accent had sharpened: the Spanish had an edge to it. She let the sand drift between her fingers and looked at me like it was the first time she’d seen me, but the silence calmed her and finally she said: “I don’t really know what to do. God is cruel, no?”
“Corrigan’s one is, that’s for sure. I don’t know about yours.”
“Mine is right beside his.”
The kids were throwing a frisbee at each other in the surf. They leaped at the flying disc and landed in the water and splashed.
“I’m terrified, you know,” she said. “I like him so much. Too much. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, you understand? And I don’t want to stand in his way.”
“I know what I’d do. If I were him.”
“But you’re not, are you?” she said.
She turned away and whistled at the children and they came trudging up the sand. Their bodies were brown and supple. Adelita pulled Eliana close and softly blew sand off her ear. Somehow, for whatever reason, I could see Corrigan in both of them. It was like he had already entered them by osmosis. Jacobo climbed in her lap too. Adelita nipped his ear with her teeth and he squealed in delight.
She had safely surrounded herself with the children and I wondered if it was the same thing she did with Corrigan, reeling him in close enough and then shielding herself, gathering the many and making it too much. For a moment I hated her and the complications that she had brought to my brother’s life, and I felt a strange fondness for the hookers who had taken him away, to some police station, down to the very dregs, some terrible cell with iron bars and stale bread and filthy toilets. Maybe he was even in the cells alongside them. Maybe he got himself arrested just so he could be near them. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
He was at the origin of things and I now had a meaning for my brother—he was a crack of light under the door, and yet the door was shut to him. Only bits and pieces of him would leak out and he would end up barricaded behind that which he had penetrated. Maybe it was entirely his own fault. Maybe he welcomed the complications: he had created them purely because he needed them to survive.
I knew then that it would only end badly, her and Corrigan, these children. Someone or other was going to get torn asunder. And yet why shouldn’t they fall in love, if even just for a short while? Why shouldn’t Corrigan live his life in the body that was hurting him, giving up in places? Why shouldn’t he have a moment of release from this God of his? It was a torture shop for him, worrying about the world, having to deal with intricacies when what he really wanted was to be ordinary and do the simple thing.
Yet nothing was simple, certainly not simplification. Poverty, chastity, obedience—he had spent his life in fealty to them, but was unarmed when they turned against him.
I watched Adelita as she loosened an elastic band from her daughter’s hair. She tapped her on the bottom and sent her along the beach. The waves broke far out.
“What did your husband do?” I asked.
“He was in the army.”
“Do you miss him?”
She stared at me.
“Time doesn’t cure everything,” she said, looking away along the strand, “but it cures a lot. I live here now. This is my place. I won’t go back. If that’s what you’re asking me, I won’t go back.”
It was a look that suggested she was part of a mystery she wouldn’t let go of. He was hers now. She had made her declaration. There could indeed be no going back. I recalled Corrigan when he was a boy, when everything was pure and definite, when he walked along the strand in Dublin, marveling at the roughness of a shell, or the noise of a low- flying plane, or the eave of a church, the bits and pieces of what he thought was assured around him, written in the inside of that cigarette box.
—
our mother used to like to use a gambit in the telling of her stories: “Once upon a time and long ago, in fact so long ago that I
“Corrigan’s one is, that’s for sure. I don’t know about yours.”
“Mine is right beside his.”
The kids were throwing a frisbee at each other in the surf. They leaped at the flying disc and landed in the water and splashed.
“I’m terrified, you know,” she said. “I like him so much. Too much. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, you understand? And I don’t want to stand in his way.”
“I know what I’d do. If I were him.”
“But you’re not, are you?” she said.
She turned away and whistled at the children and they came trudging up the sand. Their bodies were brown and supple. Adelita pulled Eliana close and softly blew sand off her ear. Somehow, for whatever reason, I could see Corrigan in both of them. It was like he had already entered them by osmosis. Jacobo climbed in her lap too. Adelita nipped his ear with her teeth and he squealed in delight.
She had safely surrounded herself with the children and I wondered if it was the same thing she did with Corrigan, reeling him in close enough and then shielding herself, gathering the many and making it too much. For a moment I hated her and the complications that she had brought to my brother’s life, and I felt a strange fondness for the hookers who had taken him away, to some police station, down to the very dregs, some terrible cell with iron bars and stale bread and filthy toilets. Maybe he was even in the cells alongside them. Maybe he got himself arrested just so he could be near them. It wouldn’t have surprised me.
He was at the origin of things and I now had a meaning for my brother—he was a crack of light under the door, and yet the door was shut to him. Only bits and pieces of him would leak out and he would end up barricaded behind that which he had penetrated. Maybe it was entirely his own fault. Maybe he welcomed the complications: he had created them purely because he needed them to survive.
I knew then that it would only end badly, her and Corrigan, these children. Someone or other was going to get torn asunder. And yet why shouldn’t they fall in love, if even just for a short while? Why shouldn’t Corrigan live his life in the body that was hurting him, giving up in places? Why shouldn’t he have a moment of release from this God of his? It was a torture shop for him, worrying about the world, having to deal with intricacies when what he really wanted was to be ordinary and do the simple thing.
Yet nothing was simple, certainly not simplification. Poverty, chastity, obedience—he had spent his life in fealty to them, but was unarmed when they turned against him.
I watched Adelita as she loosened an elastic band from her daughter’s hair. She tapped her on the bottom and sent her along the beach. The waves broke far out.
“What did your husband do?” I asked.
“He was in the army.”
“Do you miss him?”
She stared at me.
“Time doesn’t cure everything,” she said, looking away along the strand, “but it cures a lot. I live here now. This is my place. I won’t go back. If that’s what you’re asking me, I won’t go back.”
It was a look that suggested she was part of a mystery she wouldn’t let go of. He was hers now. She had made her declaration. There could indeed be no going back. I recalled Corrigan when he was a boy, when everything was pure and definite, when he walked along the strand in Dublin, marveling at the roughness of a shell, or the noise of a low- flying plane, or the eave of a church, the bits and pieces of what he thought was assured around him, written in the inside of that cigarette box.
—
our mother used to like to use a gambit in the telling of her stories: “Once upon a time and long ago, in fact so long ago that I
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