Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,13

in America, she reminds the disapproving Sam in her head, where you put your oxygen mask on first.

But either way, the plane is going to crash. So why not tender a little kindness before she, too, is a body in a ditch on the side of the road, availing herself of whatever afterlife will be afforded in somebody else’s head, if that? Unlike Sam, who can enjoy his afterlife romping through her head, Antonia will not have Sam to keep her alive in his imagination.

On the ride back to Roger’s with Mario, Antonia sees the sheriff’s car in her rearview. Very calmly, as if she were speaking to a highly sensitive person, Antonia tells Mario la policía is behind them. He is to slide down in his seat. Clear the window. Mario does as he is told. She turns on her blinker to go into Roger’s driveway, the cautious widow making a breakfast purchase at the honor store. The cruiser goes by, someone is riding with the sheriff, someone with disarmingly blonde, shoulder-length hair. The sheriff does not wave or look over her way.

Antonia calls Izzy purportedly to report on her plans for her birthday. Mostly, she wants to gauge her sister’s state of mind for herself. Too often in their family, things are blown out of proportion. Was it growing up in a dictatorship that skewed their temperaments toward doom and gloom?

Izzy is full of news about her own plans. You know that Latino arts center I told you about? I found the perfect place. Western Mass! It’ll be a way of importing diversity into that part of the state, a model to be copied throughout other white-bread areas of the country. Instead of migrant workers on farms, a cultural takeover: migrant poets, dancers, and artists. Would Antonia agree to be on the board, convince some of her writer friends to join?

Izzy, honey, how are you going to pay for all this?

We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it, Izzy proclaims. (Precisely what she would do, Antonia thinks.) For starters, maybe Antonia’s publisher is interested in putting together an anthology of their stories, profits to go to—

Antonia cuts her off. Izzy, honey, I haven’t been in touch with my publisher forever. I’m really not up to it right now.

It’d be a way for you to get back in the saddle, Izzy says in her older-sister voice. Anyhow, think about it, okay? Izzy’s actually headed to Western Mass now. Would Antonia like to join her for her birthday?

I’m going to Tilly’s, Antonia’s decision is now definite. I just bought my ticket. A little white lie. Antonia has a stash of them locked away in that closet of half-truths she has told the sisters over the years to avoid their disappointment, ire, or worse.

But I heard you didn’t want to go anywhere for your birthday. What made you change your mind?

Oh, I don’t know, Antonia hedges. It might be nice to get away. Chicago is a few weeks ahead of Vermont in spring weather. As if her whole reason for going to Tilly’s is to check in on her sister’s daffodils.

Well, whatever, I think it’s a great idea, Izzy opines. Antonia is always impressed by other people’s certainties—she often has to borrow from their assurances to make up her own mind. Along with their checkbook, decision-making was another area of their lives she ceded to Sam. He never second-guessed himself, never fished any of his cast-off bread back out of the waters. A good cop with no self-doubt. Was that a good thing for a cop? One of these days, she had cautioned herself, Sam would leave her, tired of her questions, of her intense need to get not just the words but the world right.

One of these days is here. Sam has left her, but not in the way she had feared.

Don’t be so sure he isn’t getting something out of it, her therapist had said, shaking her head, full of her own certainties. Have you ever asked yourself why he married you? Here’s a thought, the therapist had offered, as if setting a piece of merchandise down on the counter for Antonia to consider buying. Maybe you are the one carrying the doubts in the relationship? Maybe your husband needs the balance of a highly sensitive wife? Maybe Sam isn’t all that sure himself where Burkina Faso lies?

three

Rules of the sisterhood

Her sister is waiting at baggage claim. Antoni-AH! Tilly shouts, making a point of calling Antonia by the