Made in the U.S.A. (21 page)

As the doctor, who had changed into a pair of white scrubs, was working his freshly washed hands into a pair of rubber gloves, a slight woman with white hair slipped into the office through a side door. One of her cheeks was still showing creases from the pillow she’d slept on, but her green eyes, nearly the color of her scrubs, were alert.

She and Juan exchanged greetings with the warmth of old friends who haven’t been in touch for a long time. After she washed her hands, she, too, put on rubber gloves. And as she approached the table, she noticed Fate for the first time, acknowledging him with a smile, a smile that quickly faded when she saw Lutie stretched out on the table. Involuntarily, she patted Lutie’s shoulder as she bowed her head in a short prayer before making the sign of the cross.

While the doctor began his examination of Lutie’s head where her hair was matted with blood, Rosa monitored the girl’s blood pressure and checked her heart rate. When she produced a clipboard with a form attached to it, she wrote down numbers as she repeated them in Spanish to her husband.

Fate was certain that such middle-of-the-night intrusions were common occurrences in that house—a child running a high fever, an elderly man gasping for breath, a mother of four with pneumonia, a teenager suffering a stab wound. And he was certain that no one was turned away.

The doctor adjusted one of the overhead lights, then leaned down to get a closer look at a deep gash running from Lutie’s jaw to her ear where dried blood had pooled. A knot nearly the size of an avocado seed appeared on her forehead just at her hairline, and one of her eyes, now the color of a plum, was swollen shut.

While Rosa was setting up for an IV, the doctor opened Lutie’s mouth and retrieved a tooth barely attached to her upper gum. Using his fingers, he inspected the inside of her cheeks, then examined her tongue to find that she’d bitten through it on one side.

As he began to unbutton her blouse, he spoke to Juan, who immediately led Fate from the office to the living room, where they sat side by side on a couch.

“You’re very worry about your sister, but my friends, Dr. Morales and his wife, a nurse, they will to take good care of her.”

“They will take good care of her,” Fate absently corrected Juan’s English, a matter of habit.

“Yes, I don’t speak the English quite good, but Spanish I know.”

“And I don’t speak Spanish.”

“But we will find a way, Fate, to talk one to each other.”

“How do you know my name?”

“I hear Lutie call your name much times.” Quickly, Juan corrected himself. “Many times.”

“My sister . . .” When Fate began to cry, Juan put his arm around the small, shirtless boy and pulled him close. “I’m afraid that Lutie . . . I’m afraid she’ll die.”

“No, no. Lutie strong girl, and my doctor and nurse friends don’t let her to die. Trust this, I tell you.”

With a bit more control now, Fate said, “How did you know about us? Your notes, the food . . .”

“Fate, we have later for to answer questions. For now, you rest. You have not to fear, but to rest. Only to rest.”

“But—”

“I wake you when it needs.”

And Fate, his body heavy with fatigue, his mind clouded with doubt, his eleven years feeling like ninety, leaned his head on Juan Vargas’s shoulder, closed his eyes, and gave himself, at last, to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY

F
ATE, LUTIE, JUAN VARGAS
, and Draco left Rosa and Dr. Hector’s home just after dawn on a Tuesday, and though they’d spent only four days and nights there, Fate could hardly get through the good-byes, mostly because of Rosa. She had become, for him, as close as a woman could to his notion of a mother since his own had died before he had memory.

Rosa was always available to assist her husband in his practice, but somehow she managed to find time for Fate. In her small library, quiet and comfortable, she had created a space that seemed spiritual, though there were no religious symbols in evidence—no crucifix, no statues of Mary, no paintings of Jesus, no lectionary stand holding a Bible.

There, Rosa introduced Fate to writers he didn’t know: César Chávez, Gabriel García Márquez; to the poetry of Pablo Neruda; to the art of Diego Rivera; and to the music of the Mexican cellist Carlos Prieto.

But her favorite writer was Sandra Cisneros, whose piece titled “Salvadore, Late or Early,” only two pages long, was the most beautiful prose Fate had ever heard. He especially liked the sound when Rosa read it aloud.

In addition to sharing her books, her music, and her art, she invited Fate to the kitchen to talk while she cooked, and to him, her cooking became an art as her beautiful small hands mixed, kneaded, beat, sliced, and diced.

