THE SECOND MILAGRO (n/a) Read online

  Before Patricia could get an answer to her question, a little boy about seven, dark skin lightened by ash from head to foot, ran up to the jeep, shouting, “Miguel!” Several people looked up and hurried down the avalanching refuse. A crowd surrounded them before the vehicle stopped. Patricia shrank against the hot leather seats as if the pungent odor of garbage and the people’s coarse shouts pressed her there.

  A little girl held a dirty package of Chiclets up to the window and Patricia fished in her purse for a dollar. Miguel shooed the child away as he shifted the jeep into gear and they began to move on.

  “I do not think I would chew those,” he said as he maneuvered the vehicle past the mounds of debris. “Most likely they will taste like burned oil.”

  “I asked before, Miguel, what Tomas had to do with this place. Will you tell me?” She felt as if she had visited Hell.

  He turned to look at her, slowing the vehicle to a crawl. “Well, if you do not know,” he offered, his voice had a new edge to it. “Tomas owned this land. He wanted to build many new apartments, but the people wouldn’t move away. So, there is a fire and a great explosion.”

  “You can’t think Tomas caused this fire.” Patricia slid forwards on the seat and turned to stare at him.

  He shrugged. “No one could prove anything. Anyway, before Tomas could get his buildings started he died. And the people came back.”

  “Who owns the land now?” She asked.

  “Why, you do, Señora Morelos. Morelos Enterprises still owns the land.”

  Patricia slid back in her seat. She could not bring herself to say a word. She knew nothing of this land or any project to build apartments here. This was news to her. What other secrets did Tomas have? And who was dealing with the problem now? As they turned out onto the main road, she turned to look back at the mountains of garbage, the people, the waste and poverty. How could she be a part of this?

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Patricia was safely ensconced at La Mansion, and for the second time in three days, Miguel waited for the Secretary in the shadow of Diego Rivera’s murals at the National Palace. On the wall behind him were the figures of the six military cadets who wrapped themselves in Mexican flags and jumped from the windows of their school rather than surrender to American invaders in the War of 1847.

  Miguel had often identified with the Ninos Heroes. He did now. It was obvious to him that Patricia knew nothing of Tlantaloc. Her horror at the sight that afternoon could not have been feigned. So it was all the work of Tomas and his henchmen. Whoever it was, he had to be stopped. Miguel would give his life to see that happen.

  When the Secretary arrived they were free to walk and talk anywhere within the grounds. It was late Friday and the Palace had closed. It had evidently been a relaxing day for the man who was Miguel’s mentor. He was dressed in casual clothes, and a floppy hat covered his gray hair. Miguel had changed into durable clothes for traveling and possibly hiking in the mountains. He would not go back to Cuernavaca for a while.

  “I have a report from Zihautanejo,” the Secretary said. “Jim Mainland arrived there yesterday, basking in the sun at the Parthenon. Catera is also there. And our beloved chief. And Perez. Looks like they are working out their deals. Mainland seems to have taken Tomas’s place. We have been able to obtain a copy of the agreement they hope to make.” He handed Miguel some papers. “You might need this.”

  “Mainland must be loco to get involved with these vermin. I do not know which one is more dangerous.” He scanned the paper. “Looks like Catera is playing to win. Strange, is it not, that in our country one who commits murder can ‘hide out’ in the home of the chief of police.”

  “Not when the chief is a murderer himself. However, he is making mistakes more each day. He can not last long. Even many of the officers are becoming disgruntled. They say the demand for bribes is more than they can collect. This ‘Parthenon’ he has built may be his undoing. “We must get rid of this man, Miguel. He is going to be the end of me. And maybe of Mexico.” The aging face sank into a network of lines.

  “Well, we have a more immediate problem at the moment. If Mainland works a deal with Catera and the Chief, it will be that much harder for our people and maybe impossible to rid ourselves of either of them. The whole Tlantaloc project must be stopped, at least if these thieves are in charge of it.”

