The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,30

of him as he sat at the kitchen table.

Gil took a bite of posole, the steaming hominy, pork, and onions almost burning his mouth. He took a bite of a tortilla to cool his mouth and a sip of milk.

He looked around the kitchen. He had painted the top half of the walls last year, and the paint still looked good where it met the pattern of black and blue Mexican tiles starting about halfway down. You could tell that the tiles weren’t real only if you touched them. During the Depression, his grandmother had spent three months painting those tiles on the walls. His family had been fairly well off during the Depression but still hadn’t been able to afford real tiles. He had touched up a little of her work where it had become faded.

Gil studied a picture on the kitchen wall above the tile. It was a photo of his parents, taken before they had even started dating. His mother had been voted the 1966 Santa Fe Fiesta Queen. The same year, his father had been elected to play Don Diego de Vargas, the man who had reconquered Santa Fe after the Pueblo Revolt in 1680. Together they had gone to schools and retirement homes to talk about the history of Santa Fe while dressed in the costumes of La Reina and the conquistador general. During the fiesta every August, they reenacted de Vargas’s conquering of Santa Fe.

They also had posed for a formal picture together. It had been a black-and-white photo, but the photographer had colored in by hand the red rose in his mother’s black hair and the yellow of his dad’s conquistador shirt. The photographer had said to them, “You look like you are posing for your wedding photo.” That’s how it had started. Six months later, the photographer was taking pictures at their wedding.

His mother ladled another spoonful of posole into his bowl without asking him if he wanted more, then started doing the dishes.

“Mom, come sit down. I’ll help you with those later,” he said, pulling out the chair next to him for her.

“When I’m done washing the dishes, then I’ll sit down.” But she was never done. Next she would sweep the floor. Then start on the cookies for Therese’s school bake sale next week. That was the way it had been since he was a kid. She never rested.

“Did you check your blood sugar today?” he asked. She didn’t answer. “Mom, you have to check it every day so the doctor can keep track of it.” She still said nothing. She thought it wasn’t proper to talk about medical conditions, especially her diabetes.

Gil sighed and ate another spoonful of posole.

“Mom, do you know a woman from town named Maxine Baca? I think her maiden name was Gonzales.” His mom and Mrs. Baca were about the same age and he thought they might have gone to school together.

His mom didn’t answer for a few seconds, then said, “I don’t think so. Is she part of your work?” She always tried to bring his job into the conversation as some sort of penance because she disapproved of it, even though she would never have said so.

“Yeah, she lost her daughter today,” he said as he pulled off a piece of tortilla.

“I’ll add her name to my prayer list,” she said. Gil’s father was at the top of her prayer list and his mother’s parents were second and third. Her grandparents were fourth and fifth. Gil and Elena were next. It was strange how his mother prayed for the dead before praying for the living. When Gil and Elena were kids, they used to fight about which one of them was first on the list of the live people.

“Hito,” his mother was saying, “I need a new candle for your father. I want to get one so I can get it blessed by Father Jerome at the cathedral.” His mother didn’t drive, so his aunts took her to the grocery store, the hairdresser, and once a week to the cathedral in Santa Fe for prayers.

“Okay, Mom. I’ll get Susan to pick one up for you.” His mother would light the candle every night as she said her rosary in front of the family shrine in the living room.

“You know, hito, I think one of your cousins married a Baca,” she said as she scrubbed a heavy cast-iron pan. By “cousin” she probably meant a third or fourth cousin. He didn’t ask more about