The Good Daughter Page 6

  After she had watched her stepmother and Cadillac Man in her father’s bedroom—along with the many times since that encounter, in secret, through the same crack in the door—Quinn had begun to wonder about it all. It seemed to be a matter of men succumbing to a certain kind of beauty; not the cheap kind that came from loose behavior and tight blouses, no, but the power of women who were what she liked to call mysterious. The less a man knew about a woman, the more he seemed to be enamored of her. Cadillac Man, after all, knew nothing of Sigrid’s true self—her indigestion and frequent belching after large meals, or the way her eyes were red and puffy when she woke and how ill-tempered she was before noon—but he got to enjoy her company after she had bathed and dressed and curled her hair. Quinn had read about geishas and how they were considered artists and could seduce a man with just a hint of their necks, but only if they chose to, as if all the power was within them, a power so intricate Quinn had problems understanding it herself. Supposedly you could tell a prostitute from a geisha by her clothes; prostitutes tie their kimonos in the front while geishas have help tying them in the back.

  She thought of geishas when she watched men stare at Sigrid, their eyes eating her up, with her restrained makeup and tasteful appearance, always crossing her legs and appearing helpless somehow so random men would offer to lift groceries into the car, carry packages, and pump gas. Some men were even in the company of other women, yet they couldn’t refrain from staring, their eyes wondering what it would be like if she belonged to them. Maybe they thought possessing her somehow would automatically elevate them to some higher standard.

  Wiles, Sigrid called it; the wiles of a woman.

  Quinn’s father had had a coronary during a city hall meeting the previous year. Seconds after he had pulled a starched handkerchief from his pocket, beads formed on his brow and the room watched his large frame drop and hit the floor with a thud.

  “He was gone before he knew what was happening,” the doctor told Sigrid later and went into detail about how it took six grown men to lift him up onto an ornate desk, where the doctor performed CPR with a high degree of difficulty due to the circumference of his body.

  “Don’t worry, child,” Sigrid said to Quinn after the doctor had told them the news. “You’ll stay with me. He wouldn’t want it any other way,” Sigrid added and uncrossed her legs.

  “He was a sick man and he was sick for a long time. The town will remember him. He was a good man,” the doctor said while taking in Sigrid’s face underneath her new hat, a veiled half-moon-shaped affair with matching gloves.

  Oddly, in the days after his death, Quinn imagined he was still alive, and it seemed quite plausible because her father had never been home when he was living, never spent a lot of time with her, so he might as well still be around, just not present in the house. She preferred to retain the memory of him this way, absent yet still alive somewhere. As with her mother’s passing, the word still was a strange concept, implying a movement from one state to the other, yet she couldn’t imagine what or where that place was. And so Quinn thought of her father often, with great sadness but also with great reverie, knowing that his body no longer held him back. Diabetes had caused ulcers on his legs, and he should have retired years ago, should have taken better care of himself, seen doctors—it was not as if one can cure diabetes with magic water—but he had seemed to be content going on as long as he had. Quinn prayed for him often and kept his watch in her jewelry box. When she did cry she thought mainly of the trip to Galveston they’d never taken. How she’d love to have that memory of him, on chairs by the pool, dining at fine restaurants, strolling along the harbor with Spoil Island in the distance. She would have held his hand. She wished she had this memory, but maybe one day she’d get to go after all. As time passed, imagining this lost opportunity became more and more painful, and eventually Quinn tried not to think about it anymore.

  That night, as Quinn made her way to meet her lover, she knew her trim body was powerful; she now ate only two small meals a day, but mostly she was thin because she had decided for it to be so. Her new body was a mere mouthpiece of her never-ending dominance over her hunger. She had stood in front of a mirror that morning and admired the part where her thigh curved into her hips, the dimples above her buttocks, and her defined collarbone. Not a single part of her hidden below a layer of flesh. Feeling the power of her new body, she strode through the bright night with a crescent moon overhead and imagined the pressure of her lover’s hands all over her, even though he hadn’t dared touch her quite yet.

