Mission Road Page 0,85

every day I talked to Ana DeLeon, until eventually I got up my nerve to ask her advice about a problem.

CHRISTMAS EVENING, I PUT TISH HINOJOSA'S "Arbolito" on the stereo.

The Southtown house smelled like homemade tamales - a gift from some of our neighbors. I hadn't had the heart to tell them I could no longer tolerate the smell of steamed venison and masa without thinking of Guy White.

Mrs. Loomis, miracle worker that she was, had decorated the house, bought a ten-foot Scotch pine for the living room, and cooked us all turkey dinner.

Sam still had a bandaged ear, but otherwise he seemed in a good mood. He and I had decorated the tree. We'd made ojos de dios out of string and Popsicle sticks to keep away evil spirits. I got a bunch of small frames and helped Sam make ornaments with pictures of his relatives. We made one for Ralph, which Sam seemed happy to add to his collection.

Santa Claus brought Robert Johnson a new scratching post, which he sniffed disdainfully. Then he jumped under the wrapping paper and got crazy eyes.

Sam got a bigger-caliber water gun. Mrs. Loomis got a raise and a new set of kitchen knives, since she couldn't stand to keep the cleaver she'd used on Titus Roe. She protested that I couldn't afford either luxury.

"Don't worry about it," I said, and tried to smile confidently.

I told Maia not to open her present yet.

She gave me a funny look, but set the poorly wrapped shoebox aside.

"After dinner," I said, and gestured with my eyes toward the front porch.

WE LEFT MRS. LOOMIS AND SAM in the living room, drinking spiked eggnog and getting sentimental about Nat King Cole.

Maia, the party pooper, was nursing a mug of herbal tea.

She leaned against the porch rail. "Thirty years in America, and I still don't get Christmas."

"You decorate a tree," I said. "Spend a month shopping for crap nobody wants. Pretend there's a fat guy in red velvet who flies around the world. What's to get?"

"Thanks for clearing it up."

Maia's unopened present sat next to me on the rail. I tried to get up my nerve to say what I needed to say. "Hey, uh, Maia . . ."

She looked at me hesitantly.

". . . I know you're pregnant."

Her eyes were amber, beautiful and immensely sad.

An electric current arced through my chest.

She folded her hands around her tea mug, looked out at South Alamo Street. In the window seat of the cafe across the street, an old couple was having dinner, dressed in their church best. They must've been eighty-something. They were holding hands.

"How'd you figure it out?" she asked.

"The night at the Whites' party, you mentioned your mom. I kept thinking about that. And the way you'd been acting. Besides, I'm a detective."

"I'm sorry." Her eyes were glistening. "I'm really messed up about it."

I felt like I'd been ripped out of my own life and placed in someone else's. I was used to solving family problems for other people. I was used to custody battles, adoptions gone wrong, unfit parents, delinquent kids - all the horrors of parenthood from the outside.

This . . . this was like reading through a mirror. Everything felt backward.

I wondered if Ralph had felt this way when he learned he was going to be a father. I realized I'd never be able to ask him.

Suddenly, the morphine wore off. My best friend was dead. I'd spent the last two years of his life trying to push him away.

You want to understand somebody, Ralph had once told me, look at what he's willing to give up.

I steadied myself against the porch rail.

"Tres?" Maia asked.

"I'm all right."

She studied my face, knowing damn well I wasn't all right.

Across the street, the older couple toasted each other with glasses of champagne. Nat King Cole kept singing from the living room.

"I want this baby," Maia told me. "But it's dangerous."

"Better health care," I managed. "The doctors are good."

"No. There's something else. My brother."

"You don't have any siblings."

"Present tense, that's true. But . . . I did. An older brother. He died at age ten. He never saw a doctor. We couldn't get good treatment because of who my family was - warlords, landowners, traitors. We didn't even know what was wrong with him. He was frail, clumsy. He broke bones a lot. Finally his body just . . . quit on him. Since then, since I came to America, I've figured out what he had."

I was silent for