Delia’s Crossing (37 page)

No, I thought. I belong here. Fate has insisted on it. The evil eye will have its way.

Besides, I thought, I have no reason to go back. I can suffer enough here.

I rose and went out to meet Señora Paz and her sister and go to see Pascual Rubio and his mother.

S
eñora Paz asked to see my check from the sale of the
casa.
I kept Edward’s envelope out of sight, because I knew she and her sister would hound me to find out what was in that one, too.

“This is more of a dowry than I thought,” she said, when I handed her the check. She looked at Margarita. “Señor Diaz did well. Pascual Rubio is getting more than we anticipated.” She waved the check at her. “Let us not look as if we are coming to him with our hats in our hands, begging him to be charitable and take Delia for his wife.”

“No,” Margarita said. She looked at me. “Don’t worry. We’ll speak up for you, Delia. Making a good marriage contract is a tricky business.”

“How would you know?” Señora Paz asked her.

“I would know. I knew about your marriage contract, how much our father put into the pot. Your husband’s family didn’t have much more than Delia. Didn’t our father buy the gold ring you wear?”

“At least I wear a gold ring,” Señora Paz fired back. Margarita seemed to shrink. “You just don’t interrupt me and say something foolish,” Señora Paz told her. “Come along, Delia.” She threw a reproachful look at her sister, who simply smiled at me as if to say her sister was just being silly.

I told them Señor Diaz had worked out arrangements for me to remain in my house two more days.

“You will stay with us until the wedding,” Señora Paz said.

Both she and her sister were very interested in how Señor Diaz’s sister-in-law had treated me. I described her, and that set them both off into a tirade about her, spinning stories about her marriage and rumors they had heard about her relationship with her husband. They could have been flies on the wall in her
casa
from the details they revealed. Listening to them was amusing enough to take the edge off my nervousness.

When we entered the
menudo
shop, Señora Rubio froze for a moment and then called for her son, who stepped out of the kitchen, wiping his hands on his already very stained apron. His shirt was open, and the curly dark hairs that grew from the base of his throat and down his chest and stomach spiraled out like thin broken springs. When he saw us, he quickly wiped the sweat off his brow with the back of his hand and smiled. Since the last time I had seen him, he had lost two upper teeth on the left side of his mouth, but because of the thickness of his lips, it was not so visible when he didn’t smile. He was trying to grow a beard. His hair was so light brown that it was nearly invisible and was growing in patches rather than in a neat shape.

“
Hola,
” Señora Paz said.

“
Hola,
” Señora Rubio replied, and looked at her son sharply to get him to speak.

“
Sí, hola,
” he quickly parroted.

“We have come to talk about Delia’s future,” Señora Paz said. She looked at the empty table to our right. “She has no one but us to speak for her.”

“Why has she returned from the United States?” Señora Rubio asked immediately.

The negotiation has begun, I thought. She is looking for something negative about me.

“I decided that I did not belong there,” I said. “I left before I found out my grandmother had died.”

“Nevertheless, she is still more comfortable living here,” Margarita inserted. “Just like your son. I don’t see him crossing the border to make a better living.”

“That’s because he has a living here,” Señora Rubio said. “A good living.”

“Can he keep this good living when you are gone to your maker?” Señora Paz asked. “Can he do all that is required in this shop, cook, clean, be a waiter, and take care of a home?”

Señora Rubio didn’t reply. She stared a moment and then nodded at the table, and we went to it to sit. Pascual remained behind the counter. We had yet to say anything to each other.

“Maybe you would offer us a glass of water,” Señora Paz said.

Señora Rubio nodded at Pascual, who hurried to pour water into glasses and bring them to our table. While he did so, he snuck glances at me.

“Where will she sleep in your
casa
?” Señora Paz asked immediately, as if that were the most important consideration.

“I will sleep in the living room, and they will have the bedroom. I don’t need much of a bedroom.”

“She is a good cook. Her grandmother taught her many things,” Señora Paz said. “She can even make her wonderful
mole,
and you could sell it here, maybe.”

Señora Rubio nodded. “
Sí,
I was hoping that she could do that.”

“Do you expect her to use her meager dowry to help pay for the wedding?”

“How much did she get for the house?” Señora Rubio asked, eyeing me.

“What she got is not important. Where and how it will be used is what’s important,” Señora Paz said, holding her ground. Traditionally, all wedding arrangements and who would sponsor what were worked out like this.

I had always dreamed of having a beautiful wedding in the church with a good-size group of
madrinas
and
padrinos
attending. The
madrina de arras
would hold the thirteen gold coins my future husband was to present to me as a pledge of marriage. The thirteen coins would symbolize my husband’s unquestionable trust and confidence, placing all of his goods into my hands for my care and safekeeping. I had seen it done many times.

Father Martinez would bless the coins and place them in the bride’s hands. She would put them in the groom’s cupped hands at the start of the beautiful wedding ceremony. He would place them on a silver tray, and near the end of the ceremony, they would be given to Father Martinez to hand to the groom. When he placed it in his bride’s hands, it would symbolize his giving her control as mistress of his worldly goods.

“We won’t be extravagant on a wedding. The money she has should be kept for other needs,” Señora Rubio conceded. “We’ll have the reception in our yard. We will provide a simple but traditional menu of spicy rice, beans, chicken and beef tortillas, and
sangria
.”

“And the mariachis?” Margarita asked. It was her favorite thing at a wedding.

“Señor Gonzales owes me. He will provide his sons.”

Margarita made a face. She was obviously hoping for more.

“That’s good. That’s sensible,” Señora Paz said, however.

“I have always been a sensible woman,” Señora Rubio snapped at her.