  “What do you plan to do with Señora Morelos?” Their path had taken them once again to the skull rack where they had stood only days before when Miguel first learned that Patricia was indeed in Mexico. Now it was his decision to play God with her life. He placed his hand on the fossilized bone of some long ago forgotten warrior. Death came to all, sooner or later, he thought. “I will take her to Real,” he said.

  “Yes. It must be.” The Secretary laid a hand on Miguel’s shoulder, then turned and walked away.

  * * *

  Patricia sat alone in a wicker chair inside a small walled garden. A lantern cast shadows on ancient stones, covered with vines and yellow cupa de oros. A small table was at her elbow, a glass of brandy in her hand. Behind her were glass doors leading to her room at La Mansion.

  A small breeze swirled, filling her nostrils with the acrid, smoky fumes of Tlantaloc that still lingered in her clothes. Her stomach heaved. She placed the small glass on the table and rushed to the bathroom.

  She stripped off her clothes and stepped over the low tile wall that separated the shower from the rest of the bath. She washed vigorously, but the smell seemed to come from inside her. Standing

  THE SECOND MILAGRO

  with her head beneath the faucet, as if under a waterfall, she let her thoughts run backward. Had it been an hour, two perhaps, since she walked down the chocolate-colored terrazo hall of the hotel? The porter had carried her bag. She didn’t recall checking in. She had spent so many other nights in this hotel, built from a century old hacienda, that her memory of the place could be from today or many other days.

  The ride from Tlantaloc was a blur. She tried to remember if she had said anything at all to Miguel. Had she slept? No. Of that, she was sure. She had been in a daze or something when they left Tlantaloc. The idea that Tomas might somehow be mixed up in the devastation and loss of life there, and that she now owned that piece of land had sucked all the life out of her. How could she own Hell?

  She threw her head back and warm water splashed into her throat, choking her. Shivering, she turned off the faucets, wrapped herself in a bathrobe, her wet hair in a towel, and went back to the garden, picking up a bottle of brandy on the way. A tray brought from the hotel kitchen sat untouched.

  Two glasses of the warm liquor and her body shook less. She noticed for the first time a plank door on the outside wall of the enclosure. It was almost covered with ivy. She could hear laughter coming from the other side. The latch on the door was old and rusted. It gave under slight pressure. The gate squeaked against the stones as she opened it.

  In the nearby garden under a string of lanterns between two trees someone was having a party. A birthday party. They were singing “Feliz Cumpleaños.” A boy about nine was swinging a stick at a piñata, hoping to spill the candy it contained. Several other children tried their hand. Then a man, pulled from the crowd by a young woman with dark hair that flowed around her like a mantilla, was given the stick. She wore a blue skirt and blouse, the top pulled down on her shoulders. He was tall, his face covered with a handkerchief. He bent over her face, kissing her through the cloth, then made halfhearted swings with the wood, obviously trying not to break the colorful paper-shaped donkey. The people sang “Happy Birthday” again. The man took off the blindfold and stepped into the light of one of the lanterns. He looked strangely familiar. It must be the lights, she thought.

  A September birthday. She pushed that thought away. She shut the door and retreated to the tiny patio, pulling the

  terry robe close around her. She paced the smooth stones, stopped at one wall, and plucked a length of ivy. Easing into the wicker chair, she pu
lled at the leaves, giving herself over to memories that linked the past with the present, as surely as the vine ripped from the wall lead back to its roots.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WASHINGTON, D. C. 1963

  Many times in her life Patricia had thought of how a day could start out in an ordinary way, then have some little thing happen that she hadn’t thought much of at the time, but that ended up signaling a change in her whole life. Like the day she first met Rachel. The day her Pa came to the diner. The day she first had morning sickness.

  She was so overwhelmed when she first saw the Morelos house, she couldn’t speak. They drove in a big silver car from the bus station, up Massachusetts Avenue out to a place called Spring Valley. There the car drove through black iron gates, up a curved drive lined with snow-covered bushes. Beyond was an expanse of snow, dotted with shrubs and what looked like Christmas trees. The three-story white house with arched windows and a red-tile roof showing in patches beneath the snow looked like something out of a fairy tale. Its massive wooden doors set in a carved, stone arch led into a hall as wide as a school corridor.

