by Donis Casey
One of Mrs. Carrizal’s shoulders lifted. Maybe, the gesture said. “He is better. He is not out of danger yet.”
“Miz Carrizal, may I see him? Matty has never been anything but kind and solicitous to me, and I fear I have only given him cause for grief.”
“Matt loves you, I think.”
Cindy’s face reddened and she looked away. “Yes, I know he does.”
When no further comment was forthcoming, Mrs. Carrizal took the initiative. “Sweetheart, do you have feelings for my son?”
“I am a married woman, Mrs. Carrizal.”
She smiled. “That is not what I asked, Cindy.”
Cindy puffed out an embarrassed laugh. “Of course I have feelings for Matty. He is a wonderful man. But I have no right. When I was first married to Geoff, Matty was my friend as always, but he kept a respectful distance. But in the past year or so, he has been importune, or so I thought. I couldn’t figure why he suddenly felt free to court me in such a forthright way, though he never went so far as to make me uncomfortable.” She paused to study her hands. “I think now that he was aware of Geoff’s unsavory womanizing. I told myself I didn’t encourage his familiarity, but the truth is I did not try very hard to discourage him. I liked his attention.” She felt tears prickle her eyelids. “When he asked me to help the refugees, I said yes not so much because I cared about the poor displaced wanderers. I wanted to be around Matty. He made me feel special in a way Geoff never did.” She looked up.
Mrs. Carrizal said nothing, so Cindy continued. “Seems everyone knew of Geoff’s affairs but me. Matty, Web Kemp, my brother, my father. Even Bernie Arruda, it seems. I feel like a fool, a figure of fun. Geoff tried to make me feel like our troubles were all my fault. And he succeeded, too.”
“Sometimes if man feels guilty for something he’s done, he will turn the blame onto the very one he has wronged.” Mrs. Carrizal sounded sympathetic.
The smile Cindy gave her held no humor. “You may be right, ma’am, but I can’t say that makes me feel a whole lot better.”
“So what do you intend to do?”
“I don’t know. There is no good solution, I fear. I feel such anger. How can I ever let Geoff touch me again? And I can hardly look at my brother, or Web.”
“Or Matt?”
“I know he was trying to spare my feelings, but I wish he had told me,” she admitted.
“Shall you leave Geoff?”
Cindy made a sound that resembled a laugh. “Elizabeth thinks I should, that’s for sure.”
Mrs. Carrizal raised her eyebrows, awaiting a more satisfactory response.
Cindy’s gaze wandered off into space. “I would leave if I had somewhere to go, even if it meant being a divorced woman.” She straightened in her chair, tired of the subject. “I apologize, Miz Cee. I surely did not come over here to burden you with my small troubles when you have such big ones of your own. I came to see Matty, to sit for a while at his bedside and pray, if you will permit it.”
***
Mrs. Carrizal led Cindy through the house to the airy little bedroom tucked into an upstairs corner. The door was open and the bed was surrounded by chairs, but at the moment no one was holding vigil but a small statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe on the bedside table, smiling her blessing on the still figure in the bed. Matt lay on his back under a quilt that rose and fell with his quiet breathing. His complexion was so washed out that at first Cindy did not notice that his neck was completely wrapped in a clean white bandage.
She went to her knees beside the bed. “Oh, Miz Carrizal, he is so pale!”
Mrs. Carrizal put her hand on the younger woman’s shoulder. “You did not see him before, querida. The tide has turned, I think.”
“May I sit with him for a spell?”
“Of course. Your prayers will do him much good. I will return in a little while.”
Mrs. Carrizal turned to leave the room but pulled up short at the sight of a figure standing pressed against the wall next to the bedroom door. “Levi!”
Cindy swiveled on her knees at Mrs. Carrizal’s exclamation. Levi was leaning back on his hands, watching them with a troubled look on his face. “Levi, what are you doing skulking there? You gave us a start!”
