by Ruth Wind
"Beautiful."
He held her gaze for one moment more, then looked away quickly, and seemed a little confused over what should be done next, looking at the stove and the counter.
"What can I carry?" Molly asked. A thick stew with what looked like hominy bubbled in a pot. A fragrance of chiles and onion rose from it, and mixed with the scent of cinnamon from the coffee in another pot. Molly inhaled, closing her eyes. "Oh, this is going to be wonderful, Alejandro!" Without thought, she put her hand on his arm and turned to Lynette. "Wait until you taste his coffee. You'll never drink American coffee again."
"No machine coffee," Alejandro said, smiling down at her. He put his hand over hers, squeezed it once and let it go.
Somehow, touching him gave her a sense of strength and the tight knot of loss in her chest eased a little. He might be gone tomorrow, but tonight he was here, and she would not lose whatever memories she could tuck away by mourning the loss in the future. "What is this?" she asked of the stew.
"Posole," he said, and Lynette cried out happily. He grinned over his shoulder. "You like it?"
"I love it," she said, and patted her round tummy. "But then, look at me – I love everything." She laughed to show she didn't mind. "Mainly, though, I really love, love, love Mexican food."
He carried the pot to the table. "Yeah? It's good here. Josefina, my niece, has eaten well in New Mexico. I do my best, but I am not a cook like her mother was." He shrugged, went back to the stove, took a thick package of foil out of the oven and opened it, releasing the steam of an enormous stack of thick flour tortillas. "I had to buy the tortillas. I do not know how to make them very well."
They settled around the table, Molly at one end, Alejandro at the other, the candles and flowers between them. He filled their bowls with his rich stew, and talked lightly of many things, drawing even Josh into the conversation. Molly ate the stew with a pile of tortillas and drank a cold beer with her brother, and felt deeply satisfied. Outside, the wind howled and snow began to fall, but in here, there was family and good food and warmth, and what else did a person need?
Josh stood up to get another beer, and offered one to Alejandro, who shook his head with a smile. "No, thank you." He lifted his chin with a little smile. "Molly will drink mine."
"You don't drink?" His eyes narrowed. "You in AA?"
Alejandro gave Molly a puzzled expression. "Why do people always ask that? Only people who have trouble refuse alcohol here?"
Lynette cracked up, and put her hand on his sleeve. "No, I don't drink either. I just don't like it. You're safe."
"I'll take his, Josh," Molly said. "Don't worry about it – all the more for us, right?"
He nodded and carried the beers back to the table. "How's your niece doing?"
"Very well. They will let her go tomorrow." He pushed his bowl away a little, glanced at Molly, then away. "That is why we are here tonight, since I will be moving in a day or two."
"That's what Molly told me."
There was, suddenly, no point to either woman being at the table, for the men faced each other, looking each other in the eye. "We are both sorry for lying to you," Alejandro said. "It seemed there was no other way."
Molly quietly stood and began to collect the bowls. Lynette helped her.
"I was only trying to protect her, man," Josh said. "It wasn't personal."
"Sure. I know." Alejandro looked at Molly as she took his dishes, and again, it was as if they entered their own little world when their eyes touched, a place where only the two of them knew the rules. "She is too trusting." He looked back at Josh. "But I am grateful. She saved my life, and the life of my niece. We can never repay our debt to her."
Molly took the bowls to the sink, where Lynette had poured soap and now ran hot water. Lynette looked up at Molly, and widened her eyes, trying to give Molly a message she didn't quite get. She frowned, shaking her head. Lynette pressed her mouth together, looked at the men. Shook her head.
"Now that this is out in the open," Josh said, "I need to know what happened, exactly, if you wouldn't mind." He looked at his sister. "Did you really know the little girl before?"
Molly, the pot of stew in her hands, looked at Alejandro. Hesitated, then shook her head. "I found him at the foot of the bluff the morning after the raid." She put the stew down. "I know they say there are no shots fired, but he had a bullet in his leg and broken ribs – and I couldn't leave him there."
