After her father has a stroke, Carmen Morales is summoned back to the Kern County home she was kicked out of twelve years before, by the Grandmother – “Abuela” – who refused to intervene. She stays overnight with her cousin Kelsey and Kelsey’s boyfriend Dace. In the morning, she goes to the hospital, where she meets her Grandmother, her Aunt Maria, and her cousin Lupe. Abuela insists that she look after her father, because no-one in the family can deal with his insurance issues and Abuela herself is now blind. Carmen agrees to help, but her initial efforts to determine whether her father has insurance are unsuccessful.

Chapter 5: Echoes

The sign said “El Pero Sediento,” though I would always remember it as “Miguel’s.”

I guess that’s how Kelsey saw things, too, since that’s where she told me to meet her and Dace. “You can buy us dinner, big shot,” she’d texted when I left my brother. Since she was saving me the cost of a room at the Motel 6, I couldn’t complain.

It didn’t help that they wanted shots of tequila before they even looked at the menu. I begged off, though, using the same headache that kept me from Joaquim’s offer of a beer.

“You’re such a lightweight.” Kelsey’s humor had an edge, but that was nothing new.

I laughed it off. “Got soft living down south, you know? Forgot what hot really feels like.”

Kelsey clinked her shot glass with Dace’s, then hammered it back. “That’s better!”

“Tough day?” I guess my voice had its own edge.

“Fuckin’ A.” She slammed the glass back down with a crack. “So, what’s the word?”

I shrugged. “He’s in a coma. No telling if he can come out of it.”

A hiss escaped from between her front teeth. “Well, that sucks.”

“No argument.”

Dace set his shot glass down with less force. “Let’s get some food.”

“I’m guessing you washed out of sensitivity training,” Kelsey said sourly, giving him a look to match.

Rather than respond to Kelsey directly, Dace turned his dark eyes toward me. “You don’t look all broken up about it.”

“Jesus, Dace!”

I cut Kelsey off. “No, he’s right. Kind of. I mean . . . I should feel something, right? But I look at the guy in the bed, and I don’t even recognize him.”

“Like you didn’t recognize me?” she challenged.

“You’ve changed. You’ve all changed. You, Joaquim, Lupe. Abuela. But I recognize all of you. Padre, though . . . it was like I was looking at a complete stranger. He wasn’t there.”

Kelsey leaned back. “Sounds like you’ve been making the rounds.”

“Aunt Maria was with Padre when I arrived. Abuela and Lupe came in after – Abuela had to keep our senior aunt from clawing my eyes out. I couldn’t reach Uncle Augustin, but I talked to Innie – she had a bee up her butt, as well. Then I went and saw Joaquim.”

Dace shook his head. “Someone should have told your Abuela about birth control.”

Just the way he shook his head, the play of light and shadow on his thick, glossy hair, the jut of his chin . . . it could have been Diego sitting there. In fact, it had been . . . .

“Ooooh! I’m in heaven! She’s . . . Oh, sweet Jesus! Buenota!!!” Tomas leaned back from the picnic table and fanned himself theatrically, while the other boys chuckled knowingly. We often grabbed some nachos at Miguel’s after baseball; the Chilango who owned the place let us hang out if it wasn’t busy and we sat outside.

I turned my head to see what the fuss was about and was unsurprised to see Emilina, who’d started working there a summer or two before. Dressed in a white peasant blouse over tight, black, high-waisted pants, she cut a striking figure. Lean and tall for the women in our family, with a lively face and a dazzling smile.

I turned back to the rest and said, “Cochinos! She’s my cousin, okay? Can you keep your tongues off the pavement?

Diego barked a laugh, his teeth gleaming in the shadows under the big umbrella. “Wey, half the chavas around here are your cousins! What was the deal with your grandparents, anyway?”

With an effort, I forced myself back into the present moment. Kelsey had the comeback I hadn’t thought of, all those years before. “Shit, Dace, she only had five. Most of the kids we went to school with were from way bigger families.” She smirked. “Maybe your grandad’s huevos didn’t measure up?”