Levi pushed off the wall and took a step into the room. “I’m sorry, Miz Carrizal. I didn’t aim to hide from you. I heard Cindy say she was coming over and I reckoned to join her and pay my respects. I called when I came in the front door, but when nobody answered I come looking for Matt’s room. I figured you’d all be in here. I just stepped in a minute before you…”
Mrs. Carrizal nodded. “If you would like to stay with Cindy it’s all right, son. Take a chair.”
After Mrs. Carrizal left them, brother and sister regarded the invalid in contemplative silence for some minutes.
“He looks peaceful, don’t he?” Levi leaned forward and studied Matt’s wan face. “You expect he knows we’re here?”
“I hope he does.”
Levi did not lift his eyes. “I knew you were friends with Matt, Cindy, but you weren’t keen on visiting before.” His statement held a question. “I’m surprised you came over without your friends. I was beginning to think you never took a step without Elizabeth said to.”
“Elizabeth has been over already. Besides, I thought before that Matty was dying.”
“But now you heard he may live, so you decided to pay a visit?”
She gave him an odd look. “That’s right. My prayers may do some good, now.”
Levi crossed his arms and nodded. “Maybe they will. I’ll sit with you until you’re ready to go home and face Geoff.”
Sad to Leave a Friend
Blanche walked outside by herself after breakfast was over and sat down on the innertube swing that hung from a branch of the big eucalyptus tree in the middle of her aunt’s back yard. All the citrus trees were in full bloom now, and the perfumed air was dizzying. She swung back and forth for a time, glad that Chase was occupied elsewhere and she could enjoy her own thoughts. She caught sight of something white in the grass at her feet and leaned over to pick it up. A baseball, probably overlooked after their game the other day. She turned it over in her hand and saw a large “A” inked into the white leather. This was Artie’s ball, which made her smile.
She wished that Artie could come over. She could not remember when she had had such a nice friend all of her own, a playmate who was not a relative or schoolmate whom she had to get along with whether she wanted to or not.
Blanche was aware of the adult turmoil going on around her, but it did not concern her overmuch. In her experience, grown-up people died all the time, and there was no use to dwell on it. You could get tetched in the head that way. She was sorry about what happened to Matt Carrizal, though, because Artie was so sad that he might lose his brother. They had talked about it a lot since it happened. Two of Blanche’s own brothers had died when they were little, but Blanche did not remember either one. She just knew that her parents still grieved over them all these years later.
Artie had been oddly comforted to hear that. He did not like to think there would come a day he would not remember how much he loved Matt.
Blanche was still gazing into the distance when she noticed that one of Mrs. Carrizal’s goats was out again and had somehow made its way through the back gate and into Aunt Elizabeth’s yard. It had knocked over Aunt Elizabeth’s leaf barrel and was nibbling through the avalanche of spilled trash and greenery. Blanche laughed and stopped swinging. She admired those two naughty little creatures who refused to stay put, but Aunt Elizabeth would be upset if one of them ate the bark off one of her hydrangea bushes and killed it.
She slipped Artie’s ball into her skirt pocket before she stood up and walked over to the goat, who was already trotting over to meet her, shameless.
“Which one are you, now?” Blanche wondered. “And where is your sister, you bad girl?”
The goat bleated a reply that Blanche could make nothing of. She seized the g
oat’s collar with the intent of leading it back to its pen when she noticed something long, shiny, and pink hanging out of its mouth. She leaned down for a look and saw that it was a piece of sateen ribbon, perhaps six inches long.
She was unsurprised. There was nothing a goat would not eat. “Where did you get this, Nina or Chica, whichever one you are? Did you pluck this out of Aunt Elizabeth’s trash or are you dining on one of Juana’s hair fancies?” The goat gagged a little but otherwise had no objection when Blanche pulled at the half-eaten ribbon and drew forth a piece of wet and half-chewed paper still knotted into one end. Blanche made a disgusted sound before dropping the whole mess onto the grass and proceeding to lead the goat back to its own side of the fence.
She had been so occupied that she had not noticed her mother and Aunt Elizabeth standing near the swing, watching her.
Alafair smiled when Blanche started. “I’m sorry, honey, we didn’t mean to sneak up on you. I declare, them goats are a caution, aren’t they? What is that she was eating on?”
