Mary bit her lips. “Aunt Julia left.”
“She left?”
“She wrote a letter.”
“What did she say?”
“She was leaving because she needed to get back to work. She said she would send us a little money now and then and come visit us as often as she could. She didn’t write down the real reason.”
“What’s that?”
“She’s very ill, Kate. She has cancer. She needed to go back to start the chemo treatments.”
“She has what?”
“Breast cancer, I think she said.”
“Oh, God!”
“It explains a lot,” Mary said.
“Why didn’t she tell us?”
“She didn’t want to worry us with one more thing. She said she had trouble accepting it. Kate, I think that’s why she didn’t want to sleep in Mama’s room. Mama reminded her that she was ill.”
“And all along I thought she was just mean.”
They were quiet. Mary was aware they were both silently asking the same question: What are we going to do? The question had plagued them since the first night Father died, only now it was louder and seemed to have fewer answers.
“There’s still hope,” Mary said. “Renata’s mother talked to a social worker who said there are programs to help us. Maybe we can get someone to come in and watch Mama while we’re in school.”
“We’ll work it out,” Kate said. She seemed distracted.
“Kate, we can’t do it alone.” Mary could feel a newfound strength in her voice. “I think we should talk to the social worker.”
“We need to figure out this week first.”
“I already called Talita and Mrs. Guerney. Talita can come a couple of extra hours in the morning, and Mrs. Guerney can stay with Mama until I get home from school.”
Kate tilted the alarm clock next to her bed. She didn’t look to Mary like the usual focused Kate. The Kate in front of her seemed disoriented, like she had woken up from a long dream she could not shake off.
“I called the insurance company,” Mary continued. “The lady who answered told me we could appeal the decision. She said we could write and ask them to explain their reasons for not giving us the insurance. We should write to them, Kate. Maybe they got it wrong. Papa made all those payments all those years. It just doesn’t seem fair.”
“You called them?” Kate seemed surprised at Mary’s initiative.
“We can even go talk to them in person. They’re right on Mesa Street. We can take the morning off from school tomorrow and go together.”
Kate shook her head. “We’d be wasting our time. The medical records showed Father had a congenital heart defect. That means he had it since birth.”
“But what if Papa never knew about it? If he didn’t know about it, he didn’t lie to the insurance company.”
“Think about it. How could that be? All those years of going to the doctor. And why was he rejected by the army when he was young? He never told us.”
“You make it sound as if he lied to us too.”
“He knew, Mary. The heart condition was noted in Father’s records. How many years had Dr. Rulfo been seeing Father? Can you imagine Dr. Rulfo not telling him? Father went out and found a rinky-dink insurance company that didn’t require a medical exam, and he bought a policy. Or maybe he got Dr. Rulfo to say there was nothing wrong with him. You know what great friends they were. What was Father thinking? Didn’t he think the insurance company would check before they paid? He wasted all that money on insurance premiums that we could have used for other things.”
“We should at least get the medical records from Dr. Rulfo. Suppose they show that Papa and Dr. Rulfo discovered the genital condition after Papa bought the insurance policy.”
“Genital?” Kate laughed and then Mary followed. For a few moments they were two sisters again, laughing together. Then Kate stopped laughing.
“I don’t know if there’s anything more we can do.”
Mary looked at Kate. “Why are you giving up so easily?”
“Mary, he didn’t tell the truth when he filled out the application.”
“We should take a look at the application. Suppose the insurance company is lying just so they don’t have to pay.”
“Okay, we’ll write to them or go to their office on Mesa Street and talk to them,” Kate said. She sounded exhausted. She started to lift herself out of the bed again, but Mary wasn’t budging.
“What’s going on with you anyway? Tell me. Are you worried about not going to Stanford?”
Kate looked as if she wanted to tell Mary something and then changed her mind. “I’m not worried,” she said, looking away.
“You haven’t given up on it, have you? When do you have to let them know?”
“May first.”
