by Paul Pen
“All of you outside,” Elmer said. “This place is a hospital now and no visitors are allowed.”
The girls went out to the porch.
“Why don’t you make the necklaces?” Rose handed the basket to Daisy. “It’ll keep you busy.”
The little girl leapt with excitement, but Iris and Melissa slumped into the porch swing, showing no interest in the flowers.
Rick managed to put on the T-shirt without bending his arm too much. He marked the material with spots of iodine and blood. Through the window, he saw Rose saying goodbye to her husband.
“That’s it, go . . .” he whispered, buttoning up his pants.
The truck moved off down the dirt track. He could hear the girls talking on the porch. When he saw Rose return to the house, Rick positioned himself on the chair again, his arm outstretched on the table, beside the tweezers.
“Are you dressed yet?” she asked from the living room.
“Yes, unless a pair of bare feet frighten you.”
Rose walked into the kitchen and resumed her work. With the tweezers, she selected each needle she thought the most isolated, or the least tilted, and pulled on it with confidence. She collected them on a bandage that grew redder as she worked.
Rick didn’t show the pain he felt from each extraction. “You’re good at this.”
“Living here with so many daughters, you can imagine it’s not the first time I’ve removed spines from an arm.”
“I saw the accident the little girl had yesterday.”
Rick regretted his words when Rose’s tweezers stopped in the air. Perhaps she was recalling how the girl’s arm had miraculously healed during dinner, in full view of a stranger. She took longer than usual to select the next needle. When she pulled it out, it hurt more than the previous ones. Rose began removing them with greater speed. She stopped bothering to find the spines in the best position or move aside the shreds of skin and just plucked them one by one in order of proximity.
“We’re going to get this over and done with so you can leave the way you came,” she murmured.
She pulled out another spine, then found two that were close to each other and plucked them both with one tug. Before long she needed another bandage to collect them on. She ended up with quite a large pile.
She passed the tweezers over the arm one last time. “I can’t see any more.”
She applied another layer of iodine to the wound before covering it with several bandages she secured with surgical tape to complete the dressing.
“I really appreciate it,” Rick said.
She returned the iodine, surgical tape, thermometer, and other utensils to the metal case.
“At least it won’t get infected now, but you should see a doctor in the next village.” She closed the lid. “All I’ve done is what any mother would do.”
“Is there any better care than that?”
Rose didn’t respond. She stood up, threw the bloody spines and dirty bandages in the trash, and pushed her chair under the table.
“You heard my husband.” She gestured at the kitchen’s back door. “You can leave through there. If you want to take the breakfast bag, it’s still on the porch.”
Rose moved aside to let him past. Rick needed a few seconds to work out his next move.
“Come on, I have to see to the garden and hens,” she said.
Rick relaxed his legs and fell against the sink. He slid down the cabinet with his back against it until he was sitting on the floor. He saw his boots by a leg of the table.
“Whoa, I feel a little dizzy.” He exaggerated the sensation, laying himself down where he was.
He heard Rose click her tongue. Her feet moved in a circle, away and then back again.
“It must be the blood,” he went on. “I guess I lost more than you’d think.”
A teaspoon clinked inside a glass. Rose knelt and offered it to him, lifting his head.
“It’s water with sugar. It’ll make you feel better.”
Rick took a few sips of the sweet mixture and forced a cough.
“All right, come on. Can you get up? Go lie on the sofa for a few minutes.”
“I don’t know if I can.”
He deliberately slowed his movements. Rose offered support and picked up his boots from the floor. On the way to the living room, they passed the screen door.
“What is it?” Melissa asked.
“He had a bit of a spell. It’s fine.”
“Do you need anything from me?” asked Iris. “Anything at all . . .”
“He doesn’t need anything.”
Rose guided Rick to the sofa and dropped his boots to one side. She plumped up a couple of cushions and positioned them under his head and knees.
“You have ten minutes to recover.”
