Blooming at the Texas Sunrise Motel Read online

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  This story is for Shannon Renee Holt

  and her dreams.

  May they all come true.

  Seedling

  A plant that emerges from seed with roots, a stem, and leaves

  Chapter One

  MY NAME, STEVIE GRACE, was tattooed inside a giant sun on my dad’s back. Because, he said, after I was born he’d have sunshine for the rest of his days. I loved my dad’s tattoos—they told the story of his life. A Louisiana shrimp boat on his right shoulder for a job he once had, and a blue backpack along his forearm for a walk across the country. The broken hoe above his left pec was easy to figure out. We had a small farm.

  A daisy emerging from a tornado hung over his heart, for Mom. Ever since I was little, he’d told me a story about how Mom was swept up into a Texas tornado and landed on his doorstep. “Even with all the leaves sticking to her hair, she was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen.” When I got older, I realized his story wasn’t true, but I liked fairy tales. I wanted to believe it. So I never asked how they really met.

  When I pointed to the rectangle-with-wing tattoo on his arm, he’d say, “That story will have to wait until you’re older.” Tattoos covered most of his upper body, from his neck down to his belly button. He said he’d eventually make it to his toes but he still had a lot of living to do.

  I think about that now as I leave Albuquerque on a Greyhound bus, watching a lady next to me knit. Her fingers slip the red yarn over the needles at such a quick speed, it makes me dizzy to watch. Still, I can’t help it. I’m mesmerized. Down, over, and up. Down, over, and up. The tink-tink sound of the needles touching. Each new stitch precisely like the last. If only my life could be as sure as her stitches.

  * * *

  WE LIVED IN AN ABANDONED CHURCH outside Taos, New Mexico. It was a little stucco building with a pitched tin roof and a steeple piercing purple sky. My dad called our home the Rockasita because records always played on Mom’s old turntable.

  Both my parents listened to old music. Dad preferred his songs rough, like the Stones and Johnny Cash (pre–June Carter). He called Mom’s music “bubblegum pop” because she liked Neil Sedaka, Barry Manilow, and the Go-Go’s. Fleetwood Mac and the Beatles were the only bands they agreed on. I guess it’s no wonder my parents named me after Stevie Nicks.

  We may have lived in a church building, but we didn’t attend services. Mom believed God was everywhere—in the wind’s whisper blowing through the Red River aspens, in a single ripple on the Rio Grande, and even in the toothless grin of our neighbor Angelina Cruz. My dad agreed. And so did I.

  Our home was a few miles away from Taos Plaza, right off Highway 64. A lot of cars used this route because it climbed through the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. My parents set their fruit-and-flower stand in the shade of two old plum trees that grew at the edge of the road. We called them the sweetheart trees because their branches had spread so wide, they intertwined. They never failed to provide us with enough plums to eat and sell.

  Our garden put food on the table, but I hated the watering, the weeding, the planting. Sometimes I climbed one of the sweetheart trees to escape my chores. I’d hide up there on a high branch, breathing in all that sweetness and staring down at my dad’s scalp.

  Unfortunately, the trees were located just before a short twist along the highway, which created a sort of optical illusion. Sometimes drivers thought they were about to crash into them. The third time a driver swerved, lost control, and almost hit the trees, Dad took an axe and cut them down. Mom and I cried, but she said, “Your dad was right. They grew too close to the curve, and they’re probably causing some of the accidents. What if you’d been in one of the trees?”

  That was last summer. A month ago, I noticed a small seedling had sprouted in the spot where the two trees had grown. If they noticed, Mom and Dad didn’t mention it. Accidents still happened. None of them were that serious, but whenever we saw a wreck, Mom and I would say a quick prayer. Maybe our prayers didn’t make any difference, but I felt better. I liked our way of going to church because we didn’t have to enter a building to worship. The opportunity could be found in every moment.

  I believe this. Even after what happened.

  Two weeks ago, while I was at school, a drunk driver crashed into my parents’ stand. The paramedics drove my parents to the hospital. They were dead on arrival. Then they were driven to the morgue. All this happened between lunch and the end of eighth-grade geography class. I lost my parents while my teacher discussed major cities in Australia. And here’s the weird thing: I was thinking about them during that lesson. Dad and Mom had said if they ever left New Mexico, Australia seemed like the kind of place they’d want to call home. We even threw our change in an empty jar that had a label with AUSTRALIA written across it. We were planning to travel there one day.

  “I always fancied myself a kangaroo,” Dad told us.

  I burst into giggles, then announced, “I’m more of a koala bear.”

  Mom claimed we were both crazy. “I’m going as a photographer. I’ll be sure and take your pictures, though.” Then she added, “Click, click.” She did that whenever her camera wasn’t handy and she saw a perfect picture op.

  That’s what I was thinking about when my parents were dying. Maybe my parents were there with me in geography class. Maybe they were saying good-bye.

