CHAPTER BREAK
At home, Shannon pulled out her steno pad. It was in pretty sorry shape, but it was almost full, She had a recycle bin full of steno pads waiting to be put to the curb. It was her master list, the mother of to-do’s. Probably, back in Seattle, or Los Angeles, she would have had a Blackberry. But this old notebook method was stillFor a while she had considered the collected master lists a great cultural archive. Something historians, genealogists or anthropologists would dream of finding in a thousand years. So she stacked them together in her closet. She forgot about them. I mean, she kept tossing the books in the set, every six months or so when they filled up But she didn’t think about why. Last week, she opened a couple of them. Drivel. Dull. Groceries and to-dos of a single lady in a small town. She decided that whatever master list was on her person when she died would be sufficient for the future historian and chucked the whole stack in the recycle bin. Spiral binding and all. Let the transfer station mess with separating all that paper and metal.
But, as it remained as good as any other daily ritual, when she got home from work (or dinner with Mario) she pulled out her master list, pulled out her favorite pencil and sat down with a cup of tea.
Her father and Jenny were coming by next week for a visit. She should make up the spare room for them. She added lavender shampoo and matching soap to her grocery list. She loved to spoil her guests with new toiletries, to treat them like they were at a bed and breakfast. She checked the schedule page. They’d be here for two nights. So she’d take the evening off when they got here and fix them dinner. Then she’d take the next day off. Go to the cemetery to put flowers on Jenny’s grandparent’s graves. Go to the park so Jenny’s dogs could have a run. She wrote “Picnic?” next to the park. They’d eat at Mario’s that night, a picnic might be a nice change for lunch. She’d have to work the next day but they said they would stop in and have lunch before they left town. A brief but sweet visit, like always. It would take care of her Stewart family obligations until Christmas anyway.
Then there was Mom. She owed her mom an email. In the past Dion had hinted around that electric communication lacked spiritual energy and didn’t fulfill her as a mother. At first Shannon ignored these pointed hints that implied maternal neglect. Of course ignoring a problem never works. So Shannon pointed out what should have been obvious. Electricity is energy so electronic communication had to carry more energy than words written in chemical in on the remains of dead trees. Dion had actually responded to that with a long distance phone call.
“You must be right, Shae. You must be. But it’s not the policy at the Coushay Institute. I can see I need to pray about this. To bring it to the staff. Surely they will see the light in it.”
“Yes mom, you should talk to the staff. You should talk to them about time off for good behavior, too. Time to come down and visit me.”
Dion’s response was stiff with defensiveness, her voice tight. “You know I would be there tomorrow, sweetie. But the probation period isn’t up yet. I can’t leave if I want to get my citizenship.”
“And why, mom, do you want to get your Canadian citizenship?” But Shannon knew the answer to this, and she wished she hadn’t asked.
“Because love, because. It is a dark empire, Shannon. And we should all get out. Your grandmother was very happy here with us. You would be too.”
“You know mom. I’m sure grandma was happy there with you. But I am still fine here. I am very happy here.” She was tired, and getting the headache she got when she tried to reason with her totally brainwashed mother. “But it’s okay, mom. Talk to them about electric energy and how it balances the light against paper and what paper does to the balance of energy. Just be sure to call and tell me what they say, okay? I love hearing you and don’t wait so long next time.”
They gave their love to each other and the call was over. The seminary didn’t receive calls. Emails and letters were read before they were given to the members of the seminary. A great amount of control was exercised by the staff of the Coushay Institute and Seminary for the Ministry of a Centered Life. The Life Ministry Center that Dion had been a member of in Seattle had closed a few years ago, most of the congregation having moved to Edmonton to attend the Seminary. The few other Centers, mostly in American towns along the Canadian border had closed as well. Dion told Shannon it was because the energy that those centers brought to the ministry from the US was too dark and was inhibited their ability to reach others and spread the Gospel.
Shannon owed her mother an email. The staff of the Center—mostly members of the Coushay family, had agreed that email communication would be preferable where families were able to send them. Shannon wondered if the decision to make email a priority had anything to do with the ease in making emails disappear. So far Dion had responded to all of her emails and hadn’t missed many of the details she had written. But calls were few and farther between.
As soon as Dion had arrived at the seminary, she had transferred her bank accounts into the name of the Coushay Institute. And she gave them the title to her Rabbit. Just two years into her program they gave her a job with the seminary so she could work off the debts she had encurred as the costs of her room board and education outpaced her money. She moved her mother and her mother’s resources to Edmonton around this same time. But Lucille needed care before she passed and the resources she brought to the center fell short of her expenses as well.
When Shannon saw what was happening to her mother—she was still in the service when Lucille emigrated—she was alarmed. The house in Seattle had been paid off for years. It was sitting empty, appreciating comfortably in value. A nice asset to protect for her mother, from her mother, for as long as she could. And for lack of a better option she called her father.
“Dad.”
“Shannon? How are you?” He was just so glad to have a call from his daughter. He thought ‘I ought to get a cell phone for if she wants to call when I’m on the road!’
“Can I talk to you about mom’s house?” This kind of conversation was new to Shannon. Talking about adult subjects, or important subjects with her father had never happened before.
“Well, sure, sweetie. What’s wrong with it? I’ll be in Seattle next week. Is there something I can do?”
“Well, I don’t know, really. I’m worried about mom and this church. I’m afraid they will try to take her house. They’ve already taken everything else.”
‘The church? What do you mean? Churches don’t take things, hon.” He sounded a little bewildered, or like he was watching the TV.
“Yeah, Dad. But it’s not a church church. Not like a Jesus Church. It’s weird and I don’t think she’ll ever come back. But if she does…I don’t want her to have nothing left.”
Some background noise faded, like her dad had turned his show off or left the room.
“Dion’s not coming home? I though she was supposed to come back next year. “
“Yeah, it was going to be last year, and now it’s going to be next year. But I don’t think she’ll come back until she doesn’t have anything left they can take from her.”
“Shae-shae! We’ll go get her. We won’t let them brainwash Dion. We can’t. I’ll take a vacation and we’ll go get her.” He voice was strong and sincere. He was pacing at home now, as though his walking firmly at that moment would get him to his daughter and they could fix this problem instantly.
“Okay, yeah. But Dad, she won’t come with us yet. She’s still so happy there. I don’t want to loose the house to, you know? She’s got to have something to start over with when they are done with her. So, I need to know. Who owns the house? Mom? The bank? What can I do to fix it for her?”
“Lessee…I owned the house before your mom and I got married. I mean, I was buying it. But then there was the divorce. I tell you, we had it so easy. I’ve talked to other guys. And their lives were just shattered by divorce. But Dion was so nice about it all and so smart. What did we do about that house?”
