The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Page 24

  “We can ask Nilda.” My stomach lurches and saliva floods my mouth. I should never read in the car.

  “Speaking of Nilda.” Sophie pulls a scallop-edged photo from her shirt pocket.

  Rita takes it from her. “Where’d you get this?”

  Sophie juts her chin in the direction of the Vigil farmhouse.

  “You just took it from their house?” Rita asks, aghast.

  “The son gave it to me, babosa,” she explains.

  “What is it?” Loretta, who’s driving, asks.

  I peer at the snapshot. “It’s Nilda with some white lady.” The faded photo shows two women —a young blonde with a much older woman —standing before the horno at the ranch house in Río Puerco, arms linked. Their faces are blanched in the sunlight, their eyes deep-set, shadowed, and their expressions unreadable.

  “That’s what I thought,” says Sophie. “But Clarence says it’s Fermina with his mother, with Heidi.”

  “No way,” Rita says, examining the photo. “That’s Nilda.”

  “Look at the date on the back, will you?” Sophie tells her.

  “Nineteen thirty-eight,” Rita reads.

  “Nilda would have been in her twenties back then, ¿qué no?” Sophie points out.

  “Looks exactly like Nilda.” I’m sure of it. The upright septuagenarian in the picture bears little resemblance to the shrunken, wizened Fermina we knew.

  “Pass that thing up here.” Loretta glances at the picture as she drives. “Makes sense, though, they had the same diet, lived in the same environment. I notice a lot of seventy-year-old women in Río Puerco resemble one another.”

  “It’s not a great picture,” says Sophie. “I can’t even tell if they’re smiling. We should show it to Nilda.”

  “It’s her birthday and all,” I say. “You know how touchy she gets. I don’t know if that’s such a good idea . . .”

  RíO PUERCO, NEW MEXICO —RITA

  Rita helps Nilda set out Thanksgiving dinner in July. Her aunt has reheated the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, piñon and green chili stuffing, empanadas, calabazas casserole, pumpkin pie and pastelitos. As each dish appears, Nilda apologizes for it being “un poco seco,” a reminder that she expected them the previous night. Rita eats second helpings of everything to assure her it’s all perfect, and her sisters drink many glasses of wine made by her father’s youngest brother, Santiago, a wine Loretta privately calls “vin de turpentine,” for its sharp solvent-scented bouquet.

  After dinner, Tío takes Elena out to see the lambs and Sophie settles Aitch in his traveling bed before helping the others clean up. While Nilda fills the sink, Rita clears the table, Bette puts food away, and Loretta scrapes food from the plates. Rita steps into the kitchen with a stack of dishes, and Bette mentions, in an offhand way, that they stopped to see Heidi Schultz Vigil on the way to Río Puerco.

  “Pobrecita,” Nilda says. “She had a massive stroke, I heard, the beginning of the year. How is she?”

  “Not good,” Rita says. She returns to the dining room to put away the unused silverware, and she spies a framed photo of her uncle José, suited and smiling from a credenza shelf. Rita freezes. She glances over her shoulder to make sure she is alone before removing the picture from the shelf and setting it —facedown —in the bottom drawer. Rita eases this shut before returning to the kitchen.

  “Her son ain’t bad, though,” Sophie says with a wink.

  Nilda swipes at her with a dish towel. “Bah, he’s divorced,” she says in a tone she might use to accuse someone of being an axe murderer. She glances at Bette, then back to Sophie, before adding, “There’s nothing wrong with divorce for women. We put up with so much mierda. But it don’t look good for a man to be divorced.”

  Mollified, Bette agrees. “Men don’t wear divorce that well.” Rita, though, knows her sister was attracted to Heidi’s son. Apart from the geographic distance, it would never work. Bette’s not interested in anyone as well adjusted as that Clarence seemed to be. She prefers to rescue a drunk or a criminal than to be with someone her equal. Rita checks her watch, wondering if it’s too early to call Rafe.

  “Anyway,” Loretta says, “Heidi told us she gave her interview notes to Fermina.”

  “Did you ever see them?” Bette asks.

  “I never knew that. I sure never saw any notes.” Nilda plunges a glass casserole dish into the sudsy water and scrapes it with a steel-wool pad. “I don’t know why you girls want to get mixed up with that old nonsense.”

  “We want to know about the gifts,” Loretta tells her.

