In Perfect Light

  “I told Grace to go fuck herself—did I ever tell you that?”

  “No. But—”

  “But what?”

  “She was standing up for you. You, Mister. Her son. And I told her to go fuck herself. I had a few choice words for you, too, as I recall.”

  “Things are different, now, Liz. And believe me, if Grace was around, we’d have problems again.”

  “I don’t believe that. I don’t think you believe it, either. You know what I think? I think it’s easier for you to keep Grace mostly out of your life. I think it’s easier for you to tell yourself how difficult she is.” Liz looked away from him. “You wished that she had died instead of Sam. You don’t know what to do with that, do you?”

  “What?”

  “I think we should try being a family, Mister.”

  “I can’t believe you said that.”

  “It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “What happened when you were with your family, Liz? What happened?” He shook his head and gulped down his glass of wine.

  “You always drink too fast when you get mad.”

  “Do I?” He got up, picked another bottle of wine, pretended to read the label, and opened it. He poured himself a glass and stared at it. “Liz, remember when you left me?”

  “Yes.”

  He took his eyes off the glass of wine and looked at Liz. “She made it very clear to me what she felt about you.”

  “You know something, Mister, that woman Grace didn’t like me very much. And that’s exactly how I wanted it. I wanted her to hate me. I made sure she’d hate me.”

  “And now you’ve just fucking changed your mind.”

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Okay, let’s just all be friends again. Just snap your fingers and say, Grace, just kidding, c’mon over.”

  “Stop it, Mister.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. He poured down his glass of wine. “You’re right, I do drink fast when I get mad.” He stared at the empty glass. “Grace has a long memory.”

  “Apparently, we do, too, Mister.”

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  “We’re not going to fight. Look, Mister, my family—my family is screwed up beyond repair. I mean it. It breaks my fucking heart to say it. You haven’t a clue, Mister. And that’s just it. I see that Grace is crazy about you. I can’t believe you don’t see that. It’s what scared me about her—that I could see how much she loved you. God, that scared me, Mister. Scared me to hell and back again.”

  “What makes you think we can just become an instant family?”

  “I didn’t say that. I just think we should try.”

  “It’s not going to work.”

  “Do you love me, Mister?”

  “Of course I love you.”

  “We’ll be bringing Vicente home with us soon. We’ll have a son. It won’t be easy. He’ll have a lot of special needs. And wouldn’t it be lovely to have Grace around him?”

  “What is this fantasy you’re having, Liz?”

  “Do you love Grace?”

  Mister bit his lip, then turned away.

  “Mister?”

  “Of course I love her.”

  “I think we should have her over to dinner. If you don’t call her, then I will.”

  Timing and Order in the Universe

  Had she had the time to glance at the morning paper before she walked out the door, Grace would have found herself staring at a picture of a smiling eight-year-old girl who is showing off a new dress. Purple. With ruffles. She has dark skin and a small flat nose. She is obviously a descendant of the Mayans. She is also an obviously happy child. Perhaps the photograph is just a fiction, a predictable construct. Nothing original about the image of innocence in the smile of a child. But the image does its work.

  The girl—according to the story—was taken from a grocery store the previous evening. Her mother had been picking out fresh apples at the Food Basket on the corner of Kerby and Mesa. When the woman turned around, an apple in hand, her daughter was gone. According to the story, a videotape revealed a man taking the girl by the hand. The camera watched passively as they disappeared out the door.

  The authorities speak of hope. But she is already dead and lying in an alley. The man who took and molested and strangled her is lying in bed. He is sleeping peacefully. In a few days, the police will arrest him. He will confess. The public will be spared the details.

  The girl will not be found until the late afternoon. But this morning, hope lives in the heart of a mother.

  Grace has no knowledge of this. Nor does Andrés Segovia.

  This sad and disgusting and familiar story of a missing girl has saved Andrés from appearing in the newspaper. The television stations, having gotten wind of a strange tale of a man who died in a hallway of an apartment complex, were already considering leading off the broadcast with the story. The bartender had already been taped by two of the three major stations. “This guy just starts beating on him,” the bartender explains, his hands waving in the air for emphasis. But the story was quickly abandoned in the rush to post pictures of a little girl on the screen. Today, the girl’s story is the only story in the city.

  Andrés will be spared.

  Dave shoves aside the headlines in the newspaper in disgust and turns his attention to Andrés Segovia’s case. In the afternoon, he will be taken before a magistrate. A cattle call, no doubt. He will ask that his client be allowed to post bail. The DA will argue that his client is dangerous, that he is a flight risk. He will argue that the police found his client at work. The DA will argue that the only reason Andrés did not run was because he did not know the man he had beaten at a bar was dead. “Exactly,” he will say, “because the man walked away—and according to witnesses and the police report, the man himself begged that the police not be called.” He goes over his presentation in his head. There is work to be done. He will be ready. He will leave nothing to chance. He is a good lawyer—a very good lawyer. He knows the system. He is not ashamed of what he does. Today he will use his knowledge to help free a man from jail. He believes Grace will help save him. He wants to believe this. He tells himself, As long as he keeps going to see Grace. Then repeats it. As long as he keeps going to see Grace.