Shannon drummed her fingers anxiously on her desk while her father reminisced about the good old days when he was getting divorced. His easy going good guy thing was great until you wanted to do something efficiently.
“Well, hon, I do remember. We didn’t do anything about the house. See, it was almost paid off. And interest rates were going up and it costs a lot to refinance. Well anyway, I let her take the house. Sometimes I helped her with it when things were tight in Seattle. But it was her house and you guys needed it, so even though it’s still in my name, I would have never taken it away from you too. Do you want it? I can make it yours, if you think that would help?”
Shannon let out a deep breath in a heavy sigh, of relief. That explained why the seminary didn’t have it yet. “Dad? Could you sell the house? And we could invest the money? And then when mom comes home she can do anything, you know?” Not knowing how this stuff worked made it hard for Shannon to figure out what to ask or what they needed to try.
“Do you want me to invest it for Dion? Buy her some stocks?”
“No, dad, don’t buy them for her, hey? Because then she could give them to those stupid Coushay’s. Can you put them in your name? Or my name?” She was afraid to ask that, to look like she was trying to take advantage of her mother.
“I shouldn’t put them in my name, you know? Because if something is mine then it is Jenny’s too. But I could sell the house and put the money away for you. Would that be okay? I can put it together with the money for your college and then when you are out of the service I can give it all to you. And gosh, your mom should be home next year, so you can give the money to her then.”
“Oh dad. Can you do that really? I’m so scared for mom.” Her voice broke just as her eyes filled with tears. It was such a relief to find out that she could help her mom. It was such a relief to find out that her dad could solve her problems. She felt so glad, and so relieved and so much less alone in the world.
The money from the house had been carefully invested. Her dad—and Jenny—had a good mind for the marketplace. For a while, this investment earned money hand over fist. And when so many people lost so much money, Dion’s money had only slowed down its earning. Dion never asked about the house. Shannon never volunteered what she had done. And she never touched her mother’s money.
Shannon put down the master list. Exhausted by a day on her feet waiting tables. Exhausted by thinking about her mother and by remembering how much work it was taking to constantly protect her mother.
She put off emailing however, when the phone rang.
CHAPTER BREAK
During those dark days in Chiapas, the days after the Clinica was destroyed, Sra Gomez was not hopeless. When her husband told her “Now all that we can do is wait. Wait until we are allowed to go to America.” She said “Yes, my love.” But while she waited she sold the vegetables from their family garden in the market. And she put the money away—not in the national bank or El Bolso—but in an envelope so it would be easy to take with them into America. And she cut down her linens, made them into clean, new clothing and put those away in the bottom of the trunk. So that when the clothes they had were worn through they would have new things of fine materials that would last and be beautiful. She was a very good seamstress. When she showed the linen clothes she made to her friends, they greatly admired them. They gave her money and their linens to make into clothes. The days of prosperity in their village were ending. The days of silver on tables spread with linen would not last. But they would always need to wear clothes. Timotea Gomez sewed their linens into clothes and took a little money in exchange for her services. Then her friends had clothing that only cost them a little money and some vanished pride. And she had more pesos to put in her envelope. While she did this, her husband waited.
Sr. Gomez waited on his patients. He saw them in his home and gave them medicines that he had secreted away from the clinic before the PLO came and destroyed everything they saw. He sewed up the wounds of his compadres who had defied the government and suffered blows for it. And he waited for word from the embassy that would say he could take his family away and start over.
It was a long wait, over a year. During that time they had no more income. They had the heirlooms of generations. They only sold a few of these. While they waited for their visas they contacted family, cousins and uncles and aunts, and invited them to take the heirlooms and the stories into their homes. To not forget the days of the Gomez familia on the Villa in Chiapas. The Gomez family that for generations served to heal the villagers.
Estefan Gomez’s brother Pedro was also a doctor. Pedro ran a hospital on the coast in a very wealthy town in Vera Cruz. Pedro was the eldest Gomez child and had been raised by his father to serve the village through the family clinic. To carry on the good work. He had served and was loved, after a fashion. But he had even more of the aristocrat in him, and he had green eyes. He didn’t know how it came about, but he caught the attention of the large hospital very early. This opportunity pleased him as it pleased his wife Maria Pilar. So they moved and gave the ancestral home and La Clinica to Estefan. Estefan was very well loved. The village was very pleased with the exchange. Especially Timotea Yesenia.
Timotea was the daughter of the chief of Police. He was an imposing man, broad of shoulder, with a strong jaw and a silent nature. Timotea was his only daughter. To him, only a Gomez son, the family in the villa on the hill, would be good enough for Timotea. When Pedro married the pale and slight daughter of the governor of Chiapas, Timotea’s father told her to wait. He said, “Estefan will love you. But you must wait for him to become the doctor of la Clinica. You must wait for him to own the home. Then you will marry him.”
Timotea said “Yes father.” And while she waited she sewed her trousseau. The policia were not wealthy but they had to look wealthy. Timotea’s mother said, “first we will sew quietly for the wealthy familias in town, we will not tell your father. Then we will take the money they pay us and buy unfinished linen fabric from the city. When we are done you will bring valuable linens for the kitchen and the bedroom to your marriage. Better linens than the Gomez family have ever had before. And they will praise that Timotea Yesenia is their daughter.”
While they waited and sewed the chief of the police of this village spoke with the governor of Chiapas, that father in law of Pedro. Then the governor spoke with La Hospital by the sea and it was planned that as soon as Dr Estefan Gomez returned from his surgical studies in England, Doctor Pedro Gomez moved his family to a prosperous city with many opportunities for his children.
And then the chief of the police spoke with Doctor Estefan Gomez, a young man of promising skill, with a kind nature and benevolent personality. He told the Doctor of his daughter Timotea.
This had pleased the Doctor. Though a modern man, he liked that Timotea’s father came to him. He valued that he was being chosen by such an important person as the Chief of the Police. Estefan had traveled to Spain and then to England. His medical education had been greater than that of his brother. When Pedro finished school in Mexico City he had gone straight home to work with their father. When Estefan had finished, he was not needed in the clinica yet, so he was sent to travel and learn. He became a very skilled surgeon. He became fluent in English.
This was all during the 1960s. The war in Europe had been over for many years. Generally Europeans were not aware that Mexico had helped Germany during the war. Certainly Estefan did not tell anyone. Instead he went to cocktail parties and cricket matches. He shopped in large department stores and went out with English girls who found his old world charm enticing. He only seduced two of them, both of whom he thought he wished to marry. It was a heady and intoxicating time for the single young man of means with no current responsibility.
But that time ended. And he went home. They did not tell him, when he got home, that it would take many years of careful economy and hard work in the clinic to make back the expense of educating him like an English Doctor. Pedro knew this. That is why he chose to marry Maria Pilar. With the political protection her father could offer, and the dowry she would bring to the family, they would endure the lean days and be ahead soon enough.
