The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Read online

Bette jackknifed upright. “What the fuck?”

  “Maybe it’s the end of the world,” I said. The attic grew still. Sirens shrieked in the distance. “Or an earthquake.” I remembered my dogs in the backyard. Storms and loud noises spooked them. I bolted from bed. The closet was a tumble of clothes. The hanger rack had collapsed, heaping skirts, sweaters, dresses, and jackets. I dug through the mound for my huaraches.

  Bette climbed out of bed and knelt on the love seat under our window. “Look at them running out of the hospital,” she said. “See that smoke? Must be a fire.”

  I peered over her shoulder. Nurses, doctors, and attendants in white or aquamarine scrubs, along with patients in smocks, streamed down the steps from the hospital on the hill, their movements herky-jerky, nearly comic. “I wonder who’s getting the newborn babies out,” I said, “and what about the sick kids?”

  Bette shrugged. “Great chance for the loonies to escape from the psycho ward.”

  Our room, an officelike enclosure in one corner of the attic, faced eastward and was painted with yolky enamel. The room was well-lit by the rising sun, but deep shadows shrouded the outer attic. I stepped out of our room and flicked on a switch to light the stairwell. Nothing happened. “No electricity,” I called to Bette.

  “Cool,” she said. “Maybe they’ll cancel school.”

  The door at the bottom of the stairwell flew open, bathing the steps with bluish light. “You girls okay up there?” my father shouted. His voice was taut with strain. Storms and emergencies made him anxious and irritable, as high-strung as Rita.

  I stomped down the steps. “Leave that door open, so I can see.”

  “Is Bette all right?” my father asked, his forehead creased with concern.

  “She’s fine.” I made for the stairwell to the backyard.

  “Where’re you going?” The old man was barefoot and shirtless, his chest worm-white in stark contrast to his leathery neck and ruddy face. His comb-over flap —more salt than pepper —hung askew, and the pockets of his khakis stuck out at his hips like miniature flags of surrender. His hands shook as he fumbled for a cigarette.

  “Check the dogs.”

  He narrowed his eyes and clucked his tongue. “Are you crazy? That was an earthquake. You can’t go outside for some stupid dogs.”

  I brushed past him and leapt down the back steps two at a time. “Fuck you, too,” I murmured once out of earshot.

  The long backyard was empty. The mulberry and magnolia trees still and silent, only the freeway roared intermittently beyond the back fence, and a tire strung from a mulberry branch swayed above the tall grass. Though I appreciated the vast overgrown yard, the worst thing about moving from the bungalow on Clinton Street to this big house on Bellevue was that the landlord, our family doctor, allowed no dogs in the house. Anthony and Gerard barked incessantly when they were spooked, until I came downstairs to calm them.

  I clapped my hands, whistled, and called, “Here, boys, here!” I expected the dogs to leap out from the side yard or wriggle out from the crawl space, but there was no sign of them. I paced the length of yard, clapping and calling. No dogs. In the side yard, I saw that the tall ivy-covered gate was wide open, the hasp pried from its post. Tears stung my eyes. I glanced over the fence and caught sight of our neighbor Ambrose striding across his yard, brushing his hands together, as though he’d just taken out the garbage. He had on the soot-colored suit and burgundy vest he always wore, whether going to work at the bank or mowing the lawn. His puffy cheeks, as usual, were shadowed with greenish stubble. A timid man, Ambrose flinched and flushed pink when he saw me, but managed an awkward wave.

  “Have you seen my dogs?”

  He shook his head. “No, but I’ll keep an eye out.” Ambrose stepped through the back door of the house he shared with his mother, an invalid whose hectoring voice sounded from their opened windows all day long. Though he’d once complained to my father about the dogs barking, I pitied Ambrose. I didn’t blame him for always wearing the same dusty suit and not remembering to shave. The old woman gave him no peace, except when she slept.

  The ground grumbled under my feet, the magnolia tree trembled, leaves rattling like maracas —an aftershock. I imagined the dogs wide-eyed with terror, racing through the streets, as though to outrun the quaking earth.

