Grace sat—nearly motionless—at her desk. The light streaming in through her large window was the same light that was streaming in through the waiting room where Mister was pacing back and forth. Four blocks from each other, but each of them alone. For the moment. But it was Grace who was calmer and more focused. It was Grace who had the capacity to let go of her preoccupations and turn her attention to the things that calmed her. The light—that could always calm her. After forty-nine years of living in the desert, she had become an aficionado of light and how it reshaped the surfaces of her environment—how it fell on the desert floor, how it hit the rooms in her house, how her garden glowed at certain moments of the day, how it softened her office. That had been the very reason why she’d chosen this space for her work. She had wanted something that faced the morning. She had passed up a bigger office because it faced west, and she’d decided to spare herself the punishing light of the afternoon. Unforgiving, that light.
Just as Mister looked into the face of that woman who was as angry as she was beautiful, the name Andrés Segovia entered Grace’s thoughts. Her first two appointments had canceled, had left her with some unexpected time on her hands. Unwelcome, this extra, unexpected time. So she willed herself to think of Andrés Segovia—think of him and spare herself from thinking of her breasts, which looked like they were fine and healthy but weren’t, spare herself from thinking of her body, the decay, the final test that was coming. She spared herself of thinking of useless radiation and treatments and medications, and she spared herself of thinking about Richard Garza, the way he’d kissed her hand, and what she’d seen in his eyes in that endless second of recognition. She spared herself from recalling the bitter tears that fell like a summer storm as she walked back to her car. Hadn’t the tears stopped? Hadn’t the trembling ceased? Hadn’t she known that she wouldn’t cry again, not ever again, because that’s not how she was going to spend her final months or years or however long it was that she had left? Hadn’t she decided right then that whatever was coming, she would take it and hold it and not be afraid, and make no room in her house for self-pity? So wasn’t the worst over now? Hadn’t it hit like a hurricane, like one of those storms Andrés Segovia had written about—hadn’t it hit and left her standing? And what was her death, anyway, after Sam’s?
She thumbed through the two files on her desk. She shook her head at her morning cancellations. That was a way of putting it. Cancellations. One of them was back in juvenile hall for attempted rape. Women take things from me they do, you don’t know what they’ve taken. What? What do they take? Tell me. The other was in the hospital, car wreck, drunk driving and No, no I don’t have an alcohol problem—I swear I don’t. Women problems, alcohol problems, symptoms of diseases that were as deeply embedded and alive as the cancer in her breasts. If they could only get at something in themselves to hold onto. Didn’t they all have some kind of safety belt to protect them from all their wrecks? If only they could reach that place. If only was a place, a desert where her clients were condemned to wander like La Llorona wandering the river, looking for her drowned children.
Six months’ worth of counseling, and nothing to show for it. Her fault, mama’s fault, whose fault, daddy’s fault, their fault, personal responsibility, yeah their fault. Their fault. Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it that heart-breakingly simple? Too bad they weren’t corporations—then they could legally be people without having to be responsible for the havoc they caused. A shame that they were just flesh-and-blood people. Too damned bad. Damnit! These two were smart, both of them. She shook her head and put their files back in their place. In case they ever came back. She made a mental note to go see the girl in the hospital. But not to accuse. She’d had enough of that.