  “Bah, ¡qué cosa!” Nilda wheels from the sink to face her. “You’re so stuck on what that old woman said that you can’t even see the things your mama left you.”

  “What things?” asks Sophie.

  “You got that joking from her. She was always pulling jokes, looking for a laugh. And Bette inherited the way she cares for all of you and your daddy,” Nilda says, counting off on her soapy fingers. “La Rita is honest, no matter what, just like your mama . . .” She turns back to the sink. “She’s the one who gave you gifts.”

  “What about me?” Loretta’s voice is low. “What did I get?”

  “Brains, estupida,” Nilda says. “You should be smart enough to know that.”

  Rita and her sisters stare at their aunt, stunned.

  Nilda sighs and mutters, “I knew I should have bought a bunch of Barbies for you girls when Fermina died and told you they were from her. Then that would be that. Se acabó.” She pauses to submerge a skillet. “Even so, I have told you everything I know about all that business.”

  “What about Pepe Gallegos?” Rita asks. “Where can we find him?”

  “Over at the cemetery,” Nilda says, crossing herself. “He was killed in a car accident about two years ago. She told you about him? Válgame, Dios. I’m surprised she can talk after a stroke like that.”

  “She wasn’t real clear,” Bette says. “She called us jewels.”

  “Pearls,” Rita puts in, trying to remember the tiepin her uncle is wearing in the photo she’s hidden —something glittery, she’s sure, nothing opaque or lustrous. “She called us Fermina’s pearls.”

  ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO —SOPHIA

  You and your sisters stay with Nilda and Santiago at the farm while you’re in Río Puerco. From there, you all make the rounds to see your other relatives over the next few days. Midweek, your sisters begin planning the trip home. But Loretta insists on a side trip to Albuquerque. Specifically, she wants to visit the library at the University of New Mexico. She and Rita have been making some telephone calls, trying to find out more about the data collected by Heidi Schultz Vigil. Finally they’ve decided all of you should drive out there to examine the archives for yourselves.

  After a long morning of scanning brittle pages in the dusty stacks and taking turns minding the children outside, Bette finally summons the librarian, Pat Coronado, a brusque woman with an iron-gray crew cut and a deep, gruff voice. “We’re interested in finding WPA data collected by Heidi Marie Schultz,” Bette explains.

  “We’re looking for her reports on a woman named Fermina,” Loretta adds.

  “What’s the subject’s last name?” the librarian asks.

  You shoot your sisters a puzzled look, and Bette says, “What was it?”

  Loretta digs in her bag and pulls out her wallet. From this, she extracts a plastic-coated holy card —why, it’s your old compañera, the Virgin Mary, wearing a star-spangled navy shawl and standing on a purple crescent held aloft by a towheaded angel. Under Fermina’s name and the date, the text on the back reads: Queen of the Americas, pray for us. Queen of all Saints, pray for us. Queen of heaven, pray for us. Queen of Peace, pray for us.

  Bette shoots her a disbelieving look. “I can’t believe you kept that all this time.”

  “It was starting to fall apart, so I had it laminated,” Loretta says. “Fermina Hidalgo was her name. She died in 1967. There’s no given date of birth.”

&nbs
p; The librarian is harried, busy updating the catalogue, she says. But she takes a shine to Loretta, so she disappears into her office to access internal files. Rita appears on the other side of the glass door, pointing at her watch to let us know it’s time for someone else to take over watching the kids. Loretta says, “It’s my turn.”

  But Bette shakes her head, saying, “Something tells me that librarian won’t do jack for us if you’re not here, so I’d better go,” and she heads out.

  “It’s hotter than blazes out there,” Rita says, joining you and Loretta as you wait for the librarian to return. When she does, she hands Loretta an ugly blue-and-orange book and says, “I have no record of that data collector. Often the data collectors aren’t named. This book, though, contains some of the information they amassed.”

  The three of you page through New Mexico: A Guide to the Colorful State, but the dull, anonymous record of interviews makes no mention of Heidi Schultz or Fermina, holds no clue they ever existed. Looking at Loretta as though she’s the only one in the room, Pat Coronado says, “I double-checked, and there’s absolutely no record the woman worked for the New Mexico Writers’ Project.”

  “But why would she resign,” Rita asks, “from a position she never held?”

  The librarian shrugs, and you thank her for her help. Then you three meet Bette outside, give her the news.