Pedro was not sentimental and went more than willingly to his future in Vera Cruz. His new home and job were glamorous and even powerful. Let Estefan have the country life of a village and the practice of medicine for people who only sometimes paid with pesos. Estefan had had his days in the sun. Now he could work.
But we said that Estefan was pleased on hearing that it would please Timotea’s father for them to know each other better. She was a stunning beauty and a true wit. Before he left for medical school she was surely his favorite of the young girls. And after he came home, with his dalliances behind and his future before, her superiority to the other ladies of his acquaintance was obvious. A fool could see she was amazing.
She knew he was her father’s choice. It was very convenient for her that she had always loved him. A month after her father had made his proposal, they were wed. Her dowry was simply the household items she had sewn with her own hands and the promise of her father that no one would interfere with the work of the clinic. And his promise that the Policia would help when needed, to bring about payments for any debt owed the clinic. It was more than Estefan thought he would need. They had the beautiful home on the hill. There was a girl in the kitchen that had chosen not to move to Vera Cruz with the familia. There were grounds that produced food and people who needed a Doctor. It was the ideal situation for a young man and woman in love to start their life in.
In a few years, they had found that the expenses of the home could be met with their income and they did not worry about accumulating more then they had inherited. When Mario came they hired a girl from the village to be his nanny, but not his nurse. Timotea loved her son and nursed him herself.
And now, Sra Gomez’ small son, Mario was grown. He was a grown man, respected in their American village. He took care of his parents well. First, when his Restaurante had made enough money, he bought the building he was renting. He and his young wife moved from the rooms they rented in to into the apartment he now owned.
This apartment was larger, of course, than the small home of his parents. But not as large, not as grand, as the golden home he remembered in his dreams. That place in Mexico where he lived and grew as a prince. It had open patios and flowering vines and dusty breezes that blew over you during your siesta. The apartment was not that. But it was his alone and it had two bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a front room, where he could put a TV, a stereo, those things that the boys in his school had in their homes growing up.
His continued to do well in his work, people came from all the towns nearby. A new place to go, anything new, being well worth a drive in this part of the country. He didn’t buy himself a TV because he worked too much to sit down and watch TV. He didn’t buy himself a stereo, but he did buy a system for the Restaurante. This was hard on his wife. For the years they were married she knew the restaurant was his real soul mate.
Originally people expected him to play fast, stereotypical mariachi. But he surprised them and played a well collected array of popular music in Spanish. Some American bands, some from Spain, but most were Latin American. Mario’s sounded better than the nearest Mexican competition. It had a better sound, a classier look. His mother helped him choose the linens and the table ware. He did not display anything that was written in colored lights. Though he did serve plenty of cerveza. And unquestionably the food was better than any other café, restaurant, or bar in the county. He was truly gifted.
As he was comfortable in his home and happy in his work, he wanted to make his parents comfortable. Sr. Gomez was still so unhappy. He had become so hard, never expected to be happy. He expected only to work hard and be tired. For his friends to leave and for everyone to grow old and infirm. Everything around him to slowly disintegrate.
Sr Gomez bought his little house as soon as he arrived in Clovis. The Farm manager had explained to him the available options. He said:
“You will make this much money an hour and work for this many hours a day. We have homes here that you can live in. You may pay for it twelve dollars a month. Since you are a permanent employee, in three years, the house and the land will it is on will be yours. Or you can live in town if you would rather.”
“These homes look fine.” Sr Gomez said. He surveyed the well organized row of homes. Each had a front stoop and a porch on the back. Each home had a small yard, in front and back and a fence that separated each yard, one from the other. They were identical in every way. White washed with a door and a window on the front and one window on the side. “Yes. These homes look fine. But I do not want to make payments. We will buy it now.”
“Well, you can certainly do that. But we’d ask…$250 if you want to buy it now. You could do the payments though. Everyone else does.” The farm manager shuffled his feet. Housing employees was a tiresome task. There was no way to sugar coat the shacks he offered. New as they were, they were nothing to brag about.
“I do not want to pay $400 for what I can own today for $250. We will buy it today.” Sra. Gomez opened her bolsa and removed the last of her American dollars. She slowly counted them out and handed them to the Manager.
“Well, thank you. I’ll get you your receipt. We’ll make sure they don’t take the rent out of your check with everyone else.” He counted the dollars twice and them put them in his pocket. He had not expected this couple, who came highly recommended to have that kind of cash. He looked warily at Dr. Gomez. If this man brought trouble to the farm—if he expected to sell drugs here, he would be very sorry.
From the second week of his life in America, Sr. Gomez had been a homeowner.
CHAPTER BREAK
As Mario worked with Shannon he compared her to the other women he had known well. Like his mother, she had a quick mind and a desire to quietly maintain order and protect the things she loved. Like his mother she had a core of iron that would not be broken by the pressures of the world. Like his wife—his ex wife—she laughed at every joke anyone told her. In his heart, Mario he knew she was sincere.
When Bernie swept up after a long Saturday night he told her his collection of Ollie and Lena jokes. Surely after all this time, she knew the punch line to each of them. But she wiped down the tables with a merry laugh. Sometimes she laughed so hard at the old man’s jokes she had to wipe the tears off of her cheeks. It was as though people gave her joy and that they attempted to entertain her was enough in itself. Someone taking the time to make her happy made her happy indeed.
This was not so much the case with his wife Linda. He had loved her laugh very much. He loved to make her laugh and to laugh with her. It was everyone’s favorite quality in Linda. And before he met Shannon he thought the bitter edge to Linda’s laugh had made it better than everyone else’s. Linda always seemed to be laughing at someone. And so if you were laughing with her, you were the same, superior, like she was.
And then Linda was tall, athletic and powerful. A beauty truly, but a force as well. Shannon, on the other had, was rosy and round, small and yet like a well formed flower, formed perfectly and balanced. When she worked she was steady, capable and untiring. But day after day, busy or slow she had the time to laugh with the customers or be quiet with them, taking them seriously and wanting to treat them with respect. Though she was new to the town, she treated everyone like a well loved relative.
After just a few weeks of knowing her Mario felt like he must be falling in love with her. She was unflagging in her work, beautiful and a pleasure to be around. She was a faithful employee and always laughed at his jokes. He was confident that she must also feel something for him. “Don’t wait a moment longer.” He told himself, when he realized he had found what he wanted. So he invited her to his apartment after the Restaurante had closed.
Yvonne and Bernie passed a knowing smile as they overheard their boss saying:
“Shannon, I have a very good bottle of wine that I cannot drink along. It would be a shame. Will you come this evening and share it with me?” He made the most of his smoldering gaze but tempered it with a twinkle in his eye. A decade ago that look had been irresistible.