Josh bowed his head. "It was me."
"What was you?"
He lifted his head, and in his too-young face she saw lines of weariness. "I fired that night. Twice. One went by, but I guess the other one—" He cleared his throat. "So in a weird kind of way, all this was my fault."
Molly sank into a chair. "Josh, how could you?"
He shook his head. "Don't think I haven't asked myself that same thing a hundred times, every night ever since." He rubbed his face. "It was so crazy that night. So many people scattering." Josh looked at Molly. "I lost my temper. It just pissed me off that all these people were here, breaking the law. And Wiley just sits up there like a fat cat, pretending he doesn't know they're all illegal." His jaw went tight. "And you know, it really is a problem for the county. Crime goes up and the jail is packed, and the hospital fills up, and the county gets stuck with all the bills." He looked at Alejandro. "You seem like an all-right guy. I'm sorry for your troubles, but why do you have to be here?"
Molly opened her mouth to interrupt, worried that the conversation was going into dangerous territory. Alejandro lifted a hand, and she understood he wanted to field this.
Earnestly, he put his arms on the table. "I do not wish to be here," he said. "I love my home. In Mexico, I am an important man where I live. My family has land and I have the respect of the men I do business with." He shook his head. "Here I am nothing."
"So why do it? Why drag that poor little girl all over?"
"I promised her mother I would take care of her. Josefina was her only child, and my sister wanted to raise her here."
Josh nodded.
Lynette said, "Molly, will you come with me for a minute?"
Startled, she glanced up, saw the urgent expression and followed her out.
* * *
Alejandro watched them go, and when they were out of earshot, he said quietly, "Señor, who I am is not important now. I must ask you to do one thing."
"What?"
"You must help your sister buy that house she likes so much, the one in town."
"She told you about that?"
He shrugged. "We talked of many things. It is very important to her, that house, and she thinks she should not have it."
Josh's mouth was serious, his blue eyes troubled. "She can't do the work it needs."
"So, she can hire it to be done." Alejandro tried to think of a way to express the sense he had that Molly had to have the house. "Without something to believe in, something that belongs to only her, she will…" he frowned, thinking of a loaf of bread without its insides "—go hollow. No more of her, only the outside."
"Why do you care?"
Because he loved her. Because he couldn't stand to think of that expression on her face when she looked at it this afternoon, so much longing, so much fear, so much certainty that anything she wanted that much would always be out of reach. But he could not think how to say all of that without revealing his heart, and he only shook his head. "She saved my life."
Josh smiled. "I'll see what I can do, man. Maybe she can sell this place and do what she wants with the house."
Alejandro nodded. "Thank you."
* * *
Lynette hustled Molly into the bedroom and closed the door, then leaned against it. "You want to tell me what's going on here?" she said.
Molly frowned. "What do you mean?"
"With you and him."
"Nothing." She tried to say it innocently.
"Nothing is going on? Nothing?" She twisted her mouth wryly. "You're going to tell me you have had that be
autiful hunk of man flesh under this roof all this time and you haven't slept with him?"
She crossed her arms. "Well, no."
"No, you didn't, or no, you did?"
"No, I did."
Lynette's eyes narrowed. "Don't you think that was kind of dangerous?"
A sudden vivid and erotic vision rose in her mind, a vision of their first joining, the sun making her lids red, his hands and mouth on her body. "No," she whispered. "He's a man of good character." It sounded old-fashioned, and she was embarrassed, but didn't take it back.
"That's not what I mean, Molly. Not dangerous as in taking a knife and stabbing you. Dangerous as in, can you stand to have your heart broken so completely again?"
Molly moved to the window, lifted the curtains and stared out. "My heart is fine," she lied.
"It can't be, Molly. Remember who you're talking to here, okay? I've known you all your life. I remember the boys you used to fall for. The Medina brothers, remember, in second grade? And Toby Espinoza. Nobody was more shocked than me when you ended up with some big old galoot of a white guy."