  Instead of lockers there were mirrors, paintings, large wooden tables with vases of flowers, and a round brass bucket filled with umbrellas. Thick floral-patterned rugs covered much of the gleaming wood floor and a stairway curved upward and out of sight past more and more paintings.

  Those first days were perfect. Mr. Morelos was in Mexico and would not return until February. The house seemed to belong to Dosey, Natty and Carmina. And Patricia shared it.

  The work she was required to do was easy. She helped Carmina dust the beautiful furniture and clean the wonderful pieces of silver, china, and pottery that filled cabinets in every room. Patricia was fascinated by the Mexican woman, who not only taught her how to take care of all the fine things Mr. Morelos owned, but also told her about piñatas and Feliz Navidad and Mexico City.

  Carmina also talked about life in Cuernavaca where she had lived until two years before. She worked there for Tomas’s stepmother. Her husband and child had been killed in an accident and she had wanted to live somewhere with no reminders, so Tomas had brought her to the States to work for him. Now she wanted to return to her family, her sisters and tias and tios she missed. Soon, when she had saved some money, she was going home.

  Then it was February and one day Mr. Morelos came home. He wanted to meet his new employee. He sent Dosey for her.

  Patricia was in the bathroom throwing up when Dosey came for her. She hadn’t thought much about it that morning, nor even the next day, when Dosey again made excuses for her to Mr. Morelos. The third day, she made herself go to see him despite her queasy stomach.

  He had not been charmed. When they were introduced, he stared at her white face and her shaking hands. He asked her questions, but she was afraid to open her mouth. He frowned and cut his dark eyes from Dosey to her. Finally, he said she could stay, only because Dosey deserved some help. And if she was what Dosey wanted, so be it. She was no concern to him.

  In the weeks ahead, he didn’t seem to notice when she was around, or care that for a month, at least, she wasn’t working in the mornings. Dosey shook her head and clucked her tongue when Patricia dragged into the kitchen mid-morning, but she never confronted or questioned her. She simply covered for her and did her best to alleviate her misery. Each morning when Patricia awoke she found saltines and a cup of tea on the night stand by her bed.

  The sickness passed and Patricia was herself again.

  By spring time she began to put on weight. Mr. Morelos kidded her about Dosey’s cooking and they all laughed. Dosey gave her a knowing look, and seemed worried. Then one day, he was gone again, back to Mexico. As much as Dosey fussed about his long absences, she was in a much better mood after he left.

  On June 28, Patricia’s sixteenth birthday, she and Dosey took a bus to the Tidal Basin. They walked around the water, enjoying a free afternoon.

  “We have to be over on Connecticut Avenue at four o’clock,” Dosey said and walked on.

  “I thought we were going to stay here ’til late. I wanted to ride the paddle boats. What do you have to do?” A petulant tone clipped Patricia’s words.

  “It ain’t what I have to do. You have an appointment.” Dosey stared at the waist of Patricia’s skirt. She had been trying to fasten the button that morning, and after a silent tug of war and some frowns, Dosey had taken the skirt and moved the button over as far as it would go. Still tight, it had slipped above the pooch of Patricia’s stomach that sought the comfort of full gathers below the band.

  Patricia stopped near two young mothers with babies sitting under one of the cherry trees. Over tousled blond heads, round pink faces, and squeals, she and Dosey stared at each other.

  Without a word, Dosey walked on. When Patricia caught up with her, she said, “You say you made me an appointment? What for, a new hair style for my birthday?” She threw Dosey a smile.

  Dosey stopped. People moved around them. She stared into Patricia’s eyes and seemed to dive in, head on. “Like you don’t know. Why are you actin’ ignorant? I know you ain’t. You know what kind of appointment. With a doctor, that’s what. Not a beauty parlor. That baby you’re carrying ain’t going to be ignored forever, you know. It’ll be here, whether you like it or not, in another few months.” She took a deep breath and shook her head. “You and that sweet-talking fellow of yours, probably just like Franny’s boyfriend, could best say exactly when.”

