Irises (26 page)

“Do you want to go inside? It's not much of an apartment, but the air conditioner works really well.”

“In a little while,” she said. “I like listening to the waves.”

“What waves?”

She cupped her ear to the sound of a semitruck speeding by on the interstate. He chuckled. She turned so that her back was leaning against the car door, and shook her head.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Tell me what you were thinking,” he insisted.

“I was just thinking that for someone who wants to work with the rich, you picked a bad place.”

“It's a start. I had an offer to be an assistant pastor at a church in Lubbock, but then this opportunity came up. It's better to be a big fish in a small pond.” He stopped suddenly.

“My father's death was the opportunity,” she said.

“I'm sorry.”

“It's all right. It
was
an opportunity for you.” There was
a pause
, then she continued, slowly, “His death was also a
n opportunity
for me.” It made her sad to say the words o
ut loud
.

“You and I are very much alike,” he said after a few moments of silence.

She reflected and then said, “How?”

“In so many ways. I'm an only child
— my father died when I was twelve
— and when the opportunity came to go to a good school in Dallas or stay in Lubbock, I chose Dallas even though I had to leave my mother alone. I didn't think twice about it. We really are called to develop ourselves to our fullest potential, and that includes taking advantage of the opportunities that are offered to us, even if it's not what others want. I went to Dallas even though it meant hardship for my mother. You need to go to Stanford even if it means it will be harder for your sister. So you see, you and I are not so different.”

There was a long pause and then she said, “Maybe we are different.”

“How do you think we're different?”

“I don't know. I don't understand how, but we are. Maybe it's that you have faith in God and I seem to have lost it. At least you can say that your ambitions are part of His will. Maybe you thought you were following God's will when you left your mother alone. I won't be able to say that if I leave Mary. What can I say about my ambitions? Right now they seem so
.
.
. selfish, so ugly.”

“I'm like you, Kate. I'm groping in the dark when it comes to detecting God's will. Maybe there are people like your sister who see God's light. The rest of us live in darkness or in shadows, doing what we can. I give people hope through a body of scripture. But I have to be true to myself. I can't pretend I'm someone I'm not.” She looked at him steadily. “Am I disappointing you?” he asked.

“No.” She was not lying.
Disappointment
did not describe what she was feeling.
Emptiness
, a cold and new desolation, was more accurate.

“We should go inside,” he said, looking around.

She opened the door to the car and stepped outside. She waited for him to come to the front of the car and then they climbed the three front steps to the apartment. He held the door open for her as she went in. She saw the bed, unmade, and next to it a nightstand full of books. Near the door was a beige sofa and an old-looking television set. At the far end of the apartment stood a small Formica table with two chairs, a stove, and a refrigerator.

“Can I get you some juice, soda, water?” he asked once he had closed and locked the door behind him.

“No, thanks.” She took off her shoes and sat down on t
he sofa
.

“Will you excuse me for a second?”

“No,” she teased.

“I'll be right back.”

She stretched her legs in front of her. She had a feeling of being in the wrong place, like an uninvited guest in a room full of people who had known each other since childhood. If they had come into the apartment as soon as they arrived, who knew what would have happened? But some new realization had taken place in the car that she couldn't quite put her finger on, some revelation about him and about her that made her feel ashamed. She had no words for it.

“Hi,” he said, sitting next to her. He held her hand, his eyes fixed on hers, and then he reached over and gently turned her face toward him. Their kiss was soft and tentative at first and only gradually yielded to hunger. When she started to let go, he held her tighter against himself. There was something tha
t held her
back, sh
e realized
. Some uneasiness, some lack of trust that kept her from being totally absorbed in his embrace.

“This is probably not a good idea,” she whispered when they finally caught their breath. “All that happened today. I'm not really thinking straight.”

He sat up on the sofa. “I thought
.
.
. I must have misunderstood
.
.
.”

“You didn't misunderstand. I wanted to kiss you. I wanted to be kissed by you. I'm sorry.”

He slapped both of his cheeks as if to wake up. “I'm the one that's sorry. What was I thinking? You were vulnerable and I took advantage of that.”

“You didn't take that much advantage,” she said, joking. “I held on to my virtue. Most of it.”

“But I should have known better. You came to me for advice.”

“And I gave you different signals. Besides, you did give me advice. I'm really glad we talked.”

“Do you want to go home?”

She thought about it. “Can I rest here? It's almost mornin
g,
I think. Do you have a pillow? I really need tomorrow to ge
t here
.”

He brought her a pillow and the bedcover from his ow
n bed
.

“Sweet dreams,” he said.

“Good night, Andy. Thank you.”

He turned off all the lights in the apartment and she heard him undress in the darkness. The air conditioner made a whirring sound and blew cold air directly on her feet. She lay down, covered herself, and listened to his movements across the room. He seemed as restless as she was. She could hear him turn one way in the bed and exhale and then turn the other way and do the same. The more he turned and tossed, the calmer she became. There was nothing to stop her from getting up, undressing, and sliding into bed next to him, flesh against flesh. She knew from their kiss that he would not reject her if she did.

