The Fresco by Sheri S. Tepper

Reason for leaving? Children now living away from home, desire to see another part of the country, have new experiences. Health. Generally good.
    She worked her way down the page. Easy stuff. She lied a little on the education bit. No need to say she’d left high school to get married, just two months before graduation. Odd to think of herself in this strange city, finding herself a familiar ground. It had been Mami who had introduced Benita to Marsh and Goose. “They are homosexual,” she said. “Which means they will not trouble you at work. They are good hearted, which means they will treat you well….”
    â€œAlberto treats me well, Mami.”
    â€œAlberto treats you like a servant when he is not drunk, Benita. When he is drunk he treats you like a slave. Now hetreats the children like pet dogs. When they grow up a little, he will treat them like dogs who are not pets. In time, you will know that. But if you work for Walter Marsh and Rene Legusier, you will have some security.”
    Stung by this, Benita had cried, “Would you rather Carlos had not been born? Rather Angelica had not been born?”
    â€œNo. Dios siempre bate bendiciones con dolor! ” God always mixes blessings with pain. “Your brothers have moved far away, and we see them seldom. You are my only blessing who is with me, and I will not let my blessing be destroyed!”
    It had seemed to Benita that Mami had been in a dreadful hurry to be sure Benita could manage. The reason was clear all too soon. Mami knew she had cancer, though she hadn’t told any of the family. She ended up having several surgeries and chemo, but two years later she was gone. The farm where the family had grown up was hers, inherited from her people, and she left it to Benita and her two brothers. The boys didn’t want to keep it. Benita had no money to buy it from them, so it was sold and she and Bert had gone on living with Bert’s mother on Benita’s money, which had lasted a few years. Papa had a trailer out at the salvage yard, and Benita always thought he’d moved in there with a sense of relief. Mami had been the campesino in the family. Papa had never been that interested in farming, and needless to say, neither was Bert.
    â€œFinished?” the quizzical person asked from the doorway, eyebrows halfway up his forehead, the ink smear on his jaw longer and darker than before.
    â€œYou have ink on your face,” she said. “You’ve been running your fingers around on your cheek.”
    â€œDamn,” he said, peering at himself in a glass-fronted cupboard. “I always do that. I’m writing something, and next thing I know I’m tap-tapping on my face. They called me Inky in school. Or worse.”
    â€œYou buy the wrong pens,” she told him. “The kind I buy do not leak.”
    He sat down and gathered up the application. “Um. Um. Um, well, um. Fifteen years? Really?”
    â€œReally.” She smiled ruefully. “While my children were at home. Now they’re off to school and lives of their own.”
    â€œWho have you dealt with at Bantam?” he asked.
    She gave him a name. He mentioned several more publishing houses, and she gave him names for each.
    â€œYou’re real.” He sighed. “Halleluja. Now, this is the deal. We have this store. We have branches in Georgetown, Alexandria, and Annapolis with a modest Web-market operation. We’re not Amazon-dot-com, but then we’re showing a profit. I need someone who can take over. How about thirty thousand to start, ninety-day trial, and we’ll talk about a long-term arrangement then?”
    She was shocked into silence. She made twenty at the Written Word. Ten dollars an hour, after all those years. Of course, New Mexico salaries were lower than the average. And this was a lot bigger job.
    He said hopefully. “I’m desperate for someone really good. You’ll start as assistant