“Thank you, no. I need to get home tonight and call my mother.” Shannon dropped her rag in the bleach water and moved to the next table.
Yvonne was dumb struck, her pot brush frozen mid air. Had Mario been refused on his first attempt? And when everyone was so sure of they would hit it off? And what had come over Shannon to lie? Yvonne knew Shannon’s mother could not receive phone calls.
“This is a good thing too, I am sure. But it is not a problem. I will save the bottle. We might see that tomorrow night would be better for you.” He grinned, with an honestly abashed face that was much more attractive than his put on smolder.
The contrast and contrition made Shannon laugh and so she said, against her will and to his delight: “Yes, perhaps tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow, then.” And until the front door of the Restaurante was closed for the night, Mario could not keep from humming.
Yvonne bit her tongue several times as she and Shannon drove home. But finally she couldn’t hold it any longer. “Mario is a very fine man.”
“Yeah.” Shannon paused for a moment. “Much too fine for me.”
Yvonne accepted this as her permission to keep talking. “Do you mean much too old?”
“A little, I guess. But he’s the boss and he does so much for everyone in town. I could never let myself fall for him. I would only be disappointed. Who wants that?” Shannon rambled off the first excuses that came to mind.
“It sounds like you might not be disappointed, if you do like him. I haven’t heard him ask a woman out since his wife left him. I have heard him politely pass on invitations plenty of times.”
The divorce did bother Shannon. And the Catholic part. But how could she say that to her landlady, a divorced grandma who sang in the choir and the Presbyterian church? She didn’t even know where to start. But she was sick to death of ended marriages, second wives, and really, really sick of churches. Yvonne was doing a kind thing, renting a room to her in a town that had no apartments and carpooling with her in a town with no bus, but plenty of winter snow and wind. She didn’t want to insult this nice person by exposing her own biggest fears and prejudices.
“He is a little old.” Shannon murmured.
“I’d guess I must seem to be almost in the grave then.” Said Yvonne with a chuckle. “Because thirty-two still seems like a baby to me.”
And Shannon laughed, heartfelt and apologetic. Yvonne didn’t hate her. And Mario was thirty. She had been wondering. His business was such a success. And he had already been married and divorced. It seemed he ought to be much older than that. At thirty-two…he was much less a threat. He wouldn’t see her as a conquest and then fire her. He might want to date her for a while, but he would get over it.
When his staff was gone and he was safe upstairs again, his hum turned into a whistle. Maybe this effervescent girl was demure. Maybe it had been impossibly rude to ask her over for the same day. Maybe… she expected to be taken out, and not brought up to an apartment like… well like he had expectations. Could she be that kind of old fashioned girl that serious minded men sometimes hope to find? He was almost happier than if she had come over tonight. Almost.
The bottle of wine was very good, just as Mario said it would be. And he treated her like she was the daughter of a king.
“Please, have a seat. Mi casa es su casa, senorita”
And “what more can I get for you, surely you have not yet had enough?”
His manners were in top form and yet his manner was relaxed, as though he entertained royalty in his front room on a daily basis. His spoke like it was the old world, like they were in Spain inventing courtship all over again. As Shannon would do for the next twelve years, she looked at him with merriment in her eyes and laughed.
“It’s delicious. Thank you. So glad I’m drinking age.” She raised her eyebrows a little, daring him to feel too old for her.
“As I am. What a waste it would be for you to drink water while I had this all to myself. You would need to sit closer to the door then, I am afraid, because with that much of this, even I couldn’t trust myself with you.” He did that look again, the one he was sure would work, because it always did. She laughed at him.
“You devil! You’re my boss. You can’t say things like that. In fact you aren’t that kind of man. Not the kind to even mention it. I think I will sue you for harassment.” Now the gleam in her eye and dimple in her cheek dared him to apologize. To her amazement, his eyes flew open, lost their seductive glimmer. He looked shocked, almost, embarrassed?
“Do you mean it, this harassment? I only wanted to say that you are beautiful and that…”
She patted the space next to her on the couch, still laughing.
“No, I see you must not mean it. But you are right. I shouldn’t’ have said that. I love to hear you laugh. And I think I am very funny.” He relaxed again and sat on the sofa, next to her. He smiled the disarming smile. The natural one that she was beginning to find difficult to resist.
“You know, Shannon, I admire you very much. But I don’t want you to feel uncomfortable. There is not much to do in Clovis after work. I thought it would be nice to have company for something like wine. And if you thought that it would also be nice to have my company, well then. I am a lucky man.”
“Everyone has told me you are a fine man, Mario. Did you know that everyone in town loves you?” She was nervous. It had been about three years since she dated the officer and was dumped. The other girls in service paired off quickly, married happily or otherwise. She saw all of the servicemen around her those years as predatory, a reflection of the Coushay Center. She was wary with men now.
“It is very nice to be well thought of in your home. Am I also well thought of at the Restaurante, Shannon?” He gave her a little space. He read her body language and saw that she was feeling nervous, tense. But his dark eyes gleamed.
He was absolute perfection. She could hardly stand him, she wanted him so badly. And yet there he was, being kind and polite. She sank back on the sofa, resting more closely against him. Nothing could have pleased him more. He let her rest on his shoulder and enjoyed feeling her shoulders relax a little.
“Yvonne, Bernie, and the customers have nothing but good to say of you, senor.” She leaned in very close indeed, her heart pounding. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to kiss him or to run out the door. “And I…I think this is a very nice way to spend the evening.” She didn’t move. Less then inches and he could have taken her in his arms and held her and kissed her mouth. He could have. But he looked into her eyes first and they were both excited and scared. He did not want to scare her.
“That is very nice to hear. Let me get you something to eat, mi amiga.” He was very slow about it, but he did stand up and he did go to the kitchen and come back with a plate of tamales that had been waiting for them. “You are hungry, verdad?”
She stretched her arms out above her head and her legs before her. She did admire him. He was tall. And had very broad shoulders. His face was round, and his hair clipped short, though she imagined it would probably curl if it was longer. She didn’t know it, but he looked very much like his grandfather, the chief of police. The great difference was the kindness in his face instead of control. He had short dark eyelashes that gave him a look, sometimes, of wide eyed childlike wonder. And yet, they were dark flashing eyes that could say anything he wanted them to. When he handed her a plate with a tamale on it, his eyes told her that she was safe from worry but that he would always love her. He said:
“My mother brought me these Tamales this morning. She knows that the people in this town love my Restaurante, and yet she does not believe that I can make Mexican food worth eating. Enjoy. You will never have one as good as this, unless I make it myself.”
