The Tequila Worm

by Viola Canales

  Abuelita disappeared behind the mountain, and hundreds of tiny lights, red, yellow, green, and blue, winked on to sparkle throughout the mountain, town, and plaza. Every piece came to life.

  Over another cup of hot chocolate, but this time with a crispy cinnamon-covered buñuelo each, we all sat around the nacimiento and Abuelita told stories of how her grandmother and then her mother had created the nacimiento each year. Sometimes it was Bethlehem, or a Mexican village, once, a lush African jungle, with wild animals and exotic plants. Often it took weeks to finish. I shook my head. How tired I was from just putting the pieces out!

  Before we left that night, Abuelita took me aside and handed me a small bag made of white satin. “Here, mi’ja, love him like he’s your own baby.”

  When I unwrapped it at home, I found a mended, glued, and badly chipped ceramic baby Jesus. Mama said, “Your great-grandmother gave him to your grandmother when she was appointed the Christmas madrina the very first time.”

  The next morning I called Berta. “Comadre, I need your help. The doll is falling apart. Do you think we can find a tiny dress at Johnson’s Ropa Usada . . .”

  Mama walked in. “Sofia, hang up. I need to talk to you— now!”

  Berta said, “Oh, Sofia, you’re in trouble.”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Sit down.” Oh, no!

  “I heard you talking to Berta. This is no joke, being the Christmas madrina. If you can’t take this seriously, tell your abuelita right now. You are representing the whole family, Sofia.”

  “But Mama, I wasn’t—”

  “Remember how your papa makes his beans sacred by how he cleans and cooks them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, start there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Make this so-called doll your baby by cleaning and gluing him back together, carefully and thoughtfully. This is not the panty-hose baby, Sofia.”

  “But what about the diaper, the dress?”

  “Here.” Mama pulled a square of white satin and another of purple from a bag. “Use this.” She left as Lucy and Berta walked in.

  “Are you in the doghouse?” asked Lucy.

  “Sort of.”

  Berta said, “Oh, you should’ve heard her on the phone, Lucy, saying she wanted to buy a tiny dress for Jesus at Johnson’s and—”

  “Well, I wasn’t joking, but I now get how this experience is going to teach me to connect with the dead: I’m going to join them!”

  Berta and Lucy started laughing.

  “Shhhh! Mama is going to flip again.”

  “So how can we help?” said Lucy.

  “Well, get me some glue and a towel. I’ll get a big bowl and soap. Let’s bathe him and then glue him up!”

  And after baby Jesus was all clean and freshly glued and sweet smelling, we took him over to Berta’s house and started making his new diaper and dress.

  Berta and Lucy measured, traced, cut, and sewed while I counted buttons, picked up pins, and fetched whatever they wanted. I also talked to the baby, telling him funny stories about Berta and Lucy. That night he slept on my pillow.

  I became so attached to him that I wanted to take him back to school with me. How strange to feel such enormous affection for a doll!

  After Misa de Gallo on Christmas Eve, we gathered for a prayer in front of the nacimiento, and I placed baby Jesus in the mesquite cradle. He was wearing his new white satin diaper.

  We sat around the glowing nacimiento, our plates piled high with Mama’s pork-filled Christmas tamales. We ate bowls and bowls of hot, hearty menudo.

  On the sixth of January, we gathered again at the nacimiento . After Abuelita placed the three magi at the manger, along with their steeds—the chunky elephant, a red camel, and a pink plastic horse—we said another prayer, and then I took baby Jesus and carefully dressed him in the new purple satin dress. I walked around the room and presented him to everyone to kiss.

  Later we feasted on pozole and took turns cutting a slice from the pan de rosca, shaped like a king’s crown and sparkling with jewels of candied fruit.

  That night I found it hard to leave baby Jesus behind. I also felt strangely comforted by this ritual, which seemed mad at first—what with the mountain of mud and the thousand strange pieces. It was somewhat like Clara and her bag of things and stories, except the nacimiento seemed to conjure up not only long-gone relatives, but also the sacred, the holy, something I never experienced at Saint Luke’s.

