More Than Allies Read online

  “The impact of the car shook the shed roof, and some lumber shifted. The coals sparked. There was a fire.”

  “Oh God.” Maggie tasted tuna and jalapeño and the sour tang of wine in her throat.

  “It didn’t amount to much. The neighbor across the road came out when he heard the car hit, and saw smoke. Called the fire department and us.”

  “The car?” Dulce said. “It’s wrecked?”

  “The car’s junk, ma’am. The car didn’t matter. Old Willys, can you believe it? If somebody had taken care of it, it’d be worth something. Rusted out, though. Nothing worth salvaging.” Maggie remembered Mo saying the same thing. Too bad, he said. He had always wanted an old car.

  “And nothing burned?” Dulce said.

  “No ma’am, few scraps of wood.” Once again, he said, “Lucky thing.” Maggie coughed. Her throat was hurting. He said, “Good thing we had that little rain this week, the grass has been so dry. Might have been quite a little brush fire, if things had gone badly.”

  “But they didn’t,” Dulce said calmly. “Officer, can we take the boys?”

  “One thing,” he said. “The big kid. Whose kid is he? He won’t say anything. He speak English?”

  Dulce said, “He’s my sister’s son. He’s probably scared. Hilario Hinojosa. Of course he speaks English. He’s bilingual.” Maggie couldn’t help staring at her, but Dulce didn’t pay any attention. Obviously, she had her reasons to lie.

  “I think we better take him home,” the policeman said.

  “They’re not home,” Dulce said quickly. “His parents aren’t there. He’s staying with me over the weekend.”

  He looked at her for a moment, one eyebrow raised slightly. “How’s that?”

  “They’ve gone to Salem,” Dulce said. “To see my mother.”

  He poised his pen over the pad. “What’s their address, ma’am?”

  “They’re staying with me. They’re just moving, so they’re staying with me right now.”

  “I’m going to need to talk to his folks.”

  “Oh sure. Monday. They’ll be back then.”

  He put the pad away. Maggie didn’t think he was especially satisfied, but nothing Dulce had said was unreasonable. Family did stay with one another. Especially poor people, and he wouldn’t have any trouble thinking of Dulce as poor. He didn’t have any reason to be suspicious. He didn’t know two families couldn’t fit in Dulce’s place.

  They walked back to the car. The other policeman was leaning against it, chewing on a toothpick. Jay called out. “Mom!” Maggie’s heart jumped. “Please,” she said.

  Officer Brandon opened the door and the boys crawled out slowly. Jay threw his arms around his mother. Gus rubbed his eyes and stood back. Hilario stood, his head cocked a little, his eyes hooded and sullen and older than a boy’s eyes should be.

  Brandon said, “I’m going to let you boys go with your mothers now. You’ll be getting letters. I think someone will want to talk to you.”

  Jay clung to Maggie.

  “And there’ll be some damages.”

  “Oh God,” Maggie said. “The car?”

  “We’re trying to get hold of the owners here. They’re in Concord, California. I imagine they’ll want to have the car towed away to the junk yard. I think you’ll have to pay for that.”

  Dulce said, “Of course.”

  “The shed—” He shrugged. “It’s negligible. I don’t know why he’s left it there.”

  “My bike,” Gus said. They all turned toward him.

  Officer Brandon made a sucking noise. “They’re up by the shed. Why don’t you boys go get them and we’ll put them in the trunk?”

  Maggie and the policemen stared at one another uncomfortably. Dulce got in the front seat of the car, leaving the car door open.

  Jay’s and Gus’s bikes fit in the trunk, but of course it wouldn’t close. The second policeman rummaged and found a piece of rope in the car. Hilario stood to one side with his hands on his bike’s handlebars. He still hadn’t spoken since the women arrived.

  “It’s not far,” Maggie said. “He can ride his bicycle.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Officer Brandon said. The second policeman announced that the trunk was secure. He gave the lid a sound pat. Brandon looked like something was still bothering him.

  “I go?” Hilario finally said. He had been following everything.

  “You’ve got no business in a car,” Brandon told him. “Next time I suppose you’ll steal one that runs.”