  * * *

  FOUR HOURS OUT OF ALBUQUERQUE, the bus meets the Amarillo city limits. We’re still a long way from the Dallas bus station. I search outside the wide window for anything resembling my home. The land is as flat as a tortilla, and the sky touches the horizon far and wide. We pass the small downtown skyline, which is more midrise than high. Right before we leave the city limits, I notice a giant cowboy statue in front of a yellow building. Mom would have taken a picture of that. I reach inside my tote bag for her camera, but it’s too late. We’ve passed the restaurant. I twist around and watch as the cowboy becomes a matchstick. Click, click. So this is Texas.

  I’m on my way to my grandfather’s home, the Texas Sunrise Motel in Little Esther. All I know about Little Esther is that it’s somewhere south of Dallas. All I know about him is that he’s my mother’s father and I thought he was dead. When I was little, I asked about my grandparents. Most of my friends lived near theirs, and I felt left out. Dad took me aside and said, “My family has been gone a long time now, and it’s best you don’t ask your mom about hers. It will make her sad.” Soon after that, I caught Mom crying when a church hymn was playing on the radio. The only other song that made her cry like that was “Blackbird” by the Beatles. When she saw me watching her that day, she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I’m okay. I was just remembering how my mom used to sing that song. I miss her.” Because of that and what Dad had told me, I assumed her parents were dead too.

  Dad and Mom talked to me ab
out everything and anything, except their families. Winston Himmel is the closest relative I have. The only thing my dad had said about my grandfather was “He didn’t like the likes of me.”

  And now I’m wondering, how could I ever like the likes of him?

  Chapter Two

  TWO WEEKS AGO, when I was asked to go to the principal’s office, my best friend, Carmen, had led the class in razzing me. “Aw, someone’s in trouble.” I knew I wasn’t. The entire walk down the hall, I wondered if Principal Sanchez was going to try again to convince me to run for student body president next year. “You’re mature,” she’d said the week before. “You will be a good influence on the students.” I wanted to say, Don’t you know my best friend is Carmen Montoya? Carmen skipped school more than anyone.

  But when I opened the office door, everyone stopped whispering and their heads turned toward Principal Sanchez. She was standing outside her office, wearing the green suit with the blouse that tied in a bow at her neck. She looked at me with a weak smile. Her eyes were red. I remember thinking, She must have a bad allergy. Maybe she’s allergic to those wildflowers. They’re blooming early this year.

  Principal Sanchez held her right arm out to me, and when I reached her, she pulled me to her side and guided me into her office. Then she closed the door.

  When she told me what had happened, I didn’t cry. And I didn’t cry when my parents’ best friend, Paco, and his new girlfriend, Sandra, picked me up and took me to their home. Nor at the funeral two days later. Whenever the priest said “Sheppard and Daisy Tanner,” it didn’t seem real. We’d never been in the chapel. Paco suggested it because that’s where he did all his confessing. I didn’t cry, because what had happened didn’t seem true. But that night when I went to sleep in Paco and Sandra’s spare room, I learned that if you scream into a pillow, no one can hear you.

  * * *

  OUR BUS DRIVER increases his speed. We can’t read the billboards even if we want to. The knitting lady tells me, “I overhead the driver say he has a wedding to get to tonight.”

  A moment later he passes three cars on the highway outside Vernon and swerves into the right lane. We grab hold of the seat in front of us. “Must be his wedding,” the knitting lady says.

  She studies my face, her needles still clicking. I’m worried that she’s going to see my sadness and ask if something’s wrong and that I’ll blubber to a complete stranger. Instead she asks, “How long did it take you to grow your hair that long?”

  “All my life.”

  “It’s pretty,” she says. Then she looks back down at her work. It’s now a rectangle so long, it forms a hill sticking out of a grocery sack at her feet.

  “Is that a scarf?” I ask.

  “Yes,” she says, peering over her glasses. “It’s for my nephew. He’s over seven feet tall. He rides a unicycle. Right now he’s in Baton Rouge. People don’t realize it, but a Louisiana winter is cold.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” she says. “A wet winter can chill you to the bone.”

  I meant her tall nephew, not Louisiana winters. My mind wanders and I picture a giant pedaling around a city on a unicycle, a red scarf trailing in the wind behind him. Mom would have taken a picture of him for sure.

  “People hire him to give out flyers. A lot of organizations want their causes known. And everyone always stops for a giant on a unicycle.”

  When the lady quits talking, I dig in my purse for a piece of paper. All I have is a Hershey’s candy bar wrapper. I smooth it out and write, Everyone always stops for a giant on a unicycle. Then I tuck the note in my purse. It sounds like something I’d find in a fortune cookie.

  A family of three siblings sits across the aisle from us. The big sister seems to be about ten, and her brothers look six and seven. Sometimes she puts her arm around the youngest and he leans against her, sleeping. They wear badges hanging from strings around their necks, probably with their travel information. Except for Christmastime, I’d never felt like I was missing anything not having a brother or sister. Now, watching the three of them motioning to one another at the sights outside their window, I think maybe I was.