  Shock etched Patricia’s face. “There was no sweet-talking fellow!” she shouted. People stared. She pushed Dosey aside and marched across the rest of the bridge, then stopped on a grassy slope, eyes down, toeing the dirt beneath the green blades.

  When she sensed Dosey at her side, without lifting her head, she spoke in a low, sharp voice. “I know I’m pregnant. That doesn’t mean I want to go to a doctor. So you can forget what you got up your sleeve this afternoon.”

  “Well, now we got that fact out in the open, for everybody to hear,” Dosey looked around and huffed, “Maybe you’ll just listen to some reason.” She touched Patricia’s arm, then gripped it firmly and steered her to a bench that some tourists had vacated. After a tense pause, Dosey folded her arms beneath her breasts and started her speech.

  “The good Lord provided women with all they need to have a baby, but it’s just plain dumb not to see a doctor to make sure everything is okay. That way your baby has the best chance of being—”

  “I don’t care. I hate it! I wish it’d die!” Patricia kicked her foot against worn grass beneath the bench. Her movements felt like those of a sulking child, but she was old and wise. How many hours had she thought about IT? Her entire life seemed concentrated into the past few months and into the region beneath her swollen belly. IT seemed to be devouring her. SHE was getting smaller, insignificant. IT was growing, taking over. She’d thought about the words she’d spoken. She DID want it to die. No doctor could help, because she couldn’t have a healthy baby.

  Everybody knew babies were deformed if the parents were related, especially close kin, she reminded herself. Every night when she moved her china doll from its special place on her pillow, instead of rocking it in her arms for a moment as she had done since her ma had given it to her, she would run her fingers along the small rosy cheeks, examine the tiny hands and arms, and see in her mind some of the legless, armless dolls she had played with as a child. As she touched the perfect little features of the doll, a sadness gripped her like a stomach cramp. Her baby could never be perfect. Within this acknowledgment lay a question like an illusive beam of light in the distance; hadn’t she still loved the ragged dolls?

  Sometimes she went to sleep remembering how it had felt to hold the twins when they were born. Ma would tend one while she cradled the other in the big willow rocker. She may have been a child herself, the baby, her doll, but she knew the touch of downy hair in the crook of her arm. Not to love a baby was foreign to everything she’d ever known.

  Do
sey patted the girl’s leg. “Oh, you don’t want your baby to die, Patricia. I know better. You just wait. You’ll see. You’ll be just like Franny is about her baby.”

  Patricia turned shimmering eyes on Dosey. “I don’t want it. When it’s born, I still don’t want it. I wish I could stop it from being born. And I won’t never change my mind.” Her voice dripped cold, like water from an icicle.

  “I know you’ve been wronged, honey. I see that, but you can’t feel hate toward a innocent child. I know you can’t.”

  Dosey sounded convinced, but Patricia wasn’t listening. She refused to go to the doctor that day or any other day. She accepted her increasing girth and Dosey’s remade uniforms without comment. She felt good, laughed and worked, and went for walks on her day off like a teenager without a care in the world.

  August heated Washington like a well-stoked furnace and September brought no relief. People prayed for rain on Sunday and cursed the heat the rest of the week. Even behind the usually cool masonry walls of the Morelos house, the air was stifling. Seemed as though everyone who could had left the city. Mr. Morelos had spent the summer in Cuernavaca.

  Patricia lay one hot, still night in a pool of water. She enjoyed the coolness against her body and dreamed of swimming in Choccolocco Creek. A pain wrenched her awake. She pressed her hands against her stomach, and with her eyes closed moved in sync with the rise and fall of her thin-stretched skin. Through the breaking of dawn and early hot light of morning, she lay quiet, waiting. The pain came again, like dull scissors rending cloth. Then it subsided. The scissors gaped open, waiting.