  “Mi’ja,” Papa said before bed, “that little nacimiento conjured up baby Jesus. I feel his peaceful presence everywhere. So when I’m gone, remember to conjure me up by sitting down and cleaning a pound of pinto beans for me, just like we always do.”

  I laughed and then kissed him goodnight.

  TequiLa WoRM

  AFTER that first term, it got easier going back and forth between school and home.

  I especially loved going home for the summer. I worked teaching summer school but spent plenty of my time escaping the heat driving around with Berta and Lucy. By the summer after junior year, we had eaten seven tequila worms!

  Lucy was growing up so fast and was now helping Berta plan her wedding. I still thought Berta ought to be thinking about college, not marriage, but I’d never seen her so happy. Mama was still making wacky things. But Papa seemed tired. He was getting paler and paler.

  That summer before my senior year I turned off the bedroom light one night and was about to tell Lucy a funny story when she said into the dark, “Sofia, Papa’s not well.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s been going through tests.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “They don’t know. Sofia, you can’t say anything about this. He doesn’t want you to worry. He even made me promise not to tell you. But you should know. It’s nothing, he says, just part of turning into a viejito. So promise, Sofia?”

  “Okay.”

  I couldn’t sleep that night.

  The next day was Tuesday, but when Papa came home from work, he went to sit out on the porch.

  “Papa,” I said. “Aren’t we going to clean beans? It’s Tuesday.” He did look gray.

  “Ah, yes, mi’ja. Let’s clean our beans.” He got up slowly.

  “Papa, are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, yes. Your papa is just getting a little older. That’s all.” He forced a smile.

  “Papa, sit down. I’ll get the beans.” Papa lowered himself into a chair at the kitchen table. I opened the metal container, expecting Papa to dip his hand in, but he kept staring at the table.

  “Papa, are you sick? Please tell me.”

  “No, no, mi’ja. Just a little tired.” He smiled weakly and dipped his hand in. “Mi’ja, it’s so good to have you home. I’m so proud of you. You’re doing well at that school.”

  “Papa . . . should I come home? Do you want me to come back home?”

  “Back home?”

  “Yes, I’m sure I can transfer to McHi for my senior year. . . .”

  “But why, mi’ja? I thought you liked that school. And what about applying to Harvard?”

  “Yes, Papa, but . . . you don’t seem well. I don’t care about school.”

  Papa made himself laugh. “I’m fine, just fine. JFK went to Harvard—right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mi’ja, that would be a wonderful dream: my daughter going to the same college as JFK.”

  I left for senior year, only after assurances from Mama that Papa would get checked through and through.

  I worked harder than ever, always thinking about Papa. I was second in my class, cocaptain of the soccer team, dorm proctor, even class president.

  I kept calling home. In early October, the doctors decided to send Papa to the VA hospital in San Antonio to see some specialists.

  That Saturday I took the bus to San Antonio, then a taxi to the VA hospital. Mama, Lucy, and Berta were in a room with Papa.

  “Ay, mi’ja, i
t’s good to see you,” said Papa, sitting up in bed, in blue pajamas. I kissed him. He’d lost so much weight, and all his color. “I can’t wait to get back home, the food here is terrible.”

  I didn’t want to go back to school that Sunday, but Papa said, “Don’t worry, mi’ja. I’ll be fine. I’m just here for tests. Go study hard for your papa. I’ve already told everybody you’re going to Harvard, just like JFK.”

  The following Friday, Mr. Smith came to get me in English class. “Sofia, I’m so sorry. Your father is not doing well.”

  Papa’s brown and white boots: those were the first things I saw upon entering the hospital room. They stood beside the metal bed.

  Papa’s dark, piercing Zapata eyes were closed. He lay there in a thin gown, sleeping, with Mama and Lucy beside him.

  I started to cry.

  I took his right hand, opened his long, warm fingers, and noticed that the lines on his palm were the exact ones etched in mine. His teeth were still perfect, so white and even. How could a cancer be destroying something so beautiful, this wonderful man? Just weeks before he’d been out dancing with Mama. Now he was terminal— days left, perhaps only hours.