“So there’s still time. Maybe we can still convince Aunt Julia to let Mama and me live with her. It would be perfect, wouldn’t it? You could go to Stanford and we would be close by. Aunt Julia needs us and we need her. Maybe when she’s had time to think, she’ll change her mind.”
“You asked if you and Mother could go live with her?”
“She said no. But I made her promise that she would think about it. I don’t think it was an it’s-out-of-the-question no.”
“You shouldn’t have asked her.”
“Why?”
“It’s an incredible burden to ask of someone, especially someone with cancer. To take Mother on? And what about you? You’d be taking care of Mama and Aunt Julia both. You need to start thinking about yourself.” Kate’s eyes lingered on Mary. “We all need to start thinking about you.”
“But Mama is her sister. Mama is her family. We’re her family. People in a family carry burdens for each other. Besides, Mama’s not much of a bother.”
“Well, I’m glad she said no, for your sake. It would be too much for you.”
“We need to find a place for me and Mama to stay so you can go to Stanford. They won’t let me live alone with Mama.”
“Who won’t let you?”
“Social Services, I don’t know who else. I’m underage. I don’t know how it all works. That’s why we need to talk to that social worker. Can we do that? Promise me we’ll do that?”
“Mary, we need to talk. But not now. I want to make sure that what I say to you comes out right. Let me get up and get dressed.”
Mary didn’t move. “Kate.” There was a pause. “I know who you were with last night. I went looking for you this morning. I saw Papa’s keys were missing from his desk, so I thought you might have gone to church to . . . pray. I found the keys in his . . . in Reverend Soto’s office.” Kate stared at her as if waiting for Mary to get it all out. “I know it’s none of my business, but . . .”
“Mary, don’t. There’s no need to bring this up right now.” Kate’s voice was almost a whisper.
“I care about you. I’m your sister.”
“I know. But I’m all right. There’s nothing really to talk about. Nothing happened.”
“I don’t think it’s right for you to go out with him.”
“I’m not going out with him. Trust me.”
“I trust you, but . . .”
“Mary, thanks for telling me how you feel. I don’t think you need to worry about it.” There was exhaustion in Kate’s voice.
“I’m your sister. I wouldn’t be a good sister if I didn’t tell you what I thought.”
“I know, I know. I don’t know what’s come over me lately, but I’m all right now. I haven’t been a good sister to you. I know. I promise you that’s going to change. But now I have to get up. There are some things I need to do.”
Later that afternoon, Mary was lying next to Mama, listening to Mexican soap operas on the radio. Kate was out in the hall making a telephone call. She heard the word postpone and she understood that Kate was calling the Stanford admissions office to postpone the deadline for accepting their offer. Mary saw the call as a good sign. It meant that Kate had n
ot given up on her dream.
The next day, Renata persuaded her brother Jaime to drive them downtown to see the social worker. Jaime seemed happy to take them, probably because he was skipping school. Mary didn’t want to get Renata into trouble, but she needed her help and she had no one else. Kate had said she had something else to do that day.
Jaime drove a truck that had an extended cab with cramped foldout seats. He insisted the girls sit back there. He was a big senior on campus, the star football player, and he didn’t want anyone to see him with two insignificant sophomores. As they squashed next to each other with their knees to their chests, Renata wanted to talk about Kate.
“I still can’t believe it about Stanford,” Renata said. “She can attend UTEP right here, and she’s making you do all this because she wants to go away? And you want her to go?”
The radio was so loud Mary could hardly hear Renata. She shouted, “I keep thinking of what it would be like for me if I couldn’t paint. Going to Stanford is like that for Kate.”
“It’s not even close.” Renata reached over and tapped Jaime on the shoulder. “Could you turn that down? We’re trying to have a conversation back here.”
Jaime turned it down a notch. “Don’t push it,” he said, “or I’ll drop you right here in the middle of the street.”