“Five?” He ignored Kelsey’s dig completely and looked at me. “I only know about four. Who’m I missing?”

“Padre was the baby,” I explained. “Uncle Angel’s the oldest – he’s married to Aunt Maria – then Uncle Augustin, then Kelsey’s Papi – Fernando – then Uncle Javier.”

“Have I met Javier?” he asked Kelsey.

“Probably not. He and Aunt Juana have a condo over in Taft. But he’s disabled and they don’t get out much. You probably know their son Jesus; he lives here with Uncle Augustin.”

“Oh, yeah. The gearhead. Let me guess – they all bred like rabbits.”

“Not Papi,” Kelsey said smugly. “I’m a golden only.”

“Three for Uncle Angel, two for Uncle Augustin, Uncle Javier had four, and Padre had three,” I supplied. “A pretty good haul, I guess.”

Kelsey nodded. “And almost all of them are still here – or close enough, anyway. Carmen and Emelina were the only ones to get away.”

“’Lina was hot,” Dace remarked appreciatively. “I wanted to take her to prom, but she was already going out with that loser.”

“That loser” had gone into the Air Force and married Emilina when I was still in high school. Last I’d heard from Kels they were living near Anchorage and had a bunch of kids. When you grow up in Buttonwillow, that’s what success looks like.

Kelsey got to her feet. “Come on, let’s order.” Dace seemed oblivious to both her sour tone and her scowl.

We went to the window to get some food. I didn’t hold out a lot of hope that it would be good. Even though the San Joaquin Valley is one of the most fertile growing areas in the world, almost all the really good stuff gets shipped away. However, when I saw that they had Tlayudas on the menu, I decided there was hope.

While we waited, I got caught up on the doings of my family, which I didn’t really think of as large. Kelsey did most of the talking. Dace stayed quiet, but his expression suggested he found the whole subject of family to be boring. He kept shooting me glances, like he was sharing some kind of joke at Kelsey’s expense – can you believe she’s into all this shit?

Kelsey appeared to be well aware of what he was doing, and her tone grew increasingly sharp.

I couldn’t very well tell Dace he was being rude – he wasn’t even saying anything, after all. I also couldn’t think of any better plan than ignoring him, but that was surprisingly difficult. Not so much because of anything he was doing, but because his deep-set eyes, dark brows, and full lips kept tugging at my memories of his brother. He is NOT Diego, I told myself firmly.

The guy behind the counter called our number and Kelsey went to get it, leaving Dace and I in a silence that felt awkward. I tried to think of something innocuous to ask him, but my mind seemed blank.

“You don’t look much like Kels,” he observed. “Or ‘Lina.”

“Or anyone else in the family,” I agreed. “Except for my coloring, I take after my mom, I guess.”

His dark eyes didn’t waver, and the silence touched my memories.

Mercifully, Kels returned and dropped the tray on the table. “Here you go,” she said. “Buttonwillow’s best.”

I lost no time digging in, figuring it would break the odd tension even if the food was awful. Which, it turned out, was very much not the case. “Ay!” I closed my eyes to better savor the crispy char of the tortilla, the spicy pork and black beans, and the soft cheeses that held it all together. “Where was this place when we were growing up?”

“Well . . .” Kelsey paused her thought to swallow her first bite. “Abuela kind of snarks about having better in the poorest alleys in Oaxaca back in the day. But, yeah, it’s an upgrade over Miguel’s.”

I shook my head. “Headache or no headache, I’ve got to wash this down with beer.”

“First half-way smart thing I’ve heard you say,” Dace observed with a smirk.

Kelsey rolled her eyes. “Jesus, why are you such a dick?”

“It’s a gift from God.”

“He must hate you. Why don’t you go get the beers? What are you drinking, Carmen?”

I hadn’t paid attention to the options. “Something dark. I don’t care.”

“Dark!” Kelsey left no doubt about her opinion of my choice. “Find something dark for the city chica, and get me a Bud.”

