Carry Me Like Water (27 page)

“When Eddie answered the door I saw him sitting on a bench outside in the sun—and he was writing in a black book, but he brought me back before I could see who he addressed his journal to. He addresses it to someone—a man. I couldn’t quite see the name. But he looked very sad, your Eddie.”

“His brother. He address his journal to his brother.”

Lizzie nodded.

“And you?” Maria Elena asked.

“What?”

“Who do you address your journal to?”

“No one. I think it’s weird that he talks to his brother in his journal. Damn weird.” She couldn’t keep a straight face. She broke out laughing.

“You’re mean, Elizabeth Edwards. And you’ve had one too many drinks. Am I going to have to carry you to bed—a woman in my condition?”

“You sound like my mother, Helen.”

“Helen who?”

“I forgot. If I call you Helen sometimes, then you’ll have to deal with it, sugar.” She laughed. “It’s a small price to pay for deceiving your best friend.”

Maria Elena laughed. “I’m going to bed—I’m tired.”

“Not yet,” she said, “I haven’t even told you the best part. Did you know I could fly?”

“What?”

“I can fly.”

Lizzie, Maria Elena, and Eddie spent most of the weekend talking. And talking and talking. There were awkward silences in between the words, and each still kept quiet about things they found necessary to keep only for themselves, Eddie cooked for the two women on Saturday, cooked because he loved to, cooked because it was his way of spending time alone—but also his way of communicating gratitude. He had always wanted a warm kitchen where people gathered. He had never known a warm kitchen in the house where he was raised, but he had visited the maid’s house once, and he had found her kitchen to be a fine place to live. He had been six years old at the time, and he had asked her if he could live with her. He had always remembered that kitchen, remembered how that place had made him feel—like belonging. It felt like belonging. Standing over the stove, Eddie laughed at himself as he thought about how he and Maria Elena always fought over who would cook.

Saturday night, Eddie baked bread, and they rented old videos and argued over which were the best scenes. They laughed, and the laughter felt real and necessary and urgent. It was as if these three people were learning how to enjoy their new selves, getting used to new identities, new skins that were exposed to the air for the first time as if they had emerged from cocoons. They kept looking
at each other to see if they had physically changed and were surprised that their bodies resembled their old shells. They often glanced at each other wondering at the strangeness of their lives, and each one, separately and together, was in awe of the lives each had led, in awe of this thing they were living, and each one was struggling desperately, if awkwardly, to respect the losses they had suffered.

Sunday morning, as Eddie was about to go out for a run, Maria Elena announced she was going to Mass.

“What?” Eddie asked.

“Mass,” she repeated.

“Do you even know where there’s a Catholic church?” Eddie asked.

“Of course I know.”

“May I ask why?”

“To pray.”

“To pray,” Eddie repeated. “Sometimes, I don’t know you.”

“I go to Mass, sometimes, you know? Not usually on Sunday, but I go sometimes during the week. You don’t have to keep a journal in secret anymore—and I don’t have to be a closet Catholic.”

Lizzie shook her head. “I didn’t know you prayed.”

“You didn’t even know my name until recently.” She placed her hand on her belly. “I want to go and pray.”

“Want me to go with you?”

“Not really, Eddie.” She smiled at him. “And anyway, you don’t want to go. What would you do there?”

“Sit next to you.”

“You can sit next to me when we watch television. This doesn’t have to be a group thing.” She noticed his look of relief.

“Just one more question, Nena.”

“Anything.”

“Are you going to raise our child Catholic?”

“I want to baptize him,” she said, “the rest is negotiable. You don’t want that, do you?”

“I’m not objecting, honey.”

“I know that look,” she said, “and you always call me honey when you disapprove of something I’m doing.”

“She knows that look,” Lizzie said—then started laughing, “and you always call her honey when—”

“Who hired you?” Eddie asked.

“I’m the sidekick.”

“Oh—and what does the sidekick think of all this?”

“The sidekick thinks it might not be such a bad idea. I mean
I
was raised as a nothing. What’s so special about that? Besides, the kid might learn something about prayer.”

“Prayer? You’ve done much of it, have you, Lizzie?”

“Smart-ass. What does that have to do with anything?”

“Well, I just want to know on what basis you judge prayer as being something necessary. I mean, you obviously didn’t arrive at that conclusion via the vehicle of experience.”

“Via the vehicle of experience?” Lizzie asked.

“He talks that way sometimes,” Maria Elena said.

“You know what
I
mean. Tell me why prayer is good.”

“Because you empty yourself out,” Lizzie said.

“Then is it the same thing as an out-of-body experience?”

“In a way.”

“In a way?”

“Prayer is a centering.”

“Why do we need to be centered?”

“Because if you don’t feel centered, then you always feel like a wreck.”

“How can you center yourself and empty yourself out at the same time?”

“I’m not good at theological debates,” Lizzie said.

“I don’t think this conversation qualifies as a theological debate.” “I hate to break up this discussion, but I’m going to be late for Mass,” Maria Elena announced. “I better get dressed.”

“I want to go,” Lizzie said. “I want to go with you.”

“Why?”

“Because tomorrow I’m going to a Mass—a Mass for Salvador. I forgot to tell you. And
I
won’t feel so nervous if I’ve done it before.” The thought of walking into Mission Dolores Church suddenly filled her with dread.

“Done what before?”

