Red Lightning (16 page)

“But sometimes a person has to stand up and make a choice. Make a firm decision and act. Not knowing if it's the right thing for sure. Hoping, though.”

“Yes.”

“And sometimes that person is wrong. Accidentally makes the wrong choice.”

“Yes.”

“You don't talk as much as you used to. I remember you being a weird-talker. All philosophy, in stops-and-starts and looping in weird directions. I remember the first time Libby and I met you, when we walked into Ideal Grocery to buy candy after high school let out, and there you were, pulling into the parking lot in your orange VW bus, and Libby said something like,
There's two kinds of folks around here, the
ranching kind and the escape-people-hippie kind, and this dude is that second kind
, which just proved to be true, because we saw you unloading boxes of bottled honey to sell.”

“You have a good memory.” He waves his arm aimlessly in the air. “Look. Last night's wind took down so many leaves.” It's true: the blooms of yellow that had been floating in trees are now on the ground, where they're floating in a different way. The cottonwoods still have leaves waving like small flags, triumphant that they're still holding on. “Amber comes out here. She likes climbing them. If I remember right, you used to talk a lot
less
. You've been surprisingly talkative.”

I glance up at the spread of branches along an old creek bed that's dried up, the trees being the evidence of the ancient paths of water.

He pushes his glasses up on his nose and keeps walking. After a while, he says, “We're going to the house I lived in when I first met your family.” He adjusts his glasses. “That house I lived in back when you were here last. I don't know if you know this, but I had lived in El Salvador for a while. In a small village in rebel-controlled territories, worked with the FMLN. I wanted to do something that mattered, so that
I
would matter. I snuck in solar-powered generators for radios. It's a long story, there was a solidarity movement in those days . . . Anyway, in the end, I just got my heart broken.”

“By a woman?”

At this, he laughs sincerely. “That's exactly what Libby asked me when I told her this story. No, not by a woman. By everything else. Because I wanted to make a difference, and I realized I wasn't helping much, or maybe I was, who knows, but I felt so small. Maybe it was the first time I'd realized how much suffering there was, and my efforts were so minor compared to what someone with power could do.”

                 
The wind blows a little, Tess feels the shift in her hair.

                 
She'll miss that.

                 
The grass rolls like waves.

                 
She'll miss that too.

                 
The clouds boiling up over the mountains. They'll meander this way, toward Tess, toward the plains.

                 
They'll release hail or rain or lightning, or, more likely, only drift on past.

Ed glances at me, sideways. “So I moved out here. So that I could feel like enough again. I needed to be invisible for a while. Just like you do, as the
levantona
. That's a real trick. The balance between being seen and unseen.
Pollos
need to be unseen so that they can start a new life and
not
be invisible. Acquire enough substance to build a life. But because they're trying to be invisible, they're not. Do you know, for example, that most of the immigrants get nabbed because of routine traffic stops? And did you know that most of those were caught by
la migra
on Highway 160, between Durango and Alamosa? The INS agents know it, and so do the
coyotes
. So why, I wonder, were you there?”

I breathe in, glance sideways. “It's not the INS anymore. It's ICE.”

He sighs, annoyed. “I know that.”

“They go north now. They go back roads, into Utah, then over. I-70. Drug drops right in Mormon territory. Right where you'd least expect it. But this group, I don't know. I was told to go there. An old spot we used to use—”

“Tess. Stop. I'm asking. Was anything about this pickup special?”

I shake my head, no.

He looks at me, genuinely curious. “You didn't know who the pickup was?”

I shake my head, no again. The shaking causes the world to spin, and the leaves that are falling seem to be falling in three dimensions, a spiral within a spiral.

Seasick is what I feel like. I look down, hoping to find my landfeet, looking for grounding. The sun is deafening now. I kick at a couple of leaves, sending them springing into the air.

“I built this house—” and here, he waves his hand at a structure I see in the far distance. “I built it by hand. By myself. One adobe brick at a time. Had no idea what I was doing. Learned as I went. Back when I was hurting and needing to feel again.”

I give one good kick to a clump of grass underfoot. “You seem . . . good now.”

“Emotions come back when you get calm enough to let them.”

He scratches his jaw, stops, looks down, bends over and picks up a globe of what looks like gray tissue paper. “Wasp nest. They chew up leaves and bark and spit it out, and look what they make.” He looks up at the cottonwood, where I suppose this was once sitting, the whole time balancing it gently in his palm, the fingers curved up around, holding it. Gray and hollow, like a skull.

I reach over and poke at the nest. How soft it is, as if maybe it's made from barely-hanging-together dust.

He glances over at me, keeps walking, looking off into the distance. He holds the wasp nest in one hand, like a god holding the globe of the earth. “The empty isn't going to fill up like magic, Tess.” He stops, looks at me. “And it doesn't fill up with drink and drugs, either. It fills up by having a purpose. At least spend some time with Amber. Just for her sake, fake it. Do not break that kid's heart.”

I shake my head, no.

“Well, when you do leave, look her in the eye. Say goodbye. And make her understand, in her heart, that you're not leaving because of her. Okay? You got that?” He looks at me until I nod. “You could lose your family for real, you know. I'm not sure you've ever considered that. You left and you've been gone, and I'm guessing that all this time, you took it for granted that they'd still be here. If this shit ever hit the fan. Which it has. Be careful, Tess. What you do or say next . . .” He sighs. “Whatever you do next will have big consequences. Please be careful. Please try to think beyond yourself.”