  Mister opens the newspaper and shakes with anger. He does not know the girl. But he cannot help himself. He does not understand why a man would do this. He tells himself that his anger is useless—but anger has its own logic, has little to do with utilitarian philosophies. He puts the newspaper down, and when Liz takes the newspaper in her hands, he tells her softly, “Don’t.” He takes her hand and leads her to the shower. They undress each other, wash each other, kiss each other. For a moment, they are clean. But they cannot stand under the shower forever.

  Mister will think of Vicente all day long. When he comes to us, I will not let anything happen to him. I will not.

  Andrés, dressed in the bright orange jumper befitting a man of his status, is trying not to hope. Hope has never brought him anything but despair. He thinks of the man. His name was William Hart. He had a name. He is not sorry for what he did. Was William Hart sorry for what he did? To him? To a hundred other boys? Was he sorry? He could tell them that he did not mean to kill him. This may be a true statement. It may also be a false one.

  He does not want to see Dave. Dave’s eyes are always full of hope. He wants to hate him—because he is a lawyer, because he is a gringo, because the world is his fucking playground. Because, again, he has power over his life. May God damn him and his life and his hope and his power. When I see him today, I will show him my ugly heart. I’m not fucking sorry.

  What’s a Mother?

  Grace clenched her fists around the steering wheel, then loosened them. She repeated the motion several times. Gripped it—then let it go. Gripped it—then let it go. “Come to dinner, Grace.” Just when she was about to have them over, they beat her to it. Hell, it wasn’t a contest. And would she tell them? Would she mention
the word cancer?

  When I was nursing him, he’d look up at me, his dark eyes filled with gratitude. Even as an infant, he had a grateful heart.

  He learned to say gracias and my name on the same day—when he was two. For weeks everything was “Gracias” and “Grace.”

  When he was three, he’d wake each day at dawn and sneak into our room. He’d climb the rocking chair and watch us sleep. When we would stir, he’d laugh, climb down from that old chair, and jump into our bed.

  I thought Sam’s heart would break from all that morning joy.

  When bad dreams came, he’d wake up screaming. Sam and I would rush into the room. We’d kiss him back to sleep.

  When he was eight, I thought we’d lost him. Wandering the neighborhood, looking for his best friend’s dog. Sam and I spent hours walking up and down the streets, until we found him. “We can’t find the dog!” he wailed. We didn’t have the heart to lecture him. Sam woke each hour that night. To make sure he was safe.

  The doctor says that there’s a chance—that I should fight. I don’t mind dying. I don’t know why. I am a mystery to myself. I wonder. Should I fight? And if I lose?

  I pray, in death, a mother’s heart forgets the son she loved.

  Memory is the cruelest of God’s gifts.

  After a few times around the block, she parked the car, got out, and walked up to the front door. She rang the doorbell, and felt the beating of her heart. Like a wave about to crash into the rocky shoreline.

  Mister opened the door and stood there, smiling. Nervous, she could tell, but happy. He looked so young and unscarred, and she wanted him always to look like that. She had the urge to reach over and touch him, this man, this beautiful man who was her son. He had her eyes. And Sam’s face. And Sam’s smirk. “Hi, Grace,” he said as if the words were the first lines of a poem.

  She reached over and kissed him on the cheek.

  They smiled at each other.

  “That was very sweet, Grace.”

  “It was, wasn’t it?” she said. And then they laughed. And then he led her into his house.

  The house was neat. Rows of books on one wall, a painting on the other, wood floors that shone. “Nothing’s out of place,” she said. “Except for me.”

  “That’s not true, Grace.” She looked up and found herself staring at Liz. She wasn’t the wild-haired girl she’d remembered. She was wearing a deep blue sundress and makeup. She was much prettier than she’d remembered. Of course, she hadn’t seen her in over a year—and that had been outside a movie theater in the dark. Grace smiled.

  “What will you have to drink, Grace?”

  “I want to say scotch. But I’ll settle for a glass of red wine.”

  “Why settle? On the rocks or neat?”

  “On the rocks.”

  Mister watched his wife and his mother. They both seemed to be in such perfect control. He was the only one in the room who didn’t know what the hell to do or say. He watched Liz leave the room, then heard the sound of ice on glass.

  “Who does the cleaning, you or Liz?”

  “We both do.”

  “That’s nice. Sam was always something of a slob.”

  “Yes, I remember. I must take after you in that category.”

  “Or maybe I just pushed you too hard.”

  Mister nodded. “Well, I came out just the way you and Sam raised me.”

  “You’re not a stalk of corn.” She sat down on the rocker she’d given him as a gift when he’d first moved out of the house.

  “I’m a Sam-Grace hybrid. An All-American, left-of-center bilingual Mexican who’s addicted to coffee, work—and to reading poetry in Spanish.”

  “You sound schizophrenic.”

  “He is, Grace. He really is.”

  They both watched Liz as she walked into the room, carrying a small tray with three drinks and a small bowl full of salted peanuts. She lowered the tray and let Grace take her drink, then turned to Mister, who took his glass of wine. She set the tray down, took her drink, then placed the peanuts in the middle of the table. Her movements were steady and sure, a woman completely at home in her own skin.