She waited for him to fall asleep and then she sat up on the sofa. She sat very still, thinking, remembering, feeling. Images whirled inside her head: Andy telling her that he planned to stay only a couple of years with the Church of God. Mrs. Alvarado playing the organ. Mr. Cisneros with his hand outstretched. Andy's mother in a house all alone, watching television in a dark room. Then she suddenly turned into Mother, and Mother was telling her no one could keep her from her dream unless she let them. And why would she let them? “For love,” said Mother. There was Father saying that love made all burdens light, and Simon appeared to ask her if she loved him. Kate had the sensation that she was falling into an endless, dark pit and there was nothing to hold on to. She
thought she was alone in the darkness. But she wasn't. She heard
a voice and it was Mary's, calling
Kate . . .

Kate . . .

Kate.

Kate opened her eyes, surprised that she had fallen asleep. She sat up and willed herself to be fully awake. Around the edge o
f the
curtain, there were streaks of rose and vermilion in th
e sky
.

Mary would like those colors
, she thought. Of all of Mary's paintings, the one Kate liked the most was her painting of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, which she had done a few months before Mother's accident. The mountains were painted from the perspective of someone looking up as if about to start the climb. When she first saw the painting, Kate thought it captured life: We could either live in shadow or climb to the sun-filled summit. Now she remembered the different shades of white and gray and black that made up the shadows in the painting. It must have taken Mary hours and hours to capture the subtle interplay of light and dark. Kate's heart suddenly filled with love and pride. Her little sister! Mary's gift to create beauty was as important as Kate's powerful desire to be a doctor. Kate hadn't always honored that, she knew.

But what had Mary said about her painting earlier?
I always imagined love to be like what I felt for painting once —
co
mparing
love to the tangled lights. But then she'd continued,
I haven't seen this light since Mama's accident. The lights I used to see in and around everything are not there anymore
. That was it. How painful it must be for Mary to be without light. How could it be that she hadn't seen the darkness that enveloped Mary? Now she remembered the times she would find Mary alone in their room, a blank piece of drawing paper in front of her, and all the trouble she'd mentioned having with her latest canvas. Even when Mary told her how she felt, she didn't listen. There she was, so consumed by her own ambition, her own dreams, that she had not noticed her sister's pain. Mary needed to s
ee tha
t light again, to shine her own light again. What would bring that joy in painting back f
or her
?

In many ways, that ability to see the light in things and in people, that joy in painting came from Mother. But Mother was neither living nor dead, neither with them nor gone. Because they could not let her go, there was no opportunity to heal. And the need to care for her kept Mary from her painting. As long as Mother remained in a vegetative state, there would be no joy or light for Mary. Mother would not want that, Kate knew.

And Mother wanted Kate herself to go to Stanford. But i
t couldn't
be that Stanford was more important than Mary. Her ambition must be different from Andy's. Dreams must yield to love. She had an irresistible urge to cry, and so she did, softly at first and then biting her arm so her sobs would not wake Andy.

When the tears ended, she felt exhausted. She swung her legs off the couch and cringed a little. The digital alarm clock blinked that it was 9:00
 
a.m
.
It was too late to make it home, jump in bed, and pretend that she'd spent the night there. All of her acts of carelessness came back to her. She'd left the letter from the insurance company in the bathroom. Mary would find it and worry that her absence was caused by desperation. She would no doubt call Bonnie and Simon. Kate needed to come up with a story
— or she could just tell Mary what h
appened.
And Aunt Julia? The last thing she felt like doing was lying. She was too tired to lie.

She stood up slowly and went to the bathroom, wet the soap, and then scrubbed her face and dried it. The towel smelled like him. If she walked to Alameda Avenue, she could catch a bus. She wanted to be gone by the time he woke up. She didn't want to talk to him this morning.

She put her shoes on. Then she stood up and checked the pocket of her jeans to see if she had money for the bus.
Oh, God, the church keys.
She had probably left them at the church. Anyone who saw the keys would recognize her father's key chain, with its medal of St. Christopher, the patron saint of drivers. He had the same key chain when he crashed and Mother
.
.
.

Mother lost her life. Mother was not alive anymore. Mother would want Mary and her to live their lives. She needed to find the way for Mary and her to have their dreams, but it had to be done in a way that Mother would approve, with Mother's blessing. That was the understanding she needed to save above all else.

She decided she would worry about the keys some other day. They were probably in Andy's office and she could get them later. They would need to talk about last night sooner or later anyway. She didn't have any money, so she borrowed a dollar from his wallet. It was a brown wallet made of shiny leather. She dropped it on the floor and walked out of his apartment.

Aunt Julia was waiting by the door ready to pounce. “Where have you been? We've been worried sick!” she exclaimed.

Kate saw her backpack by the door where she had left it the night before. “Where's Mary?” she asked.

“She's in school, where else would she be? She waited fo
r you,
called your boyfriend, your friends. No one knew whe
re yo
u were.”

“I was out with someone from work. We had a few drinks. I stayed with her.”

“Who? What friend?”

“You're not my mother!” Kate said forcefully. Her anger had nothing to do with Aunt Julia except that Aunt Julia was there.