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Authors: Derek Palacio
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been too much. She didn’t clarify.
We’re coming back, she said.
Soledad returned to Hartford on a 747 direct from Phoenix and immediately laid siege to the Church. The first assault was an extensive letter campaign to the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal, and eventually the Pope, each missive an indictment of the patriarchy of the institution, older authorities allowing the youth to wager their lives when they were too young to truly know any better. Soledad set her Smith Corona on a sewing table near the Sumatra plant that was Willems’s first gift to her—despite Henri’s insistence, Soledad had never moved the weed outside; she’d grown accustomed to the shades of green light the broad leaves cast across the living room during the day—and tested the durability of her ink ribbon. In the persistent, percussive hammering of her keystrokes, Ulises detected the same violent determination that had taken them from Cuba. Day and night she was a storm, amassing from county-courthouse testimony not only precedents for parent-guardian privilege, but also rulings against the Church in its instruction and guidance of its underage parishioners. Most impressive, she threatened to dismantle the convent itself, nun by nun, if the parish did not release her child immediately.
The bishop’s response was quick: he would meet with her. But the higher echelons of the Catholic institution ignored her entirely.
Ulises watched all this alongside Willems, who seemed content to simply sidestep Soledad’s whirlwind and follow closely behind with encouraging applause. They smoked cigars again in the kitchen, though now with the sound of his mother typing nearby. At first Ulises was overjoyed to see Soledad return with such gusto. It had been a little more than a year since Isabel’s first confession of absolute faith, and finally Soledad was doing something about all the ensuing nonsense. However, smoking a Chico Dulce with Willems, he felt a familiar jealousy, the same envy creeping up his spine that had poked at his brain and his heart when Isabel revealed her promise to Uxbal. Here was the mother, now, devoting her life again to the daughter. Before, it had been Ulises’s life as well, the ransom for escape. He recalled the story of the prodigal son. Suddenly, he wished he’d been a difficult child, a more dangerous type of human.
Ulises heard Soledad snatch another page from the Smith Corona.
For the first time in a long time, he reconsidered his position on fate. He looked at Willems, who wistfully stared through the kitchen door at Soledad. His pale face sagged, and he looked like a man who’d lost the horizon, who was adrift and hadn’t touched another body in a long time. Ulises agreed finally with Isabel: he and the Dutchman were probably the same—two finless fish, helpless in his mother and sister’s relentless tide.
—
Actually, Henri’s last good lay had occurred at dusk on the morning that Soledad had first seen the owl skimming the Colorado River for rodents. They’d not been able to fuck on the train because of a cabin light that had no switch and was always on; Soledad had been embarrassed by their silhouettes against the window shade. In Phoenix, the hotel mattress had been excessive, and they’d slept so deeply, they didn’t dream. On the river, their guide, a plump military vet from California, was fond of sitting by the fire all night, which meant that the game of shadows playing across the canvas walls of their tent had kept Soledad awake and worried for her daughter; Isabel was becoming a shadow, in Soledad’s mind, of some girl she once knew.
On their third night on the Colorado, however, the guide went to bed early, suffering from a bit of dehydration, and so the fire died, giving Willems and Soledad the chance to make up for lost time. They rushed through once and fell asleep, but before sunrise, which is a long, late affair at the bottom of a canyon, Soledad felt Willems behind her, and
We’re coming back, she said.
Soledad returned to Hartford on a 747 direct from Phoenix and immediately laid siege to the Church. The first assault was an extensive letter campaign to the bishop, the archbishop, the cardinal, and eventually the Pope, each missive an indictment of the patriarchy of the institution, older authorities allowing the youth to wager their lives when they were too young to truly know any better. Soledad set her Smith Corona on a sewing table near the Sumatra plant that was Willems’s first gift to her—despite Henri’s insistence, Soledad had never moved the weed outside; she’d grown accustomed to the shades of green light the broad leaves cast across the living room during the day—and tested the durability of her ink ribbon. In the persistent, percussive hammering of her keystrokes, Ulises detected the same violent determination that had taken them from Cuba. Day and night she was a storm, amassing from county-courthouse testimony not only precedents for parent-guardian privilege, but also rulings against the Church in its instruction and guidance of its underage parishioners. Most impressive, she threatened to dismantle the convent itself, nun by nun, if the parish did not release her child immediately.
The bishop’s response was quick: he would meet with her. But the higher echelons of the Catholic institution ignored her entirely.
Ulises watched all this alongside Willems, who seemed content to simply sidestep Soledad’s whirlwind and follow closely behind with encouraging applause. They smoked cigars again in the kitchen, though now with the sound of his mother typing nearby. At first Ulises was overjoyed to see Soledad return with such gusto. It had been a little more than a year since Isabel’s first confession of absolute faith, and finally Soledad was doing something about all the ensuing nonsense. However, smoking a Chico Dulce with Willems, he felt a familiar jealousy, the same envy creeping up his spine that had poked at his brain and his heart when Isabel revealed her promise to Uxbal. Here was the mother, now, devoting her life again to the daughter. Before, it had been Ulises’s life as well, the ransom for escape. He recalled the story of the prodigal son. Suddenly, he wished he’d been a difficult child, a more dangerous type of human.
Ulises heard Soledad snatch another page from the Smith Corona.
For the first time in a long time, he reconsidered his position on fate. He looked at Willems, who wistfully stared through the kitchen door at Soledad. His pale face sagged, and he looked like a man who’d lost the horizon, who was adrift and hadn’t touched another body in a long time. Ulises agreed finally with Isabel: he and the Dutchman were probably the same—two finless fish, helpless in his mother and sister’s relentless tide.
—
Actually, Henri’s last good lay had occurred at dusk on the morning that Soledad had first seen the owl skimming the Colorado River for rodents. They’d not been able to fuck on the train because of a cabin light that had no switch and was always on; Soledad had been embarrassed by their silhouettes against the window shade. In Phoenix, the hotel mattress had been excessive, and they’d slept so deeply, they didn’t dream. On the river, their guide, a plump military vet from California, was fond of sitting by the fire all night, which meant that the game of shadows playing across the canvas walls of their tent had kept Soledad awake and worried for her daughter; Isabel was becoming a shadow, in Soledad’s mind, of some girl she once knew.
On their third night on the Colorado, however, the guide went to bed early, suffering from a bit of dehydration, and so the fire died, giving Willems and Soledad the chance to make up for lost time. They rushed through once and fell asleep, but before sunrise, which is a long, late affair at the bottom of a canyon, Soledad felt Willems behind her, and
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