Summer of the Mariposas Read online

  Instead of talking to the guests, we walked up to the porch and stood waiting to hear from the family. They would probably have more questions for us than the guests, and it would be rude of us to leave without filling them in on what little we did know. Besides, we were in a foreign country, and we needed help finding a place to stay for the night.

  It seemed like an eternity before anyone came out of the house. In the meantime, Juanita and I sat on an old bench with Pita between us, while Delia and Velia clung to a pillar, trying their best not to wet their pants. Eventually, the old man came out of the house and spoke to everyone.

  “Amigos,” he said to the crowd. “It is my sad duty to inform you that the festivities are over. Inés and I have some delicate business to attend to. Gabriel’s body must be prepared for burial. You may return in the morning for the velorio, the viewing, which we will hold here. Please, feel free to take home as much of the food as you like. You are welcome to it.” Then he turned around and spoke to the mariachi on the other side of the yard. “Señores músicos, thank you for your service. You are free to go. Señoritas,” he said, turning to address us. “If you will follow me. My Inés would like to speak to you.”

  The body of Gabriel Pérdido was laid out in full view on top of the dinner table surrounded by the soft glow of dozens of gloomy candles. We peered at it as we were escorted into the house. Inés Pérdido was sitting up primly on the edge of a cushioned chair in the parlor area directly across from the dining room next to an older woman who looked a lot like her. Inés’s hands were clasped in front of her, clutching a rosary. She had taken her pink party dress off, and was now wearing a modest black sheath that covered most of her body, except for her forearms, hands, and ankles. She’d looked prettier in her party dress.

  “I’m sorry, we haven’t been properly introduced,” Inés said, as she extended a hand to us. “I am Inés Pérdido, and this is my mother, Zaragoza.”

  We all shook hands. “Glad to meet you,” I whispered as we sat down before the two women. “If we’d known about the quinceañera, we would have waited.”

  “We’re so sorry,” Velia began, but Inés waved the apology away. She pressed an embroidered handkerchief against the corners of her eyes and looked away.

  “Where has he been?” she asked, when she had composed herself enough to manage the words.

  “We don’t know,” I said. “He was already dead when we found him.”

  “Floating in the river,” Delia interjected.

  It only took a few minutes to tell Inés everything we knew. After she heard the extent of our story, she sat still, quietly blinking away the tears, a lifetime of pain running down her pretty face.

  “He sent a letter,” she finally said, her voice low and deep with emotion. “Many years ago, saying he wouldn’t be back.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “We didn’t know.”

  “I sent him a letter too, begging him to come home — for his children’s sake. They missed him so much. But he never wrote back. For a while, I thought maybe he had married again, like so many men who go up north do,” Inés whispered, looking down at her hands as she spoke, as if the memory of it was too painful to speak of in a normal tone of voice. “Then the authorities came. They said they had found the remains of a body in his vehicle in the Chihuahuan desert. They thought it might be him, but they couldn’t be certain. The car was registered in his name and there were other signs — a gun and two rifles he had bought several months before which were in the trunk. I don’t know who that man was, but it never felt right, them declaring Gabriel legally dead when they couldn’t identify his body.”

  “At least now you know he is gone for sure, m’ija,” Inés’s father said as he stepped into the room.

  “Gabriel was never really here,” Inés continued, in her trancelike voice. “He was always roaming, always wandering. I think some men are just meant for the road. They have no sense of place or belonging, no concept of family. Anyway, he’s home now, finally, and I thank you for that.”

  “I’m sorry we ruined your daughter’s special day,” Juanita said, hanging her head and looking down at her hands.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Inés said, patting Juanita’s hands. “You have brought peace to my home.”

  Peace — exactly what we had hoped to bring. Her words confirmed it, but her face denied it. And we could all see it. She was miserable.

