His flag floated down over him, burying him under what were once his dreams of glory.
23
Homecoming
“Five days ago, she just didn’t wake up, Delia. She passed on in her sleep, dreaming of you, I’m sure,” Señora Paz told me.
She had called for her sister, and they had put me on the sofa and placed a cold washcloth on my forehead. The two of them looked down at me with similar expressions of pity and sorrow. They were two years apart, but they were like twins in the way they reacted to things. If one had a headache, so did the other. One didn’t laugh without the other joining in, and any complaint one made, the other seconded.
“They’re twins, all right,” Abuela Anabela would tell me after they left us whenever they had visited. “One was just born later.”
It was a funny thing for her to say, but Abuela Anabela used to say neither of the sisters needed to look into a mirror. Each could look at the other and see herself.
“The whole village attended her funeral, Delia,” Señora Paz’s sister, Margarita, said. “Señor Lopez attended and gave the church a good donation. While you were away, your grandmother often sent him things to eat, her wonderful lemon cakes, her chicken mole, or whatever she happened to make that day.”
“She was very proud of you and what you were doing in the United States. She read us your letters as soon as she received them,” Señora Paz said.
“She read them to anyone who would listen,” her sister added, smiling.
“Why did you not know of her passing, Delia? Señor Diaz sent news to your aunt. He sent it through one of those fancy machines,” Señora Paz said, those beady eyes of hers filling with suspicion.
“It’s called a fax,” her sister told her.
“Whatever, it is supposed to be very fast.”
“I left before my aunt received it,” I told them. It was, after all, the truth.
“Why did you leave?” Señora Paz asked pointedly.
“Since you obviously did not know about her passing, you have come just for a visit?” her sister followed, jumping on my words like a detective.
Grandmother Anabela would tell me they were getting all the information they could so they could spread it firsthand in the square tonight. They were our town criers, the town’s radio and newspaper all wrapped into one. It was clear that no news about me having run off had preceded my arrival. No one back in Palm Springs had made much of an effort to find me.
“I have not come back just for a visit. I have come home to stay,” I
told them.
They both looked shocked, their eyes similarly wide, their mouths opened equally. I nearly laughed at how perfectly they resembled each other. Then Señora Paz nodded at her sister.
“Margarita said it was odd that a big car didn’t bring you here, that you had come back on a bus,” Señora Paz said.
“What about su tía Isabela? Did she want you to leave?” Margarita asked. “Was she sorry she had taken you in to live with her and her children?”
One thing was absolutely sure about the sisters, I thought. They had to know everything as quickly as possible. It would be terrible for someone else to have even the slightest information ahead of them. I turned away and closed my eyes.
“I need to rest a little and then go to the cemetery,” I said.
“Of course. But you should know Señor Diaz has arranged for the sale of this house. Your grandmother gave him the right to do so in the event of her passing,” Señora Paz said. “The house was sold to Señor Avalos just yesterday. The money was set aside for you, I’m sure. You will have to see Señor Diaz so he doesn’t send it on to your aunt for you.”
“The house is sold?”
“Sí, Delia,” Margarita said. “No one expected you would come back here to live, least of all your grandmother, who was receiving the wonderful letters from you.”
I had no more parents, no grandmother, and now no home.
“Maybe you should take your money from the house and go back. Will your aunt take you back?” Señora Paz asked. They would get the nitty-gritty details one way or another, I thought.
“I cannot think about it now,” I said, bringing disappointment to both their faces.