  I rushed back upstairs to dress. I suspected one-eyed Gerard of leading the gullible Anthony in this escape. Gerard more than compensated for his lack of sight with cunning. I once caught him with a hot dog stolen from a picnic table, smearing its mustard on the slower dog’s muzzle, so Anthony would be blamed for the theft. Sharp as he was, Gerard didn’t like being separated from his food dish for long. I pictured both dogs leaping with joy when I found them.

  I passed my father again in the hallway on the main floor. He’d thrown on a shirt and was sipping from a cup of coffee. “They called me to work,” he said. “The V.A. hospital collapsed. There’s people buried in the rubble.”

  I was amazed the phone worked, but I just shrugged.

  “Make breakfast for the kids, okay? You and Bette take care of them while I’m gone. Nilda’s on her way.”

  “I have to find the dogs first.” I made for the attic stairs, but the old man grabbed my arm and pulled me down with unexpected strength. His cup fell, shattered on the floor. I slipped, banged my knee on one step, and scraped an ankle on another.

  “I don’t tell nobody nothing,” he said, his face hot and close. “But I’m telling you to make breakfast for those kids now.”

  I twisted free. “No!”

  I swear I didn’t even see it coming. I thought I’d slammed my cheek into the wall, but when he drew his hand back, his eyes inky pinpoints of surprise, I knew. I touched my cheek and couldn’t feel my fingers on it. I raced upstairs.

  “Loretta,” he called after me. “Listen, h’ita, please —”

  I shot into the attic bedroom and slammed the door.

  Bette was dressed and brushing her long hair. “What’s the racket about?”

  “Dad’s insane,” I said, fingering my cheek.

  “You know how freaked out he gets with earthquakes and fires and shit. He’s always getting called to work, and it drives him nuts to have to worry about us.”

  “He’s a goddamn lunatic.”

  “And?” She rotated her hand, indicating I should get to the point.

  “Anthony and Gerard ran away.” A sob tore from my throat. “They broke through the gate, and they’re gone.”

  “Ah, shit, Loretta,” Bette said, stroking my shoulder. “After breakfast, I’ll help you find them. But I bet they’ll come back on their own. Dogs that aggravating don’t just disappear.”

  By the time I dressed and came downstairs to boil water for oats, my father had left for work. Cary told me the old man had been summoned to open water mains all over the city to douse fires ignited by the quake. “Without Dad,” he said, “the firemen can’t do a thing.” He grinned, and for a moment, he was transformed from a heavy, sullen twelve-year-old into a beaming young boy. His sleep-tousled brown curls framed his plump face, making him look almost cherubic.

  “Anyone can open a water main,” I said. “All you need is a wrench.”

  Rita sat at the kitchen table in silence. Her wide eyes stared out at some invisible focal point. And eight-year-old Sophie swished into the kitchen wearing her “grass skirt” —narrow plastic strips gathered into an elastic waistband —pink pearls and a yard of yellow yarn clipped to the top of her head and streaming to her shoulders for “long blondie hair.” She began strumming an invisible ukulele and yodeling “Little old lady whoooo,” with such seriousness that Cary and I had to laugh. Even Rita broke her trance to grin.

  “Listen,” I said when Bette appeared in the kitchen. “Pour in two cups of oats, will you, when the water boils, and then stir. I’ve got to go.”

  “Jeez, Loretta, I know how to make oats.”

  “Where you going?” My nosy brother had to know.

  “
I’ve got to find Anthony and Gerard. They got loose.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Cary said.

  But before he rose from the table, the front door creaked open and scrabbling sounds echoed through the hall. My great black dogs streaked into the kitchen, whipping their thick tails and shimmying with joy. “¡Válgame, Dios!” Nilda cried, following them in. “¡Qué bárbaro! Those dogs nearly knocked me over, pushing to get in.”

  I dropped to my knees, hugging one and then the other. Their coarse black coats smelled of eucalyptus leaves and fresh-mown grass. One-eyed Gerard nudged Anthony’s moist snout out of the way to lap my face, and Anthony circled around to approach me from the other side. Both whimpered with pleasure.

  “Take them outside, Loretta,” Nilda said, “the filthy things. And wash up with soap and hot water —you hear me? —before you come to eat.”

  I had no choice but to tie the dogs to the mulberry tree until I had a chance to repair the gate. They howled all during breakfast, and I tried to eat as quickly as possible, though the oats Bette made were thick as paste and peppered with scorched bits.