“She should have a fine dress for the wedding,” Señora Paz said. “It would make no sense to use money from her dowry for this. She isn’t going to be married every week.”

“And new shoes,” Margarita added.

“She doesn’t have to use her house money for that. She can have my wedding dress. It can be altered easily. We’ll find her new shoes,” Señora Rubio said.

I thought Señora Paz was keeping her on the defensive in this negotiation well, until Señora Rubio looked at me hard and asked in a low whisper, “Of course, she’s a virgin?”

I felt the heat come to my face.

“How could you even ask such a question about Anabela Yebarra’s granddaughter?” Señora Paz retorted. “Is your son a virgin?”

Señora Rubio surprised us by nodding and saying, “Unfortunately, yes.”

Even though he easily overheard the conversation, Pascual pretended to be occupied behind the counter.

“Your son surely won’t fit into your departed husband’s
guayabera
,” Margarita muttered.

“I think he can afford a new
guayabera
,” Señora Rubio said. The traditional Mexican wedding shirt was what a tuxedo was to Americans.

“We have yet to hear that Pascual wants Delia for his wife,” Señora Paz said.

Señora Rubio looked back at Pascual, who blushed.

“Pascual,” she said. “Have you something to ask Señorita Delia today?”

He came forward to recite the lines he had obviously practiced with his mother.

“Señorita Delia, I would be very happy to have you become my wife. I will make you a good husband, and we will have many children. I will keep you from being hungry, and I will always keep a good roof over our heads. I will be faithful and always consider your feelings. Would you be my wife?”

I stared at him. Now that I was really there listening to him and realizing what it meant, I knew that I had lost complete control of my destiny. It dulled my brain and made me numb, but like someone truly trapped, I did not even consider a refusal.

“
Sí,
” I said.

“When?” Señora Paz instantly demanded.

“We have relatives we would want to be here. Let us plan on a week from today,” Señora Rubio said. “After we talk with Father Martinez, of course, and confirm the arrangements for the mass.”

“Of course,” Señora Paz said.

“
Gracias
for agreeing to marry me,” Pascual told me.

Everyone was quiet, waiting to hear what he would say next.

“I must go back into the kitchen and complete my preparations for today.”

I didn’t reply. When he turned away, I realized how big his hips were. How would we lie together in a bed? It nearly made me laugh. I was getting giddy, like someone who had drunk too much tequila. Señora Paz saw it in my face.

“We must go and make plans now,” she said, rising quickly. “Come, Delia.”

“I have not yet told you how sorry I am about your grandmother’s passing,” Señora Rubio told me. She looked at Señora Paz and her sister. “I’m sure you miss her more than ever now, but soon you will have a new family to care for and to care for you. You cannot measure this in gold,” she added, giving Señora Paz a sharp, cold look.

“
Gracias,
” I said, and eagerly left.

When we stepped out onto the street, it was as if I had been shut up in a closet with little or no air.

“It will be a good marriage,” Señora Paz said. “I know Señora Rubio is a thrifty and efficient woman. You will have a good life now, Delia. All your days of sorrow and sadness have passed.”

I said nothing.

I had two days yet to spend in my home, and I told them that I wanted to sleep there at least one more night.

“But you will eat with us,” Margarita said. “We still have much to arrange for your marriage.”

“No, I’ll be fine. I need to be alone for a while,” I said. “I will come to see you tomorrow, and we can talk.
Gracias.
You are both very generous.”

Before they could put up any more arguments, I started away. When I stepped into the
casa,
I started to cry again. It felt as if I had just come from a funeral, and, in a sense, I really had. I had just buried the young, optimistic, and hopeful Delia Yebarra, who had set out to find a new and greater life over the border. Crossing the desert to get here, Delia Yebarra had faded away. I had left her in that cave with Ignacio Davila. I was no longer who I had been when I ran off with him. I had become a stranger to myself.

Just as Abuela Anabela had thrown herself into preparing food after learning of my parents’ deaths, I began to clean the house as a way to avoid thinking and crying anymore. As I worked, I thought this was what I would be doing daily now. My school days were over. The dreams my mother had for me were gone. One day would seep into another, almost indistinguishable. I would have a fate similar to those my grandmother looked at and said, “
Lo que pronto madura poco dura.
” I would ripen fast, aging with my children and with my work.

But I no longer cared. All I had loved was lost. I would surrender and obey fate like a mindless slave and cherish the rare laugh and the rare smile. Right now, I couldn’t imagine when either would occur.

I worked hard, scrubbing the tiles just the way Abuela Anabela had scrubbed them, getting down on her knees and putting all of her strength into every swipe of the cloth. I dusted and polished, washed and cleaned, attacking every spot, every blemish in the rooms with a vengeance. Señor Avalos would be surprised at the condition of the
casa
he had purchased. Just as my grandmother wouldn’t have let it go any other way, I would not.

I didn’t realize how much time had passed while I worked. Suddenly, I looked up and realized it was twilight and I was trying to wash away shadows. I lit some candles, because the electricity wasn’t working again, and then began to prepare some tortillas for myself. I would eat because I had to eat. As I made my meal, I recalled Abuela Anabela showing me how to do it, standing beside me. When I closed my eyes, I felt her beside me now.

Afterward, sitting alone in the dark and deadly quiet
casa,
I chewed mindlessly and swallowed. After I cleaned up, I went to bed, but I did not sleep. I lay there staring into the darkness, listening to the breeze toy with the house, whistling through the cracks, scraping over the tin. Abuela Anabela used to interpret every sound for me. She was sure some of them were made by angels dancing around the house. She said she could hear their wings flapping. I listened hard for them, and I heard what were distinctly footsteps at my front door. I waited, holding my breath, and listened harder. I was sure I heard the door open slightly.