For weeks now she had felt the chilling fear a mother feels at the possibility of losing her child. Somewhere in the world she had just left, her thirteenth child was slipping away—not from her sight, for she knew he lay silent and pale in a hospital bed. He was slipping steadily away from her senses. She could no longer feel the life-current of him. She could no longer speak to him in the wordless ways that they had shared for almost fifty years. As the force of life weakened in him, so did his ties to the world of matter and thought. There was very little time left, she knew. His heart had failed, his body was dying, and the doctors were poised to give up the fight. What else could she do but journey into this timeless place where his presence had gone, and seek him out? She would find her youngest son, the soul of her soul, and she would bring him home.
Beyond her fragile form there stretched a vast landscape of sand and rock and all manner of lifeless things. There was no color, save for billowing clouds of slate blue that swarmed above her soundlessly. Lightning seared the depthless heavens, blinding her in jagged rhythms . . . but this storm was made of dreams. This was a storm born of feeling and wonder, and such things would not slow her progress.
Sarita continued on, the sound of her breath echoing into the silence. Her pulse quickened and her chest heaved, as if her exertions were real. Perhaps they were. She had never attempted such a journey before. She had not known what to expect, or what cost her body would have to pay. As she walked on, she willed herself to relax. She would not succumb to fear. She was old; it was true. She had recently celebrated her ninety-second birthday, but she was not ready to leave the world of matter and meaning. She was not ready, and therefore he was not ready. Her son would not be permitted to die while she still had the strength to fight for him. She took a quick breath and allowed a smile to wash the strain from her features. Yes, she had the strength. In this peculiar space between here and there, her love would triumph. Encouraged, she set her bag down for a moment and straightened her shoulders, gathering the ends of her shawl in a loose knot at her neck. She was wearing a nightgown made of thin cotton. The windless cold seeped through it easily, chilling her flesh. No matter, she thought. There was no turning back now. Her senses might fail to recognize him, but her heart would not. Scanning the landscape once more, she picked up the heavy bag with the other hand and resolutely shuffled on.
It was a nylon shopping bag, the kind that she would have taken to market in those cool early mornings in Guadalajara, during the days just before her youngest had been born. It showed a portrait of the Virgin on the outside, printed in bright colors, and within it were many items blessed by her own prayers and intent. She gave the bag a gentle shake, as if to reassure herself of her mission, and thought of those days so long ago, just before the birth of her thirteenth child, when all of life seemed reassuring. It had been a sweet time: she was forty-three, still beautiful, and wedded to a handsome young man to whom she had already given three sons. He had married her right out of school, in spite of her age and her nine children by a previous marriage. He had married her against the wishes of his family. He had married her, some said, because she worked her wicked magic on him. Well, there would always be those who were skeptical. They had married out of love, pure and simple. From love, four healthy sons were born.
The old woman slowed her pace, then stopped. The storm still flashed and billowed around her, but its eerie silence was gone. Now, beyond the muffled sounds of her breathing, there was something else in the air. Where there should have been thunder, there was now music, building in the distance like a growling wind. He must be near, she thought. She stood where she was, listening, until it became clear that a particular song was playing, rising from the horizon to meet the sky’s fury. It was music she recognized from a time long ago. She could hear her son singing to music like this as a boy, his little fingers moving along the strings of an imaginary guitar while he mouthed senseless syllables and shook his whole body to the rhythm of it, just as he had seen his older brothers do. What had he called this sound? What . . . ? Oh, yes.
“It’s rock-and-roll, Mamá!” she remembered him shouting. “The music of life!”
Yes, a rock-and-roll song was playing in his head even now. That was the sound that raced along the lightning bolts in this blackening sky and whipped like cyclone winds through her gray hair, even when everything around her was still. Her senses had not failed her. She could feel his mind now, and hear his immense and eternal heart reverberating with joy. He was close.
Setting down the shopping bag again, she wrapped her woven shawl more tightly around her. She was dressed for bed, wearing what she’d had on when everyone had arrived at the house to join her in ceremony. In some distant corner of her consciousness, she could hear those guests, too—her children, her grandchildren, her students, and her friends. They had come at her request—for the obvious reason that no child or grandchild, no apprentice or assistant, ever refused Mother Sarita. They had come in quiet resignation—bringing gourds and drums, lighting candles, and burning sage. They had come to sing, to pray, to plead. They had come to bring him back, the thirteenth son of a woman who could not be ignored. They had come as the ancestors would come, to do the job of spiritual warriors.
On this night, with so much at stake, Sarita had been transported from the circle of the faithful in her living room to a world that existed only in imagination. She had trespassed into the mind of another. She was willing to pay the price for that at some other time, but for now she must keep going. For now she must walk without apology into her son’s dream, and she must bring him back—dragging him by an insolent ear, if she had to. Certainly, she had done it many times before.
She shook her head as she remembered the child he once had been. She remembered those black eyes full of humor and mischief, and the little hands that had reached for her face with love when she was tired or touched by sadness. There was nothing—not even death—that would keep her from him. There was no logic that could undo her need for him, not even his logic. In her ninety-two years, Sarita had experienced all the joys and sorrows of being thirteen times a mother. She had survived the deaths of two of her children before this. She had lost husbands, sisters, brothers—but there was enough life in her still to fight one last time for what she loved. Picking up the bag again, she shook a little ethereal dust from the image of the Virgin Guadalupe and searched the landscape. She sniffed the air for some other sign, hesitated, and then turned around. Something had caught her attention, something that could not yet be seen. She would change course. She must follow her intuition—and the music.
The music grew louder with every painstaking step she took. It seemed to vibrate from ground and sky at once, pulsing to a loud beat . . . perhaps to the beat of the drums in her living room. She thanked God silently for obedient children and continued walking, her feet moving heavily through a thick spray of illuminated dust. Beyond the near horizon, she could see Earth rising over the rim of this vacant dream, blazing with a spirited light. She caught her breath. In the darkening sky of storm and shimmering heat, she could see something silhouetted against Earth’s brilliance. A tree loomed in the distance! Its heavy limbs seemed to undulate with erotic pleasure, causing green leaves to quiver and shine. Sarita marveled at the sight of something so full and fertile in a land of such vast emptiness.
Miguel . . . she whispered. In any dream where there was color and life, there would be her son. He used to say that fun followed him everywhere. Well, this was fun. This was magic. Wherever he was, there would be a celebration—of that she was certain. She walked on toward the tree, the music growing louder. The walk might have taken a lifetime, or a minute, or no time at all. She was aware only that her heart was beating to a lively tune while she walked. She must have come a long way, whatever the time, for the massive tree spread before her now—tall, wide, and graceful. Its limbs stretched in all directions, as if beckoning the universe into a huge, benevolent embrace. Sarita hesitated by a root that jutted out of star-silt, and peered up into what looked like a galaxy of suspended fruit twinkling in the unworldly light. As she gazed in wonder, her eyes fell on the one she had come to find. On the lowest limb of the gigantic tree, almost hidden among the dancing shadows and the thousand sparkling leaves, sat her son.
Miguel Ruiz was lounging against the trunk of the tree in his hospital gown, quietly munching on an apple. Seeing her now, his eyes