“You do that, and I’ll tell Gracie you-know-what,” Renata said. Gracie was Jaime’s girlfriend. Now Mary understood why Jaime had agreed to drive them. “And don’t listen, either. This is private.”
“Like I care,” Jaime responded.
Renata continued where she had left off. “She can go to college here and take premed and become a highfalutin doctor or whatever. It’s not like she’d be giving up that.”
“You should have seen her when she heard she was accepted. Going to Stanford and being a doctor are part of the same dream. I’ve never seen her so happy as when she got that letter.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t always get what we want. I’d like to get that hunk Marcos interested in me instead of you, but instead I’m going to prom with Lalo and his dumbo ears.”
“Will you stop it with Marcos?” Mary elbowed her.
“Yeah, I know you. Little Miss Spiritual. I bet you’d like to paint him, wouldn’t you? Maybe you can get him to model naked for you and you can invite me to the session.”
“Who’s getting naked?” Jaime asked, and Renata and Mary laughed.
The social worker’s office was in a five-story building that looked like a cinder block with windows. Jaime dropped them off in front and told them he’d pick them up in an hour. Renata reminded him about Gracie.
They told the receptionist who they were, and soon the social worker, Mrs. Fresquez, came out to greet them. She led them up an elevator to the third floor and then through a maze of cubicles overflowing with different-colored folders. Mary got the impression that thousands of people were drowning with problems and there were only a couple of life jackets. The lone visitor’s chair in Mrs. Fresquez’s cubicle was full of black plastic binders. She put them on the floor and then went next door to borrow another chair.
Mrs. Fresquez was a heavy woman whose legs made a scratchy sound when she walked. Mary couldn’t tell whether she was wearing a red wig or her own hair had been overly dyed. Every few seconds her tongue would come out and lick her upper lip. Renata and Mary looked at each other, and each knew what the other was thinking: This was a big mistake. There was no way this woman was capable of helping anyone.
But Mary soon realized her initial impression was wrong. As soon as they were all seated and Mrs. Fresquez had asked Renata about her mother, she turned and looked at Mary in a way that made her feel as if she were the only person who mattered in the whole world.
“Lucy told me about you. I’m very glad you came to see me. I heard about your dad. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“I know about your mother and I know you and your sister are all alone. You don’t have any family?”
“We have an aunt in San Jose, California.”
Mrs. Fresquez scribbled something on a pad of paper. “And your sister, how old is she?”
Mary had a feeling that she already knew everything she was asking, but needed to hear it from her. “She turned eighteen in February.”
“You’re sixteen, right?”
“Yes.” Renata was looking around the cubicle with a bored look on her face. Mary saw her zero in on the picture on the desk. It showed a teenage boy next to a woman dressed in white. Mrs. Fresquez recognized the object of Renata’s attention.
“That’s my cousin Aurora and my son Albert. She’s a nurse in Las Cruces. He’s a good-looking boy, huh?” She smiled at Renata.
“Nice,” Renata answered. “How come Mom never told me about him?”
“She probably wanted to protect him.” Mrs. Fresquez winked at Mary.
“Ha-ha,” Renata muttered.
Mrs. Fresquez grinned and then got serious. “Tell me in your own words,” she said, looking at Mary, “how I can help you.”
Mary told her about the deacons asking them to leave, about the insurance money falling through, about Aunt Julia’s cancer and her not wanting to stay with them or have Mary and Mama live with her. She hesitated to tell her about Kate wanting to go to Stanford because she didn’t want to lump that in with all the bad things, but Renata poked her in the arm and told her to tell Mrs. Fresquez everything.
“My sister got accepted to Stanford. She really wants to go there.”
Mrs. Fresquez sat back in her chair and seemed to be trying not to look surprised. “She’s going to go?”
“Yes. I want her to go too.” Renata frowned, and Mrs. Fresquez rubbed her forehead with her hand as if she had just been presented with a puzzle she couldn’t solve. But then she snapped her head upright, and Mary saw that she knew exactly what needed to be done.