  Hilario said, “Cabrón.” Gus gasped.

  The policeman said, “I don’t speak Spanish, but I’m not stupid, kid. How old are you?”

  Hilario said, “Thirteen.”

  “I could take you in to juvey, you know. This could be a bigger thing.”

  Maggie didn’t think Hilario understood. He stood still, but he didn’t look cowed now, with his bike between his legs, his feet planted square in the dirt. “Thank you, mister,” he said.

  “Phht!” the policeman said. He turned and walked briskly back to his car and got in on the driver’s side. Maggie and the boys hadn’t moved. He leaned his head out of the police car. “Watch whose yard you fool around in,” he said. “Somebody just might shoot you.” He spun the wheels, digging out in reverse.

  The boys rode in the back seat. Dulce hadn’t said anything to Gus, so Maggie thought, I can wait, too. I won’t get all excited right now. She couldn’t imagine what Polly would say. A fireman’s grandson, starting a vandal’s fire!

  At the trailer, Dulce said, “It sounds like it was Gus’ fault. I’ll pay for the towing.”

  “It wasn’t all my fault!” Gus said. Dulce gave him a hard look.

  “I’m sure it was Jay’s idea,” Maggie said. “Anyway, they did it all together.”

  “Lupe doesn’t have any money,” Dulce said.

  “No,” Maggie said.

  Dulce shrugged. “Let’s see what they say. What’re they going to do? Put us in jail?”

  It didn’t feel right between them, Maggie thought. There was something she needed to say, but she didn’t know what it was. “I’ll talk to you,” she said. Dulce nodded, and walked into the trailer behind her son.

  “How could you?!” Maggie shrieked, once the car was parked in Polly’s driveway. All the tension of the looking, the scare of seeing those official cars in the Gabrelli yard, the vision of her son in the back of a police cruiser—it all erupted. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. He slapped her arm and ran into the house. Coming in behind him, she heard Stevie and the baby both screeching.

  Polly was walking back and forth, holding the baby up in front of her, gently rocking her up and down, while talking softly. Stevie ran up to Maggie and hit her on the leg with a wooden spoon. Maggie yelped, jumped back, then bent over to pick her up. She was hot and sweaty. She needed changing. Anger flushed through Maggie. How could Polly let her get like this?

  Six feet away, Polly was now singing, “Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring” softly to Kendra.

  “We’ll go,” Maggie said sharply.

  Kendra had stopped screaming. Polly pulled her to her chest and spoke. “Don’t. I want to know what happened.”

  Jay had already gone down the hall and slammed the bedroom door. They could hear him sobbing. Maggie blurted out the details: the fire, the car, the humiliation of the police.

  Polly said, “You could run out for a pizza after a while. We could rent a movie. Let me get Kendra down.”

  Maggie took Stevie down to Polly’s room to change her. Gretchen was at work. Stevie was fussing, but had lost steam. Maggie, with a willed effort, played a bit of peekaboo and tickle-belly to cheer her up. She took her in the bathroom and washed her face, gave her a hug and a pat on the bottom, and sent her toddling back toward the living room. “Baby!” Stevie said.

  Maggie sank down onto the bathroom floor. Tears ran down her face. She was humiliated by the policeman’s dressing-down: you aren’t doing your job, you aren’t a good mo
ther. She was doing the best she could!

  Maybe, when Mo called, she would tell him: Come get him.

  Maybe.

  How could Jay push her to this? What was wrong with him?

  She heard Polly padding back and forth in the hall. The baby, now in her crib, made staccato squeaking sounds, then fell quiet. Maggie knew she ought to get up and do something, but she couldn’t make her limbs work. And she didn’t know what to say to her son. He had betrayed her, doing the very thing she had warned him not to do, with that stupid fire. And a car!

  She reached for a towel and held it balled up against her face.

  She heard Polly go into the room where Jay was, directly across the hall. She left the door open.

  Jay let out a cry which was then muffled. Maggie knew he had thrown his face into his grandmother’s lap, which was just what she would have liked to do.

  “Now, you’re not hurt,” she heard Polly say. She couldn’t hear Jay’s low voice in reply.

