The Memory of Light

  The next day, Mona, E.M., Gabriel, and I climb into a white van driven by Dr. Desai’s husband. His name is Wilhelm, but everyone calls him by his last name, Fritz. He’s a bald little man with stringy arms and these intense blue eyes that sparkle when they focus on you. He wears cowboy boots and overalls, speaks with a German accent, and finds everything extremely funny. I have a hard time imagining him and Dr. Desai together. In the van, Gabriel sits in the front seat, E.M. and I sit on the second seat, and Mona sits in the way-back by herself. When I look back, she is punching numbers on Rudy’s cell phone.

  E.M. notices the phone too. “You need to stay away from that guy. He’s garbage.”

  “I don’t tell you how to live your life, do I?” she replies without anger. She takes the iPod out of her pocket.

  “He gave you that too?” E.M. asks.

  Mona shrugs.

  “Are you blind? The guy’s an addict. He steals pills from patients, uses half of them, and sells the rest.”

  I look at E.M. How does he know all this about Rudy, and since when does he care what Mona does? I wait for Mona to respond, but she just sticks the earbuds in her ears and begins fiddling with the iPod. “His taste in music sucks,” she says, “but beggars can’t be choosers.”

  The second day I was in the hospital, after Dr. Desai convinced Father to let me stay, Barbara sent over some clothes and my backpack with all my schoolbooks. Somewhere in the backpack, I know, I have my favorite pen, the one my mother gave me for my eighth birthday. I dig through the jeans and underwear and T-shirts until I find it. Then I open the green notebook, and after a while, I write.

  On the way to Dr. Desai’s ranch. Gabriel is deep in conversation with Fritz. They are discussing a Hindu scripture called the Bhagavad Gita. It amazes me, all that Gabriel knows, and how unconcerned he is about showing off. Mona is in the back listening to music. E.M is staring out the window. Actually, right now he’s staring at me.

  “What you writing about?” E.M. asks.

  “As a matter of fact, just that second I was writing about you.”

  He gives me a look that probably would have frightened me two weeks ago. I’m about to start writing again when he says, “When you write about me, make sure you say how smart I am. People need to know I’m as smart as Psycho Princess back there or you or maybe even Gabriel. Just different smart.”

  “It’s nonfiction,” I say.

  He studies my grin for a few moments. “Ha, ha,” he says. “That’s like a joke, right?”

  “A poor attempt at one,” I admit.

  “That’s good,” he says. “People are usually afraid to joke around with me. Could be you’re growing some hair on your chest.”

  I touch my chest instinctively. “Ha, ha. That’s like a joke, right?” I mimic him.

  He smiles. I go back to my notebook and am about to write when E.M. speaks again. “Make sure you tell people about Huichi.”

  “What should I tell them?”

  “Tell them he was the Aztec god of war. He gave strength in battle to warriors. Those who fought with courage, not just in battle, but everywhere. The Aztec warrior lived with courage. He looked for ways to show his courage, to please Huitzilopochtli.”

  “Is that what you try to do, please him?”

  “Yeah. But not like he’s real. He’s like an idea. A belief. I don’t talk to him.” He glances at the back of Gabriel’s head. “When you follow Huichi, you know you’re on your own. You know you’re gonna die and that’s it. But that’s all right. That’s just another fact you need to be courageous about. Huichi warriors are not afraid of dying. But they don’t go around killing themselves, either, when it gets rough. That’s not the way of courage, the way of Huitzilopochtli.”

  “You’ve never been afraid?” I ask.

  He looks around as if to make sure no one can hear us. Mona is lost in her music, and Gabriel and Fritz are absorbed in conversation. “I’ve been afraid. I let my father abuse my mother and the rest of us and I didn’t do nothing. For years I didn’t do nothing. I thought the brave thing was to put up with it. That’s what I told myself. Truth is, I was a coward. Not just afraid. That’s nothing. I was a coward.”

  He watches me quietly for a few moments — or, rather, he lets me catch a glimpse of him without the warrior mask he likes to wear. What I see for the first time is someone who has pain inside of him. Someone struggling against the dark just like me. Then he turns his face toward the window and I know the conversation is over.

