Samantha slept inside the room, curled up under her favorite blanket in a fold-up crib that housekeeping put away every afternoon. The evening chill would be baked away soon, but for the moment wisps of freezer air whispered to the Joshua trees and nudged the tumbleweeds forward. Yesterday morning she and Samantha had walked the spa’s hiking trail (“difficulty: low”), following it to the opening of a scrub canyon, where Samantha climbed up a small sandstone rock shaped like the belly of a very pregnant woman. Oh, to have brought a camera to capture my little mountaineer! The hours here passed with few thoughts of shouting men or broken tables. A mother and daughter on their own had a mellow symmetry, and since arriving at this oasis Samantha had not had a single tantrum: obviously this girl needed more time alone with her mother; she relished not having to compete for attention with two older boys. Maureen herself felt replenished. There was an essence of herself that she had neglected, a part of her soul that was attached to this dry, austere, and harsh place. A California equivalent to the Missouri grasslands, to the places where her homesteader ancestors stood on the blank slate of the land. I am a woman of open spaces. The only male presence in her getaway was the kneading hands of a man named Philip, who applied oils scented with sage and chamomile to her skin, and who left only the few, forbidden centers of her body untouched. Now I know all the things I haven’t allowed myself to feel for years.
The plan had been to return home Monday morning, to face Scott again and perhaps to forgive him. Perhaps. But then the good people at the front desk had mentioned their Monday discount. She would have just enough of the emergency cash left to stay one more night and take one more session on that table.
On Saturday night, Araceli put the boys to bed with none of the drama and screaming of the night before. They had spent the afternoon in various illicit pursuits, chief among them an hour-l ong gun battle with plastic pistols that fired foam bullets, the boys laughing as the projectiles bounced harmlessly off the furniture and their bodies. Araceli had forced the boys to clean up the house, and they had simply acquiesced when she declared, “Ya es tarde, time for sleep.” Once they were in bed, she pulled back the blankets to cover them, in imitation of the mothers she had seen in movies, because she couldn’t remember her own mother doing such a thing. These boys seemed to appreciate and need the gesture, and Araceli even touched Brandon on the forehead when she noticed the tears welling in his eyes.
“Do you think Mom and Dad will ever come back, Araceli?” he asked.
“No te preocupes. Your mommy will be back soon. And Araceli is taking care of you now.” Araceli spoke these words more soothingly than any she had ever addressed to these boys, or to any other children, and she felt a sudden and unexpected welling of altruism coursing through her veins, a drug that straightened your back and made you feel taller. What else can you tell two lost boys but that you will take care of them? “Araceli will take care of you,” she repeated. “I will sleep here, on the floor, again. ¿Está bien? A little later. After I wash the dishes.”
Araceli pulled herself from the hallway floor just outside the door of the Room of a Thousand Wonders the next morning with the boys still sleeping. They were sweating inside their brightly colored pajamas, shirts and pants with superheroes imprinted on them, men of rippling muscles in various flying poses whose courage offered protection against such evil threats as temporary parental abandonment. Their wet hair was matted against their foreheads, strands clinging to beads of perspiration. Keenan was curled up in a fetal position, clutching a pillow and a stuffed lion between his arms. If I am still taking care of them tonight, I will tell them to go to bed in shorts.
She wandered through the house again, quickly peeking into the garage to see if Maureen’s or Scott’s car was there, and then to the living room and the gallery of faces inside teak and cherrywood on the bookshelves. These pictures, Araceli realized, were the only clues that could untangle this family mess. The portraits of the grandfather, el viejo Torres, called