The Hummingbird's Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea

through it at the sun. There were little flecks of dirt in it, floating back and forth as she turned the glass.
    When Huila came back, Teresita said, “I think you missed some sins.”
    Huila had brought her a dress from Loreto’s daughter. She pulled it over Teresita’s head.
    “Qué bonita,” she said.
    Teresita posed.
    Huila took up her brush, and in spite of many complaints, dragged the knots out of Teresita’s hair.
    She then made Teresita put on a pair of huaraches. Teresita hated them. But Huila insisted.
    “Ladies,” she said, “wear shoes.”
    “Then I don’t ever want to be a lady.”
    Huila nodded.
    “What you don’t want, child, is to be an old lady like Huila.”
    Teresita tried the sandals, scuffing her feet on the clay tile floor.
    “Huila?” she said. “How old are you?”
    Huila thought.
    “I must be . . . I must be fifty years old now.”
    Teresita was astounded at this great tower of years, but she remained still and followed the old one into the kitchen.
    Huila poured her a cup of coffee and stirred in five spoons of sugar and some boiled milk. She served herself the same. They ate bolillo rolls that they dipped in the coffee cups. The coffee turned the rolls into mushy bread pudding, and Huila slurped hers like a mule at a trough. Then they ate bananas and stale bits of sweet rolls.
    Huila tucked a bolillo in her pocket and said, “Let’s go pray.”
    “You already prayed.”
    “Oh,” said Huila. “You never finish praying.”
    She opened the back door and stood there.
    After a moment, she yelled: “Who the hell took my shotgun!”

    At the sacred spot, Huila showed Teresita how to light the sage and the incense grass in her old seashell, and which way to turn when she offered up the smoke to the four directions. “It’s easy to pray in the morning,” she said. “That way you can always start with the east, then all you do is turn to your left every time you pray.”
    Itom Achai received Huila’s smoke and seemed to be in a good mood that day.
    They broke the bolillo into halves and left it on a rock.
    “Should we have brought God coffee?” Teresita asked.
    This caught Huila up short. Did God take coffee? And if He did, would He want it black, or did He enjoy sugar and milk—all items He, in His own wisdom, had made in the first place? It was obvious that God enjoyed wine—only red wine—but coffee, that was altogether a mystery. And everyone knew God accepted tequila—God loved magueys, after all—and tequila was made with prayers to the Virgin Mary, when the juices were still milky and being strained through white sacramental cloths—and tequila was clear and everybody knew God loved a good clear liquid for all its symbolic power—but coffee would require study.
    Huila made her rarest confession that day: “I don’t know.”
    They walked back to the workers’ village. The People were already out of their houses. When they saw Huila coming, and Teresita—just last night lying in pig mess—now in a radiant Yori dress—and
shoes
—they stepped back into their homes and shut their doors.
    “Wait,” Huila said.
    She knocked at Tía’s door.
    When Tía opened it and saw Huila, she fell back a few steps.
    “Good morning!” Huila bellowed as she shoved her way in, then slammed the door.
    It took a while. Teresita waited. The big she-pig poked her nose through the slats and whiffed Teresita’s dress. Teresita scratched her drippy snout.
    When Huila came back out, she was smiling benignly. “Good day!” she called back into the hut, as if they had just taken tea. She patted Teresita on the shoulder and said, “I have chores to do.” She walked off, singing to herself. Teresita looked back at the house. Tía stood before her, white in the face. She had sweat on her lip, and her lids fluttered, as if a stiff breeze were blowing in her eye.
    “Would you —” Tía began. She swallowed. “Would you like something to eat?”
    “No thank you, Tía,” she said.