  —

  Quinn called him Benito, and they had met for the first time when he and his uncle had delivered bales of hay to her house to fertilize the rosebushes. Sigrid, after the death of her husband, had insisted on growing roses, and even though the bushes looked measly and were speckled with what seemed like large black pepper flakes, she wouldn’t give up on them.

  “Hay is good for the soil, it makes it fertile. You’ll see,” Sigrid said and had Benito and his uncle drop the hay next to the forlorn flower bed. The uncle inspected the soil, rubbed a clump of dirt between his fingers and promised to return the next day and till the flower bed and fold in the hay.

  Benito wouldn’t look at Quinn that day, but when he returned the next, they struck up a conversation even though the uncle gave them sideways glances. From then on, Quinn waited on the porch until she heard the rumbling engine of the old truck become more powerful with every passing second that it approached the house, imagining the pipes spewing twin plumes of black smoke. Once the uncle was tending to the flower beds, Benito was the one who was sent back and forth for a forgotten tool or to empty a bucket of rocks they had dug up from the soil. Quinn sat on the front steps and watched Benito jump in the bed of the pickup, the muscles of his long skinny arms quivering under his brown skin when he lifted wood, bags of mulch, and gardening tools.

  “What school do you go to?” Quinn asked.

  “I’m not in school,” he said. “I’m from Palestine. I went to school there,” Benito said and reached for the hand tiller, pushing it to the very edge of the truck bed. He jumped out and landed on his feet like gymnasts Quinn had seen in school. Then, seemingly without strife, he lifted the heavy tiller and placed it gently on the ground. His hair had a sheen like deep dark mahogany wood and it swished gently in the wind, swaying with each word he spoke.

  “Palestine. Where’s that?” Quinn asked, merely trying to be polite. She crossed her legs like she had seen Sigrid do. She feared she didn’t look half as sophisticated as her.

  “About thirty miles from here, a small town.”

  “Do you always work with your uncle?”

  “I do a lot of work for lots of people,” he said and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “I’m saving up to start my own business.”

  Soon Benito’s uncle had enough of Benito taking his time collecting tools or dumping buckets and he began interrupting their conversations by tossing random items to and fro in the truck bed and then walking off, mumbling something under his breath. After a week of protest, the uncle called from the backyard every few minutes, making it impossible for them to have a conversation at all.

  “Ven aquí,” the uncle shouted at first, then he’d yell, “Me estas escuchando?” and by the end of the third week, when the soil was tilled, the hay folded, the rosebushes planted, and all that was left was to attach a trellis to the back porch, Benito no longer accompanied his uncle.

  “Where is Benito? Please, tell me,” Quinn begged and watched the uncle holding a nail below the head with the fingers of one hand.

  The uncle simply replied, “No hablo inglés,” and Quinn watched him tap the nail gently to set it in place, then he grasped the hammer firmly at the end and hit the nail straight on. A few smacks and it was done. “Todo ha terminado,” he added and turned his back to her.

  Days later, after school, Benito waited for Quinn by the h
ardware store she passed every day on her way home. They drove out of town and parked in secluded places, knowing people would talk about the daughter of the late town treasurer and the Mexican farm help, but that too was power to Quinn, the fact that she did as she pleased. They sat in Benito’s truck and he told her about his hometown, where he had lived before he came to Texas. A mesa in Mexico, Mesa de Sagrado, an elevated piece of land with a flat top, and on one of its steep sides, his family owned a small farm where they raised goats and chickens. He spoke of his grandmother, who still operated the farm with her cousins, and how she lived for the one day a year when the gates of heaven opened and the spirits of the deceased reunited with their families.

  “There’s a day for that?” Quinn asked, wondering if this was real or something the superstitious people who had their futures read at the yearly carnival believed in.

