Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,33

for example, that Spanish had of referring to giving birth: dar a luz, “give to the light.” That intense need to get the words right.

But even the beauties of language, of words rightly chosen, are riddled with who we are, class and race, and whatever else will keep us—so we think—safe on the narrow path.

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Who is the most important one?

Strange dreams, but then, aren’t they all? The mishmash of facts, the time travel, the faces shifting into each other. A taste of the afterlife?

In tonight’s dream, Antonia is about to give birth. A surprise since she has never been pregnant, not to mention she is definitely postmenopausal. Of such stuff are dreams made. Sam, however, is not surprised. He is driving her to the hospital. As they climb up the snowy pass, he loses control of the car; they plunge over the side of the mountain, but then, miraculously, the car comes to an abrupt stop, held back by a row of trees.

You stay here, Sam orders, self-assured even in her dreams. I’ll go get help. Be right back.

Hours go by. Then, somehow (the beloved adverb of dreams) Antonia is at a police station reporting Samuel Sawyer as a missing person and almost immediately the scene changes and she is at the hospital again, in labor. A nurse is at the door, saying Knock-knock, instead of knocking.

Están tocando la puerta, a voice whispers urgently.

Antonia stirs awake. A big-bellied, frightened girl bends over her. The real-time story coheres: homeless Estela, her fatherless child, the talk with Mario this morning, Mona waiting for her in Massachusetts, Tilly on her way—the to-do list of the day ahead.

?Quién es? she asks Estela, as if the girl would know anyone in Vermont besides Mario, José, and el patrón next door.

No sé, Estela answers, glancing around the room, looking for a place to hide.

The knocking persists. Who could it be at her door this early in the morning? Antonia checks her alarm clock to corroborate the exact hour of her grievance. Eight already! She must have overslept. She scrambles out of bed, hoping it’s not Mario. He knows better than to stand conspicuously at the front door in view of the road. More likely he’d come around and knock on a back window now that he knows the layout of the house.

Antonia throws on one of Sam’s old work shirts over her nightgown. Estela is to go back to her room—Antonia’s already calling it “your room.” Close the door. No salgas por ninguna razón. Here she is whispering in her own house.

The girl dashes off, amazing how deft she is with that big belly. But then, Antonia reminds herself, Estela also crossed a desert with that belly. How could the coyote have agreed to take her on? He must have already known he’d be robbing the group, abandoning them in the middle of nowhere.

Some people must never ask themselves, What is the right thing to do? Or if they do, they phrase the question differently: What is the right thing to do that will guarantee I am the one in command, the one you fear, the one who gets to answer the three questions?

As she approaches the entryway, Antonia cannot make out the face through the frosted panel alongside the door—a looming shadow, someone tall, confident, with a persistent, declarative knock. Sam? she almost asks.

Who is it? she calls out before looking through the peephole.

Sheriff Boyer.

Her heart sinks. Has he come to search her house? Can he do that? Wouldn’t he need a warrant? She opens the door a crack, playing it up: a woman intruded upon, a woman who just woke up, clutching the work shirt closed, running her hand through her loose hair, so the man feels awkward, invading an intimate female space. I overslept, just woke up. How can I help you, Sheriff?

Sorry about that, ma’am. He touches his hat, furtively checking her out, the bit of nightgown showing under the shirt, his eye lingering just a hair’s breadth of a moment at her neckline; she is not yet so old that the uniformed man only a few years younger than she wouldn’t still notice the dip of cleavage, the suggestive roundness. Her hand flies to her neck, another performed gesture of modesty.

You okay? he asks, no clue yet as to why he is here in the first place.

I’m okay. I mean—does she play up that she is recently widowed? The grief card, someone described it in a grieving chatroom Antonia hit upon.