Her fingers tightened on the curtain, and she remembered a story they'd both heard at a Girl Scout gathering once: The old women say there is a face carved on the heart of every woman…
"Alejandro is nothing like them."
"No," Lynette said, "he's everything a man should be. He's kind and good and smart and beautiful. And you are in love with him."
Molly swallowed. "I've been thinking so much about Tim," she said quietly. "Remembering all these things about him that I loved so much. His hands. He had freckles on the back of his hands. And he was so romantic in practical ways, you know?" She turned to look at her best friend. "I broke down one night, just remembering everything about him. It came flooding back, so hard, and I felt like I was going to die, it hurt so much. I wanted to die when he did. There just didn't seem to be any point in going on."
"I know you did, sweetie," Lynette whispered.
"But you know, I picked myself up and I kept going. I don't remember how, now." She brushed a tear away and breathed out slowly. "That night I lost it, Alejandro came to me and just held me. He washed my face." She looked at Lynette, suddenly terrified and overwhelmed. "That day that I found him, it wasn't him calling for his niece that made me hide him. He was just so beautiful I needed to look at him some more." The words came pouring out of her, bottled up for too long. "I never did anything like that before, and I didn't even think about it. I just brought him into my house, like some antique or a beautiful painting, so I could look at him."
Lynette chuckled and brushed Molly's hair back from her face. "Honey, I've looked at him, okay? He's a lot better than a painting."
"You know what I mean. I never did that. And then, he woke up and there was something so special about him that I couldn't let him go." She closed her eyes. "And now he's in every corner of my life. He's changed everything, everything, and it's going to be like it always is, it's going to hurt to let him go, but if I don't, Lynette, if I don't—" she swallowed. "Right now, it hurts a little. Later, it would be more than I could stand."
Lynette laid her head on Molly's shoulder. "Not everybody has to bury their parents and their husbands, Molly. Some people live a long time."
"But you never know, do you?" Molly said, and she could not hold back her tears. "There are no guarantees in this life."
"No," Lynette said quietly. "There aren't." She put her arms around Molly's shoulders and let her weep. "I'm so sorry, Moll. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you this time. I'm sorry this got so out of hand. I'm…" She stroked Molly's hair. "I'm sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I think you're doing the right thing, letting him go."
But maybe that wasn't what Molly wanted to hear. Clinging to Lynette, she could only think of the way Alejandro had washed her face with a cool rag, of the way his hands looked when he wrapped Josefina's small hand in his own.
After a moment, she found the rush of emotion subsiding, and lifted her head, a backwash of foolishness making her laugh a little. "I must be PMSing bad, the way I've been losing it today."
"Maybe," Lynette said. "But maybe a lot has happened in a short time, too." She smiled. "Either way, things will look a lot better a week from now."
"Will they?"
"They will. Now go wash your face. I'm going to get some of that coffee you said is so great."
* * *
When the snow began to come down again in earnest, Josh and Lynette gathered their things to go. Molly and Alejandro both went to the door, as if it was their shared home.
Josh extended his hand to Alejandro. "Best of luck to you, man."
"Thank you."
Lynette hugged Molly. "It's almost over now," she whispered. "Hang in there." She pulled back, lifted her collar. "Call me tomorrow."
"I will." She waved, then closed the door against the cold night.
Alejandro stood where he'd been, his arms at his sides, an odd expression on his face. Noticing her gaze, he summoned a smile, halfhearted. "You are very tired tonight, eh?"
She thought of the bed, thought of him there – and knew there was no way on earth, no way she could let herself sleep with him again. "Yes," she said, knowing they spoke in code.
"There's one thing more I would like to do, if you are not too tired," he said.
"What?"
He held out his hand. "Come."
And one last time, she allowed herself to touch him, let him take her hand in his and lead her into the kitchen. The table was cleared of dishes, but the flowers and candles, now unlit, remained. "Are you Catholic, Molly?"
"Sort of," she answered. "Lapsed."
"Then you know about candles for the dead."
A ripple of concern moved in her. Warily she said, "Yes."
