Since Joshua was in my life to stay, I renewed my vow to help him. And my gut told me, that a horse ride into the Ventana Wilderness of Los Padres National Forest would provide the perfect opportunity for him to escape the group home for a while. Maybe even have some fun. However, if Dr. Mendez didn’t agree, the plan would be off. I was too new at this trust-your-gut thinking to push my inner wisdom too far.
I phoned Ben to check if such a trip were even possible.
“My friend Pete is an excellent guide and wouldn’t turn down a few extra bucks,” Ben said, “though it’s the off season. I’ll check with him and get back to you.”
I had barely put down the phone, when Ben returned my call. “How does Saturday through Thursday sound?”
“This coming week?” The man sure worked fast.
“Yep.”
“I’ll call Dr. Mendez, and if he has no objections, we’re on.”
“Okay, let me know if it’s a go, and I’ll set things up.”
Before closing the call, I asked, “When can you introduce me to the Medicine Wheel?”
“Tomorrow would work,” he said, “but it’ll have to be early. I have appointments later in the day.”
“What time?”
“Seven.”
“Where?”
“Meet me at Los Padres Dam off Cachagua Road. There’s parking at the trailhead.”
“I’ll be there!”
I called Dr. Mendez to share my plan, only to be met by silence.
“Do you think it’s a bad idea?” I asked.
He sighed in a way that filled me with doubt. “To bring back his speech, Joshua may need to return to the scene of the fire that so tragically took his parents. His traumatic memories need to be unearthed and dealt with or they may haunt him for years.”
My hope had been that a guided tour into the Ventana Wilderness would be therapeutic for the child, but in a pleasurable way. What the doctor was suggesting sounded scary, even dangerous.
“I will need to accompany you on the first leg of the journey to observe how Joshua adjusts to the change in environment and also to continue his meditation and breathwork if necessary.”
Regret swept over me. I should have known better than to stick my nose into the child’s business. He needed the help of professionals, not do-gooders like me. “You’re teaching him how to breathe?”
“The conscious control of breathing helps bring to the surface unfinished traumatic issues that need addressing. Joshua’s inability or unwillingness to speak is a crisis of personal transformation. We need to support his silence and recognize it as a form of self-healing, rather than treat it as an illness.”
“So, you use breathing as a form of meditation?”
“Transformational breathing facilitates the natural healing process. It also leads to the experience of liberation on many levels.”
Natural healing and liberation. Right up my alley. Anyway, I couldn’t back down now. “So, you’re coming, too?”
“I will need to clear my calendar first.”
This time, I sighed. The responsibility of taking Joshua on such a tour on my own would have been a huge one. Now, I wouldn’t have to face it alone.
“For some reason, Joshua has chosen you as his special guide,” Dr. Mendez said, “and your ring as his instrument of power. With the support of people who care about him, the tour could offer a safe place for him to look deeply into his process and find what he’s lacking. I will pick Joshua up at the group home and meet you at the Inn around eight Saturday morning.”
“Okay,” I said. “And I’ll drive us from there.”
Phone still in hand, I made another call, to the genealogist Ben had directed me to. Her name was Heather Garcia, but I didn’t make the connection until I heard her voice.
“Carmel Valley Inn, Heather speaking.”
“Heather? This is Marjorie.”
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Ben Mendoza gave me your number. He said you studied genealogy.”
“Genealogy is, like, my hobby,” was her upbeat reply.
“Can we talk?”
“Sure. Meet me in the dining room in ten minutes.”
🗲🗲🗲
When I mentioned my interest in Margarita Butron, Heather asked, “Which one, the original or the one born in the 1900s, five generations later?”
“The original,” I said, noticing the rapid display of emotions on Heather’s face. This bubbly woman, with her mass of chestnut curls, didn’t fit my idea of a genealogist. She looked more like a high school cheerleader, her hands as expressive as pompoms.
“My mother and I are descendants of Margarita’s,” Heather said, ignoring the buttered croissants and rapidly cooling coffee in front of her, “which includes hundreds. Plus, we’re discovering more each day. How a couple with only two sons ended up with such a huge family tree is a mystery to me.”
Unlike Heather, I found it impossible to ignore the fresh fruit and pastries assorted like artwork at the center of the table. Between bites of blueberry streusel, sips of dark roasted coffee, and Heather’s enthusiastic revelations, I wondered about my own ancestry. Heck, I wasn’t even privy to the identity of my natural parents, let alone any distant aunts, uncles, or cousins.
At least you have your sister.
It was the Voice again, raising the hair on my arms, along with questions in my head. I had always sensed something missing in my life, but a sister like Veronica? Not in my wildest dreams. Then again, I never dreamt I’d be hearing voices either.