I won't let him catch my eye, and so he tosses the nest gently to the ground and points toward the structure that has just come into view again. It's a small round home, stucco on the outside, another Earthship, but smaller and plain. Like the other, it's surrounded by a dirt driveway and a line of trees and a few little outbuildings. “This is what I want to show you.”

“You still have that orange VW bus? Parked out here? That's what you had when
I
lived here.”

As we near, Ed touches my shoulder and turns me to him. It startles me, and I pull back, but he pulls me close again, gently. He waits until I look him in the eyes. “Friends stay here now.” He squeezes my shoulders, tight. “It's funny. How bits of people gather in us. Isn't it? Listen. One thing. It's one thing to be invisible. And another to be
un pelagato
—a nobody. It's a fine line. It's as fine as the dust of that wasp nest. Fine as each layer. Nobody is a
pelagato
. Nobody, not one single human, is a nobody.”

He wants something from me, so I nod. Yes. Fine. Yes.

“Do you understand? So treat yourself, and treat them, like the invisible people you currently need to be. Invisible, but not a nobody. You understand the difference?”

The intensity of his voice makes me realize that what he's saying is as essential as my heartbeat. My face flushes. I look toward the home and realize something is out of whack. There is laundry. A pump with a small puddle of water on the ground. A group of chickens that scatter away. Then I make out a few people, who move inside as soon as they see us, except one. A young woman with a ponytail of the finest black hair. A startled face. The bloom of a smile.

Chapter Thirteen

My stomach caves, and I'm trying for oxygen between heaves. Ed is
catching me underneath my armpits as I fall with a
whoa now
and he is dragging me over to a tree, which he leans me against once he's got me in the shade. Before I can suck in air again, there are arms wrapped around me and
lo siento, ay, lo siento
, and a wet cloth, and Ed's hand on my forehead.

It can't be.

My eyes dart at Ed, back to a young woman's startled face. She's grown up now, a woman, the curves of her face defined into sharper angles.

Ed whispers something at me, and it startles me enough to send me back against the tree bark. “Feel it, Tess. That swoosh of the heart.
That's
life. That is worth living for.”

Alejandra.

I lean forward, my head between my legs. They are alive. I look up and bring them into focus. Alejandra. Now the age I was when I left here, smiling timidly at me, crooked eyeteeth, and there is Lupe, her mother, soft hands, as soft as a wasp nest, fluttering across my face.
Behind them is a cluster of men—about five of them—and I am hearing,
the fire, we were scared, we were alone
, and then I see it in Lupe's expression: they think I'm angry.

Alejandra, longglossyblackhair Alejandra, dimpleandcrookedeyeteeth Alejandra.

She puts out her arms to hold me.

I let out a moan that is not me. It is a moan of the universe.

Déjà vu: Me looking at Libby across the parking lot, wanting to put my arms out but not sure she would be that forgiving.

“
No nos odies por el fuego
. We thought we were going to die,” Alejandra says as she nears, holds my eyes in hers. “It was that close.” Her voice is fluid, and her eyes are steady. “We were so thirsty. We were dying. I started the fire so someone would
see
us. It was small. Oh, Tess. We put on dried branches for the smoke. I thought it would go out. We had waited for the pick-up person. We didn't know it was to be you.
No nos odies por el incendio que causamos
. . . We called one last number, then we called the police to turn ourselves in.” She tilts her head slightly at Ed. “The only other number we thought we could call. The one you taught me, Tess.”

“
No entiendo
.” The world starts spinning again, and I tilt over, and Ed holds me against the tree, mumbles something, touches my forehead. Then I am being held by Alejandra. Rocked by someone. Someone is feeling my pulse, touching my neck, touching my forehead. “You have a fever,” Ed is saying quietly. “A high fever.”

I close my eyes to bring the scattered bits together. I look to Ed first.

“Why didn't you
tell
me?”

He bends down, looks at me in the eyes, waits until I hold his gaze. “We were waiting to see what your plans were. What you were doing here, what you were about.”

“I don't understand.”

“We crisscrossed. You were on the bus here, and I was on my way there. Do you see? I had been driving like a maniac to the mountains. I didn't know about the fire either, that it was blazing into
that
fire, not until you told me.”

Behind him, murmurings. “
Por favor, Tess, perdónanos. No nos odies por el fuego, nos estábamos muriendo de sed
.”

Lupe walks forward, takes my hand. “
No íbamos a vivir más que un par de horas
.” Her voice is flat. “
Teníamos tanta sed. Encendimos el fuego
.” She turns and walks away, limping.

Alejandra's voice is the opposite, full of calm kindness. “
Ay, Tess, no sabíamos que ibas a ser tú quien nos encontrará
. We had to leave the
mota y coca
. It's all burned. That man is going to be very angry.”

I close my eyes. The world is getting dark. I hear a voice, my own voice. “But I can't understand this . . .”

“We were dying. Mama's leg—”

I hear my voice, but I am far away from it, in another world altogether. “I didn't know it was you, Alejandra. But I was looking. Waiting and waiting. And you never came. Forgive me. I was there. I looked. I waited and I waited.”

“When we got to the road, Ed was there.”

I close and open my eyes. I am sitting with a group of humans outside a small home, under the trees, in this huge expanse of a universe. Flies are buzzing around, and the sun filters through the yellow cottonwood leaves. I sip water from the glass in my hand.

“The color of the desert, the color of the land. That's how we were dressed, because that's how you survive. It was hotter, much hotter, than it is right now. One of the Lobo's
coyotes
was in the tallest building in Morales, watching the Border Patrol walk back and forth, and he had two more guys on the ground, watching as well, so that they could communicate, by radio, the—”