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To Matt's relief, Darcy seemed pleased with her little house in the back corner of the adobe-walled Méndez family compound.
Old New Mexico Highway 28 ran past the front of the big house. On the opposite side of the curving pavement lay cultivated fields and at their edge the ancient Rio Grande, which gave life to the entire Mesilla Valley. Beyond the riverbanks to the west lay the scorching sands of the Chihuahuan desert.
Several miles to the east lay the stately Organ mountains, visible between the cottonwood trees within the family compound.
The sky was a deep blue. The only noises other than the wind in the trees and birds was from an occasional vehicle passing down the old two-lane highway.
The house that was to be Darcy’s, also of thick adobe, had belonged to the foreman in the days when the Méndez family had been a local agricultural power. Its five small rooms soon responded to Matt's and Darcy's efforts to spruce them up.
Matt reflected on the incongruity of the most sought-after celebrity in the world helping to paint, dust, and sweep the venerable rooms of the humble ranch foreman's house into shape so she could live there. Her instinctive humility was attractive.
Darcy could reasonably expect to live in a mansion in California with an eighteen-hole golf course in the back yard or a castle in Monaco, if she wanted. But she seemed to enjoy what they were doing.
She was smiling more and more often, even with flecks of dried paint stuck to her nose and her arms streaked with dirt.
Matt’s heart soared with her every smile.
Abuelita Méndez accepted Darcy tentatively, especially once she knew the newcomer would be paying a little rent for the house. At dinner the first evening, she had told Darcy she looked more "Spanish" than "Mexican," and Matt had taken that opportunity to explain that Darcy was an orphan, originally from Argentina.
Normally, he never lied to his grandmother, but this was different. He figured no one would know a thing about Argentina. If Darcy did something odd, folks would chalk it up to that.
She couldn't use the name Darcy, but she invented the name Del Arco, Ana Del Arco. It sounded Italian to Abuelita Méndez.
"Ai, there are all kinds of Italians and Germans and others down there, ¿que no?" The fact that Ana was an orphan seemed to affect her most.
"Pobrecita," poor little thing, she said. "All alone in the world."
Matt stayed three days, visiting with his grandmother and helping Darcy put her little place in order. The afternoon of the third day, with an increasingly severe case of separation anxiety blooming in his mind, he and Darcy went to Las Cruces to buy a few more building supplies, a computer, and a television set.
Matt kept thinking of problems that might come up. Abuelita Méndez still drove, not always very well, but what if she couldn't any longer? Darcy didn’t have a driver’s license. What would they do then?
A dozen other problems crowded into his brain. He tutored her as best he could on basic plumbing and electricity, and told her how to call Old Man Jiménez, the local handyman. (Abuelita Méndez called him "Old Man Jiménez" even though he was ten years younger than she was.)
Finally, Darcy cut him off. "Don't worry about us, Matt. Your grandmother has been doing fine by herself for years. How much worse can it be with me here too?"
He glanced at her, startled out of his gloom.
"What I want to know is how your article and book are coming. Have you begun thinking about them yet?"
"Well, yes, some," he replied. "I'll drive back tomorrow and get to work on them the day after that. Crusty is in a hurry for the newspaper feature, because he figures he can send it out and spread the paper's name, and Alpine's, all over the world."
"That's great, Matt! You'll become a celebrity yourself!"
"I guess so. I'll be able to pay off my debts, too."