She sat in the armchair to wait. She appeared to have no intention of leaving him alone.
Iris’s voice reached them from the porch. “Mom?”
“No, he doesn’t need your help—at all.”
“It’s Lily.”
“What’s the matter with Lily?”
“She’s not here.”
“What do you mean, she’s not there?”
“She was here with her flowers, but now we can’t see her.”
“Melissa, tell me what’s going on. I don’t trust your sister,” Rose yelled without moving from her chair, watching Rick the whole time.
“It’s true, Mom,” Melissa confirmed. “We were here on the porch swing and Lily was in the sun with her necklaces. Now there’s just the basket.”
“All right, then go look for her.”
The sisters shouted the little girl’s name. They repeated it again and again, each time screaming louder, without moving from the porch. They started laughing after each yell. They seemed more concerned with winning some kind of prize for the loudest shriek than finding their sister.
With a snort, Rose got up from the chair.
“Don’t move,” she said to Rick.
When she went out onto the porch, the screen door hit the frame hard.
Rick leapt up from the sofa.
Iris stopped yelling when she saw how angry Mom was as she came out.
“Are you for real?”
Melissa stifled a laugh.
“Where’s”—Mom looked to one side, as if calculating whether Rick could hear her, to know which name to use—“Lily?”
“She’ll be around, Mom. She’ll turn up.”
“Around?” She waved a hand at the desert. “Climbing on the rocks and falling on a cactus? Or lifting up stones until she finds a scorpion like last time?”
Iris was about to say sorry when the honk of a horn made the three of them jump.
“Look, there she is,” she said.
Daisy was inside the truck, standing on the seat. She was moving her hands around the steering wheel as if driving. She yelled something unintelligible.
Mom pointed at the Dodge’s door.
“Who left it open?” She maintained the alarm in her tone. “The boy, of course. Who else could it be?”
“What does it matter, anyway?” Iris said. “Lily’s safe. It’s not as if she’s going to start the thing and smash into the house.”
A few words escaped Mom’s lips as she remembered something.
“The shotgun . . .” she whispered.
She ran out to the little girl.
“Did she say shotgun?” Melissa asked.
Iris nodded while she took advantage of the situation to sneak into the house. She was longing to see Rick alone.
“Shouldn’t we wait?”
“Oh, please. Mom worries about everything. That girl’s not going to pick up a gun and start shooting. You wait here if you want.”
But Melissa followed her in.
They found Rick in the living room. On two feet, he was unhooking the guitar from the wall. When he noticed that they’d come in, he cleared his throat. He tried to return the instrument to its place but missed the nail. He left it re
sting against the sofa before lying down.
“Feeling better?” Iris asked.
“A little, yes.”
She approached the sofa as nervous as she had been the night before. She wanted to talk to him, to discuss her memories of their forbidden encounter, but with Melissa there it was impossible.
“Weren’t you going to help Mom?” she asked Melissa.
“I want to speak to him, too.”
“Where is she?” Rick asked. “Your mother.”
“Telling Lily off out there.”
From outside they could hear the truck’s horn hooting over and over. Rick sat up, suddenly recovered. Iris sat on one side of him. Melissa sat on the other, moving the guitar aside.
“That guitar wasn’t here yesterday, was it?” he asked.
Melissa shrugged.
“Who plays it?”
“I do, a little.” Iris moved closer to Rick. “Do you want me to sing something for you?”
“Ignore her,” Melissa said. “She hasn’t got a clue.”
Iris felt like shoving her sister against the wall.
“Only Dad knows how to play it now, but he almost never does,” Melissa continued. “It was our eldest sister’s.”
Rick gestured at Iris. “Hers?”
Having his eyes on her rekindled the heat in Iris’s stomach, heat that rose to her cheeks. She blinked without looking away.
“No, our eldest sister.” Melissa picked up the guitar, showing Rick the side of the sound box with the name carved into it. “Her name was Edelweiss.”