She told him how she and Dr. Hector had met, both of them working at the same circus in order to pay for their medical training—he as a physician’s assistant, she as a nurse practitioner while working on her RN. She talked, too, of their meeting Juan Vargas, an aerial performer, watching him fly through the air a hundred feet above the earth without a safety net below.

But when Fate asked how Juan came to live on the streets of Las Vegas, Rosa gave brief, vague accounts, telling him Juan would open that chapter of his life when he was ready.

Every night, Rosa came to the room where Fate slept, to read to him her favorite stories by her favorite writers. Then when she finished, she would kiss him on the cheek and whisper, “May God keep you in the safety of His arms.”

Yesterday, the day before their departure, Juan and Fate had gone to the room at the Gold Digger where Lutie and Fate had been living. At Juan’s polite invitation and with his help, Fate had worked through the rubbish that had piled up since they’d moved in. He rounded up Lutie’s cosmetics, teen magazines, shoes, clothes, hats, belts, and scarves—most shoplifted, a few actually paid for. He emptied what was left in the glove compartment after it had been ransacked; then boxed up his own books and a small bag of his clothes.

After they’d packed them in the trunk of Floy’s Pontiac, they drove two blocks, where they transferred Lutie’s and Fate’s possessions into the trunk of Juan’s Lincoln Continental, cavernous when compared with the Pontiac.

The car, Fate learned, was an ’88 and might have been valuable if not for the dents and dings the body had suffered through the years. But though it looked pretty shabby outside, the inside was roomy, the upholstery looked and smelled new, the floorboards showed no sign of dirt or sand, the dash was clean of dust, and even the ashtrays were empty and shining.

Juan, not much of a talker, had explained a bit of the automobile’s history, but mostly he let the car do the talking for him. He was proud of the old Lincoln, and keeping it spotless was important to him.

Fate had known without being told that Juan was moving them out of the Gold Digger. Perhaps he planned to take them in, maybe share his apartment with them. Fate didn’t figure he had a house, but a small, inexpensive apartment seemed likely.

When they finished the transfer and a last look through the trash of the Pontiac, Juan tossed the keys onto the dash, then slid under the wheel of his own car and pulled away.

“What about—” But Fate didn’t get to complete his question.

“We don’t need it anymore. This”—he patted the steering wheel—“will be the better car for the trip. Her name is Matilda. Good tires, license tag legal, registration legal, and more resting bed for Lutie.”

Fate could have asked then, could have asked where they were going . . . and why, but he didn’t. He felt safe with Juan, the first time he’d felt safe since Floy died.

Juan drove several miles out of town to a spot on the bank of Callville Bay where he lived in a tent surrounded by brush and young saplings, almost hidden from view. Living in a tent, away from the streets of Vegas and the people who wandered those streets, seemed to be a step up from living in a stolen car, so if Juan was moving Lutie and Fate into the tent with him and Draco, Fate would be glad.

But that wasn’t part of the plan.

Juan kept his tent just the way he kept his car: spartan, spotless, and organized. Beside a sleeping bag, he had a small cooler, a box of books, and another of clothes, neatly folded and well arranged. A shoe box contained his toiletries. The only object that seemed personal was a framed photograph of a younger Juan, his arm around an older man who favored him, a man Fate guessed to be his father. The picture stood on several glass bricks to serve as a table only for the photo. Fate noticed that when Juan packed the picture, he placed it carefully among his folded T-shirts for protection. Finally, Juan packed a twenty-pound sack of dog food and a large plastic bowl, and they drove back to Dr. Hector’s house, Fate already dreading the next morning’s good-byes.

He hadn’t slept well that night, knowing it was likely the last night he would ever spend in that house, in the doctor’s office, Rosa’s home. The last night she would come to his room, read to him, tuck him in, and whisper her prayer. When he finally did fall asleep, it was Rosa he was thinking of.

The plan was to leave just after dawn, so everyone was up except Lutie. She had regained consciousness shortly after being placed on the examination table, but because of the pain, Dr. Hector had kept her sedated, as she was now for the trip they were about to undertake, a trip whose destination was still unknown to Fate.