  PART II

  THE INITIATION

  How my sisters and I had to leave the house of the drowned man in a hurry. How we were enchanted, and with La Llorona’s help, were able to flee from the sorceress Cecilia, and sought advice from the old fortune-teller, Teresita. How we were warned about, encountered, and escaped from the clutches of a wily nagual, a coven of scheming lechuzas, and a blood-thirsty chupacabras, to end up at the hacienda of our paternal grandmother — a grandmother we hadn’t seen more than twice in our lifetimes.

  EL ÁRBOL: “Debajo de un árbol reposan

  mis lindas mariposas.”

  THE TREE: “Under a tree rest my

  beautiful butterflies.”

  We’d wanted to stay at a motel, but Inés and her family insisted on boarding us for the night. In the small kitchen at the back of the house, we ate traditional birthday fare. Inés and her mother served us plateful after plateful of enchiladas de mole. The chocolaty sauce of the chicken enchiladas spilled out of the rolled-up tortillas and mixed in with the rice and beans, making the dish extra delicious. We gorged ourselves till we thought we’d pop. Then for dessert the women brought us generously cut slices of pearly white cake. It was moist and creamy and absolutely too much for our already bursting stomachs, but it was scrumptious. So we had two slices each.

  During the meal, however, the Spanish Inquisition began. We had to think of some quick answers because even though we’d expected a full-on interrogation, we hadn’t planned anything that came out of our mouths.

  Luckily, the girls remembered our little talk about having Juanita and I “explain” things without giving out too much information. For the most part, they remained silent and didn’t contradict or add anything to whatever we said.

  “But where is your Mamá?” Inés’s mother asked as she passed out the frothy white cake slices.

  “She’s at home,” I said, putting a forkful of cake in my mouth to stop myself from having to give out any more details than were absolutely necessary. Our number one rule about answering inopportune questions from strangers was “don’t add too much cream to the tacos.” In other words, keep the answers simple and plain. Like Mamá always says, nobody needs to know all of our business.

  “At home?” Inés’s mother crinkled her eyebrows together, and I concentrated on my next bite of cake.

  “Working,” Delia said, acting nonchalant. “She’s married to her job. She hasn’t been able to take a vacation in years.”

  “So who takes care of you?” Inés asked, turning her attention to Delia. “Who drove you here?”

  “I did. I’m old enough,” I said, quickly jumping in before anybody else said anything too outrageous.

  “Sí, of course.” Her eyes said she didn’t believe me.

  “And how old are you?” Inés’s mother asked. “You don’t look older than fourteen.”

  “I’m actually eighteen,” I said, concentrating on my cake again. “The women in my family look younger than we actually are. We take after my grandmother. She’s seventy-one years old, but she doesn’t look a day over fifty.” Not that I’d seen my abuela since I was ten, but it was the only justification I could think of.

  “I see,” Inés said, looking to her mother again. “And where does your abuela live?”

  I yawned and stretched and made a show of being ready for bed. “Not too far from here,” I mumbled.

  “Really?” Inés�
�s face changed then. She looked more interested, more alert, like a squirrel when she lifts herself on her hind legs and sniffs the air with instinctual intelligence.

  “Yes. We’ll be seeing her in the morning,” I said without really knowing why. Maybe it was nervousness that made me say it, or maybe the decision had already been made and it had just been sitting there in my mind, in my heart, waiting to be put into words. I didn’t understand how or why, but somewhere between the enchiladas and the birthday cake I’d decided to honor La Llorona’s request, to run the course of our journey and try to find true happiness for my sisters and myself. And that meant going to visit Abuelita. It seemed to me that we had been through too much to not finish what we’d started.

  Around the small round table, every one of my sisters stopped eating, stared, and then smiled at me. Their joy was evident in the way they nodded and grinned while they resumed shoving cake into their mouths with reckless abandon.

  Zaragoza made her way around in the tight little kitchen to sit between me and Inés. “Oh?”