Rick’s neck cracked due to some sudden tension. His eyes opened wider than normal. He swallowed so hard that Iris could hear it.
“Another sister?” His voice was no more than a sigh. “Older than you?”
“Two years older,” Iris said. “She would be eighteen now. She died last year.”
Rick’s eyes welled up until they looked like glass. He let out a sob.
“What is it? Don’t suffer for us. We’re getting through it, slowly.”
Rick stroked the name engraved on the guitar. His fingers were trembling.
“What’s wrong?” Iris asked.
He turned to Melissa. “Do you have a drawing of her?” he whispered.
Melissa nodded and got up to look for a sketchbook.
“Why’re you so sad?” Iris asked.
Rick was running his finger over each curve of the name carved into the wood. She noticed him trying to contain his words, as if he was afraid his voice would fail when he tried to speak.
“You don’t need to feel embarrassed with me,” Iris said. “Knowing you completely is what I long to do.”
Melissa returned with the sketchbook. She passed it to Rick, showing him a page with one of her last portraits of Edelweiss.
“I didn’t draw so well. It could’ve been a lot better.”
“You didn’t draw that well then or now,” Iris said, sticking her tongue out at her.
But it wasn’t true. The portrait was beautiful. Seeing it, Iris remembered the afternoon on the porch when Melissa had drawn it. The smell of honey that Edelweiss gave off after taking a bath. The golden glow of the sun on her hair, gathered in a side bunch with a cactus flower over the ear.
Peering at the portrait, Rick’s voice fractured when he started crying.
“No . . .”
Iris had seen a man cry only once: her father. She wanted to console Rick but didn’t know how. Melissa was no help. A tear fell onto the flower drawn in the portrait, making it wilt. Blotting Edelweiss.
Elmer stopped the pickup on one side of the road. Arriving on time at the gas station no longer mattered to him. He’d been dazzled as he drove past an unidentified gleam coming from somewhere in the middle of the desert, a flash of sun reflecting off something he had never seen before at that time of day. Then he’d discovered a lot of footprints on the dirt track, the ones the kid must’ve left with his boots the previous day, before he came across Rose and the girls. The strange thing was that at a certain point the footprints suddenly disappeared.
Elmer got out of the truck. The sun was hot on the back of his neck as he inspected the end of the trail, trying to understand the kid’s movements. He found a mound of stones. A marker. He turned around to scan the landscape. The flash that had dazzled him before caught his eye among the cacti. He set off toward it, trying to silence the bad thoughts.
Over a ridge, covered in rooted-up dry bushes by way of camouflage, he found a car. A Lincoln with Colorado license plates. The sweat on his back turned cold. Elmer searched it for any evidence that it belonged to Rick, his heart thundering in his ears. He found the keys hidden in the exhaust pipe. When he opened the trunk, an empty Coca-Cola bottle rolled toward him. His worst fears were confirmed when he found a brown folder.
Rose rounded the back of the Dodge while Daisy yelled imaginary directions at the steering wheel. The little girl stopped when she saw her mother in the window.
“I can drive, Mommy. It’s really easy.”
“And how do you drive without this?” From her apron, she produced her key.
“By moving this round thing.” The girl started play-driving again, her hands sliding around the wheel.
Rose took the chance to have a look behind the seat. As she’d feared, the shotgun was still there, along with a box of shells, but Daisy hadn’t noticed it.
The horn honked twice. “There was a dog on the road,” Daisy explained. “I didn’t want to run it over.”
“Come on, that’s enough. Out now. I’ve left the boy on his own.”
“No, I want to get to Daddy’s gas station.” Daisy concentrated on the landscape she was picturing in front of her.
“Come on, get out.”
The girl ignored her.
“I won’t say it again.” Rose opened the door.
Daisy honked the horn.
“Now!”