“I’ll download a generation chart of my mother’s family genealogy,” Heather said, “starting with Manuel and Margarita as generation two. The first generation originated with Manuel Butron’s parents in Spain, but we’ll leave that for later. As yet, I haven’t been able to find out much about Margarita, other than that she was born in 1759 at a former Rumsen Costanoan settlement called Tukutnut, also known as Santa Teresa, about three miles upstream from the mouth of the Carmel River. She survived an Indian attack that killed her parents, and arrived at the Carmel Mission a very sick girl. She was Christened and married at the mission in 1773 and died in 1815. I’ll see what else I can find out.”
I got up to refill my coffee and, on my return, told Heather about the mirror I’d purchased at the antique shop in the Village.
“If it belonged to Margarita, it was likely passed down through the generations five or six times before ending up with you,” Heather said. “Of course, with so many family members in the mix, the likelihood of tracing a direct route between Margarita’s ownership of the mirror and the antique shop will be like zero.”
Heather’s passion made me want to share my new find, so when she said, “I’d love to see the mirror,” I was happy to oblige.
“If an ancestor of mine once owned it,” she said, in a voice I equated with heart-felt, thirsty wishes, “I’d like to hold it in my hands. Would you mind?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “Because of you I’m beginning to feel a connection to a family I never would’ve known. I just found out that I was orphaned as a newborn and that I’m part Native American and have a twin sister.” My voice cracked on twin sister, so I expected an expression of pity on Heather’s part, but her response was just the opposite.
“How exciting. Where does she live?”
“In Carmel Valley,” I said, the words, how exciting, bouncing around in my head like an acoustic echo. “I met her by accident. It was a shock for us both.”
Heather’s eyes widened and she hit the side of her head with the palm of her hand. “No wonder you looked so familiar when I first met you. Does she have black hair by any chance? Like, duh! Excuse me if I seem a bit overexcited. Things get a little dull around here and you, oh my gosh, this is so . . . I’m sorry. Am I embarrassing you?”
I hadn’t laughed in a while, not in this throaty way. “Heavens no. Actually, you’re helping me see the situation from an entirely different perspective.”
“Um, clue me in if you make any new discoveries,” Heather said. “Cause if your family is of my tribe, I could be of some help.” She paused, blew out a breath. “Guess you can see I eat stuff like this up. I get so excited when I stumble across a mystery. Your story should keep me going for a while. Wake up this town!”
Without realizing it, my friend had made me feel grateful for what I had and who I was. And she wasn’t done. “In 1870, a couple of ancestors of mine left their children as orphans because of harsh times. One of those orphans was also a twin and ended up marrying a farmer and having a big family of her own. Of course, this was before your time, but the story of your ancestors may be similar.”
“I’d like to hear more about her,” I said.
“When were you born?” Heather asked.
“July 8, 1973. At least from what I’ve been told.”
Heather grabbed a napkin. “Do you have a pen?”
I dug one out of my purse and handed it to her.
“Okay, that gives me a starting point. Now, for the fun part, which I call the excavation, you know, all those hidden pieces of information ripe for discovery if someone bothers to do a little digging.”
“Do you still want to check out the mirror?” I asked.
“What kind of question is that? Let me get Pop to relieve me.”
“Cornelio’s your father?”
“Yeah. He owns the place.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I know. He’s the greatest. It’s been tough for him since Mom died. She passed when I was just a tot, a car accident at an intersection less than three miles from here. The other driver failed to yield to oncoming traffic while making a left turn and, just like that, she was gone. Dad’s never gotten over it. He wanted a big family, you know, all nine yards. But all he got was me, which is actually a good thing, because his left side is now paralyzed due to a stroke and he’s got expressive aphasia. Words don’t come as easily as he’d like, although he does a darn good job of making his wants and needs known when he puts his mind to it. Anyway, that’s why I’m still here instead of pursuing a career as a genealogist. Circumstances clipped my wings, if you know what I mean, but . . . Oh, listen to me, running off at the mouth. Sorry, I tend to do that when someone offers me a listening ear. So, where were we?”
“We were going to check out the mirror,” I said.
“Okay,” Heather said with a wave of her hand. “What other secrets have you been keeping under wraps when you could have been making my day?”
“I think Margarita has been communicating with me,” I said, though I had planned to keep this information to myself.
“And you expect me to be shocked, right?”
“Well yeah . . .”
“Hate to disappoint you, my dear, but I don’t find that hard to believe.”
“Why would a woman who lived over 200 years ago still be sticking around? And why mess with me?”
“You might be on the same wave-length, you know, sort of tuning into each other’s thoughts. Maybe all those years ago, she experienced similar feelings to yours.”
“But her problems were different from mine. How could we possibly have anything in common?”
“Okay, bear with me here,” Heather said, “because this may sound kinda weird. What if in the world of the spirit, there’s a universal language and a universal emotion that you both understand? Then again, maybe my theory sucks and you’ll have to be satisfied with living the question.”
Living the question? What a thought.