  “I know it was an accident,” Polly said. “A didn’t-mean-to accident. But not an out-of-the-blue accident. Not an entirely-unasked-for accident.”

  Jay’s protest was short and whining.

  “Listen, Jay-Jay, you’re okay, you didn’t get hurt, that’s the main thing. But you have to think about what you’re doing. Not what happened today, I don’t mean that. You three boys cooked up an adventure and it got out of hand. I mean all this crying and pouting and acting mean to your mother. You have to act nicer. Your mother needs for you to be more grown-up. You need to treat her better. You need to help me take care of her.”

  Maggie pressed the towel against her mouth to keep from crying out. She got up, shut the door, and sat down on the side of the tub. You have to help me take care of your mother. She could have died of shame. Jay is nine years old, she thought. He needs more than a loss group. He needs a mother who’s stopped being a baby. He needs parents who are all grown-up.

  She washed her face and brushed her hair, then stepped across the hall to look in on him. He was asleep, or was pretending to be. He looked especially young, curled up. She put her palm on his forehead. His eyelids jumped.

  She sat down beside him. “Jay-Jay, listen to me. I’m your mother. You don’t have to take care of me. You don’t have to worry about me at all. I’ll take care of you, do you hear? Me and your daddy. We’ll take care of you. Don’t worry. Don’t think about anything. I’m going to make it better. Mo and I are going to take care of you. Not because you did something bad, or because you’re angry. Because we love you, and we love Stevie, and we love each other.”

  He still didn’t move or open his eyes. Maybe he was asleep after all. If so, he must have been dreaming, to twitch so.

  She went into the kitchen. Stevie had crawled up on the couch with a teddy bear and fallen asleep, her rump in the air. Polly was at the table, drinking a glass of apple juice. She looked terribly tired. “Sit down, honey,” she said. “Want some juice?”

  “He didn’t do anything awful,” Maggie said.

  “Of course he didn’t. He’s a little boy. They like to scare them, though. I think they think of it as inoculation.”

  “It wasn’t like he hurt someone or stole something.”

  “I could tell you stories about Mo,” Polly said.

  “We need to talk about Mo,” Maggie said.

  Polly nodded.

  “I miss him.”

  “I know. I miss him too. But a mother, well, a mother is supposed to. It’s okay. You, though, the children—”

  “I know. I’m ashamed of what I’ve put you through.”

  “Nothing. You’ve done nothing. You’ve done what you could.”

  “I’ve been such a baby.” She couldn’t help it, the damned tears started again. “You are—like—” It was hard to say. “Polly, you know you are my mother.”

  “I’m not her, Maggie. But I love you. And I’ll love you when you go back to my son. I’ll love you when you make your own family.”

  “Do you think I can?”

  Polly took a moment to answer. “There were times when I didn’t think I loved Morris anymore. In the middle years. I didn’t understand that there are—these spaces—in a marriage. It scared me, until I’d gone through them and learned I could. But these times, when I didn’t know about him? About my husband? I still loved the unit. The family. I always loved the family.”

  “I wouldn’t want to move all the way to Texas because it’s too hard to be a single mother. Lots of women do it. I could, too.”

  “You could. And would you not go to him, just to prove you could? Would that be a reason?”

  Jay came stumbling in, rubbing his eyes. “I’m hungry,” he said.

  Maggie smiled at him. “I thought you had hot dogs.”

  It took Jay a moment to assess this. He saw his mother’s smile, though. “They burned,” he said.

  Maggie got up. “Why don’t I take you over for a taco? And then we’ll go to the store. I’ll make dinner.” She bent and kissed Polly on the cheek. “You ought to grab a nap while you can.”

  “Ahh, what an idea,” Polly said. She headed for the couch. “Stevie won’t mind.” She scooted the baby over and stretched out.

  In the town where I grew up there was a low bridge across the river. I didn’t live there after I was twelve, but I went back once, when I was fourteen. I was with a group of kids from the church, my foster parents’ church, and we had been swimming along the bank. The water was quiet there, that whole stretch. From where we were we could see the old school where I would have gone to junior high if I’d stayed.

