Becky. The listener has nothing to add here. Nor does the listener intend to add a colophone, a coda. Becky, and it’s high time, too, should speak for herself.
Years ago, Daddy decided to Mexicanize himself, and so much so that he’s not an Anglo anymore, a bolillo as Jehu says.
As a kid, when I was with the Scholastics and later on at St. Ann’s, we used English and nothing but … I spoke English to Mama, and she’d answer me in Spanish. That’s pretty normal for Valley mexicanos. Besides, Mama prefers Spanish, and that’s it.
Daddy is the sweetest, dearest thing there is. He’s a good man in the good sense of the word. Oh, I know what people say, and I’ve heard it all my life: “All he does is hunt and fish.” That’s just talk. And Mama? She adores him, and I do too. He is something that people wish they were: kind, giving, and—a word not much in currency—virtuous.
People. People say Mama pushed me into marrying Ira. That’s partly true, but I’m the one who made that mistake. I thought I loved Ira, convinced myself I did, and for a long time, too.
And what’s the big to-do? Is there a mother who doesn’t want her daughter well off? Comfortable? But it happens that I let myself, had placed myself there. I wanted to marry Ira. That I don’t love him as a husband now, or that I don’t want him to live with me and the kids, that is something I decided as well. I made a mistake a long time ago, and it was up to me to correct it.
Can’t I be allowed to make a decision? Must I always accomodate myself, every time?
And I certainly didn’t talk the divorce over with Mama and Dad beforehand. The difficulty, but difficult only in broaching the subject, was in talking to the kids. Sarah was eight at the time, and Charlie going on eleven. They love their Father, as they should. I insist on it. But they can also see that this is another life, that their Mom has remarried. That Mom works, and that there’s nothing wrong in it. As far as I know, the kids have not had the divorce thrown in their faces. If someone were to, old or young, the kids know what to say to that. Now then, that Jehu and I married a year and a half after the divorce is as much our business as it is Charlie’s and Sarah’s, but no one else’s.
Jehu prefers straight talk. I do too, although I had to learn that for myself. It was hard going, but that wasn’t Jehu’s fault.
And this is what people must understand: Jehu is not the kids’ Father; he’s their Dad. There shouldn’t be any mistake on that score, I don’t think. They both love and respect Jehu, and he loves them. When they’re not with me or when I can’t take them to work with me, Jehu leaves the bank, takes them to the park, to Mom’s house, or to see Rafe or Rafe’s nephews out at the farm.
The first visits to Mom’s house were strained. And why shouldn’t they have been? But Time’s a great leveler; it’s like money, says Jehu. And he laughs when he says it; I do too. And in time, Mom’s learned to come around. Mama is a snob, but is that a high crime? Aren’t there worse things?
It seems almost a hundred years ago that Ira and I moved to Klail. And then, straight away, Noddy decided that Ira was to run for the Commissioner’s post … even before we left Jonesville for Klail. Many things happened back then. Personal things.
Among them, I lied for Jehu. I lied to Mr. Galindo. To Noddy. To myself. But I didn’t know Jehu then, and I had no way of knowing that Jehu was, is, capable of defending himself, from any quarter. But I lied because I already loved him, and so I sought to protect him from Ira, from Noddy. That’s funny.
Ollie San Esteban. I do not, nor will I ever, speak ill of Ollie San Esteban or her memory. Never. I was a spoiled, silly, nattering little fool, but with all of that, I sensed somehow that changes had to be made. I knew I wanted Jehu. That’s a difference. And we made love; he wanted to, and I wanted to. I wanted to see him, be with him, hold him. I was indiscreet, of course, but I wasn’t a fool. All he saw in me was a pretty face. I knew that. But he had to know who I was, what I was.
As for those changes, I didn’t have the nerve, the courage, or even the imagination to figure them out. But I learned. Now, alone or with Jehu, here, in our home, I think about what held me back from seeing the changes. It was fear. Finally, one day, I asked myself what it was I feared. The answers came tumbling out, hundreds of them. But then, at that time, I hadn’t learned about ultimate questions … oh, yes. When I asked myself the ultimate question, and I answered yes to myself, and I knew I was dead serious, fear, or whatever it was, flew out that front door, through the porch, and away from this house …
That day, the kids came in from school, and I prepared some limeade for the three of us. Sarah brought the cookies, I remember, and Charlie set the table … He was about to go upstairs for his shorts and sneakers, ready to go out and play, but I asked them to sit. For a talk. I had no idea what they’d say, how long I would talk, but talk I did and all of us cried, too. And then we waited for Ira …
I sat there, I thought I’d done a selfish thing, that I was the same old Becky. And I cried. Just then, Sarah moved over and told me not to cry. And she was just eight-years-old, you understand. Charlie then ran upstairs and put on some long pants and a shirt. We waited. The car, the door, the front porch …
We were a long way from the first day we’d moved to Klail … I cut a ridiculous figure. And for a while there, I even pretended to myself that I wasn’t Elvira Navarrete’s daughter, as if Ira’s mother had raised me. Denial, of course; nothing else but.
I had made myself into another person, and, too, I was such a fool I couldn’t see Sammie Jo’s friendship when it was offered.
And Sammie Jo and I are friends. She’s something. Es persona. And that is how she saw me. As a person, but I couldn’t see myself.