Blanche’s lip curled. “It’s just a hank of ribbon tied around a disgusting chewed up piece of paper. At least that’s what I think it is, being as it’s already mostly digested. Look yonder, she knocked over your leaf barrel, Aunt Elizabeth, and went to snacking. She probably was tempted by all the fresh greenery that Chase and me hauled over from Miz Stewart’s house after her barrels got too full.”
“What a mess! I hope she confined herself to the mulberry leaves and left the oleander alone lest she poison herself!” Elizabeth did not really sound disturbed about the prospect. “I’ll commence to righting the barrel if you two will get this Houdini of a goat back into her pen.”
Mother and daughter were happy enough to leave the clean-up to Elizabeth. They chatted pleasantly about inconsequential things as they returned the prodigal goat to the other side of the gate, and were making their way back toward Elizabeth’s house when Alafair told Blanche about their plans to start for home within the next day or two.
Blanche stopped walking and looked up at Alafair, stricken. “Oh, Ma, do we have to go so soon?”
Her reaction surprised Alafair. “Aren’t you homesick, honey? Don’t you miss Sophronia and Grace? Don’t you miss all your little friends at school and your teacher?”
Blanche thought about this. She had been too intrigued by her adventure to think about what she was missing. “I reckon I do.” She sounded reluctant. “But I like it here, Ma. It’s nice. It smells nice and it’s not cold, and it hasn’t rained once since we been here. And I like being with you and Daddy and just me all by myself.”
Alafair smiled. What must it be like to be lost in the middle of a crowd of children vying for your parents’ attention? “I know, baby girl. But you are all better now, and Doctor Moeur says it will be all right for you to go back home. Besides, me and Daddy have to go back right quick, and we don’t want to leave you. You know, your birthday is coming up and I have to make your cake for you, and I can’t do that if you’re here and I’m in Oklahoma. And you sure don’t want to miss Mary’s wedding.”
Blanche considered for a moment, torn. “I don’t want that,” she admitted.
“But you’ll miss Artie.”
Over the years, Blanche had had plenty of evidence of her mother’s mind-reading abilities, so she was not surprised at the statement. She gave a brief nod.
Alafair put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “It’s sad to part from a friend,” she acknowledged. “But if you want to see him again some day, there ain’t no law that says you can’t. Once you save up the money, you can come visit him. Or maybe he can come out to Oklahoma to see you.”
The thought seemed to cheer Blanche, however unlikely it was that she would be able to save enough to buy a train ticket to Arizona in the foreseeable future.
Alafair was comforted to see Blanche’s expression lighten. “Now, go on inside, sugar. It’s time for your medicine. I’ll be in directly as I pick up that hunk of goat cud and help your aunt clean up the trash pile.”
Blanche ran toward the back door as Alafair went back to pick up the mess her daughter had left on the lawn.
The Wayward Note
Alafair stood for a moment looking down at the cream-colored wad of paper attached to the pink ribbon, her hand extended in the act of reaching. Why had it not occurred to her the instant she saw it that Cindy’s love letters had been tied up in pink ribbon? Was this one of those?
If so, how on earth would the goat have gotten hold of it?
She tried to remember the last time she saw the letters. It was at Cindy’s house, after Elizabeth had fished them out of the flour bin. Alafair did not actually know where they were now. Elizabeth had told Cindy that she had put them in a safe place.
There was only one way to find out. She picked up the un-slimy end of the ribbon and lifted the paper off the grass. The goat had been thorough. The paper was reduced to a well-masticated, cream-colored ball. Alafair could see some dark smears where the ink had been, but there was no way she was going to be able to read whatever had been written on the paper.
Alafair had mucked sties and stalls, slaughtered and gutted animals for dinner, cleaned up after many a sick child, adult, dog, and cat, and changed thousands of diapers in her time, so a little goat saliva did not faze her. She began to peel the wet ball apart with her bare hands.