  It must have been five, five-thirty in the evening, which, in late summer, was still hot and bright. I was bored with the swimming, with the group. They had started singing “contemporary Christian songs,” which they learned at church. The church had a charismatic minister who lifted weights and wore skin-tight jersey shirts to show the results. He brought in performers every month or so, pretty people who sang about Jesus and raised their arms and smiled and showed huge white teeth. They were very tedious. I used to get through the services, and the performances, by imagining myself doing something shocking, like taking off my clothes and running down the aisles, or hunkering down and peeing for Jesus.

  I didn’t feel anything for Jesus, and I didn’t like to sing. I didn’t like my foster family. I was angry at my mother.

  I left the group and walked up onto the school grounds for a while, and then back onto the bridge above where they were gathered. I was facing the sun, and I couldn’t really see them, they were washed out in the light. The water and the banks and the river stretching out past where it could be seen—all these things looked like something done in watercolor. It was pretty. I stopped thinking or feeling for a few moments; I just looked at the color and light.

  There was a beautiful old sycamore high on the bank above where the kids were gathered. At the top it seemed to shimmer. Once I looked at it, I couldn’t seem to look away. I stopped hearing the laughter and singing below; I didn’t even hear the occasional car passing behind me on the bridge. It was like I had moved over, across that space, onto the tree itself, and I was seeing something I had never seen before, only it had no form, it was, simply, light.

  Not long after, I read a book about angels. I couldn’t stop thinking that the light I had seen that day, high on the tree above the river, had had a shape after all, had been something real and not-real and important and special. It was nothing, I know, a play of light, but it helped to think of it as something given to me, apart from the life I was living. I thought of it as a gift from my mother. I can’t tell you why; it didn’t make sense to me, even then, but it made me feel better. It made me stop being angry. It gave me a new way to feel.

  “You want to talk Spanish? How about loco? Try estúpido!” Dulce spoke furiously as she dabbed at her son’s face. He was going to have a black eye, and the skin had been broken open on his chin. She ran into the bathroom, threw open the medicine cabinet,
and tossed bottles and boxes into the sink. She found Merthiolate and Band-Aids and went back to doctor him.

  “Ow!” he protested.

  “You’ll think ow,” she said. “You’ll wish ow.”

  “Aw ma, what’d we do that was so bad?”

  “What you did was you called attention to yourself, you stupid boy. I heard him. ‘The little Mexican kid,’ he called you. ‘The big Mexican kid,’ he called Hilario.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s how he thought of you. How he remembers you. You think if you were a few years older he’d have sent you home? Maybe not even if it’d been just me and not Maggie, not an Anglo with a car and another kid. If this’d been L.A., you bet you’d be in detention. Or shot.”

  “It’s not L.A. Lupine is sure not L.A.”

  “No? Well, isn’t Lupine where—you’re the one brought this up last night—where a ‘little Mexican kid’ can get harassed for riding his own goddamned bicycle?”

  “I’m sorry.” She thought maybe he was. Sorry she was mad at him, anyway.

  She put her hands on the sides of his face and kissed one cheek, then the other. She kissed his forehead.

  “Ma.”

  She sat down. “You learn something from this, Gus. You don’t call attention to yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “And that’s not the only risk you took. Going downhill in a car you can’t control? You don’t know about a car. You didn’t know what would happen.”

  “It was just a big open field, Mama, except for the shed.”

  “Was it Hilario’s idea?”

  “No. He said we didn’t need to be in it. He just wanted to see it roll. He said we could just watch, see where it would stop. But Hilario’s lived in five states and Mexico, Mama. He’s had all kinds of adventures. I thought, here’s mine. Like somebody on a track. And it was fun. Even the crash was fun.”

  “Ohhh,” she groaned. “Adventure.” She pushed his hair back off his forehead. “Change your shirt. We’re going to go see Hilario. And Lupe. You have to see what your adventure means to them.”

  Lupe was sobbing. When she saw Dulce come in the door, she wailed. She cried to the Virgin, she cried for her own mother, she cried for Cipriano, who was so far away he didn’t even know.