Paraíso

  Suddenly, I was looking into my own eyes. My own eyes looked back. My sister and I were enclosed by a circle, room for nothing else, carrying us silently back through time.

  Omigod, what are you doing here?

  My sister strained forward on the cot but didn’t get up. She seemed bound in some way, hands behind her back. Marco? I mouthed the name and raised my chin. She nodded. I moved to untie her hands, but they were shackled with a pair of antique handcuffs around the cot’s low wooden back brace. Her hair had a familiar soap smell as I bent to whisper in her ear. She’d grown it long again, like when she was a girl.

  “Where is he?”

  Putting my own ear to her mouth, feeling her warm breath. “Outside somewhere. Looking for Felipe.”

  “When did he get here?”

  “Half hour ago, maybe.”

  “You okay?”

  “Yes. He’ll be back any minute.”

  I moved to the cabin window in time to see Marco come out of the shed, stand in the sun for a short time, then walk toward the horse, which drew back to the end of its tether, shaking its head.

  I selected an iron skillet from among the cooking things, looked at my sister, put a finger to my lips, and eased behind the open door. Her eyes stayed with me.

  Sooner or later, the steps outside creaked and Marco’s bulk cut off light through the door. He stayed just outside. “Your brother show up yet?”

  “Where’s Felipe?” Her voice was shaking.

  The boards creaked as he stepped in. “I didn’t see him. Maybe he left.”

  “What are you talking about?” Straining forward. “Is the horse still there?”

  “Yeah, tied outside the shed.”

  “He’d never just leave. What did you do to him?”

  “I told you. I didn’t see him. Look, he’s got hives all over the place, he could be anywhere.”

  She bowed her head. “You have the negatives. You got what you came for. Will you please go away now?”

  Marco knelt, moved the blanket aside, and put his hand on her belly.

  “Please, Marco. What else do you want? Do you want the car? For Christ’s sake, you can have it.”

  “That’s my child in there. You could have gotten rid of it, but you didn’t.” I could barely hear his words, they were so soft.

  “I … I was going to.”

  “But you chose not to.”

  “I didn’t choose …”

  “Do you really hate me, Wendy? Your brother said you do.”

  “No, Marco. I don’t hate you.”

  “Well, good.” He moved behind her and unlocked one of the cuffs. While she slowly rubbed the free wrist with the shackled hand, he swept off his hat and bent his knee. “Will you marry me?”

  I set my feet to leap, and a board creaked.

  I wasn’t prepared for Marco’s reaction, turning to see me crouched with the skillet raised: a barking laugh. It made me freeze.

  “Haw, shit,” I heard him say. “I’ll take mine over easy, okay? And don’t overdo ’em, for Christ’s sake.”

  I took a step forward. “Take those cuffs off.”

  Marco uncoiled to his feet, hands shoulder high, palms facing out. “Relax, bro. Everything’s cool.” Tossing his head toward Wendy. “I think they look good on her. You know what they call them down here in Mexico? Esposas.” Keeping his eyes on me. “So Wendy my dear, what do you say? Will you be my esposa?”

  Wendy’s face was completely blank. It gave nothing away, no matter how carefully I looked. Finally, she nodded slowly. “Yes. All right.”

  Marco clapped his hands. “Que milagro! The padrecito is a special friend. He says he can do it tomorrow.”

  “Marco, I just had a cramp. I’m frightened. Can we please go down now?”

  “You’ve just made me the happiest man in the world, mi amor. Sure we can go. Tell your brother to put down that frying pan before he hurts somebody, okay?”

  “Peter.” Was there a ghost of a smile? “Will you put down that frying pan?”

  I carefully set the skillet on the counter.

  “Hey, bro,” Marco said. “Not that I don’t trust you, but can you put it back on the shelf where you got it?”

  I did.

  “And step away from it?”

  I obeyed. “Vámonos,” Marco said, and Wendy stood with an effort, faded red tee shirt barely covering half-buttoned jeans. Without thinking, I went to her and put my arms around her. I felt her arms go around me in turn. Her belly was hard against me as I heard a metallic ratcheting and the handcuff tightened on my wrist.

