BUT LET’S GO BACK, PAULA, and not get lost in time. We grew very fond of Sally, Jason’s sweetheart, a discreet girl of few words who kept herself in the background, although she was always attentive and participating. She had a fairy godmother touch with the children. She was short, pretty without being flamboyant, with smooth blond hair and never a drop of makeup. She looked about fifteen. She had a job in a center for juvenile delinquents, which required courage and a strong hand. She got up early, left, and we wouldn’t see her until evening, when she came home dragging with fatigue. Several of the youths in her charge had been arrested for assault with a deadly weapon, and although they were minors, they were the size of mastodons. I don’t know how—beside them she looked like a sparrow—she earned their respect. The day one of the troublemakers threatened her with a knife was the day I offered her a safer job in my office helping Celia, who by now could not keep up with the load of work. They were very good friends; Sally was always ready to help with Celia’s children and spend time with her because Nico was gone, working and studying English. Over time, I came to know Sally, and I agreed with Willie that she had very little in common with Jason. “Keep your nose out of it,” Willie ordered. But how could I do that? They lived in our house, and Sally’s bridal gown, a vision of meringue-colored lace, was hanging in my closet. She and Jason planned to get married as soon as he finished his studies. That was what Jason told us, but Sally showed no sign of impatience; they acted like a pair of bored fifty-year-olds. These modern courtships, long and easygoing, worry me. Urgency is inseparable from love. According to Abuela Hilda, who saw things that were invisible, if Sally married Jason it would not be because she loved him, but to stay in our family.
The only work Jason could find after graduating from college was a temporary job in a mall, sweating in a ridiculous Santa Claus suit. At least it had the effect of teaching him that he would have to continue his education and get a professional degree. He told us that most of the Santa Clauses were poor devils who came to work with several jolts of cheap whisky under their belts, and that some fondled the children. In view of those revelations, Willie decided that our children would have their own Santa Claus, and he bought a convincing beard, patent leather boots, and a splendid costume of red velvet trimmed with real rabbit fur. I wanted him to choose something less expensive, but he proclaimed that he never wore anything ordinary, and besides, it would serve many years and the cost would be amortized. So that Christmas we invited a dozen children, with their parents, and at the appointed hour we turned down the lights, someone played Christmas music on an electronic organ, and Willie came in through a window, carrying his bag of gifts. His entrance produced a stampede of terror among the youngest, except for Sabrina, who is not afraid of anything. “You must be very rich if you can get Santa on such a busy night,” she commented. The older children were enchanted, until one of them declared that he didn’t believe in Santa Claus, and Willie angrily replied, “Then no presents for you, you little shit!” That was the end of the party. The children immediately suspected that it was Willie hiding behind the beard—who else would it be?—but Alejandro put an end to any speculation with this irrefutable logic. “We don’t want to know. It’s like the tooth fairy that brings money when you lose a tooth. It’s best if our parents think we’re stupid.” That year Nicole was still too young to participate in the farce, but three years later she was consumed with doubt. She was terrified of Santa, and every Christmas we had to stay in the bathroom with her, where she closed the door and shivered until we assured her the terrible old man had left on his sleigh for the next house. This time she hunkered down beside the toilet, wearing a long face and refusing to open her presents.
“What is the matter, Nicole?” I asked.
“Tell me the truth. Is Willie Santa Claus?”
“I think it would be better if you asked him,” I suggested, afraid that if I lied to her, she would never believe me again.
Willie led her by the hand to the room where he kept the costume he had just worn, and admitted the truth. He cautioned her that this would be a secret between the two of them, one she shouldn’t share with the other children. My youngest grandchild returned to the party with the same long face, took her place in a corner, and wouldn’t touch her presents.
“And what’s the matter now, Nicole?”
“You’ve always made fun of me! You’ve ruined my life!” was her answer. She was not yet three years old.
I told Jason how helpful my training as a journalist had been in my work as a writer, and suggested that it could be a first step toward his literary career. Journalism teaches you to investigate, sum up, work under pressure, and use language efficiently, and in addition forces you to keep the reader in mind, something authors tend to forget when preoccupied with posterity. After a lot of pressure—he doubted himself and didn’t even want to fill out the admission forms—he applied to several universities and to his surprise was accepted in all of them. He could give himself the pleasure of studying journalism in the most prestigious of them all, Columbia University in New York. That put physical distance between him and Sally, and it seemed to me that their lukewarm relationship would become frigid, although they kept talking about getting married. Sally stayed close with us, working with Celia and me and helping with the children. She was the perfect aunt.
Jason left in 1995 with the idea of graduating and returning to California. Of all Willie’s children, he was the one who most liked the idea of living in a tribe. “I want to have a big family, and this blend of Americans and Latins works great,” he told me once. To fit in, he had spent a few months in Mexico studying Spanish, and spoke it well, with the same bandit accent as Willie’s. Jason and I were always friends; we shared the vice of books, and we liked to sit on the terrace with a glass of wine and tell each other plots for possible novels. He felt that you, Ernesto, Celia, and Nico were as much his siblings as the ones fate had given him, and he wanted all of us to be together forever. However, after your death and Jennifer’s disappearance, we all sank into sadness, and bonds were cut or altered. Jason says now, years later, that the family went to hell, but I remind him that families, like almost everything in this world, metamorphose or evolve.