But getting back to Jehu. I was just one more conquest, but hardly that, since there’d been no resistance on my part. I went to him, even when I knew he loved Ollie San Esteban. And why shouldn’t he love her, and yes, I also knew about him and Sammie Jo … And well, was I any better?
But I didn’t love Ira. And there were the kids. And people. And Mom … And then the ultimate question … what would I do for Jehu to know me so that he would then love me. And so I told Ira that I’d decided he was not to live with us anymore.
That man Jehu … He called on the San Esteban family for over a year after Ollie’s death. A man of responsibilities, you see. And then, twelve months to the very day of the decision, on a day like today, a bit gray and overcast, somewhat windy, hurricane weather, he showed up. There, on the porch.
We sat, and I couldn’t stop talking. Poor Jehu. But I didn’t care what he thought of me then and there. What I wanted to know, all I wanted to know, was did he love me, did he love me as I loved him? But thank God Jehu is the way he is. He nodded and looked at me for the longest time. I couldn’t know, of course, but I felt it.
I don’t know about you, but have you ever had someone look at you, up close, eye to eye? A clear, unclouded, an almost unblinking look at you? Jehu looked at me that way that afternoon.
I didn’t ask him to say he loved me, I wasn’t a kid. But he said it anyhow. One surprise after another, that man.
And then? He said to call the kids, to go out, for a walk, on the sidewalk, around the block. And Sarah, who’d never seen him, took his hand, hugged him. Sarah! Yes. And kissed him. Even the weather helped; the wind calmed down, as calm as the kids.
Charlie? Charlie ran up to his room and brought back a sketch he’d drawn at the Scholastics. When Jehu smiled, Charlie gave it to him: a present. I don’t think they said a word between them.
Since much Spanish common property law prevails in Texas, the management and apportionment of property took time. It was Jehu who suggested that Romeo Hinojosa represent me. Jehu then said it would be better if he didn’t call on me until after the divorce. He then explained this to the kids: clearly, simply, no embellishment. Well, Mr. Hinojosa made an excellent case for me and the kids, although I must say that Ira behaved like a pig in this. Kept bringing up the fact, his lawyer did, that Jehu had called on me. Poor Ira! He still doesn’t understand a thing.
That’s been two years now, and the trouble with Ira is that he can’t see beyond tomorrow. The kids are growing up, and they may wind up not loving Ira because of Ira’s behavior. Jehu, now, he will not allow the baby, Sarah, or Charlie either, for that matter, he won’t allow them to speak disrespectfully about Ira. Jehu says that isn’t done. He, too, never says a word against Ira, and so, the kids follow his example: no criticism.
Don’t mistake what I say, though. Jehu knows Ira for the fool he is. And he knows that Noddy controls Ira, who doesn’t know the first word about banking or little else. Jehu says Noddy knows this, and since Ira likes the easy way out of things, Noddy keeps him under wraps.
As for Noddy, he can throw both Jehu and Ira out of the banking business and into the streets any time he wants to. It’s his bank. But Jehu doesn’t care, and poor Ira does care. That’s the difference.
And this is my new life, and it’s the best one I could have chosen. There’s no set routine to our lives … As I said earlier, Jehu comes home at noon, on a Wednesday, say, he’ll call the bank and say he won’t be back that afternoon. He’ll drive to Klail Mid-School, sign out for the kids, and if I’ve got nothing pressing at the moment, we’ll drive out to El Carmen Ranch and visit a while.
That’s Jehu, impromptu. It’s the same with the few parties we give at home. A few people we know, mostly family.
For Jehu it’s always the family. Me. The children, that’s the first family. And then the other family, Rafe, who’s more than just a cousin. They’re like kids, they call each other on the phone.
And speaking of Rafe, Jehu wanted to postpone the wedding, and I was for it. Rafe was recuperating from his eye trouble again, but Rafe wouldn’t hear of it. Got me on the phone, “No lo dejes” is what he said.
People who don’t know Rafe think he’s reserved; that’s the word I always hear. He’s quiet, sure, and he’s certainly that way in public. He’s funny, though. Like Jehu, he laughs, he can tell a joke …
To me, Jehu is the reserved one. And patient? I think that’s why the kids also love him. He’s incredibly patient … and you know, it takes a good business head and sense to be patient. I learned that on my own.
I won’t talk about my work or what I do at Barragán Enterprises. It’s boring to talk about it, but it’s something else to live it. It’s my professional life; that’s all there is to that.
Viola? I was wrong about her as I was wrong about many things. She loves me as if I were her own daughter, had she had one … I learned the business by watching her, by being there … and I remember my first important lesson in business: Yes means yes, and no means no. Negotiations are always preliminaries, but the yeas and nays are the finalities …
I talked to few people about what I wanted to do … I talked to Mrs. Campoy, a hundred if she’s a year, and bright and lucid … I also talked to Viola. Before I talked to Mama. See? And Viola? She cried. But do you see? We’re talking about a fearless woman here. And she was the first to see what was in me, before I could even see for myself. Saw it before Jehu, too.
And that’s it. I’m not a woman who was saved, redeemed. I saved myself. With help, of course. With love and good will, too, and all the rest. But if I couldn’t save myself, if I couldn’t save me from myself … But why go on?
Let’s say I saved myself, and let it go at that.
Yes, the listener will also let it go at that.
… what a strange accident the truth is.
George Santayana