Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,48

parking lot at Shaw’s at lunch. It’s like a big open secret: the county is flooded with undocumented workers doing everything from milking to cooking tasty lunches: enchiladas, tacos, chili con carne, refried beans, you say how hot you want them.

Love her cooking, the sheriff smacks his lips to prove it. Hey, can he interest Antonia in some takeout this evening?

Could the man be serious? It’s not yet a year after losing Sam. When is the right time to ask a widow on a date? But even if it had been years, let’s face it, she has zero interest in Sheriff Boyer. Why postpone a permanent no?

Because in Izzy’s universe and Sam’s, the universe Antonia wants to live in, there’s always room for one more. And maybe Sheriff Boyer’s just being a good neighbor. Or maybe the man himself is needing to find something or someone to help him plug the hole in his own heart? He is in his late fifties, she guesses, living with his mother, divorced, perhaps with scattered or estranged children.

Antonia hesitates, a hair’s-breadth pause that always gets her in trouble—it used to with Sam, now with Mario, Estela, always with Izzy. Maybe some other time, Antonia says, her voice lifting like her female students. I just got back, a bunch of calls . . .

Okay then, no takeout tonight. But he’d still like to swing by. Something he needs to talk to her about. Of a personal nature.

Antonia’s skin prickles. She has developed an allergy to surprises of a personal nature. Any hint what it’s about?

It should take up only a few minutes of your time, he answers with a nonanswer.

A few minutes of her time. All it would take. Three llamas. Eighty-three orchids. In a matter of months, Mami’s orchids had died in their hanging gourd planters from overwatering or neglect. An omen, Izzy pronounced, heartbroken, that Mami would die before her eighty-third year was over. And that time, Izzy had been right.

While Antonia awaits the sheriff, she puts in a call next door. Mario, how are things?

Bien.

?Y Estela? ?Cómo está? ?Bien?

Sí.

Curt, one-word answers. The do?itas have gone out of his voice. The same frustrating generic summaries that Sam would always give her instead of newsy reports. As for putting on Estela, she’s not there, next door cleaning for el patrón. With that huge belly, days from giving birth? Better not chide the disgruntled boyfriend and get on his bad side. Antonia is still hoping for a lovers’ reconciliation. Too many years of teaching Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet. It gets in your blood.

Can you tell her I called? An abrupt sí. Antonia wonders if Mario will convey the message at all. She better look in on Estela herself after the sheriff’s visit.

She also needs to call Beth Trotter and let her know. On the drive home from Athol, Antonia had a lot of “recalculating” time. With whatever long process Izzy’s care will involve, Antonia is going to have to recuse herself from taking in a minor with a baby and no papers. She cannot abide in the wide open spaces her sister inhabits. Antonia had hoped that with time she could shed those smaller selves—what therapy was supposed to help with, so she thought. Instead, it looks like she’s going to have to learn to live with the disappointment of not being as grand as she would like to be. If I try to be like you, who will be like me? her former therapist had quoted every time Antonia got down on herself, one of a repertoire of Yiddish sayings her therapist’s grandmother had quoted to her as a child. There was also one about Abraham at Heaven’s gate, but that one is foggier in Antonia’s mind. She always messes up God’s punch line.

* * *

Sheriff Boyer is in obvious discomfort. Instead of touching his hat in salute, he takes it off, a cue that he wants to be asked in.

Come in, Antonia says, already cautioning herself not to invite him as far as her living room. A few minutes of her time, that’s all he’s going to get.

Sorry to bother you, he mutters, looking at his feet. That spot where inchoate males often look to for coaching on what to say. For a big man with a gun in a holster and a star on his chest to be so tied up in knots is surprising and somehow endearing.

Antonia has no inkling what he wants—rare when other people’s lines