  “Did you feel the earthquake, Tía?” Sophie asked, speaking into the saltshaker, as though interviewing our aunt. She tilted the shaker toward Nilda for her answer.

  “Don’t talk into the salt,” Nilda said. “You’ll get germs on it. Of course, I felt that quake. It shook the apartment like a washing machine in the spin cycle. I thought the roof would fall in.” She pulled her gold cross from her blouse and kissed it. “Thank God we weren’t hurt. But I can’t take no more. I told your uncle. That’s it.”

  “What do you mean?” Bette asked.

  “We can’t stay in this crazy place,” Nilda said. “We’re moving back home.”

  Sophie spilled the salt, and Rita’s spoon clattered to the floor.

  My chest grew tight. “But you can’t. You can’t just leave.” Nilda was all we had left, and there was so much she hadn’t yet told us about our mother, about Fermina. I couldn’t bear to think of her leaving us and taking her memories, those untold stories away with her.

  “It’s okay, honey. I’ll still visit, and you can come see me in Río Puerco.” Nilda patted my arm. “You girls are older now. You can take care of each other pretty good.” She shot a look at Sophie. “Pick that up. I told you not to mess around with the salt.”

  “Are you really, really moving?” Cary asked.

  Nilda nodded. “I can’t take this, this, this . . . earthquakes and traffic and thieves and things.” Last month, a cholo had snatched Nilda’s purse while she was waiting for a bus. “It’s too much. Es que, I’m not young no more. It’s time to go back home.”

  Sophie brushed the spilled salt into her palm with a dish towel and set the shaker upright, sparking an idea for me.

  “What about Uncle?” Bette asked. “What’ll happen to him if you leave?”

  Nilda looked at her as if she’d lost her mind. “¿Qué piensas? He’s coming, too.”

  After breakfast, I helped Nilda wash dishes. My fear of losing her made my tongue thick and clumsy. I couldn’t find the words to ask her directly what I wanted to know. It seemed babyish, even pathetic to beg for stories about my mother and Fermina, so I elaborated on the plan triggered by Sophie’s saltshaker microphone. I would pretend I had a class assignment that required me to interview her about the past, about my mother, about Fermina. My aunt, who was prouder than my father of my good grades, would never refuse to help me with schoolwork. “Tía,” I said, “I wonder if you could help me with a homework project.”

  “No sewing,” she said.

  “No sewing, I swear.” Last year, I’d enlisted her help with an apron for my stitch-craft elective. By the time we finished trimming away the crooked seams and frayed edges, it was no bigger than a pot holder. “It’s an interview,” I said. “I have to ask you about the past and family and make a tape recording.”

  “Tape recording? Where are you going to get a machine for that?”

  Good question, I thought, but said, “Maybe I can borrow one?”

  “Father Knox has one, I think.” On top of her main job as a nurse’s aide, Nilda worked twice a week at the rectory, helping out the daily housekeeper. “I could ask him. But why interview me? I never did nothing interesting. You should interview your father. He was in France during the war and Nuremberg for the trials. Now, he’s had an exciting life.”

  My father was not too well-known for sticking to the facts, but I couldn’t tell my aunt her favorite brother, the second to the youngest, the one she —the oldest girl of ten children —claimed to have helped raise, was a liar. “I need the real truth, a woman’s story.”

  That Saturday, I hiked from our house on Bellevue Avenue clear to my aunt’s building on Boylston, near downtown. The dogs howled with disappointment when they saw me climbing the steps near the hospital on my own. I had fixed the gate, securing it with bicycle chain and combination lock. Now Anthony and Gerard leapt at it, begging to be taken along. No way could I bring those two large dogs to my aunt’s tiny apartment. The last time I’d tried this, they’d stampeded upstairs so noisily that Helen, the manager, threatened to call the police.

  The sky, like on so many winter mornings in Los Angeles, was an amber-tinged gray. The chilly breeze, dense and sooty, brushed my face and arms like barely perceptible cobwebs. I trekked from Alvarado to Temple Street, past mercados, taquerías, dime stores, and newsstands, crossing thick streams of traffic parted at red lights. More people thronged the streets than I’d expected just a few days after the earthquake, though Bette had told me many immigrants —campesinos in their own countries —believed they were safer outdoors, should another strike. As I trudged the cracked sidewalks, sidestepping broken glass and rubbish, I framed the questions I would ask Nilda during our interview.