“Okay. Let’s look at what we have here. The best option is for you and your mama to live with your aunt, but I understand why that’s not possible at this moment. The second-best option is for you and your sister to stay here in El Paso. I think I would be able to get you into affordable housing, get help for your mom and money and food stamps for you to live on. We’d have to make your sister your legal guardian, but that’s not hard. If your sister goes away, we would need to get you a guardian appointed. If we can’t find anyone, I could be your guardian.” Mary smiled at the prospect of having Mrs. Fresquez be her guardian. She’d be a kind of earthly guardian angel — though never in a million years would she have imagined her guardian angel to look like Mrs. Fresquez. The social worker went on, “You say your sister wants to go away to college, so let’s assume we don’t have that second option. Where does that leave us? I think we’d have to place you in a foster home and find a facility for your mother.”
Mary let the words sink as far as they would go. Foster home. Facility.
“She could come live with us,” Renata said. “We could be her foster family, couldn’t we?”
Mary asked nervously, “What kind of facility?”
“It would have to be a nursing home or a facility that accepts people in a vegetative state. Finding one wouldn’t be easy. Probably a home with a religious affiliation. Those are the only ones that take someone in her . . . condition.”
Mary was having difficulty understanding what was being said. It was like being on the verge of remembering a dream. “Why?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“Why would some facilities not want to take Mama?”
Mrs. Fresquez attempted to inhale deeply. This time she put her hand on her chest. Maybe all of the problems she listened to and all the painful news she had to convey had broken her heart, and now she had trouble breathing. “Well, most hospitals and facilities don’t take people like your mom, people being kept alive through a feeding tube.” She hesitated. “They feel they need to save their space and resources for people for whom there is still hope of living.”
&nbs
p; “Mama’s still alive. Maybe someday she’ll wake up. We don’t know for sure that she won’t.”
Mrs. Fresquez nodded and put her hand up, signaling there was no need to discuss the issue. “If we go with the foster care option, I will find you a place that takes your mama.”
It was the first time since Papa died that Mary heard anyone outside her family call her mother “mama.” It made her feel that Mrs. Fresquez really cared.
“Honestly, Mary, you can come live with us,” Renata said again. “My mom and dad would love it. It’s only Jaime and me at home right now and Jaime is joining the army this summer. You can even set up a studio outside, next to Dad’s carpentry shop.”
Renata had an enormous, shady backyard full of flowering trees, and for a moment Mary imagined herself sitting back there painting. But then she thought of Mama. After the accident, Mama had stayed in the hospital until the doctors declared she was in a persistent vegetative state. Then she was taken to a kind of nursing home where she stayed until Papa was allowed to bring her home. Mary remembered visiting her in the nursing home. Mama was in a room with four other people. Sometimes the halls were lined with stretchers because all the rooms were full. Mama developed bedsores because no one moved her, and rashes because no one changed her diaper. It was almost as if they were trying to let her die.
“I can’t leave Mama alone,” Mary said. Renata parted her lips, and Mary could almost hear her start to say that maybe Mama could come and live with her family as well, but then Renata stopped herself. Mary wished she could somehow let her know that it was all right, that no matter how much she thought Mama was no bother, she understood it was beyond anyone else’s ability to take her on.
“Why don’t you think about all the options we discussed?” Mrs. Fresquez said. “We can talk more later. In the meantime, let’s see what we can do.”
Mrs. Fresquez filled out some forms with financial information. She promised to try to find a way to pay Talita and get someone to watch Mama while Mary and Kate finished the school year. Then she said that she would personally contact the insurance company and ask to see all the records used in the denial of the claim. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I’ll take one of our lawyers. One of the reasons these small companies don’t require medical exams is so they can later claim the least little thing was a misrepresentation. I know one company tried to deny benefits because the insured didn’t inform them she’d had her wisdom teeth pulled! Don’t worry, we’ll get something out of them. We’ll at least get back all the premiums your dad paid. You can count on that.”