“It is really amazing! Where did your mother learn to cook?” The tamale was amazing and made Shannon wonder how she had survived without it before. She laughed at her mental exaggeration. And yet, it was so good. “Es muy delicioso!” she said to him.
He liked that very much and laughed. “All these weeks at the Restaurante and I did not know that you spoke Spanish.”
“Oh, only a little. But how else could you describe this? Delicious just wouldn’t do.” And you, she thought. You are muy delicioso too. If she really didn’t want anything to do with divorced men who go to church she should probably not come upstairs for wine again.
CHAPTER BREAK
Estefan and Timotea had been in America for more than twenty years. And all but two weeks of that had been in the little house in the barrio adjacent to the farm. They had owned the home for the whole time. The first year of their life there, the farm manager came to visit them in November.
“Dr. Gomez.” He said with great respect in his voice. “I feel I may have failed you in a matter that regards your home.”
“Our home is fine, Senor.” Dr. Gomez said.
“I’m glad it pleases you. However, this is a matter of home ownership that I believe I failed to discuss with you when you recently purchased the home.”
“And what is this matter, Senor?”
“In November and in April each year, all homeowners must pay their taxes. If I did not tell you this before, then maybe you have not had time to save for your taxes.”
Dr. Gomez sat very stiffly in his chair and looked his boss directly in his eye. “What taxes are these you are talking about?”
“Well, now, sir. There are property taxes and you own property so you’ve got to pay them.”
Dr. Gomez stood up and set his shoulders. In his mind, he was at the clinic. And the new governor, who was not from Chiapas and was not impressed by the name Gomez, was telling him a similar story.
“La Clinica is a business, Senor.” The governor had said. He did not call Estefan Gomez Doctor. “And all business in this village must pay this man.” He indicated a large, dark man who stood somewhat behind him. “If you do not pay this man when it is time, you do not have a business here.”
Dr. Gomez refused to pay. And in less than a day his clinic, la clinica de la familia Gomez that they had been running for more than one hundred years did not exist. The men said he would have some small time to bring the money for the payment. And then they moved down the road to the next business.
As soon as they had moved on Dr. Gomez began to fill his bags and his pockets and every box he could find with la medicinas and with los instrumentos and with the papers that told him what his patients were being treated for and how. He had a car, in those days. And he filled his car as quickly and as quietly as he could. He immediately drove to the villa. Timotea, who could be trusted to act first and ask questions later, helped him silently store the records, medicines and equipment throughout villa. A home, dating well before the days of Porfirio Diaz, it had many places to secret things away. Dr. Gomez hid some medicine, mostly aspirin and bandages in the kitchen, so that when the Mafioso came and searched his home they would find it and leave and not come back looking again. An hour after Dr. Gomez had hidden his priceless items; the Governor and his men had first destroyed la clinica and then set it on fire.
The manager of the farm sat down. He smiled easily. In the short months that he knew the doctor, the farm manager had learned he was a man of integrity. “Amigo, Doctor. I just came to say, if you can’t pay it now, as it is due next week, we can pay it for you. And when payday comes we can just take one dollar off of your check until it is paid back. That’s it. If you would like.”
With steel in his eye and the spine of iron, Dr. Gomez said: “I am not to pay these taxes to you? But you would pay them on my behalf? And how long then would I be paying you? I think no. I can pay my own taxes.”
“That’s real good, Doctor. Just fine. I only felt bad that I might not have told you before. I didn’t want to cause you trouble by forgetting to explain the taxes.” The manager stood up, it had been a short visit after all. Sometimes making amends when he forgot important details took a great deal of time. Many of his workers who seemed to understand him fine on the farm suddenly lot their competency in English when money needed to be discussed. Even if the mistake was in their favor. It was a frustrating circumstance for the manager, who generally speaking, enjoyed his job and his employees.
They shook hands and the manager left.
That year the Gomez family paid part of their taxes out of the last of Sra Gomez’ private savings. It was the end of the pesos they brought with them to America. The farm manager took their pesos to the city and did the exchange for them. But by April they paid their taxes themselves from money they had in the bank. They made regular deposits and watched the balance grow and earn interest. Dr. Gomez would not save money in an envelope in his home ever again. But Timotea would. And did with regularity.
So, they had been in their home for more than twenty years. It had not been built to last that long. And as long as Dr. Gomez lived his free moments on his porch dispensary with is patients, the home continued to crumble around them.
Sra. Gomez used a small portion of the money she earned cooking to buy things for her home. At the mercantile in town, after she had lived there for a year, she bought six yards of gingham and made curtains for their two windows. Later she bought muslin and made a cloth for their table. It was embroidered like their shirts were, the shirts made from the embroidered linen she had painstakingly made in Chiapas.
These things, and keeping immaculately clean in a town of dust and sage brush, Timotea could do. But the rest was a worry on her heart. When Mario received his scholarship and began college, Timotea began to panic. Her strong, kind son who could make the roof stop leaking and keep the gate swinging straight would be gone. Her husband would be all she had left.
Estefan Gomez, who courted her for a month and half had been so debonair, so suave. She called him delicioso to his face and laughed at his wild English manners. He didn’t like her laughing at him and redoubled his efforts to show her that he was sophisticated. A man of the world. He bought himself a Corvette. It was a beautiful car imported to him from Los Angeles. She loved to ride in it with him. But she still laughed at him.
One day he drove her to the top of a high hill, to show her the amazing view. She got out of the car, as though to admire it with him. But instead, she climbed up a tree.
“Oh, Estefan! It is still here! Look where you have carved your name next to the name of my brother. Did you know I knew you did that? You and Enrique did that before there was a road here. Come and see!”
Estefan, the Doctor and world traveler scrambled up the tree and gripped the branch next to Timotea.
“And look next to your name, mi amigo.”
He looked. And he saw the small scratching TYMG. “What is this? He said. He could not suppress the grin that spread across his face. That made his eyes crinkle up like a movie star.
“This is where I carved my name next to yours, senor. It means Timotea Yesenia Marquez Gomez. You see? I wanted to marry the boy who climbed up high in the tree.”
He reached across the tree and held on to her arm. Then he leaned precariously across the empty space under the tree and kissed her, tenderly.
“Timotea Yesenia, would you please marry me, mi amore?”
And then she laughed for joy, and not at him. And she cried for joy at the same time.
When they drove away it was still in the beautiful corvette. And she was still thrilled to be riding in it. But now, Estefan was happy for the same reasons. Because of the wind in their hair and how fast they could go across the hard packed dirt and because they loved each other.
She was sitting on her front porch the day that Mario left for Universidad. He had explained to her they would not have to pay any money for the school. He was smart and had good grades so the school was free. And he was going to cook at the school as his job, to pay for the room he would live in. It wasn’t far. Just an hour away in the town called Bend. And it was only for two years.