  After a few minutes, I write:

  E.M. lives to be brave, to please his Huichi, even though he knows Huichi is not real. Huichi is someone he made up, but he doesn’t care. The belief gives him strength. What do I believe in? How can I find something to believe in, to give me strength?

  I close the notebook and look out the window. When I could still pray, I prayed for my mother to get well, and then, as her illness progressed, I prayed for her suffering to end. That’s the one prayer that did get answered … eventually. Then I stopped praying. I wasn’t angry at God, because being angry is still a form of talking to Him. All the talking on my part just stopped. That moist place from where words sometimes bubbled up dried out. And now? Now I lie awake sometimes wishing there was someone who would whisper a word to me, something I could hold on to.

  I don’t know how much time passes before I notice we are off the main road and driving through hills covered with bluebonnets. In the distance, you can see dark-brown and black cows, some of them with calves nuzzling them. Fritz and Gabriel have stopped talking. Gabriel has his eyes closed, but I can tell he isn’t sleeping because his back and neck are very straight. No one can fall asleep and keep his head so perfectly balanced.

  Then we turn onto a dirt road. Gravel pings the bottom of the van. “There it is,” says Fritz. Everyone except Fritz and Gabriel cranes their necks so we can see out the front window.

  In front of us is a white house, a red barn, various shedlike structures, and two small log cabins. Big leafy trees tower over all the buildings except the barn. The whole place looks like an oasis of shade. The main house is two stories tall and has a wraparound porch full of rocking chairs painted different colors. Behind the barn, I can see a corral with a sleek, brown horse prancing from side to side. Chickens scatter every which way as we drive up and park under an immense tree next to the house.

  Fritz opens his door and steps out. The rest of us stay seated. It’s almost as if the peacefulness of the place keeps us from moving, like we’re afraid to break the silence with the noise we each carry within us.

  “Well, come on,” urges Fritz. “No one’s gonna bite you.”

  No sooner has he said this than two dogs come up to the van and start barking. The dogs have long black-and-white hair and bushy wagging tails. Gabriel opens his door first, and the dogs immediately jump on him and begin to lick his face. Mona opens the side door to the van tentatively. Fortunately, the dogs are not quite as friendly with me and her, and they growl at E.M., which makes Mona laugh.

  “Julius! Cleo!” Fritz shouts. He points a stern finger at the two dogs, and they lower their heads, tuck in their tails, and approach E.M. apologetically. E.M. stretches out his hand to pet them, but then changes his mind.

  “Coward,” I whisper to him, and he gives me a look.

  We grab our small bags from the back of the van and follow Fritz and the two dogs. When we are in front of the log cabins, Fritz says that one is for the girls and the other is for the boys. “Make yourselves at home. Lunch is in about half an hour. Then I’ll show you around. Lina said we should find you some work.” He turns around and walks off toward one of the sheds. Julius and Cleo follow him.

  “Lina must be Dr. Desai,” E.M. says.

  “E.M., you’re a genius,” Mona says.

  Our cabin has two rooms: one big room that is used as a living room and bedroom, and then a small bathroom. There are four easy chairs, a sofa in the middle of the room that looks extremely comfortable, and four
bunk beds around the edges of the room. The bunk beds are neatly made with Native American–patterned quilts. The only other furniture is a desk, a desk chair, a bookcase, two lamps, and a small refrigerator. All the windows are open and a crosscurrent of cool air blows through. Mona drops her bag on one of the bottom bunks, and I take one on the opposite wall.

  “This is nice,” she says. “It’s so …”

  “Serene,” I say, completing her thought.

  “Yeah. I was going to say comfy, but serene will do. I can see why Dr. Desai wanted us to come here.” She grabs the pillow from her bed and presses it to her face. “Smells like trees. What’s that?” She goes over to the refrigerator. “Look at this!” she says when she opens it. “It’s full of beers!”

  “What?”

  “Just kidding,” Mona says. “Had you there for a moment, didn’t I? Actually, it’s got water bottles. Want one?”

  “No, thanks.” I cross to the bookcase. One shelf has a dozen or so books from the Dalai Lama and other Eastern and Indian authors. Another holds some of my favorite novels, like Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and Pride and Prejudice, along with another of my favorite books, The Collected Poems of Robert Frost. A third shelf carries cowboy books.