  “Yes,” I said, thinking on my feet. “Mamá told her about the body we found and she wanted to help. After they talked it over, Abuelita told us how to get here. It was really very easy.”

  “Super easy,” Delia interjected, shoving another forkful of cake in her mouth.

  “Well, we should call them and thank them. Let them know you arrived safely. We don’t want either of them to worry,” Inés’s mother said.

  “She doesn’t have a phone,” Velia said, joining the conversation with the same conviction as Delia and I. “I mean, my mother does, but . . . ”

  “What she means is that our mother doesn’t answer her cell phone at work, and she’s on the night shift right now,” I interrupted, coming to Velia’s rescue. She was always the worst at keeping things from strangers. She was just too candid. “It will be all right,” I continued. “We’ll call them tomorrow, after Mamá gets home from work and Abuelita is awake.”

  “I think we should try to get in touch with someone tonight,” Inés insisted. “Don’t you, Mamá?”

  “No!” I said emphatically, hoping they would listen to us.

  “Why not?” Inés asked.

  “Because . . . because . . .” I tried to think of something else to say, something totally convincing, but nothing came to mind. I started to panic, and I realized I was holding my breath. Then, remembering La Llorona’s words and the effect the ear pendant had on the duty officer at customs, I reached up to my left ear and flicked my index finger against the nestling orbs. They tinkled lightly and I could feel them twirling around each other, humming against my cheek. I turned my face slightly toward Inés and her mother to call attention to the spinning argollas, as I whispered the enchantment. “Aztec queen, Tonantzin, Holy Mother of all mankind, give us your magical assistance. Make these women believe and help us leave!”

  “What is going on?” Juanita leaned close to me to look at my whirling ear pendant. The rest of the girls did the same from around the table. “Why is your earring spinning? And what was that you said?” She reached over to touch La Llorona’s magical gift.

  “Don’t touch it,” I whispered. “It’s a prop to help me hypnotize them.”

  “Since when do you know how to hypnotize people?” Delia asked, a frown of disbelief furrowing between her brows.

  “Who cares? It’s working,” Juanita said, putting a finger over her lips. “Look at their eyes. They look like cats.”

  “I like your earrings,” Zaragoza said, reaching for them. “They look very old, like something the ancient Aztecas used to wear.”

  “They were a gift,” I said, trying not to deviate too far from the original lie I’d told the border patrol agent early that morning.

  Zaragoza took another sip from her coffee. “Oh, who gave them to you?”

  “Abuelita Remedios,” I lied, relieved to see that the women had dropped their concerns. “She’s very generous.”

  “Of course.” Inés’s pupils were perfectly dilated, giving her a dazed expression. Her mother’s pupils were dilated too. The spell was working. “I’m glad you’re going to a relative’s house. It’s not safe for you girls to be traveling in Mexico alone.”

  I kept my voice even, willing the spell to keep them charmed by our lies for as long as we remained in their house. “Well, like I said, our grandmother lives down the road, about twenty miles away, between here and Ejido la Paloma. This was more like a quick stop along the way.”

  It wasn’t a total lie either. Hacienda Dorada was technically located somewhere in the wilderness between El Sacrificio and Ejido la Paloma. There were a series of unmarked roads that led to Hacienda Dorada from El Sacrificio. Papá had outlined them on his road map when I was ten years old, to show me where we were going the last time we visited Abuelita Remedios. Juanita had looked it up while I was driving earlier today.

  “So, you’re going to visit your grandmother. That’s nice. I bet you’re excited about that,” Inés’s mother exclaimed. She smiled at Pita, who was shoveling cake into her mouth without saying a word. Pita was all bug-eyed and big-eared, nodding like a ratoncita, nervous as a little mouse sitting precariously on the edge of a wooden trap.

  By the time we were done eating and answering questions, it was almost midnight. We sat at the table yawning in front of our hostesses, who were cleaning up after the party. When they saw us practically falling out of our chairs, Inés insisted that we follow her down the hall.