  “We’ve run out of leads,” Bette says. Her face is tired, uncharacteristically sallow and haggard. Loretta bites her lower lip, blinks rapidly. And you are stunned by the tightness in your throat.

  “And we’re out of time,” Rita says, her voice breaking.

  SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO —LORETTA

  I wish there was a way to stay on another day or so, maybe fly back on my own directly to Georgia. But between paying back my student loans and establishing a practice, there’s no way I can afford to pay for a flight I haven’t booked in advance. This letdown is as keen as a physical ache for me, and for my sisters. We collect ourselves to pack and say our good-byes to Nilda and Santiago. We don’t talk much —our disappointment is too fresh, too tender. But we are polite to one another as we help Nilda clear away the breakfast dishes and then we gather our belongings.

  Before we head back to L.A., Bette decides Elena should see Santa Fe, which we soon discover —as we stroll the streets lined with jewelry vendors, arts and crafts stores, galleries, upscale restaurants, and expensive boutiques —is no place for a cranky two-year-old and a baby, however agreeable he might be. Tourists and artisans glare at the troop of us as we block narrow sidewalks with the strollers and bulky diaper bags. By noon, I can’t bear to look at one more piece of turquoise, spin another rack of postcards (Greetings from Santa Fe! Wish you were here! The Land of Enchantment!), or swallow another bite of green chili as long as I live. The enchiladas with sopapillas and honey that we order for lunch in a noisy tourist restaurant taste thick and pasty. I do not even have the heart to order beer. In fact, I feel something like the glass of water that the harassed waitress keeps filling for me, a reminder to hurry up and finish the meal so others can be seated: Like that brimming tumbler, if you nudge me or even look at me too hard, I will topple, sloshing all over the place.

  How is it possible to feel so overfull and empty at the same time? I glance at my sisters. Their faces are tense and drawn. No one makes eye contact. They also seem ready to spill at the brush of fingertips. The children are whiny and irritable. The altitude, Bette says, makes them touchy. We don’t eat much. After we pay the bill, Sophie insists on hitting just one more souvenir shop. She says she wants a T-shirt for Aitch, but I suspect she’s reluctant to return home without something to show for her trouble. We trudge the cobbled street for a discount shop Rita remembers seeing earlier.

  Inside the shop, emptiness overtakes that overfull feeling, though the shelves of cheap gifts and racks of T-shirts here are packed so tightly it’s nearly suffocating. Everything reeks of synthetic “newness,” a polyester-plastic smell that makes my nose itch. Despite this, I rifle through the clothing, thinking of Chris. (What do you bring someone who has given you your first kiss, when you hope it will not be your only kiss? How about a hooded sweatshirt with a chili appliqué? A plastic backscratcher? Licorice whips? A buckskin-covered drum? The only thing that seems right to bring Chris is this question: Why?) But I keep fiddling with the T-shirts so my hands won’t feel bare.

  Bette sidles up. Hangers screech against the rod as she rummages through the rack. She murmurs, “Maybe they have one that says: We drove all the way to New Mexico in a hot, smelly car, spent a shitload of money, almost murdered each other, and all we got was this stupid T-shirt!”

  “Wish they did,” I say, thinking of why we made the trip, our failed mission. “I’d buy one for each of us.”

  As Sophie makes her purchase, a clerk playfully strokes Elena’s plump cheek with a peacock’s plume. “Ahhh! Feathers is fill-fee!” she screams, opening her mouth so wide I glimpse her tiny tonsils quivering behind the uvula. Bette scoops her into her arms and beelines for the restroom to wash her face, but Elena won’t be subdued. She shrieks, flailing and kicking, all the way out to the car. Little Aitch, already wearing his new T-shirt, soon joins in, howling in sympathy. Weirdly, this racket comforts me. I’m tempted to egg them on: C’mon now! Give it all you’ve got! More gusto! More, more!

  At the car, I take the wheel, steering this time toward the I-40.

  “What about the Mother Road?” Bette asks, raising her voice to be heard over the squalling children.

  “Been there, done that,” Rita shouts, cupping her hands over her ears.

  In the rearview, I spy Sophie pointing out the glittery Route 66 emblem on the turquoise infant top Aitch is wearing. “Even bought the goddamn T-shirt!”

  “So let’s see what the interstate has to offer.” I press the gas pedal, accelerating to merge onto the highway home.