  Marco had locked our opposite wrists together, so when we separated we were both able to face him. “What are you doing, Marco?” Wendy asked.

  “Just a joke, don’t worry about it.” He was grinning. “I just wanted to get you two back together. I’ll take them off if you want.”

  The three of us just stood there.

  “Peter and Wendy.” The grin widened. “Nobody ever read me that book. How does it end?” When no one answered, he went on: “What did he do to you, anyway?”

  He walked to the door and looked out. I became aware of my sister’s arm against mine and looked down to see the familiar thick blond hair shading the tanned skin.

  Marco turned. “He fucked you over, right? Well, now he’s a different man.” Grinning. “He’s been through a lot to get back to you. I know for a fact.”

  I shifted my handcuffed wrist slightly, and the links connecting me to my sister jingled.

  “Same with me,” Marco went on. “I’m a different man myself.”

  “How is that, Marco?” I heard my sister ask.

  “Well, having a child on the way is a whole new ballgame. I definitely never wanted to get married before. I was never even in love before. Didn’t know what love felt like.”

  “How does it feel?” I asked in spite of myself.

  “There’s no way to describe it. Maybe in Spanish … No, it’s something you have to feel for yourself, bro.”

  “Like sex?”

  “They don’t call it ‘making love’ for nothing. And then a kid comes out of it. I know I’m not saying this very well.”

  A block of bright sunlight suddenly forced its way through the window and lay on the board floor between them, dust motes circling above it. “I’ve done some bad things. I know that. I wish—”

  “You want to put those behind you,” I said. “You want to start over.”

  “Don’t you?”

  “I do indeed.”

  Marco nodded at Wendy. “It all comes down to her, doesn’t it? How do you feel about that, Wendy? Suppose we have your brother be best man?”

  “Marco. Please.”

  “You’re not going to marry me, are you?” Suddenly his face had gone blank. “You have no fucking intention of marrying me. You and your brother would like to see me dead.”

  He had us walk in front of him out the cabin door toward the horse. What was happening? Anything could happen, I thought. Nothing I could imagine was outside the realm of possibility.

  Whatever happened, my sister and I were together. When my arm swung, hers swung with it, warm skin lightly brushing on warm skin, shoulders occasionally touching. We were even in step.

  Sisters

  The first bus from La Paz to Paraíso since the storm left at 8:00 a.m. from the Calle Bravo market. It was full. Claire was sitting at the window about halfway back on the left-hand side next to a handsome, hefty woman, with long dark wild hair, about her age. The woman used a heavy, almost musky, perfume that Claire found not unpleasant.

  The woman had smiled at her in a friendly way when she’d sat down, but Claire’s Spanish was terrible and she hadn’t felt up to trying to speak it just then.

  No word from either Wendy or Peter since that last airport phone call before he boarded the Aero California flight to La Paz, and she was worrying about what she’d find. Time was suddenly of the essence; what she had to do was very clear. She’d flown straight to LA f
rom New York, taken the first available flight to La Paz, and had stayed in the Los Arcos Hotel for the next four days, rising at dawn and heading to the bus station for word about the road. At first she expected to find Peter in the small crowd, but he must have found another route. The word was always tomorrow. Finally, a few minutes ahead of departure time, it was announced that the bus would leave on schedule. Claire was close to the head of the line.

  On the outskirts of town, the woman spoke to her in English. “First time to Paraíso?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw where you were in the line. You must have gotten here very early.”

  “About six. For the fourth day.”

  “Ay, Dios! So what does our little town have to offer you, to put in so much work when everyone else goes straight to Cabo?”

  The bus rolled out of the city up onto the high green desert and sped along the straight level highway with a comforting diesel purr. Passengers were in a good mood, finally going home, laughing and chatting. It felt like a rolling coffee shop, made for cozy confidences.