Daisy hunched her shoulders, frightened by the volume of her mother’s voice. She counterattacked by honking the horn again. And again. She honked it nonstop over Rose’s yelling. When her mother swooped to grab her, Daisy fled to the passenger’s seat, out of her reach.
“Bet you can’t catch me . . .”
Rose tried to reach into the cab, but the steering wheel thwarted her attempt.
“Please, honey, I have to get back to the house. The boy’s on his own.”
Daisy laughed. She jumped up and down. She evaded her mother’s hands. When the girl sang a little song to taunt her, Rose exploded.
“Get out!”
She struck the driver’s seat. Something fell onto the floor, under the steering wheel. Daisy opened the passenger-side door and leapt to the ground without saying another word.
Rose saw what had fallen under the wheel. It was a notepad, a little book she’d never seen. Its cover was decorated with false passport stamps.
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” said Daisy, behind her now.
“It’s OK,” she replied, without turning around.
All of Rose’s attention was on the notebook. She picked it up, and it opened by itself. It contained a folded piece of paper, thicker than the rest of the pages. Rose unfolded what turned out to be a map. A line showed a route through the states of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. It continued into Mexico, down Baja California. Several waypoints were marked, some of them crossed out. One of the waypoints was in the area of this house.
“What is it, Mommy?”
The little girl’s voice was distant.
Rose’s hands began to tremble.
She tried to fold the paper back up but was incapable of doing so. She ended up screwing it into a ball, which she threw onto the seat. She flicked through the notebook. Details written in ballpoint pen filled its pages. Names, dates, towns. On the last written page, Rose found her own name. And those of Iris, Melissa, Lily, and Elmer. When her eyes followed an arrow pointing to the words 6-YEAR-OLD TWINS, a deep groan came from her throat.
&n
bsp; “What is it, Mommy?”
Rose hid the notebook in the front pocket of her apron. Without stopping to think, she picked up the shotgun. She inserted two shells. Her hands no longer trembled.
“Is there a coyote?” the little girl asked when she saw the gun.
“Stay behind me. Keep close.”
Daisy obeyed the order, walking right up against her. Grit shot out under Rose’s firm strides. She marched even harder when she discovered that Iris and Melissa weren’t on the porch. The entire wooden structure creaked when she climbed onto it. She opened the screen door as if trying to tear it from its hinges. Once inside, she asked Daisy to lock herself in her room with Dahlia, confirming the story about the coyote that the little girl had herself invented. Daisy went upstairs without complaint.
Rose arrived at the living room, hiding the shotgun to one side of the door frame. Sitting on the sofa, Iris, Melissa, and Rick looked up. The boy had red eyes, like he’d been crying. On his knees lay Melissa’s sketchbook, open to a portrait of Edelweiss.
“Melissa, Iris: out,” said Rose. “Now.”
“What is it? The whole house shook when you came in.”
“Your father told you not to talk to the stranger.”
“He’s not a stranger, his name’s Rick.” Iris rested her chin on his shoulder.
Rose’s back went as rigid as the barrels of the weapon she was concealing.
“Go up to the twins’ room right away.” Her voice was stern. “Lock yourselves in with them.”
Rick’s frown eased.
“What twins?” Melissa winked, trying to warn her that she’d put her foot in her mouth, like they did sometimes with Socorro.
“Go.” The severity of Rose’s tone and the fact that she didn’t care about mentioning the twins in front of Rick conveyed the seriousness of the message. “Up to the girls’ room. And lock the door.”
Her daughters got up.
“Mom, tell us what’s happening. You’re sweating.” Iris turned to the young man. “Don’t go without saying goodbye.”
Rose took Iris by the shoulder and pushed her out of the living room. “Go!”
“You spiked me with your nails!”
Melissa tried to placate her sister, who huffed with indignation. She led Iris upstairs, whispering something in her ear. Before reaching the upper floor, Iris gave Rose a bitter look, her brow knitted. Rose kept the shotgun hidden, concealing it with her body, until her daughters were out of sight.