Dace shrugged elaborately, smirked in my direction, and went back to the window.

When he was out of earshot, Kelsey shot me a look. “What’s with you two?”

My weird deja vu moments notwithstanding, I couldn’t imagine what she was talking about. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not gonna say this twice. Stay away from him.”

“What???” Kelsey’s warning — threat, more like! — caught me completely flat-footed.

“You’re eying each other like a pair of rabbits. Just knock it the fuck off, got it?”

I felt the blood rush to my face as a floodwall of boiling thoughts, emotions and memories threatened to overwhelm me. Barely aware of what I was doing, I pushed my chair back and rocketed to my feet, appetite gone in an instant.

Before I knew it, I was out in the parking lot, reaching for my keys. Kelsey was shouting something, but I didn’t stop to make sense of her words. All I could think of was putting miles between me and my family and my crappy hometown and all of my even crappier memories. Tires screamed in protest as I took the turn onto the open highway.

Once Buttonwillow was back in my rear-view mirror — where it fucking belonged! — I was able to get myself enough under control to stop driving like I was trying to outrun a tsunami. Since I had instinctively headed west, the better to get away from both Buttonwillow and Bakersfield, I needed my sunglasses to ward off the glare of the sun as it sank toward the hills ahead of me.

Was she right? Had he been looking at me . . . that way? Had I been looking at him? I didn’t think so. I really didn’t. I didn’t feel anything for Dace, and his mannerisms were a real turn-off. Somehow, he always seemed to be looking down on everyone. On the other hand . . . .

No. I am NOT going to think about Diego. I’m NOT.

But I knew every stretch of open road within thirty miles of Buttonwillow and each place had its share of memories that pulled at me, claiming my attention. Drawing me this way and that. I saw a familiar gravel turn-off and I slowed the car to take it. On an empty hillside facing east I parked the car and set the parking brake. Nothing around but chaparral and scrub – small, spiny vegetation that can endure sandy soil and the desert’s wild temperature swings.

I sat there a long time. Long enough for the sun to set behind me. The lights came on in the vast expanse of flatland below as the darkness flowed in. I snorted, disgusted at myself. This had been exactly the wrong place to stop, if I didn’t want to think about Diego.

We spent the afternoon up in the hills, shooting discarded beer cans with BB guns and spooking the small and silent creatures that made their homes among the rocks and hollows. We’d talked about this and that. Baseball. School. Getting out. A day like any other; conversation that was easy and untroubled. By the time we made it back to where he’d left the dirtbike the sun was setting, turning the sky a million shades of fire and pastel.

I was still the same scrawny kid I’d always been, feeling smaller now as one by one the boys I’d grown up with hit puberty with all the force and subtlety of a diesel locomotive. Diego was already tall, as our Freshman year came to a close. Almost six feet, and well-built. Lately, I had become aware — painfully aware! — of his dark, brooding good looks. Feelings I could barely understand, and fought with every ounce of my strength. Fought to deny. Or, failing that, to hide.

He towered over me as we stood, catching our breath, awed by the sunset but too embarrassed, in our adolescence, to admit it. Just before the sun vanished, he turned to say something and our eyes locked. I felt like the world had, for an instant, stopped spinning. That the sun would stay there forever, a golden sliver on the far horizon, giving us a moment out of time. A moment, maybe, to say the things that could not be said . . . .

My phone rang and I thought, Fuck you, Kelsey. But I sagged with relief when I saw that it was Lourdes. Through the sudden tightness in my throat, I managed to say, “Hey” as I accepted the call.

“Carmen! Can you talk? Is this a good time?” Her voice was warm and delightfully free of complications.

I couldn’t keep the longing from my voice. “Yes! Yes, please!”

“How is your Padre? And how are you?”

“He’s doing better than me, Querida, and he’s in a coma.”

“Tell me,” she urged. “What has happened, Carmencita?”