  In no time at all, Claire and Isabel filled in the backstory between them. Wendy’s pregnancy, Isabel’s support, the Marco situation (complete with incriminating film canister), the sessions, the estrangement, Peter’s final departure to see his sister and Claire’s role in it. So fast it was dizzying.

  Finally Claire drew in her breath. “So do you really love her? Or is this just a …”

  “Lujuria?” Isabel smiled and shook her head. “First tell me do you really love the brother, what’s his name again?”

  “Peter,” Claire said.

  “You do, don’t you? From the way you said it.”

  “Ummm … much too early to know.” Her face felt warm. “But, hey … I was asking the questions here.”

  Isabel put her hand over hers. “Okay, I’m happy to answer. Yes, I love her. It’s real, mi amor. I want to help her with the child. I want our lives shared together for a long time.”

  Why, they were practically sisters!

  “So, anyway,” Claire said before she had really thought it out. “You’ll never guess where I’m coming from.”

  “Montana, no?”

  “No. Philadelphia.”

  “Ah, where she comes from.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Did you go see the famous house?”

  “I knew it from before. On my play dates with Wendy when we were little girls. And I went back to see it again.”

  “A real castle, no? With the wicked witch?”

  “The wicked witch. Didn’t Wendy ever talk about her?”

  Isabel looked past her out the window at the desert. Mountains were beginning to appear on the horizon. “No, mi amor. She didn’t talk about the mother much at all. She hated her, no? She wanted to forget her. Wasn’t that why she was in Paraíso? Dios mío, I didn’t even know she had a brother until now. And what was the problem between them, mi’ha?”

  “Their mother was the problem,” Claire said. “Let me tell you what I found back East.”

  The case file, in the moldy basement of the old marble Delaware County Courthouse in Media, in the Philly suburbs, contained two interesting depositions on behalf of the defense, Nu-Car Carriers.

  The company lawyer had worked hard. First, he’d found an eyewitness to the crash who’d heard the mother apologize, that she shouldn’t have pulled out, that it had been her fault. Then he’d gone to the hospital and talked to the head nurse, not the doctor, because the doctor was a family friend.

  The head nurse was very experienced, very capable, had trained at Mass General. She said that the mother’s life could easily have been saved with a blood transfusion, but she’d refused it. Without her signature on the release, the doctor was legally prohibited from giving it to her.

  The mother had tried to refuse just about any kind of treatment, the nurse continued. Even the most basic, like sponge baths. She’d ordered her husband to leave her alone and go to a dinner party the night before she died. “A hostile patient,” the nurse concluded. “That’s what we call that kind.”

  The final ruling in the suit was hard to decipher from the file. At last Claire had carried it up to the clerk, who looked at it briefly and announced: “There was no ruling. The family settled the suit, I don’t think for very much. The depositions were too damaging for them to take it to trial.” He closed the file and looked up at Claire. “Where do you fit in, may I ask?”

  “Just a family friend trying to help right a wrong.”

  The clerk nodded. “Don’t quote me, but I’d say the mother might have been tired of life.”

  “So,” said Claire to Isabel. “Peter was right, you see. The mother probably killed herself.”

  “Dios mío. You gonna tell Wendy?”

  “Of course.”

  “Pero que fisgón!”

  “Fisgón?”

  Isabel tapped her nose with a finger.

  “Okay. So, I’m nosy.” Claire shrugged and scratched her own nose. “Here’s another question. Why did the mother want to die?”

  The bus lurched over a speed bump at the beginning of the Paraíso main street, throwing Claire and Isabel together, then hurling them apart. Baskets and suitcases flew from the overhead racks, and everyone was laughing as they careered around corners and finally screeched to a stop in front of a row of food stalls. Isabel straightened her dress and nodded at the smirking young driver. “Luciroso pendejo.”

  “My Spanish is terrible. What does that mean?”

  “Show-off of a pubic hair. You’ll come to my place, right? Then we can fine out what’s goin’ on.” She hauled herself into the aisle and reached up for her suitcase, one of the few still there. Claire couldn’t help noticing the swell of her breasts.

