The Night Before by Luanne Rice Page B

her?”
    “When I was twelve. How long ago for you?”
    “Five years. You don’t pray?”
    Lydia shook her head. She glanced at the oil painting, layers of green overlapping into the bright blue sky, and wondered how she could tell a stranger, a Catholic stranger, that art was her prayer, that only through painting could she contact something that felt close to divine, close to her mother.
    “ Buena suerte to you on that,” the young woman said, blessing herself, then touching her stomach, which Lydia suddenly noticed was round under the loose muslin shirt; she realized the young woman was pregnant.
    “Did you return to college?” Lydia asked.
    “No, chica . No money for that. Besides, I can’t return to the States.”
    “Why?”
    “I got deported, and once that happens, you’re never coming back.”
    “What did you do?”
    “I lost my student visa when I dropped out,” she said. “But I was in love. He was a student at school. I’d go back, cross the border, I knew how. It used to be easier, if you went at the right time, knew the right people. I stayed at my grandma’s in Juárez; she liked me there, I remind her of my mom. And I’d come and go, whenever I wanted. But one day they caught me, sent me back, and I can’t return.”
    “What about your boyfriend? Or is he your husband?”
    “Got to get back to work,” she said as church bells began to ring, echoing up the valley.
    “What’s your name?” Lydia called as the young woman hurried along a straight row between trees.
    “Sara,” she called over her shoulder.
    “I’m Lydia!”
    The young woman had waved, disappearing into the orchard.
    The Black Hall art group was staying at Casa Luna, a small hotel in the center of town. Every morning they ate breakfast in a terracotta courtyard whose ancient walls were covered with bougainvillea; afterward they separated into small groups and went off to paint together or singly.
    Lydia spent every night with Morgan Drake, the professor. Being together on the college trip was both delicious and against the rules. She didn’t want to jeopardize his chance for tenure, so she’d sneak out of his room at dawn and return to hers for a couple of hours of deep sleep before breakfast.
    Each day she’d say goodbye to the others and climb the hill. She would return to the orchard, work on the painting she had started that first day, and sketch the rest of the landscape: a rustic barn, two hungry-looking black horses, and rows of lemon trees. Mainly she would wait for Sara, who brought green glass bottles of cold water straight from the well and took her breaks sitting on a boulder beside Lydia’s easel.
    “Where’s the baby’s father now?” Lydia asked.
    “Still in the States,” Sara said.
    “Can’t he come here if you can’t go there?”
    “He came long enough to get me pregnant. Then, funny enough, adios. Besides, he’s educated. He’d never have been happy picking lemons.”
    “But he’d be with you and the baby.”
    “I’m the one who wants her,” Sara said. “He doesn’t. I could go live in Juárez, at least be near him and try to cross the border, but he has made it clear he doesn’t want this—doesn’t want us. And Juárez is a war. My father worries about my safety when I go there.”
    “You’re having a girl?”
    “The doctor hasn’t told me, but I’m sure of it. I talk to her at night, and when she answers I hear my mother’s voice.”
    Lydia drank icy water straight from the glass bottle. She wanted to tell Sara she’d heard her own mother speaking here on the hillside. Monarch butterflies flitted past, landing in groups on the lemon tree trunks and branches, their tiny claws gripping the bark. Her mother had always loved monarchs, had created a butterfly garden behind the farmhouse in Black Hall, tall stalks of milkweed, Queen Anne’s lace, sheep sorrel, sweet everlasting, parsley, dill, and bee balm.
    “What’s her name?” Lydia asked. “Your