  Grace took a sip from her scotch and nodded. She noticed Mister was watching her. She looked at him. “Still watching people, huh?”

  Liz nodded.

  Mister shrugged. “I used to watch you when I was a kid. You’d be sitting at the table or in the yard, and you’d be lost in thought. And I knew you were thinking about one of the people who’d come to you. They were written all over you. Sometimes I felt like our house was inhabited by all the people you were counseling. You know, I was a greedy little kid. I was a sponge for affection.”

  “I never thought of you as being that needy, Mister.”

  “I kept my own counsel.”

  “You still do.” Liz’s comment wasn’t so much an accusation as a statement of fact. Mister said something to her, and she laughed. And she said something else. Only Grace didn’t hear them—or didn’t really care what they’d said. She only knew that she’d stayed away too long, and she felt stupid and silly, and as she took a sip of scotch she thought it was all very good, the scotch and Mister and Liz and her. It had all been a big joke, the kind that took a long time to tell, the kind that went on and on forever, and when you got to the punch line, the joke was all on you. All this time she’d thought they were strangers—but they weren’t. She wanted to break out laughing. She looked at Liz. Isn’t she pretty? Isn’t she?

  She could hear them in the kitchen, knew that they were tasting his red sauce, deciding what it needed. But it would be perfect. Good cook, her son. She heard the pop of a cork. She noticed a piece of folk art hanging on the wall. It was a painting on clay, the figures almost childlike. God’s torso broke through the clouds in the sky. He was the center of all light as he held a small globe in his hand. The earth, his toy. And in the garden, the usual suspects, a serpent wrapped around a tree, smiling in that particularly sinister way that serpents in the garden always smiled. A bitten apple littered the otherwise pristine lawn. Adam and Eve were walking away from the garden, both of them covering themselves with a cloth. Eve wore her requisite and predictable look of guilt, and there was a look of pain and stunned disbelief on Adam’s face.

  Grace was mesmerized by the drama. It dawned on her that death was a kind of exile. Exile from your body, from your home, from the garden you had maintained for a lifetime.

  Mister walked into the room and saw his mother studying his new piece. “You like it?”

  She nodded. “It’s very good. The serpent’s always in the shadows.”

  “Yes, he is. Serpents are sneaky. They’re—Grace?”

  “What?”

  “You’re smelling something?”

  “Yes, I am. Fresh paint.”

  “Oh, I’ve been painting Vicente’s room.”

  “You really are going to make me a grandmother.”

  “Yes. He’s beautiful, isn’t he, Grace?”

  “He is, Mister. He’s very beautiful.”

  “I’m happy, Grace.”

  Grace nodded. He was happy, and he was more graceful and at home with himself in that instant than she had ever remembered. And she didn’t feel sick. And she didn’t feel like dying. And she wondered if she had enough fight to send the cancer away.

  What About the Sky?

  Dave sat there—calmly—in the stale and dark and suffocating booth of the county jail. Andrés didn’t smile, didn’t wave, looked at him, then looked at the ceiling, then studied the booth, then looked back at Dave. Dave waved, then picked up the phone. Andrés sat down on the chair—slowly—then picked up his phone. “I didn’t call you.”

  “You’ve been sitting in here for three nights.”

  “Just three nights?”

  “You’ve turned me away four times.”

  “Just four times?”

  “You like it in here?”

  “Sure.”

  “Don’t be an asshole.”

 
“Maybe I am one. Maybe I’ve always been one.”

  “I’m getting you out.”

  “Maybe I don’t want out.”

  “You have five thousand dollars?”

  “What kind of question is that?”

  “Do you?”

  “I was saving for a new car.”

  “New car will have to wait. Get yourself a bicycle.”

  Bicycle? Done that. Been there. He pounded the table lightly. “They’ll let me out for five grand?”

  “Bail bondsman takes care of the rest.”

  “What do I have to do?”

  “Put up ten percent. Sign a document. Show up twice a week to see your bondsman.”

  “For how long?”

  “Until the trial.”

  “How long?”

  “Nine months—maybe longer.”

  “Speedy trial, huh?”

  “That’s as speedy as it gets.”

  “So they’d let me out?”

  “The law says that bail ought not to be an instrument of oppression.”

  “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “You don’t fool me, Andrés. You’re not as hard as you make out.”

  “Sure, Dave.” God, he wanted a cigarette. He could have one—if he got out. That was the only way to get a cigarette.

  “I’ll get you out.”

  “Garcia’s fired me by now.”

  “There are other jobs.”

  “Sure. What do I put in the blank that says, Have you ever been arrested?”

  “Why don’t you go back to school?”

  “Oh, there’s a thought. And how the fuck am I going to live? How the fuck am I going to make the rent? Jail is rent-free, Dave.”

  “What about the sky, Andrés? This is the most fucking sunless place I’ve ever been in.”

  “I get sun time. Every day.”

  “Yeah, for a whole hour. They cut your days into hours, here.”

  “How do you cut your days, Dave?”

  “I like my prison better than yours.”