  SUBJECT: FERMINA/CASORIOS

  WPA: 7-16-38 —DC: HMS

  July 15, 1938

  Words: 652

  EULALIA TORRES

  When Decidero turned twenty, Inocencio and Yrma decided it was time for him to take a wife. In those days, parents decided whom their children would marry. The Gabaldons chose Eulalia Torres for Decidero. The girl’s mother was a widow with much acreage near the river. Señora Torres was ill and going blind. The Gabaldons expected her soon to relinquish the land to Eulalia, her only child. No doubt they assumed that Eulalia, an inexperienced fourteen-year-old, would bend easily to their will.

  Decidero’s godfather was Inocencio’s second cousin. This padrino was a schoolteacher’s son, so he could read and write. He wrote the letter presenting Decidero’s offer of marriage. As was customary, Inocencio and the padrino rode out to Eulalia’s mother’s farm, planning to arrive in time for the midday meal, when everyone would be home, including Eulalia’s uncle who helped his sister on the farm. As Fermina recalls Inocencio’s account, the visitors stayed two hours, discussing crops and livestock. When they got up to leave, the padrino handed Eulalia’s uncle the letter.

  For the next week, Decidero was nervous and irritable. If a letter arrived on the eighth day, he would know he had gotten “la calabaza,” and his offer had been rejected. If no letter arrived after two weeks, it had been accepted. Just before suppertime on the eighth day, a horse clopped toward the house. Riding it was Eulalia’s uncle. He handed Inocencio a sheet of paper twice folded and rode off. They had to find Decidero’s padrino to read it, but they already knew what it was: the squash. Inocencio and Yrma pressed the padrino to make an offer to another girl, but Decidero took no interest in this.

  In a few weeks, Eulalia’s uncle arrived with another letter. In it, the engagement was accepted, as if the first letter had never existed. The Gabaldons were puzzled until they learned that Eulalia’s mother had suffered a stroke. She needed a doctor’s care. The family had land, but not much money since Señor Torres’ death. Decidero was overjoyed; he wanted Eulalia all the more since l
a calabaza.

  After three days, the Gabaldons visited the Torres family, loading a wagon with gifts they had purchased over the years, anticipating Decidero’s wedding. They brought wool bedding, in addition to the trousseau and fifty dollars for the bride. Weeks later, they rode out for the prendorio (reception for groom’s family), bringing Fermina to help with preparations. Along the way, they were joined by relatives and friends invited to attend the celebration. By sunset, all had arrived at the Torres home. Fermina worked alongside other women — relatives and servants, some of whom she knew and had not seen in years —to prepare for the feast and dance. The next morning, the entire house was turned over to the Gabaldons to clean and cook. Meanwhile, Eulalia, her bedridden mother, and her uncle had nothing to do but wait for the wedding.

  The Irina de casorio, an older married cousin that Eulalia had chosen as her matron of honor, helped dress and prepare the bride. Then the couple knelt before the Gabaldons at Señora Torres’ bedside to be blessed by both families. Afterward, the bride, groom, Irina, and padrino de casorio rode out to the church for the nuptials, while everyone else waited at the house. Fermina and the other servants helped pack Eulalia and her mother’s belongings, as they would move to the Gabaldon home after the wedding. Her uncle planned to stay behind to manage the farm.

  When they returned, Fermina and the others served the wedding feast —tortillas, sopapillas, chiles rellenos, chili, beans, roasted chickens, blood sausages, pastelos, and wine, much homemade wine. The dance followed, lasting until daybreak, when la entregada de los novios (the giving of the bride to the groom’s family) occurred. Not until after breakfast did the guests finally depart, wishing the couple many years of life and happiness.

  12

  FISH AND FLOWERS —BETTE: 1985

  After the trip to Río Puerco, Rita headed up north, and Loretta flew back to Georgia. They didn’t travel to L.A. for the holidays that winter or this one, Rita claiming it was too expensive, and Loretta that she was too busy. The truth is —that trip was a setback, for all of us, and not just an economic one, though it ended up costing a fucking fortune, especially when Woody’s radiator blew out in Indio. Ever since, my sisters and I have been a little . . . I don’t know . . . tentative with each other, breaking into our comfortable pairs —me and Sophie seeing each other daily, and Loretta and Rita talking every week by phone. Cary’s wedding will be the first time we’re all together in nearly two years.