She looked at him and wondered. Why does he think I don’t understand scholarship? Does he really not know that I had a scholarship to the finest university in Mexico City? A school older than this whole country, this America where they lived now? It was a little sad, but she laughed anyway.
“Yes. mi hijo. You have a scholarship to a fine college in Bend. I am so proud of you.” It was true but she couldn’t laugh from her heart for long, because when he left she would still be here, alone with her husband. And he had not been the boy in the tree for a very long time.
CHAPTER BREAK
The first thing that Estefan Gomez lost when he came to America was his optimism. It was a very long trip north. They traveled from the southernmost rainforest in Mexico–a place of Stone Age natives and the brilliant minded Maya and the Spanish who melded with them and their world—to the Willamette Valley of Oregon. It was a journey of thousands of years for the family.
They left the villa, his ancestral home. This home was located a few mere miles from the famed blue waterfalls of Chiapas. The roar of the waters was woven through the memories of his life their. When Dr. Gomez closed his eyes and thought of home, that sound was the first thing that came to his mind. It was a place of rain and mist and mountains and fog. A place where his corvette could only travel few months of the year and even in those days, there were few he rode with the top down. He could fly over the earth with the wind blowing through the hair of his love, feeling like magic such a small part of the time. But now that was over.
The air there was heavenly scented. Rich with the perfumes of large and brilliant colored flowers. It was the tropics, the vegetation did not succumb easily to man but every year crept swiftly over fences and in through unscreened windows. Much of the area, even of the mile or so between his villa and his clinica, a rich, green canopy, branches and vines and flying, singing quetzal birds, covered the earth. The birds cried out in the kingdom between the branches and the ground, proclaiming their dominance of creation.
No road in his village was paved. The few automobiles, those belonging to the civic leaders or the mafia, could be found of a day mired in the mud on their way somewhere important. In those days, or more correctly, in that place, you would stop and take your compadre to his destination. Nothing you were doing was so urgent that you could not stop and help.
And his patients, the men and women who came to Dr. Gomez to be healed, also ranged vastly in culture. There were those few who crept out of their hidden jungle world to seek the medicine man that others told them was a myth. And there were also the Maya, beautiful, dark, small, and traditional people. They spread their wares out on market day, doing trade with the mestizos and Spanish Mexicans of the village, but plotted in their homes of the day that they would be free again from these conquistadors.
When Sr. Alfredo Gomez opened his clinica, before the days of El Presidente Porfirio Diaz, the Maya stayed far away. The patients at this time were limited to the three Spanish familias that traveled together to the far outreach of what we call Chiapas to create a new village. It started with the Jesuit Priest and the two sisters who were going to preach the gospel in a dark world. The Priest, Padre Ruiz, was a great friend of Alfredo in the city. He invited his friend the Doctor to join them on their adventure. Another family was older, with teenage sons. The Garcia family made great use of the Doctor as their sons were wild and came home with great injuries and wounds from their experiments in jungle living.
The other family, like the Gomez family, were young and well educated. Alfredo considered that this family must be running from some trouble in the city. El Senor Sosa was a professor at the University. He taught sciences. What troubles had made him run to the jungle, Dr. Alfredo could not conceive. But it was a great comfort to him to have a man of science there, in this primordial world, helping to record the miracles of this newly discovered flora.
Professor Sosa was also Estefan’s ancestor. Until he died his claim remained that he moved to the jungle for the study of the botany. To discover things unimagined to that point. To discover the creation that would change the scientific world forever and establish his name in the annals of biology as a great naturalist. He wanted to be great and to be famous. This driving ego was also what created the need for his exodus from the city.
The man of science and the man of medicine became boon friends. They shared knowledge and resources. These resources were slim. Where the Padre had the church to send to when experiencing want, the two men of science had only their wits. The three wives of the tiny community took pains to learn to subsist from the bounty of the jungle. But meat was scarce as was milk and soon everyone grew slender and ill.
It only took a few years of subsisting for the two men of science to see the urgent need of Las Mayas. Only with their instruction, their direction and care could the families from the cities, who brought healing and salvation, live another season.
Through careful cultivation of relationship, Professor Sosa and Dr. Alfredo Gomez, with their wild black curls and inky mustaches, learned something of living in the jungle. At first, the dire need and ill appearance of the strangers was enough to touch the hearts of the indigenous tribes. They showed the immigrants how to harvest from the jungle and what to harvest. They showed the senoras Sosa, Gomez and Sra Garcia, the older woman, how to prepare a patch of land to grow themselves beans and maize and to stave off the hunger and the pain of the stomach that come from living off of fruit.
And so from those days, so long ago, the days of men in high heeled boots and women who abandoned their corsets for brightly colored Mayan needlework, in those days the name of the Gomez family began to mean something great. As he traded healing for knowledge and then learned from the Maya other ways to heal, he gained for his family a prominence they would not loose for more than a hundred years.
And when the son of Alfredo married the beautiful Louisa, daughter of Professor Sosa, daughter of the jungle, many Maya came to the wedding. And a beautiful mud villa with many rooms and courtyards was constructed. Finally, with great joy, Dr. Gomez kissed his son and embraced his daughter in law and he sent them back to Mexico City to attend La Universidad. It was his intention that always, living in this villa, would be an educated doctor. No mere jungle medicine man, while they were away Dr. Gomez and Professor Sosa completed the villa. It was a great marvel in that jungle and a beauty. It had room for the newlyweds and their eventual children. But also it had room for the professor and Sra Sosa who had no other children. There was room as well for Dr. and Sra Gomez who had two more ninos and one child lost many years before, buried nearby in the small graveyard behind the church. The Gomez family and the Sosa family and the Garcia family with the dangerous young men, built this village with Padre Ruiz.
The village grew with new residents that the young Gomez’s brought with them from the city. Also at times the church would send more Jesuits who brought with them a teacher and more families. Year by year the population of Spanish grew. And then, with time the mestizo population increased as well.
Through this the villa stood, almost within sound of the blue waterfalls, until the day that Estefan and Timotea and small Mario left. It stood until 1975. That was when the PLO sent the man who had not been paid. And he took what little was left inside the house. Hidden throughout the plaster walls and corridors, under the dappled sun that fell through screened windows and the green canopy of leaves over head, much more was waiting. Lying hidden in the villa were secret treasures undiscovered for generations. But this man could not envision such mysteries and so he took the radio, the cutlery (not silver) and the what-nots. He set fire to the rest. The jungle grew over the mound of ashes and plaster and the mysteries hidden for one hundred years. But nobody knew this.