  She had borrowed the recorder from the rectory on Friday to keep through the weekend, but I hoped to ask all my questions in one day and not to have to make the long trip again on Sunday. By the time I turned right onto Boylston, my feet throbbed and my calves ached. The familiar street followed an incline toward my aunt’s apartment building at the dead end. Rows of tenement buildings and dilapidated houses lined both sides. Last year, Sister Anselm brought my eighth-grade class here by bus to sing Christmas carols for the “poor and destitute.” I was relieved neither Nilda nor José appeared to acknowledge me among the carolers. Remembering this, I hurried along the street and up the splintery stairs to my aunt’s door.

  Nilda had set out a bowl of purple grapes for me and greeted me like an adult visitor, rather than her fourteen-year-old niece, smiling shyly and smoothing her linen skirt before sitting beside me. The tape recorder was set up on the bird’s-eye-maple chest that once belonged to Fermina. I was relieved that my uncle was nowhere in sight.

  “You want some tea?” Nilda asked.

  “Maybe later.” I clicked the recorder on and taped myself saying, “testing, testing, testing.” Then I rewound the tape, which spooled with a scritch-scratchy sound, before playing back my voice —high and clear as a child’s.

  I figured I should ask my first questions about Nilda, her experiences, before getting to what I really wanted to ask. “Tell me about your childhood,” I said.

  Nilda pulled back, an astonished look on her face, as though no one had ever asked her such a thing. “Bah, I thought you were going to ask me about history, about the Depression and the war, and things like that.”

  “It’s personal history,” I said. “That’s what the project is about —personal history. Don’t you want to talk about your childhood? Was it hard?”

  Of course, Nilda jumped right in to contradict. “Qué hard, ni hard,” she said into the microphone. “I had a beautiful childhood. I was the second oldest of ten, the first girl, but I didn’t have that much work until your dad and Santi were born. I helped raise those two. I fed the sheep in the mornings, gave them oats. They would graze all day, but we fattened them with oats. That was my job
. I loved the lambs. When the ewes wouldn’t feed them, I’d fill a bottle with cow’s milk and stuff a rag in the top so they could suck.”

  “I thought you didn’t like animals,” I said.

  She shrugged. “Qué like, ni like. Animals are filthy, but it’s not their fault. Mostly, they’re work, pure work.”

  I thought of my dogs, how they ordered my day, beginning with their first meal at daybreak, continuing through walks and the evening meal, the intermittent yard cleanup they entailed —not to mention my part-time job at the pet clinic on Glendale Boulevard, which I enjoyed, but kept mainly to pay for their food, shots, and vitamins.

  “Tell me about your mother, about Grandma,” I said.

  “Your grandma ruled the house,” Nilda said with a smile. “She was short, just a tiny thing, but she was tough. She told everyone what to do, just once, and they did it. No messing around. She loved sugar, you know that? I remember her slipping into the pantry again and again to dip her thumb in the sugar and lick it off. Filthy habit, ¿qué no? But no one was going to tell her nothing. She liked a drink, too. ‘Dame un traguito,’ she’d say, and you’d jump up to pour her a shot of brandy, just one or two a day.”

  “How did she get along with Fermina?” I asked, leading to where I wanted the questions to go.

  “They got along good. Con respeto. You couldn’t back-talk neither one of them. You didn’t even try. They spent a lot of time together, and they got real close.” Nilda entwined the index and middle finger of her right hand. “They were like this. When your grandma got married, her mother died, so Fermina was like another mother to her.”

  “What was Fermina like when she was younger? Did she ever go anywhere or have any friends?” I wanted a sense of what Fermina’s life was like and to understand how she managed to endow us with these strange gifts.

  “Fermina didn’t go too many places. She was already older when we were growing up, and women didn’t run all over the place like they do now. Besides, she didn’t drive or gallop around on horses. She stayed home. But, I remember, she had one friend, a lady named Heidi Schultz, who used to visit her. She came to the house a lot one summer, with this neighbor’s boy —Pepe was his name. He translated for her because Heidi didn’t speak no Spanish.”