  There were pictures Scotch-taped to the wall above him: one of him and me cleaning beans at the kitchen table, another of him dancing with Mama, and a third of him carrying Lucy as a baby.

  His right arm was purple and bloated like a melon from an IV feeding him. Another IV dripped morphine.

  Suddenly his breathing stopped and then started up again with a loud gasp. I ran for the doctor, who put an oxygen mask on Papa. “His lungs are full of liquid,” he said. He rolled in a machine and connected a clamp to Papa’s thumb. The machine clocked at 130 heartbeats per minute. “He’s fighting for his life.”

  I continued to hold Papa’s hand while Mama held the other. Lucy stood at his side, looking lost. A nurse came in. “Talk to him,” she said. “Yes, go ahead and talk to him. He can still hear you. Hearing is the last thing to go, even in a coma.”

  When the nurse left, Mama leaned over and started whispering into Papa’s ear. She told him how much we all loved him. She started humming “Julia.” Lucy began to cry.

  I turned and saw Tía Belia, Berta’s mother, sitting in the corner, praying her rosary.

  She got up and walked over to me. She made the sign of the cross and whispered, “Mi’ja, I need to talk to you.” Lucy took Papa’s hand. I hugged Lucy and then followed Tía Belia out the door.

  In the hallway, Tía Belia said, “Mi’ja, it’s time to let your papa go. He’s staying for you, out of concern. Let him go rest now.”

  Stunned, I didn’t know what to say. How did she know? I recalled that Papa had said that Tía Belia, the curandera, had cured Lucy of susto, something the rich doctors hadn’t been able to do.

  When I returned to the room, I gently stroked Papa’s hair and then leaned close to him. My tears rained on his eyes. I told him that I loved him very, very deeply. Then, after a long, long pause, I said it was time for him to go rest, that he had been a good and wonderful papa, and that I promised to now take care of Mama and Lucy. I glanced up. Mama looked stunned. Lucy was crying harder.

  The numbers on the machine started falling faster and faster. I ran for the doctor. At forty heartbeats per minute, the priest came in and gave Papa his last rites.

  The machine stopped at zero. Tía Belia, with Berta, returned out of the blue. We held hands around Papa’s body and prayed and cried for a long, long time.

  When we left his side late that night, I reached down, took Papa’s beautiful brown and white boots, and hugged them. I wanted to die. But Mama smiled and then wove her warm arms around Lucy and me and held us for a long time, like a tree giving life to her fruit.

  When we finally got home to McAllen, I walked straight into the kitchen and took out Papa’s beans. I sat down at the table, opened the container, and started cleaning. Mama, Lucy, and Berta sat down and started cleaning beans too. As I worked, I did feel Papa’s presence. We cooked them and we each ate a cup of whole beans in his honor.

  The next day we went to bury him at the cemetery. And there on his fresh grave, I left Papa a cup of whole beans, along with a tiny spoon, just the way he liked them.

  The day after Papa’s funeral I walked into the living room and was choked by the overwhelming smell of flowers everywhere—on the dining room table, on the coffee table, on the chairs, on the floor.

  I found Mama moving vases all around. “Please help me. We need to make room for the rosary tonight. Remember, it takes a total of nine days for a soul to get to heaven.” I nodded. The first rosary had been at the funeral home. Tonight would be the second.

  That evening, Mama’s closest comadres, all twelve of them, including Abuelita, Tía Belia, Tía Petra, and Clara, as well as Lucy and Berta, gathered around the coffee table.

  Mama lit a votive candle and placed it in the middle of the table. This was to light Papa’s way into heaven. It would stay lit for the next seven days. She placed a full glass of water beside the candle, for Papa to drink on his journey. Next to it she placed the silver crucifix that had hung on the lid of Papa’s open casket, as well as the folded-up American flag that had been presented to her at the burial.

  Mama opened a small paper bag and gave a rosary to those who hadn’t brought one. She made the sign of the cross and began. We took turns leading a set of prayers, each consisting of one Our Father and ten Hail Marys. Once the rosary was over, we all embraced. Then the comadres told stories about Papa and about their papas, while drinking Mexican chocolate and eating pumpkin empanadas. I was still so numb that I barely managed to stay awake.