I gave her the run-down on my day. Lourdes, herself the child of a large Mexican family, had no trouble following the intricacies of my blood relations. But she was more worried about Dace. “You think he watches you?”

“No. I mean, he looks at me, sure. But it’s more like, I don’t know . . . like he’s laughing at me? Or maybe laughing at Kelsey. I just . . . .” I couldn’t find words to finish the sentence, finally repeating a defeated, “I don’t know.”

“He makes you nervous?”

I wanted to say “no,” but I remembered my encounter with him in the morning, after Kelsey had left for work. I shivered, whether from the memory or the rapidly-dropping temperature. “Yes.”

“Trust your gut, then. Stay away from him.”

I chuckled ruefully. “Maybe I shouldn’t trust myself. It’s not like I’ve got heaps of experience with guys, you know. I could be misreading him. Misjudging him.”

“You can’t count on that!”

“I guess not,” I agreed.

“How soon can you come home?”

“That’s . . . tricky. I need to get the insurance stuff squared away. He has to have insurance, I just haven’t found it yet. I’ll go back to the house tomorrow morning and finish my search. If I find it and it all checks out, I should be good to come home.”

“Even if your Padre is still in the hospital?”

“There’s nothing I can do about that problem. He could be there a long time. He could even be in a coma for a long time. So it’s not like I can talk to him or anything.”

She was silent for a long while, and I just stared out into the darkness. Finally, I asked, “What?”

“You don’t feel anything for him, do you?” Her question was soft, filled with compassion rather than accusation.

I thought about it, but what I had said to Dace at our aborted dinner still seemed right. “Not really. The guy in the bed . . . I just couldn’t connect him to my memories.”

More silence. But this time, she didn’t wait for my prompt. “Do you miss him?”

“I used to. But after a few years . . . I kind of had to stop caring, you know? Otherwise the wound just wouldn’t heal. Now it’s like old scar tissue. It doesn’t hurt anymore; it just feels dead.”

“I am so sorry. I hoped that you would get the chance to make peace, but maybe . . . maybe you should just get back here as quickly as you can. Back where people care about you.”

“Amen to that!”

We signed off and I went back to staring at the night sky. I put my shirt back on over my tank top and buttoned it up, annoyed that my warmer jacket was at Kelsey’s house. Kelsey and Dace’s house.

Kelsey and Dace . . . and Diego.

I fought my ghosts until the day finally caught up with me and I fell asleep.

~o~O~o~

Short on decent sleep, stiff, and acutely conscious of not having either showered or brushed my teeth in a day, I took one look at the stunning sunrise and flipped it the bird. This place, these people, all my memories — they were crushing me. And I hated, loathed, and absolutely despised feeling grimy and unwashed. I longed with my very soul to point my car south and never come back. What did I owe Padre?

But I wasn’t here because of Padre. I knew that.

She was bending over her sewing, straining to see in the dim light. Padre had dropped us off for the weekend, having something or other to attend to.

“Abuela? Can you teach me how to sew?”

Before she could answer, Joaquim scoffed, “that’s woman’s work, dork!”

She glared at him. “Silencio, fool! It’s work that keeps food on the table. Go clean the kitchen. If it’s not spotless, you can do without breakfast.”

Joaquim knew better than to argue; he was in the kitchen faster than a cockroach after lights out. For myself, I decided I wouldn’t say anything that might redirect Abuela’s wrath to me.

She continued her work for a minute or two in silence. Without looking up from her sewing, she said – in Spanish, of course; we were alone – “No. I’m not working three jobs so that you can become a laborer. Your job is to study.”

“I got all A’s on my report card!”

That caused her to look up, and her eyes were smoldering. “So?”

“I’m doing well!”

“But are you doing your best?”

I looked at her, bewildered.

“You sit here, doing nothing. Why aren’t you studying?”

“I’m all done with my homework. Honest!”

She reached out, grabbed my earlobe and twisted it, hard; I could feel the dry, cracked calluses on her thumb and forefinger. “That’s stupid. The teachers assign homework that the slowest child in your class can handle. You can do more. So do more!”