Nothing. Nothing legible, nothing even recognizable. Until she reached the very center of the ball, where the middle half of one crumpled page of dry paper lurked. She teased it apart and saw two and a half sentences clearly written in the same hand that had written the love notes to Cindy Stewart.
…meet me there if you can, amada. I have something to tell you that may change your mind. Your faith and trust have been betrayed…
***
“Elizabeth, what did you do with Cindy’s love letters? You told her that you would hide them in a place where no one would find them. Are they still there?”
Unlike Alafair, Elizabeth had retrieved a pair of gloves and a shovel from the garden shed before she began scooping trash and yard waste off the lawn. She straightened from her task and gave Alafair a puzzled look. “I did hide them where no one will seek.” She patted the bosom of her dress with a gloved hand. “I took a lesson from Cindy and keep them on my person all the time. Why do you ask, sister?”
Alafair held up the piece of pink ribbon. “The goat was eating on this hank of ribbon and the paper it was tied around. I figure it must have been in the leaf barrel.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “Well, shoot fire! How’d it get in there? I never threw any of the notes away. Besides, I saw with my own eyes that Dillon’s men raked out this barrel and went through the mess when they were here with their search warrant. And I burned everything that was in here after they were done. Every bit of this rubbish was put in the barrel after that, and most of it this morning by Levi and the kids.”
“And Geoff.”
Elizabeth was taken aback. “Geoff? What was he doing here?”
“He came to beg Cindy to take him back. Her and me was standing on her porch at the time, and Levi and the kids were raking up the leaf litter. She gave him short shrift, though, and went off after Levi to look in on Matt.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear that, at least. You suppose Geoff is still over there?”
“I don’t think so,” Alafair said. “After Cindy flounced off, Geoff puttered around for a while hauling limbs over here and dumping them. Trying to look useful, I reckon. But by the time I got Blanche and Chase into the house for breakfast, I expect he had got tired of waiting for Cindy to come back, because I saw him walking off down Willow.”
They gazed at one another for a moment, trying to fathom what it could mean. “Maybe this ribbon and paper are something entirely different than the love notes, and we’re making assumptions.” Elizabeth ventured. “After all, the goat did a fine job on it and we can’t really tell much about it.”
Alafair shook her hea
d and held out the scrap in her hand. “Afraid not. I did find one smidgen of writing that I can still read, right in the center of the chawed-up wad. Look, it’s the same handwriting. He was trying to get her to meet up with him. It looks to me like he was going to tell her about Geoff’s fancy lady.”
Elizabeth’s curiosity overcame her distaste for the masticated paper and she leaned in to have a look.
“Change your mind…” Elizabeth repeated the words thoughtfully. “About what? Running off with him? That’s Bernie’s hand, all right. I recognize the fancy ‘m’. One thing for sure, it wasn’t him who put that note into this barrel. It had to have been Geoff, surely. The timing is too perfect.”
“Now, I know you want to blame him, but don’t go to making a whole cloth out of two threads. The note could have just as easily got raked up from under some bush along with the clippings. Even if it was Geoff disposed of it, he might never have known it was there in an armload of yard waste.”
Elizabeth did not like this reasoning, but she had to admit it had merit. “Heavens, Alafair. Last night you asked what we ought to do next, and we never could come up with a good plan. I think Cindy Stewart has not told us everything and it’s time she spilled the beans.”
The Wrong Idea
They went into Cindy’s house through the front door and found her in the parlor, standing in front of a mirror and putting on a hat.
Her blue eyes widened and she half turned when they walked in, one hand poised above her head, ready to plunge a lethal-looking pin through the crown of her hat.
“Cindy,” Elizabeth opened, “we have to talk to you.”
Cindy placed the hat pin on a side table and raised her finger to her lips to shush them. “Levi went to lie down with a bad headache directly we got back from Miz Carrizal’s this morning. I was on my way to take some old clothes to the bBarrio, but there’s no hurry.” She kept her voice low. “Let’s go talk on the porch.”
She led them through the house and onto the raised back porch which ran completely across the rear of the house. Cindy had arranged a nice sitting area with cushioned wicker chairs, a table, a large rag rug, and potted plants.