"Please," he said, gesturing. "Sit down.
"In my village, we have a feast for the dead on their day." He uncovered a dish filled with multicolored cookies and brought it back to the table, then poured more coffee, releasing the cinnamon steam into the air. "We eat all their favorite things, because we believe that they can see them and smell them. I made posole because it was my sister's favorite. And she liked these cookies, too."
A true bolt of fear went through her. "Alejandro, I don't—"
He put his hand on hers, firmly, holding her in place. "I know. It's not always easy, to think of them, the ones who are gone. But—" he lit a match and held the flame to the wick of a candle "—I like to do it anyway. It's only a day or two early. The spirits won't mind." He put the candle down. "This one is for my sister, Josefina's mother, Silvia."
Against her will, Molly felt herself softly snared by the flickering gold candle flame, by the lilting rise and fall of his voice. "Silvia was one year older than me. She loved these cookies. She loved anything American. She was very beautiful – Josefina looks like her very much." His long fingers touched the edge of the jar. "I love her."
He raised his head, lit another match. "These two are for my parents. My mother, who loved flowers and her patio. My papa—" he grinned "—who loved to make money."
The trio of lights danced on his dark eyes when he handed her the box of matches. For a moment, she hesitated, then opened the box and took out a match. From the remaining holders on the table, she chose a matched set of round red glasses, and lit the votives within, an odd calm settling over her. "These are for my parents," she said, and her voice was strong. "My mother will be loving the smell of this coffee, and my father will be snorting over this foolishness, even though it pleases him to be remembered."
She looked at Alejandro, and he waited patiently, his hands resting easily on his long thighs, then she lifted one finger and went to the fridge, took out one of the beers her brother had left behind and carried it back to the table.
Amid the mostly glass candle holders was one carved of pine, one she'd picked up at a church bazaar one Christmas. Molly moved it in front of her, and opened the box of matches before she could chicken out,
then lit it and held the match to the unburned wick. It caught and flared in a wide, wax-fed blaze, then settled into a steady yellow flame. She shook out the match.
"This one is for Tim," she said, and as if he heard his name, the essence of him filled her. It was not a sad feeling, but a joyous one, and she touched her chest in wonder. "He smelled of wood chips and soap." She opened the beer. "He loved beer and making things with his hands." A sweetness moved in her. "He was sturdy and strong and he loved this land with all his heart. Almost as much as he loved me."
Alejandro listened, a gentleness on his face. "He would have liked you very much, Alejandro. You could have talked roosters." Some of those tears, the ones she thought must be finished by now, slipped over her face, and she left them, because he would have liked that, too. "I loved him. I miss him a lot sometimes, still."
Alejandro leaned over the table and took her hand. "You love him. The dead, they never leave us. Not as long as we remember." And suddenly he picked up a cookie. "For Silvia!" he said, and mugged eating it with great gusto.
"For Tim!" she said, and took a great swig of beer, drinking it as he would have, in a big thirsty swallow, once, twice, three times. Some spilled over the side of her mouth, and she laughed, wiping it away with the back of her hand. "I'll have to practice that part."
He made a face at the cookies. "I never liked these very much."
"Oh, I do! I'll eat them for her." She reached for them and put one in her mouth, and ate it. "Thank you, Alejandro. For everything. The dinner tonight, and this." The entire evening had broken down her walls, and she said impulsively, "I'm really going to miss you. You've changed my whole life."
He bowed his head, as if the words pained him.
"I'm sorry," Molly said. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. Forget I said anything."
"No, I want to remember." He gave her a somehow wistful expression. "I want to remember all of these days we have had here."
For one long moment, she ached to close the distance between them. She even saw herself, in her mind, kneeling before him, touching his face, kissing his hands, saw it so clearly it was almost as if she'd done it. But there was, tonight, an odd sort of distance between them, and it was impossible to reach over it, as it would have been to kiss a stranger in public. "So do I," she said, and then, hesitantly, "Alejandro, are we making a mistake?"