nodded. "Okay."
Bracing herself with a deep breath, she took his hand and led him around the partition. She felt him go rigid beside her as he caught sight of her father, but she tightened her hand around his. "Five minutes," she whispered fiercely.
"Dad," she said, ignoring the blustery expression on his face, "I want you to meet Elias Santiago. Eli, this is my father, Garth Greenwood."
"We already—"
"What is this?"
"You said you would listen," she said, raising her chin. "So for once in your lives, do it."
She let Eli's hand go and went to stand between them. "Dad, I have been in love with this man for most of my life. I'm in love with him now."
Garth flushed but remained silent
"Eli," she said, "I also love my father. The war the two of you fought tore me to pieces – and neither of you had to pay the price I did.
"I want you to look around you and see what this war has cost our families over these years. Generation after generation after generation we've been fighting and killing each other." She paused. "It has to stop now. We three have the power to make that happen, to call a truce." She looked at them both. "I love both of you, and I'm not going to choose between you. Either you make peace with
each other, or I will leave Taos again and I will never come back."
For a long, long moment after she finished speaking, a deafening silence roared through the room. Eli and her father stared at each other. Sarah held her breath, praying in a silent chant.
Abruptly, Eli said, "No." He turned on his heel and walked out.
Sarah stared at his retreating back, feeling a howl of sorrow well up in her. She wanted to call after him, to beg him not to let pride tear them apart.
But she let him go. She had tried. There was nothing else to do.
* * *
Chapter 16
«^»
It began to rain as Eli jumped in his truck, and he scowled as the first big, sloppy drops splattered on his windshield. It reminded him of waiting for Sarah beneath "their" tree the first night she'd been back.
It seemed a long time ago, but it had been barely a month. A month. His whole life had been turned upside down.
The day before she arrived, he'd been Elias Santiago, CEO of Santiago Teas, a successful, wealthy man. He'd turned around the Santiago fortunes.
Given enough time, he might even have forgotten the early betrayals in his life and found another woman to love, to be his wife. If not for Sarah's return, he might even have fallen in love with Jennifer, the beautiful and intelligent graphic designer who had created the new look for Santiago Teas.
He stared at the heavy rain. Sarah's return had brought back the boy he'd been, helpless and a victim, a boy Eli had buried in his hatred and his need for vengeance.
With a roar of rage, he slammed his hand on the steering wheel. "Why did you come back?"
He started the truck and roared out of the parking place, driving aimlessly around the narrow back roads. But he could not escape his demons, or his rage, or his sorrow, and in defeat, he drove to the farms. In his mother's house the light was on. For a moment he considered stopping, but he drove on. He needed to be alone, to sort this out, to think it through.
Instead of driving to his own house, however, he found himself pulling up in front of his grandmother's. As if she'd been waiting for him, she sat on a chair pulled up before the open door, back far enough from the opening to be protected from the rain. Eli ran to the house and slipped by her. "What are you doing?"