  And that was how it was for the next seven days.

  The morning after the ninth rosary, Mama, Lucy, Berta, and I sat and cleaned another pound of beans at the kitchen table. As we did, I felt Papa nearby. I ate my cup of whole beans, enjoying them as he had. Then I was able to board the bus back to Austin.

  When I started up the stairs to my dorm, I had to stop and sit on the steps. It was difficult to breathe. Somehow the presence of my family and the comadres had shielded me from the enormous sense of loss and aloneness I was now feeling. I was feeling my mortality for the first time. It was like being completely lost in a sea of overwhelming darkness.

  The time had finally come to open the secret cascarone that Papa had given me on my fifteenth birthday. I got up and went to my room. I fetched Papa’s secret cascarone from my room altar, put it inside my shirt pocket, and went and sat down on one of the steps outside.

  I took it out and traced the drawing of the world, the stars that Papa had colored more than two years before. Then I carefully peeled off the paper crown on top and broke off a few pieces of eggshell around the small hole.

  I slowly tipped the egg over, and out spilled three wooden objects. They were very similar to the Saint Sofia he had carved for me. I looked inside the egg and saw a piece of paper. I took it out and unfolded it.

  Mi’ja, here’s a little secret about Saint Sofia, your patron saint, who represents, as you know, divine wisdom. She had three wonderful daughters, who were martyred for their passion just as she was. They were Faith, Love, and Charity. Create joy and magic in life by weaving these three into your life experiences too. Your papa, who will always be with you.

  I started to cry. But I turned and saw the green playing fields in the distance, and the blue sky above, and then Brooke came down the stairs and hugged me.

  That spring I saw how Papa’s death had shifted my focus entirely, my whole life. Yes, I still wanted to get into a good college, but life was more than that now. I was writing stories to conjure up Papa, and these stories, especially, had opened up a whole new world for me.

  But college was all my friends could think of. Brooke had only applied to Brown, saying she was sick of hearing about Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. Marcos had applied to the University of Texas, wanting to stay near home.

  When the letters finally came, I stood at my mai
lbox and found that I had indeed gotten into the big three, but I knew with my soul I would gladly trade getting accepted for just being with Papa. Brooke and Marcos ran up to me, waving their acceptance letters.

  One Saturday I was in my room writing a story about Papa and me waltzing to “Julia” when Brooke and Marcos peered through the window.

  “Time for soccer,” said Marcos.

  “Eh . . . thanks, but . . .” Brooke leaned in and pulled me by the arm. She dragged me outside through the window, where Marcos grabbed my other arm. Then Brooke went back inside and returned with a paper bag. They marched me to the soccer field.

  We kicked the ball around, running up and down like crazy people, yelling, Brooke hogging the ball as usual. But now I knew tricks to get it away from her. It felt good to move, to get air, to see the green fields again.

  Breathless, we fell onto the grass, looking up at the sky.

  “Sofia.” Brooke sat up, pulling a book out of the paper bag. It was the book of poems by Emily Dickinson she’d given me for Christmas. “This poem really helped me when I lost my grandmother. I’m hoping it’ll help you, too. Listen:

  “A wounded deer leaps highest,

  I’ve heard the hunter tell;

  ’Tis but the ecstasy of death,

  And then the brake is still.

  “The smitten rock that gushes,

  The trampled steel that springs:

  A cheek is always redder

  Just where the hectic stings!

  “Mirth is the mail of anguish,

  In which it caution arm,

  Lest anybody spy the blood

  And ‘You’re hurt’ exclaim!

  Somehow the pain of losing my grandmother has made me appreciate living more.”

  “My turn now,” Marcos said. He unwrapped a disk of Ibarra chocolate and held it to my lips. “Take a big bite, Sofia. It really works! Trust me! It’ll make you feel like you’re right there in McAllen, dancing with your papa.”

  I laughed and took a bite. “It’s a wonder you still have any teeth left. This stuff is hard.”

  Then Brooke pulled out the tiny bottle with the tequila worm inside, the one Papa had sent me years ago.