  “First, we’ll get you all cleaned up,” Inés began. “You can take turns showering. Your little sister can go first. I suggest you don’t take longer than five minutes each. Otherwise you’ll run out of hot water.”

  “Oh, we don’t want to use up all your water,” I said, feeling more and more like we should just get out of the house, maybe go find a cheap motel room in the nearest town.

  “Well, let’s not worry about that,” Inés said, as she put her arm around my shoulders and walked me back down the hall. “The water will be warm again in the morning.”

  Half an hour later, Delia was busy combing out Pita’s wet hair. Pita looked refreshed with their hair slicked back. The twins looked revitalized too. Their hair was still wrapped in thick towels, and they were wearing their long shirts from home. Their legs were long and slim, and I wondered why they weren’t cursed with the big-boned frames Juanita and I had inherited from Mamá.

  “Are you almost done in there?” I called to Juanita, who was obviously taking her time in the shower. I was dying to scrub the grit off my arms and face. “I’m so dirty, you could take a spatula and scrape the filth off my skin.”

  “You’re telling me,” Delia said, looking at me with disgust. “You smell like a chiva.”

  “Thanks.” I lowered the toilet lid and plopped down on it, upset at the idea of smelling like a billy goat. “I love being one of your analogies.”

  “It’s a simile. I didn’t say you were a goat, I said you smell like a goat. Didn’t you learn anything in English class?” Delia pulled the towel off her head and started finger-combing her hair absently.

  Delia pushed Pita toward the door. “I’m outta here. Let’s go to bed, Papita Frita. Looks like we’re sharing piojos tonight.”

  “Stop calling me that!” Pita pulled away from Delia and grabbed the side of the sink to anchor herself. “I’m not sleeping with you. You’re mean!”

  “Suit yourself, but there’s only one bed, and I’m calling the left side.”

  “There’s only one bed?” I asked, watching Velia pull her right eyelid down to check her eyes in front of the mirror.

  “Yup,” Velia said. She opened her mouth and stuck her tongue out to look at it. “I’m sleeping on the window sofa. Inés said I could. It’s just long enough for one person, if I curl up real tight. Besides, I’m too tired to share a bed with Pita. She
kicks like a wild horse.”

  “I know,” Juanita chimed in from behind the shower curtain she was using to cover up while she dressed for bed. “I’m taking the blankets out of the car and sleeping on the floor.”

  “On the floor?” I asked, mortified. My back ached just thinking about it.

  “It’s better than being all crunched up in that bed with the three of you.”

  “I guess the floor’s not so bad,” I admitted. “I mean, compared to having Pita punching and kicking at you all night long.”

  “Do whatever you want. Shower’s all yours,” Juanita said. Then she pushed back the curtain and stepped out of the bathtub in her pink pajamas — she had dressed in the shower because she was much more modest than the rest of us.

  “There’s probably enough room for three of us on the bed,” I said hopefully.

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. By the time I got out of the shower and dressed, Delia and Pita were asleep, fully stretched out on what would have been my side of the bed. Delia was awake, but just barely. I tried to shake her, so she could give me some room, but she moaned something that sounded like, “Lotería!”

  “Odilia, it’s not very comfortable, but you can sleep down here with me,” Juanita whispered from her place on the floor by the window seat. “Velia and I are awake.”

  “I wish we had more cushion down here. Why didn’t you take the comforter from the bed?” I asked.

  “Delia called it, and she wouldn’t give it up. But that’s okay. I have my San Marcos blanket. It’s not so bad. You’ll get used to it.”

  Suddenly angry, I grabbed the edge of the comforter and yanked it off of the girls on the bed, leaving them with only the thin blanket underneath. Pita whined out an incoherent sound, and I smiled as I walked away with it without feeling even a little bit guilty. They were lucky I didn’t push them off the side of the bed — selfish brats.