Estefan could not allow himself to care about what was lost in Chiapas. With time, the name Zapata became a call for revolution and the name of Gomez, that had succored and healed and awed, was forgotten among the Maya. It was reclaimed as myth for the others, unnamed tribes of the jungle. Sought infrequently, this medicine man with great knowledge who lived where the blue water fell, was never found again. And his seekers reported that indeed, he had been a myth.
Before Estefan Gomez returned from England, there was no guarantee that Timotea would be his bride. This, her father fretted over. The position of Chief of Policia was powerful, indeed, but tenuous. He held onto his power with a tight grip that kept fear in the hearts of the weak and managed to kiss the hands of the powerful. The Gomez family was powerful. They had helped to found the village so many generations ago and had always been the healers. They had always been educated. And now they had ties to the governor of Chiapas. Marrying his only daughter to this family would be a coup indeed. It would certainly guarantee him success and permanence. Maybe even his scant income would increase, if he had the backing of the Governor to help him collect protection.
But as he could not rely on this marriage he took pains to elevate his status in all the ways that he could contrive. He ran his home much like he ran his professional life. His children were governed with the proverbial iron fist. His wife, the daughter of the previous chief of police, he bowed and scraped before. And she told him that her children would be educated, like the children of generations of Gomez. They sent the four children to the village school until they had passed every subject there. Then they walked together to the next village to attend high school. At home, only in the season of the storms did they stay home and not work.
As the four children were highly intelligent they kept up with their studies well. In spite of the long walk and lack of materials. With their mother and father standing behind them, ready to punish them severely for any slip, they excelled. And yet, these children of high spirits and bright minds would have excelled without the threat of punishment. As it was they finished their work and correctly most days with time to spare. And then they were like other children, playing in the forest and in the town. Learning what the world could teach them outside of the classroom.
Timotea was the hardest working of the children. Perhaps she was the brightest as well. Either way she received the best marks and moved the most quickly through her subjects. She was beautiful and brave. She had a laugh that drew a crowd to her. Her father said to his esposa:
“She is too beautiful to be safe here. It is time that she is married.”
The Senora was sewing clothing for the start of the children’s school year. She looked up from her needle and ceased rocking in her chair. “Querida esposa. She is but a girl still. I say she will not marry yet.”
“This is not a question to be discussed, esposa. Girls like her cannot be running around any longer. She needs to be married or we will surely have a disaster.” He stood before the fire, smelling the beans cooking for supper, hands clasped behind his back.
“And I say she shall not marry. Let her continue school. She will not get into this mysterious trouble that you fear if you let her keep studying.” The clothing lay in the lap of Timotea’s mother. Her heart quaked in her chest. Yes, she could always control her husband. But she too feared for her daughter, who walked like an angel on the earth and made grown men gasp, astounded.
“More school!” The Chief of Police was red with hot anger. His wife was always dressed as a queen in the village and they had never gone hungry. He knew not how she paid tuition for the children’s high school but he did know that a lowly servant such as himself had no money to send a child—a girl! off to university.
“Yes, senor. More school. The sons of the Gomez family have gone to Mexico City to University for one hundred years. It is time for a child of the Marquez family to go University.” She sat as still as she possibly could. This was the first time she had broached University to her esposa. But it was the dream of her heart and she was sure that Timotea was the only one who could finish. No parent would go with them, and stand behind them while they studied to make sure that their intelligence and opportunity would not go to waste. And who knew, who knew when, or if Estefan Gomez would come home to marry Timotea. Yes. She wondered when he would come home or if he would come home. But she was sure in her heart that if or when he returned he would marry Timotea. All of the men wished to marry her already and she was just a girl.
“University! In the city! Like a Gomez!” The chief of police spit the words out like they disgusted him. But he wanted them. As soon as they were spoken he wanted them to be true. “You would send her away, I believe, because Estefan Gomez is not home yet and we will have her marry no one else. I say he need not be here to make the engagement.”
“Mi esposo. How would you have him fall into love with her while he is away? The man must be here to see why she will be his bride.” She lowered her head, as though in supplication. Then she picked up the needle work and began rocking again.
“If he would be difficult, than this is true. Do we know Estefan to be to be a difficult boy? She must marry Estefan. There is no one else. If he would not like for his father and I to arrange this then we must send her away—to keep her for her marriage.” He moved to his wife, sat down on the stool next to her. “How do we get a child into University”
“Hush, senor. Let me do this for you.” She continued to rock and to sew complacently. It had worked as she hoped it would. It was a smooth transition. And her dreams for her bright and wonderful daughter would come true.
An application had been sent, with glorious references from her teachers. They all waited, breath held for the package to come. They waited for the package that would tell them when she should start, if she should start. It was a fine University, La Universidad Nacionale de Misiones. It was ancient, chartered by a King of the Holy Roman Empire. She applied to study at this revered place to be a nurse. If she could not marry a Gomez (though no one spoke those words) she could be useful to them and keep the Chief of police in the right place in their minds.
The packet came and said everything they wanted it to. She was accepted. She would start with honors, taking classes more difficult than most students start with. They would have to pay no money. Her hard work, their strict keeping was now paying off. The chief of police and his wife held each other. She wept. His shoulders shook, racking sobs, but silent and tearless.
And then Timotea came running into their casita, breathless, cheeks red, countenance shining with joy, “Madre, mi madre! Padre, Senor. You must listen! Dr Estefan Gomez has come home! He has come home from his tour and will work in the clinica!” She danced a lighthearted, light footed dance around their house.
Sra. Marquez, Timotea’s mother broke from her husband’s embrace. She put down the packet from the university she had been gripping. The chief of police remembered the conversations with Dr. Gomez, the father. He remembered the strings he had pulled and favors he now owed to so many people so that Dr. Pedro Gomez could be a doctor at the hospital in Vera Cruz. He remembered and his countenance fell. His daughter. She could have been educated at the finest university in Mexico City. In all of Central America. His wife had thought of this. He had not. He had prepared the way for her to marry as a young girl. And now she would have to do it.
“What is it to us that this boy, this spoiled boy, is home from wasting the money his father worked to earn?” His voice was a low growl as he said this. He pushed past his daughter and walked out of his home. Out to the streets where he would do his police work today with assiduous attention to petty crime. It was not a day to be contemplating evil.
“Mija.” Her mother spoke softly. “This is very good news indeed. He will be so happy to hear, when you tell him, that you may also go to his university and study medicine.”
Timotea sat on the stool her father frequented. “Yes? Oh mother. Indeed? I may go to university?” Her mind spun, bewildered by the many pieces of good news she received.
She, along with so many young girls of her age, had waited breathlessly for news that their handsome, charming, friend would come home. And maybe marry someone and have a family. She didn’t know that she was the one that her father and his father intended him to marry. At this moment, the two pieces of news were not mutually exclusive. She fairly lost her breath the excitement of the day was so much.