  “Día de los Muertos,” Benito said, and crossed himself.

  “What’s that mean?” Quinn asked and tried to pronounce it the best way she could. “Dee-oz dayla merde,” she said and they both laughed and scooted closer to each other.

  “It’s the Day of the Dead and the only night of the year my abuela sleeps in her bed.”

  “Where does she sleep if not in her bed?”

  “On the floor.”

  “But she’s an old woman. Why would she do that?” Quinn thought of Sigrid and her large bed covered in the finest linens.

  “When my grandfather died, she promised to never again sleep in their bed unless it was with him. That one night she believes he joins her and she cooks and sets out a plate of food for him, and washes his clothes and lays them out on the bed.”

  Quinn tried not to think about Benito’s story too much, for it made her remember her father, and Sigrid hardly even visited the cemetery to leave flowers on his grave.

  “Does her husband ever show up?” Quinn asked, but the image in her head was not one of old abuela waiting for her dead husband to join her, but rather of her father in the blue suit, his head resting on a satin pillow in the cherrywood coffin, propped up at Mitchell’s Funeral Home in town. His face had appeared waxen and bloated, he had looked nothing like himself.

  “It’s just something you do. The dead don’t show—I mean not really, but in spirit—it’s a matter of honoring them,” Benito said.

  Later, careful as to avoid curious eyes watch Quinn get out of Benito’s truck, they agreed on another day and time when they’d meet again. The following Sunday, after they walked the fields by the forest, Benito showed her how to pick grass with the widest and coarsest blade. He put it between his thumbs, pulled it taut, and pursed his lips and blew into it. Depending on how he cupped his hands, the sound changed. He said that the grass in his hometown grew higher than any grass he’d ever seen in Texas. Soon they began meeting after dark and with every passing day, with each stride she made toward him, she felt more in command of her own life. She felt like a girl walking toward her destiny, and geisha stories seemed silly and thoughtless and she imagined leaving Aurora with Benito to start a life someplace where no one knew them.

  —

  That night, with thoughts of a future together, Quinn forged ahead, mesmerized by the moon above. It offered a brilliance and silvery light that she had never seen before and even as she stumbled over dips in the ground, she continued to stare into the night sky. Some stars were rather dull, merely flickering into existence every now and then, but some were powerful enough to illuminate the night. She walked on, down the rural road, and at some point she cut across a field and ended up on the dirt path leading into the woods. When she entered, low-hanging branches tickled her cheek ever so slightly, making her jump.

  The woods seemed different that night, the surroundings suddenly unfamiliar. The trunks were slanted and the paths had all but vanished, the trees were higher than in the daylight and they were spreading toward something way beyond their reach, up into the night sky, almost touching the moon. There was talk about these woods. Always had been. The trees whispered, locals said; on certain nights you could make out voices and it was best to walk in the other direction and not turn around. Quinn knew that the cottonwood trees were abundant and the leaves were flattened sideways, conducive to a particular type of movement in the wind, and that was all there was to it, even though she had to admit when the wind picked up and rustled the leaves, the noise level seemed unnatural, even to her. When she finally reached their secret place, an oval clearing within the darkest part of the forest, she sat on a fallen tree and waited for her lover.

  “Mi corazón.” She felt the words more than heard them.

  They embraced and his wet hair tickled her cheek. His wrinkled shirt smelled of soap and some faint odor of food that was unfamiliar to her. Everybody in his family called him Benito. He was nineteen with a strong body from the hard labor of setting up fences and removing trees, stints at farms where they’d brand cattle and build barns. He had a broad face with a hooked nose and his skin was soft with barely a hair on his entire face.