  Walking from the bus stop to the house, they stopped at the little plaza in front of the church and looked out over the valley to the sea. Still too early for the wind, and the taco palms and mango trees stood quietly over luminous fields backdropped by a blue silk ocean. Someone was whistling.

  Claire sniffed the air. “It’s a magic place. I can smell it.”

  “Ha. Probably the Santa Fe kitchen.” Pointing across the street at the old theater. “And that’s where I sang naked with my accordion.”

  “Wow. Wish I’d been there.”

  “Well, you couldn’t see much with the hair and all.”

  “What color was the accordion?”

  “Red, with white and black trim.”

  “Perfect! What did you sing?”

  “Oh, you know. Some corrido. I was modest in those days. But I wonder where is Felipe. He always here with his honey. Every day.”

  “Who’s Felipe?”

  “Ah. Who indeed? Let her tell you.”

  The door to the little house across the valley was padlocked. Isabel opened it and stood aside for Claire to enter. The art and the nude portrait (which she recognized as Wendy’s) left her oddly breathless. As they stood there silently, they could hear the sound of running feet, and a girl rushed in on a torrent of Spanish.

  Finally, the girl was crying and Isabel had her arms around her. “She says they are all up on the mountain.”

  “Who, for heaven’s sake?”

  “Everyone. Everyone that matters.”

  After the girl departed, Isabel filled in the blanks for Claire as best she could. But she’d been away for two weeks, there were many things she could only guess at, and the girl’s account had been all over the lot.

  In the end, all they could do was wait. Like women did, Claire thought. They decided to wander down to the beach because it was Wendy’s favorite place.

  Halfway along the sandy two-track, they both took off their shoes. Isabel picked a sprig of crimson-flowered San Miguel vine from a fence post and handed it to Claire with an unreadable smile. “Welcome to Mexico, fisgón.”

  Sniffing the blossoms. “Hey, I wasn’t prying. I just added things up.”

  “Bueno.” The smile focused itself. �
��As you were saying before we went over that pinche bump? About why the mother wanted to die?”

  In the head nurse’s deposition, she stated that she’d gotten a phone call from the daughter’s therapist, a man named Philip Sternberg, saying that the daughter wanted to talk to her mother. Would that be possible? Sternberg personally thought it might be a good idea. But when the nurse asked the mother, she closed her eyes and pretended to be asleep. She died the next day.

  There must have been somebody else. Sitting in her rental Corolla outside the Media courthouse, Claire placed a cell phone call to Briarcliffe and asked for Phil Sternberg. “He was a staff therapist there in the late seventies. Under Dr. Reiger. He … ah … worked with me back then. My name is Wendy Davis.”

  Sternberg was no longer there, and Reiger himself had moved on years ago. The secretary asked for a couple of hours to check the files. Maybe there was an address for Sternberg. “People do like to stay in touch, don’t they?”

  Claire drove the familiar roads to Haverford, turning right off Darby Paoli Road onto College Avenue, past green lawns and big maples with tasteful homes nestled discreetly in the background, past the Piaseckis’ white Italianate mansion, and down the hill toward the trolley tracks and Haverford College.

  Just before the bridge over the tracks, she turned left onto the asphalt driveway bracketed by low whitewashed stone walls ending in boxwood hedges, up a rise under big shade trees to where the stately house waited for her: three stories of whitewashed fieldstone and green shutters, fronted by a brick-terraced, white-columned porch. On a slope to the right, an orchard. To the left, a sunken garden with a fish pool down flagstone steps through a slope of rhododendron. A spreading catalpa sheltered a stone and glass greenhouse with formal beds of roses beyond.

  Nothing had changed since she’d last seen the place. Absolutely nothing. It gave Claire goose bumps.

  She stopped the car under an overhanging roof off the porch, got out, and waited. It was about 12:30, almost lunchtime. In a minute, Wendy’s mother would come out of the front door and down the steps.