I couldn’t go home. Not yet. My hopes and dreams – a professional career, even life as a woman – were only possible because Abuela brought the family here, held it together, and pushed us. All of us, but certainly me. My peers ensured that school was a misery, and I might have given up if she hadn’t been there, demanding nothing but my very best.

Even though she had backed my father’s decision to disown me, I owed her.

With a sigh, I started up the car and headed downhill. It was way too early to do anything useful, but I knew only too well that there were places to eat by the highway that were open 24/7. I could kill time and hunger all at the same time.

When I got there it was still pretty early. Between the silent parking lot and my graveyard of memories, I felt nervous and unsettled. Just to be on the safe side, I unlocked the compartment where I keep my Ruger LCR and added it to my purse.

The food options were unsurprisingly uninspired; just seeing the burger on the menu made my stomach churn. But at this point I didn’t care. What passed for a breakfast sandwich was fine. The coffee was surprisingly good.

The hard metal of the rest stop chairs hit my back in exactly the spots that were sore from a night spent sleeping in a car seat, and the smell of the restaurant’s deep fat fryer was doing nothing for my stomach.

My phone pinged to alert me to an incoming text from Kelsey. “You still alive?”

I thought about ignoring her; just thinking about our last interaction made my blood boil. But all my stuff was still at her place, and I didn’t need Kelsey in a temper. I typed back, “Yes.”

Her response was quick. “since when you a drama queen?”

“Seriously?”

“Ya girl. Just sayin stay off my dinner. No biggie.”

I couldn’t even formulate a response to that, and decided there was no point in trying. With grim determination, I finished my breakfast, drank the last of my coffee, and left. I couldn’t bear the place any longer. The sight of the big rigs parked in a row, the drivers probably asleep in the backs of their cabs, didn't help. Without even realizing it, I found my hand resting on top of my purse, just inches from my handgun.

My phone rang. I ignored it.

Another text. “Answer the phone Carmen.”

I got in the car, and it rang again. Fine. “What?”

“Hey.” Kelsey’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. “You don’t have much experience with this shit, do you?”

Despite her conciliatory tone, I couldn’t keep the snarl from my voice. “I’ve processed so much shit I’m a frickin’ septic system!”

“Yeah, I guess. But maybe not, ‘insecure girlfriend’ shit?”

“Kels. It’s been a long night. And a long day before that, you know? What are you talking about?”

“Dace and me . . . we got issues, you know? So, when I see him looking around, my claws kinda come out.”

I couldn’t suppress a snort. “You’ve gotta have big problems, if you’re worried about me.”

She was silent for so long I wondered if she’d hung up. “Kels?”

“You don’t see it, do you?” She sounded incredulous. “You look good, girl. And me? Not so much, these days.”

What? “No way you believe that!”

“You say so. Anyhow . . . look. I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was gonna launch you into orbit.”

I was still trying to wrap my sleep-deprived brain around the idea that Kelsey could ever be jealous of me, but I managed to get out an “okay.”

“We good?”

“Yeah.” My voice was guarded. I understood where Kelsey was coming from – sort of – but I wasn’t sure what I could do about it. Other than get the hell out of dodge, which I was trying my very best to manage for a list of reasons too long to count.

“What’s your plan today?”

“Back to Joaquim’s. If I find something, I’ll bring it out to the hospital. If I can get that financial end of things all settled, I’ll let Abuela know, then head home.”

“Your stuff’s all here,” she reminded me.

“I know.”

“Tell you what. I’ll make you dinner tonight, okay? Peace offering. You can drive back after, if you’re all done. If not . . . you know you can stay with me.”

“Kels . . . I don’t want to walk into a war zone. If you and Dace have problems –”

“I’ll take care of Dace,” she said decisively. “And I’ll keep my claws in.”

Against my better instincts, I agreed. Things with Kelsey were weird, but I couldn’t imagine staying at Padre’s house, especially since I would so obviously cramp Ximo’s style. And I didn’t want to spend money on a motel.