Dr. Hector went over his instructions for the third time, handing Juan the plastic bag containing antibiotics to fight infection, pain medication Lutie would need regularly for the next two or three days, fresh bandages and astringents for cleaning her various wounds.

The men loaded Lutie into the spacious backseat of Juan’s Continental, a move they accomplished under the direction of Rosa, who had spent hours the previous day turning the backseat into a hospital bed so that Lutie could ride comfortably and safely on the trip. She had even made a bed out of old rugs and blankets for Draco, who would alert Juan if Lutie needed attention.

Rosa had packed a plastic box filled with fruit,
gazpacho español
soup, lemon chicken,
buñuelos
, and
sopa da plátano
, a dessert she had made for supper the previous evening and which Fate had liked so much, he had taken three helpings, only after Rosa insisted.

When it was time to say good-bye, Rosa hugged Fate tightly to her chest and whispered to him, “If you ever have need of me, no matter the time, just call.” She slipped into his hand a closed envelope, then kissed his cheek and whispered, “May God keep you in the safety of His arms.”

Fate waved as the Lincoln pulled away, but the features of Rosa’s face were distorted because of the tears in his eyes.

He waited until they passed a sign that marked the city limits of Las Vegas and another that urged visitors to come back soon and often.

Finally, it was time to ask.

“Juan, where are we going?”

“Oklahoma,” Juan said. “We go now to Oklahoma.”

PART THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

F
ATE, SLUMPED IN
the passenger seat, his head resting against the window, had been asleep for almost two hours when Juan pulled into a QuikTrip.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Just east of Flagstaff. But my blue baby here”—Juan patted the dash of the Lincoln—“she likes to having her belly full.”

A rustling sound from the backseat caught Fate’s attention.

“Is big sister awake?” Juan asked.

“No.”

“Well, time for her medicine, I have to peeing, Draco, too, and Matilda wants gas. Kill four birds with one rock, huh?”

“Two birds, and it’s stone, not rock.”

“You gonna mess with my English all the way to Oklahoma?”

Fate grinned. “Probably.”

“I tell you what. You talk your English and I’ll talk mine.”

“Speak, not talk.”

Juan shook his head in mock disgust. “This gonna be one long damn trip.”

“Why don’t you go to the bathroom; I’ll give Lutie her medicine.”

“Okay,” Juan said as he got out of the car. “But remember, Doc said one of the blue ones, two white. You don’t confuse.”

“I won’t.”

With Juan’s seat empty, Draco jumped into it and started to whine.

“It’s okay, girl. He’ll be back.”

After Fate gathered the pills, a bottle of water, and a straw, he got into the back, making room for himself on the seat beside Lutie. He studied her for a few moments, watching her eyelids flutter in sleep, wondering what she might be seeing behind those delicate, paper-thin layers of flesh, both purpled now with bruises.

“Lutie, it’s time for your medicine.”

She opened her eyes as far as the swelling would allow and said, “I’m thirsty.”

Fate inched his fingers beneath her head and lifted it until her lips found the straw. With each pill she swallowed, she grimaced.

“Is your throat sore?”

“Everything is sore,” she said as Fate lowered her head back to the pillow. “When did I get out of the hospital? Or was it a clinic?”

“Just this morning.”

Since the attack, Fate had talked to Lutie several times, so he wasn’t as frightened by her confusion now as he had been at first. Dr. Hector had explained to him that the drugs and the concussion, though mild, would leave some blank spots in her memory for a while.

“Where are we now?”

“In Arizona.”

Fate could see in her expression that she was trying to piece together bits of information, trying to get what she
could
remember in the right order.

“Are we still with that man? That Italian guy?”

“His name’s Juan, and he’s Mexican, not Italian.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s right. Juan. So where is he?”

“He’s gone to the toilet. Do you need to go, Lutie? I can help you if you do.”

“Help me?” Fate heard the fear in her voice. “I’m not paralyzed, am I?” Seized with alarm, the notion that she might not be able to walk, even though she had walked several times while at Dr. Hector’s, she slapped at her thighs with her good hand. “I can feel my legs.”

“No, no. You aren’t paralyzed. Just stiff and sore. The doctor said you would be for a few more days.”