“Gone to a Mass.”

“You’re being ridiculous, Elizabeth,” Eddie said. “It’s not like a piano recital—you don’t need to practice.”

“But Catholic churches are so scary,” Lizzie said.

“They’re not going to bite off your valuables,” Eddie smiled.

Maria Elena was amused by her husband’s uneasiness. “Are you coming, Lizzie?”

“Lend me something to wear?” she said.

They headed for the stairs. “I’m going for a run,” Eddie said. “Don’t forget to pray for the mass of perdition—and for the homeless—and pray for a revolution—and pray that all polluters be punished for their sins—and—”

“If you have that many intentions, then
I
think you better say your own damn prayers,” Maria Elena said as she walked up the stairs. She knew this was the beginning of a new battle. An old disagreement died, another was born. As Maria Elena dressed for Mass, she thought of her mother. She wished her mother had lived long enough to see her grandchild. Maria Elena wondered why she had omitted telling Eddie about how they had run away one night from their father as if that incident was a minor detail.

Eddie stood silently in the doorway and listened to them laugh as they changed in the bedroom upstairs. He remembered his parents had made him go to Mass every Sunday. He also remembered his mother had killed his father and herself on Sunday.
After Communion, they went to Communion, and then she came home and blew their bodies away. Good, religious, conservative people. “Get dressed, Jonathan Edward, God requires
…” He stood in the doorway cursing his father.

No one spoke about prayer or Mass when Nena and Lizzie walked back into the house that afternoon.

Lizzie cooked her favorite Sunday dinner, a roast with carrots, onions, garlic, and potatoes. Maria Elena baked an apple pie, and the kitchen was full of the odors and warmth and Maria Elena’s body. Eddie was happy just sitting in the room all afternoon, writing and thinking and half-listening to Nena and Lizzie speak of small things—old songs, bracelets, movies they had loved in that time of life when they were becoming women.

Eddie read them a poem from a book he was reading and they listened to his voice. Maria Elena was not listening to what the poem said, she just listened to the fact of her husband’s voice—it was soft and warm and she did not remember hearing anything as unthreatening as the sound that came from his body. She looked at Lizzie—she was very beautiful. Maria Elena set the table when it was time to eat, and she lit candles all around the dining room. Sometime between the salad and dessert, Lizzie had convinced Maria Elena to go with her to her brother’s memorial Mass.

“But you didn’t know him,” Eddie said to Lizzie.

“Does that mean I shouldn’t go?”

“That’s not it,” he said, “I think it’s grand that you’re going. It would be awful if no one went. It’s just that it sounds so strange for you to refer to him as your brother.”

“Was he less of a brother because I didn’t know him?”

Eddie said nothing. “You’re right,” he said, and then he seemed to go away from them.

Maria Elena knew he was visiting with the memory of his brother. Too much of him would be missing until she found him. She thought of Diego, tried to keep his name from entering the room. Too much of her was missing, too.

Lizzie thought of Salvador, repeated his name to herself, felt his touch on her palm. “
You have a gift.”
She thought of the two men, their names, Jacob and Joaquin. She knew she would go and find them and that their names would become as meaningful, as significant, as painful as Salvador’s. She knew Joaquin would die, the image of him on his deathbed became as real to her as the smell of Maria Elena’s apple pie. She felt she was at the beginning of something and she knew that the two people in this room would be a part of whatever was coming—and so were the two men. She could still picture the blond Jacob holding the dark Joaquin. She wondered how it could be that these men’s names were already holy on her lips. She did not know them. How could she love them? But she did love them, already, loved them almost as much as she loved Maria Elena and Eddie.

They ate dessert in silence. They were all a little tired. And a little sad.

Eddie got up and served more coffee. “It was a nice weekend,” he said.

“It was lovely,” Lizzie said.

“Lovely,” Maria Elena repeated.

Maria Elena dipped her hand in the holy water font and crossed herself as she walked into Mission Dolores Church, She breathed in the years of incense that poured out of the walls. She lit a candle and whispered a prayer from her childhood. Lizzie followed behind her in silence. She was glad Maria Elena had come with her, and now that she was in the church, she wondered why she had been so afraid of it, but wondered, too, why it still looked so familiar. She was beginning to believe she’d had a former life. When Maria Elena finished her prayer in front of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she took a seat in the third row. Lizzie nudged her as they sat down. She pointed at a man who was sitting alone. “There’s nobody else here.” She looked at her watch. “It’s ten o’clock sharp.” As she spoke, an altar boy and a priest robed in white moved toward the altar. Maria Elena stood up, and Lizzie mimed her friend’s actions. The priest kissed the front of the altar and lit the Easter candle. It went out almost immediately. He tried to light it again. It stayed lit for a moment, flickered, then went out again. He shrugged his shoulders. He then faced the empty pews and the three people in the congregation.

“He’s handsome,” Lizzie said.

“Shhh, it’s a church not a bar.”

“You sound like an old lady.”

“Priests are celibate.”

“I’ll bet.”

“Good morning” the priest said. He had a nice voice, Lizzie thought. Maria Elena nodded. “Let us begin this memorial Mass in thanksgiving for the life that has been bestowed upon us in the name of the father and of the son …” He crossed himself as he spoke.

I hate words like “bestowed,” Lizzie thought.

She noticed a brass urn sitting at the foot of the altar.