But those were just rationalizations and I knew it. It didn’t matter if she had flipped out, or whatever. I owed Kelsey, just like I owed Abuela. If she really wanted me there, I would go.

Back to Padre’s house, where I was relieved to see no sign of Joaquim’s car. I couldn’t deal with him today. When I slipped ‘round to the back, I had no difficulty removing the screen to the right-most living room window, pressing my fingers to the glass and sliding it across. Just like old times.

Well . . . maybe not just like. Stepping up and into the room was a little awkward in my skirt. No points for ladylike poise — but there wasn’t anyone around to judge.

With a sigh, I went back to the disaster that had once been my sanctuary and got to work on yet another pile of crap that should have been shipped off to a recycling plant ages ago. Padre never cared about being organized or neat, but I didn’t remember him being a pack-rat. On the other hand, he’d never had an entire empty room where he could dump shit and just forget about it, either.

Three hours later, I was approaching the bottom of a particularly unpromising pile — unpromising because everything close to the tabletop seemed to be over ten years old — when I saw a plain Manila envelope with Padre’d thick, emphatic printing in a dark sharpie: “Important.” It wasn’t sealed, so I opened the flap and pulled out a single sheet, a fillable form clearly printed from some website, with the heading “Last Will and Testament” in some elaborate script.

He’d filled it out in ink, so the words were clearly his own. All possessions, including real and personal property, to “my son Joaquim Augustin Morales.” Fair enough, and I didn’t expect anything else. But the next words were more pointed: “For avoidance of doubt, no part of my estate shall go to my wife, Kathleen Parker or any child other than Joaquim Augustin Morales. It is my specific desire and intent to disinherit Kathleen Parker and her sons Carlos Angel and Domingo Javier, by whatever names either of them may use.”

It was all I could do to keep from crumpling the “document” in my fist. I understood that Mom walked out on him. On us. But why blame Domingo, for God’s sake? He’d been three!

And, of course, there was the none-so-subtle dig. Joaquim was “my son”; Domingo and I were “her sons.” Oh, a little bit of scandal, and it’s “hey, can’t blame me! I had NOTHING to do with those two.” Yeah, the stork must have swung by or something. Couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with his drunken carousing in Fresno!

You are not my son! That he was technically right didn’t make it hurt any less. No matter how long I lived or how far away I ran, his words would follow me. I would hear them in eternity.

“What the actual fuck am I doing here?” My voice was loud in the silence of the house, though I hadn’t intended to speak.

Padre’s grandiose “last will” had no purpose besides causing hurt. He didn’t have a proverbial pot to piss in – in fact, one of the pieces of paper I’d unearthed earlier indicated that he pulled substantial equity out of the house just four years ago. But there he was, loudly and proudly “disinheriting” his wife and children like he was the Baron of Buttonwillow. Nothing but spite and bile, something to make sure we knew how much he despised us all. Like I hadn’t gotten THAT memo already.

I put the “document” back in its folder and placed it on top of the pile. There was a chance, after all, that Joaquim might need to find it soon, and Juan Morales’ precious child – the one who rated the title “my son!” – was no more capable of finding it on his own than of circumnavigating the globe in a walnut shell.

I got up, stretched, and headed to the bathroom. Padre’s malice and the stench of his cigarettes were bringing my headache back with a vengeance. The face that looked back at me from the mirror was angry, unwashed, and full of screaming imperfections. Splashing cold water on it wasn’t going to help, but I didn’t have any better ideas. At least it was cool on my skin, and soothing.

I grabbed a light-brown towel from the bar on the shower door to dry my face and instantly regretted it. The towel looked clean, but like every porous surface it had absorbed the residue of smoke and I felt like I’d stuck my entire face in an ashtray. Dios Mio! Had I really been oblivious to how disgusting this was?

I turned to put the towel back when a hard knock on the front door made me jump out of my skin.

– To be continued

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