FOR TWO WEEKS, Mrs. Cantor came every morning and left when Lizzie arrived at noon. On Tom’s suggestion, Lizzie had arranged a schedule with her, and a few friends often came for a few hours, giving them a chance to take care of their own chores. Lizzie was given a list of phone numbers of people who had offered to do small things for either Jake or Joaquin. Old friends of Joaquin’s, Mike and Connie Sha came by often just to sit with him and talk. They were shy at first, and their calmness disturbed her. One afternoon, Mrs. Sha arrived unexpectedly and shoved Lizzie out the door insisting she had to get some fresh air: “It’s so lovely today,” she said. “Take a walk, buy yourself something at the store.” She went out for a long walk and was happy not to think about anything. She bought herself a deep blue sweater, and picked up some groceries on the way back. When she returned, Mrs. Sha was holding Joaquin in her arms, and Mr. Sha was telling him a story. It was obvious to Lizzie that they had claimed him as a son.
Before they left that afternoon, Mrs. Sha offered Lizzie some manzanilla, Joaquin’s favorite tea. “When our Xin Wei was sick,” she said softly, “Joaquin was the only one who didn’t stop coming. He was with us till the end. My sister said my Xin Wei had shamed our family. Joaquin wanted to know why any illness should mean shame. He was angry with her—but my sister only said what I had been thinking.” She squeezed her husband’s hand.
“We will not leave him.” Mr. Sha spoke slowly and softly as if to make her understand that they must be kept informed of Joaquin’s health.
“I promise to call whenever he needs anything—anything at all. Jake will do the same.”
They seemed reassured.
Mrs. Sha and Mrs. Cantor made it their job to make sure there was something on the stove or in the oven. “He won’t eat,” Mrs. Cantor complained as Lizzie walked into the apartment every afternoon. “Two weeks and he hasn’t eaten enough food to feed a pigeon. My husband was like that near the end.” Elizabeth always kissed her before she left and told her, “Not to worry, Mrs. Cantor, I’ll eat it. I eat enough for both of us.” Mrs. Cantor always managed a smile. “My son should have married such a girl.” Lizzie would hug her, and she would look into her eyes and say, “I adore you, Mrs. Cantor.” Mrs. Cantor never left the apartment until she heard Lizzie’s words.
These were days of quiet waiting, everyone at their stations as if they were soldiers waiting for the enemy to attack. Jacob kept Joaquin’s veladora burning. “The candle has to stay lit, Jake,” Joaquin ordered from his bed, “day and night it has to burn—and it has to be the candle of the Sacred Heart.” The candle burned on the dresser where Joaquin kept his two statues—San Isidro and Our Lady of Guadalupe. “They were his mother’s” Jake explained. “He’s always lighting candles for some lost cause.”
“Who the hell is San Isidro?” Lizzie asked.
“He’s the patron saint of farmers. His mother’s father was a farmer—it belonged to him. The statues are all he has.”
“Oh,” Lizzie said quietly.
“They won’t help,” Jake mumbled.
“Maybe not—but at this point they’re as good as any doctor.”
Jake shook his head in disgust. “Lizzie, I thought you were more levelheaded.”
Lizzie said nothing, but she made a mental note of the fact that Jake always made sure a new candle was lit before the old one went out. Everyone had their separate relationship to the candle—including Mrs. Sha and Mrs. Cantor. They always reminded Jake when the candle was getting low even though he needed no reminders. “What is this thing with the candle—everyone’s worried about the damn candle, and nobody’s Catholic but Joaquin.”
Some days Joaquin was talkative, and he spoke easily to Lizzie about his dreams, about how his mother was coming more and more often, about how he would send his father away when he came into his room: “I never loved him. He never loved me either.” Sometimes she felt as if she was his priest, Joaquin confessing all his sins including the fact that he was living outside of the sacrament of marriage. Lizzie never knew whether to smile or cry when he said those things—so she smiled and told him that everything was fine—everything forgiven. Sometimes, he would stretch his hand toward her face and feel it. “It’s a good face, a very good one, the best I’ve felt in a long time.” Sometimes he would drift off into a world that was his alone and say nothing, just mumble to himself in Spanish. Sometimes his questions made no sense: “Do you still have that penthouse in New York?” he once asked her. “No, my darling,” she said, “I sold it.” He addressed her as if she were his mother. “¿Por Qué no lo dejaste?” “¿De quién hablas?” she asked. “Mi papá—¿por Qué no lo dejaste?” “I loved him,” was all she said. “Why are you speaking English, Mamá—you don’t know English.” “I learned,” she said. He nodded. “It’s an ugly language, isn’t it? You should try spelling in it sometime—la cosa más fea del mundo.” Another time he insisted she take him to the airport. “If you don’t hurry and dress me I’ll miss my flight.” “The hell with it,” she told him, “let’s stay home. We’ll play Scrabble instead.” “Scrabble instead of Mexico City—are you crazy?” “It’s just that I’m tired,” she said, “I want to stay home.” “I’m tired, too,” he said—and fell asleep. And another time he insisted to be taken home. She was unable to convince him that he was home. When Jacob walked in, he verbally accosted him with all of his strength: “Why did you move me into this house, you sonofabitch? I loved our house—and you sold it right under my nose.” Jacob soothed him by promising to buy their old house back.