  Mona plops down on one of the easy chairs and takes a swig of water. “I was in the worst mood after talking to Rudy this morning, and the whole trip here I felt like roadkill. As soon as I saw this place, I felt better. This is like another world where all the ugliness out there can’t get in.”

  “Why did talking to Rudy put you in a bad mood?” I ask.

  Mona ignores my question. “I bet you no one has ever tried to kill themselves in this place,” she says.

  I think of my room back home and everything I’ve done to make it my space, a place where I like to spend time. I placed two of Mamá’s paintings of roses on the walls. One of them, the one Juanita and I both love, is of an old white fence covered with pink roses. The mesquite tree outside the windows blocked the sunlight into my room, but I liked it that way. I always kept it neat, with all my books in their proper places. There were never any clothes on the floor, like in Becca’s room. I remember Father coming to my room once and saying, “If someone who didn’t know you or your sister looked at your rooms, they’d think you were the smart one.”

  “There you go again,” Mona says. “Your mind takes off God knows where all of a sudden. I was watching you on the trip down here. You were in another world after you and E.M. had your heart-to-heart. At least Gabriel closes his eyes. Yours just get glassy, like a dead fish.”

  “You’re funny.” I take the book of poems by Robert Frost from the shelf and lie on my bed.

  “You haven’t said anything about the voice Gabriel hears,” Mona says. She holds the plastic bottle in front of her face and examines it.

  “You haven’t said anything either,” I counter.

  “I almost wish he hadn’t told us.” She places the bottle on her lap.

  “Why?” I sit up.

  “I don’t know. I can’t help looking at him differently now. Have you ever watched any of those shows where they interview, like, a serial killer or a terrorist, and there you are, looking at this ordinary, boring face, and you know they’ve got this other life inside of them? Who’s the real person there? The nice person you see or the monster inside?”

  “That’s not the way it is with Gabriel,” I say.

  Mona grins one of her I know a lot more than you do kind of grins. “He may not be a serial killer, but he’s sick. Sicker than you can imagine. Tell the truth, don’t you look at him a little differently now?”

  “A little,” I say honestly. “But I look at you differently than when I first met you. I look at E.M. a lot differently than when I first saw him. Isn’t that what happens when you get to know people? You look at them differently? E.M. used to give you the creeps, remember? Does he give you the creeps now?”

  “He’s still a pain,” Mona says. “But we’re not seeing him in normal circumstances. When someone gets him real mad, will he be able to control his anger enough not to beat the living daylights out of them? And Gabriel? We’re all mental, but what he’s got is worse because it’s not obvious. You can see him begin to rip if you look carefully. Trust me on that one. He’s going to split wide open.” There is an edge in Mona’s voice I have never heard before.

  “Is this really about Gabriel? What’s bothering you? What’s going on with Rudy?”

  Mona takes the last swig of water and then she crushes the plastic bottle. “Nothing. Not one thing.”

  “Mona?”

  “I’m going out for a walk.” She stands up, heads for the door, and then stops. “Look, you’re new at this, so you don’t know jack. We’re friendsy and supportive of each other and all that, but ultimately you got to save yourself. You’re the only one that can do it. You can’t save me and I can’t save you, and when Gabriel starts to go, or me or E.M., you have to get out of the way and worry about yourself.”

  “Mona, wait,” I say, standing up as well and moving toward her. “What’s wrong?”

  She stands in the middle of the room. I wait in front of her until she lifts her eyes and sees me. She seems so lonely, and I wonder if in talking about Gabriel, she was really talking about herself. Warning me to move away, for my own sake, because she’s exploding.

  I hug her. I hug her without thinking, without realizing that I’m doing it until my arms are around her. This must be what healthy people do with their friends.

  “I’m sorry,” she says when I let her go. “I’m off today. I have these days sometimes. I’ll be all right. Don’t worry. I’m nervous about Lucy. I think Rudy is really going to find her. Don’t tell anyone about him, all right?”

  “E.M. knows about him. He saw you call him. He thinks Rudy’s bad for you.”