  They spread a blanket on the forest floor and they became lovers. Quinn was a virgin but Benito wasn’t and he was gentle and whispered words in Spanish Quinn didn’t understand yet that sounded like a melody to her. Even though his hands were coarse and calloused, they felt soft as he took hold of her face, forcing their eyes to meet. A beautiful stillness descended upon them as they lay on the forest floor and even though he was not inside her yet, they were one. Their bodies were trembling and Quinn felt something take hold within her, some entity clinging to her as if she’d done this a million times. His mouth captured hers and he kissed her slowly as he moved with her. Her chest rose as she drew in a breath and held it while his body shifted. She felt a tinge of pain and cried out. Benito stopped moving. Finally Quinn let out the breath she’d held in and then she slowly drew in another. Everything she’d ever believed this to be was a mistake, this was not crude and vulgar, there wasn’t any power over Benito, not like Sigrid and Cadillac Man, but the power was within her, and pouring out of her into him. It was like the lunar eclipse she had watched with her father years ago, an event so momentous that every time she thought of it, she felt as if she was reliving it. That’s how this moment would feel to her for all eternity.

  Benito reached out and touched her, running his fingers over her flushed cheeks. He drew her into a hug, then covered her face with kisses. El Dorado was real, a golden city, he told her, the land of a king who was covered with gilded dust so thick he seemed to be made of solid gold. Quinn wasn’t sure if it was a legend or if a scrap of truth rested beneath his words but she didn’t care. She thought of Benito as a prince who would soon become a man and then rule some sort of kingdom. And she’d be his queen.

  “I have to go,” Benito said. “I have to work with my uncle early in the morning.”

  “Come see me after school on Monday? At the hardware store?”

  “Yes, mi corazón, I’ll try but it’s a big job. A deck. It will take all weekend and maybe all of Monday. I’ll wait for you Tuesday, maybe Wednesday,” he said and held out his hand to help her up. “Let me drive you home.”

  “I’ll leave in a bit. I want to see the sun come up.”

  He bent down to kiss her and Quinn watched him disappear between the cottonwood trees. She heard a faint sound of a car door opening, then slamming shut, followed by the revving engine. Quinn imagined Benito skillfully maneuvering across the potholed dirt road.

  She propped her arms behind her head and stared at the night sky. The wind had died down and as she lay under the stars, she still felt Benito’s soft breath and his heartbeat. She was nothing like Sigrid, and whatever wiles were, they didn’t apply to boys like Benito. She was too much in her heart and not at all in her head, so whatever advice Sigrid had given her was no longer relevant, maybe never had had any significance at all. Forever she wanted to remember the moment she became Benito’s lover. Quinn closed
her eyes and drifted off into an inky darkness.

  She awoke to a gunshot sounding in the distance. Quinn opened her eyes, but only for a second, and when all remained silent she drifted back to sleep, thinking she could have been mistaken.

  The last image she’d remember later was the moon looming overhead with a sharp point, almost like a hunter’s horn.

  Seven

  DAHLIA

  AFTER leaving the Barrington for the last time, I rack my mind, wondering what the next step down from hotel housekeeper is going to be. On my mother’s street, I find her house sitting quietly without a sign of life. The glaring and lonely porch light illuminates the impeccably clean front porch. I can’t make out a single cricket in the harsh light of the bare bulb.

  When I cross the threshold, beneath my feet something crackles as if I am stepping on a cracker or a piece of popcorn. I take another step and again I hear a crunching sound. Another step, another crunch. I swipe the light switch upward. Arranged two inches apart like cookie dough on a sheet pan is a carpet of cricket carcasses.

  “Mom?” I call out, but there’s no answer.

  The back door gapes open, leaving a hole big enough to swallow a body. After I check the house and search for a note haphazardly left atop newspapers and magazines, I step out into the backyard. The fence gate is wide open.

  My mother’s neighborhood sits in rows of identical houses, all bungalows, no basements, small upper windows above narrow porches and square bays. The only differences are the conditions of the lawns and an occasional hanging basket, but mostly the houses are uniform. I call out her name every so often and I tell myself that she went for a walk and forgot to shut the back door. And the gate. And forgot to leave a note.