The Witches of El Paso

Chapter 27

27

Nena?” Marta calls from the entryway, moving through the house. Nena doesn’t answer. Looking in Nena’s room, she finds the bed made, the coverlet stretched tight. Herbs hang from red string tied to the dresser drawer pulls. Piedra blanca and unlit candles perch on top of the dresser, fighting for room with framed snapshots of the family, black-and-white photos, Polaroids, pictures from her phone that Marta printed for Nena.

Marta walks out into the backyard, not sure where else Nena could be. She isn’t under the awning, the only place with shade. Nena’s Carlsbad Caverns sweatshirt is draped over the gate that leads to the path up into the state park. Marta walks around the pool and then through the gate. Footprints from Nena’s shoes head up the path, crisp and new in the powdery dirt. Nena can’t have been gone long, and she moves slowly, but still, Marta’s concerned. Nena shouldn’t be going up into the park by herself.

Marta finds a rubber band in her pocket. She pulls back her hair, walking up the path, kicking up dust as she walks, smelling the sage breathing out its herby breath. From the hill, she can see down over El Paso, south to Mexico. The little birds of the desert skitter around in the bushes, cheeping and rustling.

“Nena?” Marta calls.

“Over here,” Nena says. Marta walks up a steep little path around a giant outcropping of red granite.

She finds Nena sitting on a red rock. She’s wearing her running shoes and her little jeans, and she’s applied a sparkly pink lipstick, the color a ten-year-old might choose.

“Why did you come up here?” Marta asks, sitting down next to Nena.

“To pray.”

“What for?”

“You.”

“Why?”

Nena stares down at El Paso and Juárez. Marta follows her gaze. From their position, Marta takes in the rubble where the copper smelting chimneys used to be. Down the valley, there’s El Chamisal, the island in the middle of the dry river. Right past that, on the Mexican side, is the massive red sculpture in the shape of an X that you can see from even the flat part of El Paso. Next to the X, a giant Mexican flag flaps in the wind, and it’s so big that Marta’s heard it takes dozens of people to hoist it up the flagpole. Three states can be seen, Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua, but everything in sight is the same color, with the same rocks, the same plants under the same blue sky and fiery sun.

Nena points at the cross at the top of Mount Cristo Rey.

“After Mamá died, we made a pilgrimage up the mountain. The monument had just been built. We’d only barely started, and Luna was already complaining, saying that it felt like her toes had fallen off, and Olga scolded her for wearing high heels.”

“Yes,” Marta says. She’s heard this story many times.

Nena reaches over and takes Marta’s right hand.

“Would you like to make the pilgrimage again?” Marta asks, wanting to apologize for being so nasty to Nena when they came back from the other side.

“I can’t walk that far.”

“We could put you in a wheelbarrow. The boys could each take a handle and push you up.”

“Very undignified. And too dangerous now. You’ve heard about the bandits? They sneak over from the Mexican side. You can’t build a fence up that mountain, too steep. The bandits follow you up the path. When they rob you, they steal your shoes so you can’t chase them.”

“I did something dumb at work because of La Vista, and I got caught. Now I’m thinking it’s OK that I don’t have La Vista anymore. It’s probably for the best.”

Nena shakes her head, smiling.

“Oh, but La Vista is just getting started with you. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before that she was coming. I could have given you the chance to decide about eating the brebaje and going to the other side. But I’m not sorry she’s on her way. She’s why you woke up, and I think she’s why we were able to open the door. I hope the brebaje didn’t hurt her. I don’t think it did. I’ve wanted both things so much, to see Rosa again, and to meet her.”

“Her who?”

“Your daughter. You’re pregnant.”

Marta laughs. “No, I’m not. I can’t be. You know what all it took for me to have the boys. Anyway, I’m too old.”

“You’re a child.”

“I’m forty-five,” Marta says.

“That’s right,” Nena says, and Marta sees her morning sickness for what it is, an announcement, La Vista humming with power and life.

The dark-haired girl she’s been imagining isn’t Rosa, but her own baby. Marta pictures them now, Nena holding the baby, rocking her, Marta and Nena singing the song of the aquelarre to this girl, the one who comes next.