“Timotea, querida. Go to bed and rest. The afternoon grows hot and you are much excited, we will celebrate all of our good news at supper.” She kissed her young daughter on the head and wondered which of these pieces of good news would cause her the most sorrow in the coming months.
Estefan was too full of care already, to worry about what had become of his ancestral home. In the first place his wife had no more children after Mario. Not even when their lives had been settled into an American pattern and they could breathe with more ease. With each year that passed empty of the next child, he heard her lose some of her laughter. The last joy he had had in the world was her laughter. And so he did worry about this.
In the second place, all around him was aching poverty, barrenness and suffering. This wild high desert where they lived had no shade. It had no waterfall. It had no break from the heat until it was almost the days of the snow. It went from golden hot sun baked life to a cold he could compare to nothing in his experience. The cold in London had been damp, drenching, fog soaked cold. But that had been merely the temperature turned down in the rainforest of his youth. But now he worked outdoors in the snow.
His wife made him gloves with no finger tips so he could work, but his finger tips felt like they would freeze to the tools. He soaked them many nights in the lukewarm water, terrified needlessly, that he would loose them to frostbite and loose the ability to work. But this was his lone suffering. Mario didn’t care and Timotea never complained. There would have been no actual suffering for Estefan as he worked, had it not been for this hot and cold. And this suffering was shallow indeed compared to the men he served on his patio. However much he was outside, he worked with equipment and animals and people. The people he worked with, they were the ones who had real suffering.
It was the work of the men and women in the field that caused him the most worry. They had chronic respritory illness from the pesticides. They had blindness and holes burned in the flesh, in their faces, from the pesticides. And all he could do to help them, the only thing he could do as their substitute doctor was urge them to take precaution, to cover their flesh in the heat of the summer as much as they did in the winter. All he could do from his porch dispensary was administer and explain pain pills, antibacterial creams. Anything he could get his hands on in town or from Raul to soothe his friends and patients. Nothing he could do would heal them.
Mario sat on the front porch of the casita with his father. They each had a tall glass of water.
“Padre, como esta?” Mario was kicking back this afternoon. Having a Sabbath day’s rest from his labor.
“Ahh, mijo. Esta bien.” The doctor’s face was a study in control. He may or may not have been carrying the weight of the world on his back.
Mario wanted to have a talk with his father. To talk about the restaurant, his wife and the things that weighed on his mind. Mario was always a communicator. But he wasn’t getting through to his padre. Dr. Gomez was far away.
It was ironic, to the doctor, where his mind was headed at this moment. For years in Chiapas he educated the wild Indians that came to him. Or, he tried to. He talked to them about medicine and village life, when they came to see him at the clinic. But they wouldn’t listen. Most were on some kind of ancient vision quest, or in desperate need because of an illness that only modern medicine could cure. Nobody in the years he served there, both before and after he was the head doctor, was interested in becoming a villager. Being civilized. How he had wanted them to be civilized. He had been ashamed that after more than one hundred years of life in that village La Familia Gomez, and the church, had failed to bring about a great cultural revolution. This revolution was not so different from revolution everywhere else. He just wanted to make life better for everyone. Make it into his idea of better.
This day in America, his mind was focused on his compadres from the farm. They would soon be coming to the patio where he would give them Acetemenophin and Canadian codeine. He would give them bacitracin and wash their wounds with hydrogen peroxide.
His faithful patients who trusted him and never gave him a day of rest were from all over the western hemisphere. Some of these migrant workers were born in America but raised on the fields. They still couldn’t speak English and they didn’t know how to have a life off of the fields. Some where islanders who had made a slow journey across the waters and to the mainland, north to Mexico, eventually. When they finally arrived in America, where all their hopes were hinged, they found that their journey would be eternal. They would never find rest here. They were also from as far south as Monte Video, a city more urban than Clovis could ever hope to be.
The irony that tormented his mind now rested in the one perfect solution to most of their troubles. They were hungry. Not all of them were skinny, but all of them were undernourished. Starving from lack of knowledge of healthy food, lack of access to the nutrients they needed. Programs were available for poor people who were here legally. But the rest of the workers were alone to fight off starvation.
His mind wandered back to the days of doctoring the Indians. How his mind had revolted when they discussed food with the Indians. The grasshoppers. The caterpillars. The absurdity of eating insects in a place as rich in resources as Chiapas would anger him for years. Until now. One by one the workers would come to him with rashes and burns. These injuries were the results of working with inadequate protection in fields treated with pesticides. The farmers needed to kill the pests to increase their harvest. But the pests they were killing. Oh how it bothered his mind. The pests they were killing could feed the workers. They could live on these caterpillars and the locust. They could harvest these bugs. And then they could eat them. They could harvest instead of spray and their skin would be renewed. They could eat this harvest and they would have the nutrition they needed grow healthy and to learn how to be American.
He looked at his son. He sighed deeply. “Mario. Would you feed the customers of your restaurant locusts, like the Indians in the mountains?”
Mario looked at his father and thought for a moment. This question clearly came from deeper than it appeared. His father did not indulge in non sequitors.
“Would the customers have otros opciones?” He asked, his mix of Spanish and English increasing as he spoke to his father.
“No. No mijo. They would have nothing. If they had nothing would you feed them locusts.?” There was nothing to read in the face of Dr. Gomez. He was a study in pure concentration and revealed no clues to his son.
“Yes father. If they had nothing.” Mario thought more about his father’s life. He thought maybe he could see what his father was really asking. “There would be no shame to give healthful food to people who had nothing.”
“No shame.” Dr. Gomez repeated this. He held his thoughts to himself for a moment. Was there no shame? Did these people not descend from the rulers of the world? From the very saints of the Holy Roman Empire? Their heritage, their world was so much older and richer than that which he had seen even in England. Certainly they held the keys to a world more ancient than this Clovis, which Dr. Gomez considered nothing more than a new Experiment in agriculture.
“But it is quite a fall for them, no? It is a thing they would never do if the had a choice. It is something their ancestors would be ashamed of.” Dr. Gomez sighed deeply, his sole show of emotion during this conversation.
“You are afraid, maybe that they will never achieve if they must be saved only to live like an Indian.” Mario wasn’t guessing anymore. He knew they were talking about Dr. Gomez’s patients. Men and women that both Dr. Gomez and his son had learned to love and respect.
“But I have not the option to feed them, mijo. I have nothing to feed them. In America, starving people would never eat insects. Never.” The irony of this pup of a country having too much pride—more pride than the ancients of the mountains was a foul taste in his mouth.
But the doctor saw in the distance two men walking his direction. One he knew and the other he had not met. The new man was limping. Dr. Gomez went back inside his home to prepare his supplies. Now that mass had ended it would be time to heal the sick.