  “I know. That was a stupid thing to do in the van. I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I’m thinking of you. Be careful. With Gabriel. With me. With E.M. Seriously. You come first. You need to use your head … even if it’s not clicking right.”

  “Okay, I hear what you’re trying to tell me.”

  She walks away. I stand in the same spot for I don’t know how long.

  The following morning after breakfast, Fritz gives us our work assignments. Mona is going to paint the inside of one of the sheds. Fritz gently nixes her color choice, chartreuse, and instead gives her a can of dull Spanish white. Gabriel and Fritz are going into town to buy roses for a garden that Gabriel will design and plant. Starting tomorrow, I will help Gabriel with the garden, but my job today is to help E.M. repair a patch of broken fence on the north side of the property. I look quickly at E.M. when Fritz announces this, and the wicked smile on his face informs me that he’s relishing the opportunity to show me what hard work is all about.

  Besides those official assignments, everyone will have barn duty every day at six a.m. — milking the four cows, cleaning the stalls for the five horses, collecting eggs, and feeding the chickens and two goats. Starting tomorrow, after barn duty and breakfast, we will have our usual GTH, and sometime during the day, each one of us will have our individual sessions with Dr. Desai.

  At the same time we get our work assignments, we also meet the ranch hand, Pepe. He came to the ranch for treatment ten years ago and stayed. He’s thirty years old and looks like a kinder, gentler version of E.M.

  Pepe drives us to the broken fence in a vehicle that looks like a cross between a golf cart and a heavy-duty truck. I ride in the back, rattling with the tools. It’s early but the sky is already a very light blue. In an hour or so, it will be white-hot. I’m glad I was assigned to work with E.M. today and with Gabriel the rest of the week instead of painting with Mona. There’s something about being outside that is mentally refreshing, even if the temperature is a hundred degrees.

  Pepe shows us the segment of the fence that needs to be replaced. Twelve wooden posts are sagging with rot. Our job is to dig holes for the new posts that Pepe
brought the day before. The holes need to be three feet deep so the poles will stand five feet above the ground, the same height as the other fence posts.

  “Why can’t we just take the old posts out and use the same hole?” I ask.

  “Could work,” Pepe says, “if they hadn’t poured cement down each hole when they first built the fence. People used cement before they realized cement rots the wood.”

  “What are we going to use to hold the posts in place?” I ask.

  “Rocks,” Pepe says drily.

  “What rocks?”

  Pepe and E.M. grin simultaneously, like evil twins. Pepe doesn’t answer. After he leaves, E.M. grabs a shovel and tells me, “We take turns. I dig for five minutes and then you dig for five minutes. That way no one gets too tired.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we each work on separate holes? That would be faster, wouldn’t it?” I wonder if E.M. suggested taking turns because he doesn’t think I can dig a hole by myself.

  “We only have one post digger,” he says. “Anyway, we don’t want to go fast.”

  At first I think he wants to use our full three hours until Pepe returns, but as I watch him work, I realize that he doesn’t want to go fast because he wants to do it right. He clears the ground and loosens the soil in a circular area about three times the diameter of the post. Then he takes the post digger and scoops out bits of dirt and rock. I’ve never used a post digger before, so I watch him carefully. E.M. grabs the two handles, lifts them up a couple of feet, and then brings the post digger down with a force that seems neither too little nor too much. I hear the steel clash against the rocky soil and the grating sound of the digger picking up the loose dirt. Now and then, E.M. grabs a long spearlike iron rod, which he uses to dislodge rocks. He puts the rocks he finds in a separate pile. I can see why E.M. and Pepe smiled when I asked where we would get the rocks to hold the posts in place.

  He works for about five minutes and then I tap him for my turn. He hands me the post digger and steps out of the way. The post digger reminds me of a pair of giant chopsticks. The blades close when you pull the two handles away from each other and open when you bring the handles together, but I keep doing the opposite of what’s necessary. I look up to see if E.M. is laughing at me, but he isn’t. He waits for me to figure it out, which I eventually do. After a while, he lets me know it’s his turn. He digs slowly and patiently, conserving his energy, unlike me. I attack the earth as if it’s my mortal enemy, and I can already feel a blister forming underneath the leather gloves that Pepe gave me.