By the end of the week, he had completely stopped eating. All he had was an IV to keep him from becoming completely dehydrated. Mrs. Cantor announced to Lizzie she couldn’t come and stay with him in the mornings anymore. “I just can’t take it anymore,” she said, trying not to cry. “My heart can’t take—please don’t think that I’m abandoning him. He and Jacob Lesley have been such wonderful boys—so nice, so nice—it’s just that I can’t see him like this anymore.” Her eyes were as gray as her hair, and Elizabeth held her as she sobbed.
“It’s OK, Mrs. Cantor, you’ve done what you could. Jacob would have been lost without you.”
“So many boys have been coming by,” she said straightening herself out. “I’ll bring food by every day. It’s too much work for Mrs. Sha—and she can’t make a chicken soup to save her life.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Perfect,” she said.
“I’ve given him his last kiss,” she said. “And you tell Jacob Lesley I’ll be bringing by some food.” She left the apartment slowly and looked toward Joaquin’s room as she stood at the door. “And make sure his candle doesn’t go out—and when the time comes make sure the priest comes. He wants a priest.”
Before Lizzie had the chance to acknowledge her adamant reminder, Mrs. Cantor left the apartment. I won’t cry. I will not cry. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down. She tried to empty herself of all thought. She took off one of her earrings and rubbed her earlobe. She looked at her watch. She walked into Joaquin’s bedroom. His breathing was loud and labored. She touched his forehead. He was sweaty and had a temperature. He opened his eyes. “Is that you, Lizzie?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m cold.”
“I’ll get you another blanket.”
When she touched him, she knew he was not afraid. He only wanted to rest. There was something very peaceful about him and Lizzie could almost touch it. Lizzie was happy he was calm. It was she who was afraid—and so was Jake, and she could not make what she felt go away.
“Tell him not to be afraid. Tell him I dreamed about his heron.”
“Yes,” she said. She wrapped him up in blankets.
“Will you tell him?”
“I’ll tell him.”
“Did I ever tell you I hate Mexico?”
“Shh,” she said.
“I hate the U.S., too.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter,” he said as if it were urgent that Lizzie understood. “Shhh.” He could hardly breathe at all. Dementia, she thought. “Don’t talk.”
“Do you understand me, Lizzie?”
She could see he wouldn’t stop until she agreed on the importance of his point. “You’re right, amor,” she said.
“The United States is barbaric,” he said.
“Yes, amor,” she said.
“And Mexico, too. Barbaric.”
“Shhh.”
“I’m right about this. I insist on it.”
“Of course you’re right, corazón.”
She held his hand until he fell asleep. She kissed him on the forehead and left the room. When she walked back in the living room, she reached for the phone. She stared at the picture of the young man. She had not thought of the picture since the first day she had been in the apartment—but as she sat there waiting for Tom to answer his phone, she felt a sense of urgency about the boy in the picture.
“Hello.”
“Yes, I’d like to speak to Dr. Michaelsen. It’s about one of his patients. It’s very important.”
“Who should I say is calling?”
“Elizabeth Edwards. It’s about—hell, he’ll know.”
“Can you hold?”
“Why the hell not?” She was annoyed. She stared at the photograph, those familiar eyes, the well-defined chin, the soft lips.
She heard Tom’s voice on the other end. “Yes, Lizzie, what’s the news?”
She put down the photograph at the sound of Tom’s voice. “I don’t get a good feeling here, Tom. I’d drop by after work and park myself for a while if I were you. You got big plans tonight?”
“Just dinner with Rick.”
“Tell him to come say his good-byes—if he wants.”
Tom said nothing for a while. Lizzie didn’t mind the silence.
“Sure thing, Lizzie.”
“See you this evening, then.”
“Lizzie?”
“What?”
“Are you as tough as you seem?”
“No.” She quietly hung up the phone.
Sometimes the smell of death or dread of an impending unknown is in the air like the smell of corn tortillas at a market in Juárez or the smell of sulfur near an oil refinery or the smell of eucalyptus after a rain. The smell is strong, overwhelming, irretrievable, and it loiters in the air like a prostitute waiting to be picked up. Some people know—without knowing—that something sad or good or significant is going to happen. They smell, they sense what is coming in the air and they prepare themselves as best they can, prepare and brace for the impact. Sometimes they hide the preparations even from themselves. When Jacob woke that morning, he sat up in bed and knew. He remembered his dream. The heron had come to him again. He was young and he was walking along a beach, the red sun rising, the lyric lake so perfect and blue and shining that it seemed as if it had been created out of nothing only the day before. A heron as white as any angel he had dreamed of as a boy flew out of the water flying toward the red sun. As he watched it beating its wings against the bluing sky, the heron suddenly stopped beating its wings. Something interrupted its perfect flight toward the sun. Its wings stretched out, they froze, unable to move, and it began falling back toward the lake. “Fly!” he yelled, “Fly!” But the bird was deaf to his voice. The grace and strength having left the white heron, his heart was no longer able to withstand the labor that life asked of it. The heron, falling toward its death—its wings outstretched—offered no resistance against its fate. It fell quietly, graceful even in its final descent. “Fly!” Jake yelled, his face growing older and more desperate with each passing second until he was old and weak and wrinkled. “No! No! Fly!” He watched as the heron splashed into the shining lake and sunk into its drowning waters.