  At the station, we get off the bus and I wait for my two suitcases. Almost everything I own is inside those bags. My clothes, a few books, and the Australia jar. The only things left that I wanted were Mom’s record player, albums, and photographs. Paco said he would mail them to the motel. The farm hasn’t sold yet, so I have the total of my parents’ closed savings account—five hundred and twelve dollars. Paco is handling the sale of the farm. There isn’t a buyer, but he believes there will be soon. He says the money will bring in enough to send me to college—maybe not Harvard, but a state university. “It was a good investment,” he says.

  Which is really kind of funny, because my parents didn’t pay one red cent for the farm. Dad won it in a chess game with a cocky rich guy from Fort Worth, who wanted to get rid of it anyway. The guy called the place “three acres of crap” because one of the neighbors lets their sheep roam on it.

  “Sounded like good fertilizer to me,” Dad would say. He and Mom moved to New Mexico, built a fence, and planted herbs and flowers. I was born there.

  The farm is the only home I’ve ever had. That’s why I know, all the way down to my toes, that it will wait for me.

  Paco is a lawyer, but he’s not like any of the lawyers on TV. He’s the kind that when people can’t pay with money, they pay with pigs or other livestock. He owns the farm next to ours, the one with the sheep. He brags that he didn’t have to buy any of his chickens or goats. He’s also who contacted my grandfather. I like Paco, but it kind of ticked me off that he knew more about my parents’ past than I did. What was it they didn’t want me to know?

  Even though it’s early, I look around for my grandfather at the station. I have no idea what he looks like, but the social worker gave him a picture of me. She also asked me to think of a secret word he could use when he met me. That way I’ll know it’s him. I gave her kangaroo. The social worker didn’t say so, but I could tell she wasn’t happy that my grandfather hadn’t sent a picture of himself.

  Right away, I see an older man dressed in a crisp white shirt and khaki pants. He smiles at me but makes no effort to walk in my direction. I wish my picture had been more recent. Paco gave the social worker one he’d taken of me with Mom and Dad. We were in front of the stand. The picture was so old, the sweetheart trees were in the background.

  Now a woman with beautiful white hair joins the old man. Her mood is as sunny as her yellow sweater. She bounces in place as she points to my young bus companions. “There they are!”

  The trio are with an escort, but when they see the older couple, they run toward them with outstretched arms. Their grandparents’ arms aim in their direction too, reaching, reaching. They meet in a tangle of hugs and kisses. I’m happy for them, and hopeful for me.

  The knitting lady waves good-bye to me as she leaves with her husband. I wish I could see her nephew wearing the red scarf. I sure hope it doesn’t get stuck in a unicycle spoke.

  An elderly man walks into the station. He’s wearing a snug knit hat and a navy peacoat. It’s April, and not hot, but too hot for a coat. He’s unshaven and his clothes look shabby and dirty. He walks in my direction. When he reaches me, his stench causes me to flinch.

  He moves toward me. My heart pounds. I’m already planning my getaway. I’ll call Paco. I’ll live with Angelina Cruz, be her caretaker. She’s over a hundred years old. Then I remember. She once scared away a bear by shaking her charm bracelet in front of his face. She doesn’t need me. I’ll run away to an orphanage in New Mexico. They’ll take me. Surely orphanages aren’t that bad.

  He’s a few feet away now. I have no other choice: I have to make this work. I take a big breath and stand there, accepting my fate, waiting to hear the word kangaroo. He leans in and holds up an empty paper cup. “Can you spare some change for a bit of coffee?”

  My breath leaves my body in one big w
hoosh. I’m so relieved, I dig in my pocket and give him a wrinkled dollar bill.

  “Bless you, little angel,” he says, and then he leaves as quickly as he came, jingling the coins in his cup. The way he walks with his back straight and head held high makes me wonder who he was and what happened to him.

  * * *

  ALL THE OTHER PASSENGERS on my bus have found their rides and are gone. It’s only one forty-five in the afternoon, still early. I settle in a seat and open my book but catch myself reading the same paragraph over and over.

  A huge clock on the back wall reads two o’clock. I shut my book and push my suitcases together.

  And wait.

  At two fifteen, I begin to think he won’t show. After all, this isn’t what he asked for. Me. And I sure as heck didn’t ask for him.

  Two lanky guys enter the station in a panic. The young one is cute and looks about my age. The pair move with the same rhythm, taking long strides, their heads turning right and left. Then they look straight in my direction.

  “That’s her,” the young guy says.

  I turn to see if anyone is behind me. No one. I look back. They’re smiling.

  “Stevie?” the older guy asks. He has some gray sprinkled throughout his brown hair, but he’s much younger than I ever pictured my grandfather.

  I nod.

  “Stevie, I’m Arlo Fulton. I work for your grandfather, Winston Himmel. He asked if we could pick you up.” He holds out his hand.

  “Oh,” I say, accepting the handshake.

  “This is my son, Roy.”

  Roy offers his hand too. He is cute, with sandy hair and tanned like a California surfer boy. “Nice to meet you.” He’s grinning in a way that makes me wonder if he thinks something’s funny. “Good to meet you.”

  I shake his hand but let go quickly. “Hi.”

  “Sorry we’re late,” Arlo says. “We actually left early, but there was an oil spill on the interstate. Traffic was backed up for miles.”