Two
IT RAINED THE DAY LORETTA and José were buried. The sky the day before had gradually become streaked with white, and in the night the wind had stopped and the clouds had become thick and heavy and had banked up against the mountains. At dawn the day of the burial, rain had begun to fall lightly. A gift to his pastures, Flavio had thought. But by mid-morning the clouds had fallen to the base of the hills in shrouds, and the air had become water.
Loretta and José lay in their caskets in the mud at the edges of the two graves that had been dug side by side the previous day, when the earth had been hard and dry. Now the sound of the rain on the wood was so loud that Ramona had trouble making out the words of the priest. He spoke with his head bent, which made it worse, and it seemed to her as if he were mumbling on purpose.
The road leading up the hill to the cemetery was so slick that before leaving the church, they removed Loretta and José from the back of Father Leonardo’s station wagon and placed them in the bed of Flavio’s truck, where the pine boxes slid and bounced into each other on the ride up. One last time, Ramona thought. At the cemetery the footing was so treacherous that when they unloaded José from the back of the pickup, one of the pallbearers slipped and the casket fell on his foot. The man, a Friday-night compadre of José’s of whom Loretta had never approved, remained to help carry both coffins to the edge of each grave and then limped painfully down the hill and got into his car and sat drinking whiskey by himself, watching how the rain fell. The mourners who remained huddled loosely together, not daring to lower the caskets into the holes for fear that the wet wood might slip on the rope, and who knew what would happen then?
Ramona stood in the mud and felt the rain fall upon her bare head and run down the back of her neck. The black dress she wore hung flatly from her hips, the wet fabric pressing against her thighs. Her boots were caked with adobe that had splattered to the hem of her dress. She wrapped her arms around her chest and hunched her shoulders and felt a chill run through her body.
It had been just two days since Ramona’s brother and her brother’s wife had died. Ramona had been washing paintbrushes at her kitchen sink and looking out the small, twisted window at how high the weeds had grown under the cottonwoods when she saw the ambulance pull out quickly from the village office. She wondered who had fallen dead from a bad heart. It wasn’t until an hour later that Flavio’s wife, Martha, called and said, “Your brother, José, is dead, and so is Loretta.”
Since the death of her father, Ramona had made it a practice never to attend funerals. This had been fine when she lived elsewhere, but since her return to Guadalupe, it seemed as if someone were always dying, and if she hadn’t known the deceased, she had known their first cousin or their in-laws or some other relative. The act of ignoring funerals, not to mention marriages, baptisms, and church gatherings, had gradually made people feel as if Ramona Montoya were someone who had moved into their midst from the outside. This was a constant embarrassment to Flavio, who thought it his duty to say good-bye to all of Guadalupe’s dead regardless of how much he disliked them. Once, when Flavio had reprimanded Ramona for not observing community protocol, she had stared at him in stony silence until he left, leaving her alone in the house that had been their grandparents’. He never broached the subject again with his sister, and now a part of him was astonished that she had actually attended the burial of their brother.
Few people had come to the cemetery, and those who had stood about as miserably as Ramona. No one had thought to bring an umbrella. In fact, no one in Guadalupe owned an umbrella. When it rained, you stayed inside. No one was foolish enough to go outside and stand in it.
Father Leonardo finished speaking and laid his hands on the lids of both coffins. He raised his head and smiled and asked if anyone wished to speak. Flavio raised his hand slowly as if he were still in school, and when the priest nodded, he said, “My brother would not want us to catch pneumonia.” After he spoke, Flavio thought that he really didn’t know what his brother would have wanted, and in all honesty, if anyone were foolish enough to stand stupidly in the rain, it possibly would have been José.
Father Leonardo nodded and said, “Es verdad, Flavio.” He stretched out his arms and blessed the small gathering one last time and then turned and walked away quickly. Ramona followed the line of people, and after a few steps, she took a moment to glance over her shoulder at where the coffins sat. She felt her body turn to ice. She felt as if her heart had stopped and there was no more breath in her body. Loretta was sitting up in her casket, her blouse wet and molded to her breasts. Her head was cocked a little bit, and she was running her fingers through her hair, threading out the rain.
“It is not a very good day to be buried, Ramona,” she said. “In the mud. I hate the mud. How your brother would track it through the house like he was blind. Always making a mess.” Loretta shook her head, and Ramona could see drops of water fly from her black hair.
“Loretta,” Ramona said.
“Ramona,” Loretta said, “I have something to ask of you.”
“Loretta,” Ramona said again, although she wasn’t sure she spoke aloud.
Loretta dropped her hands down to where her lap would be. She leaned her body toward Ramona. “Ramona,” she said, “I want you to take little José. I don’t want him to be with my family. And I don’t want him to be with Flavio and Martha. I want you to take him, Ramona. Do this for me.”
“Loretta,” Ramona said again, “You shouldn’t be talking to me.”
Loretta smiled, and Ramona could see her youth. “What should I be doing, Ramona?”
Behind Ramona, Flavio had climbed into his truck. He rubbed his hands together, thinking no one should feel this cold in August. He looked out the windshield at his sister. She was turned away from him so that all he could see was the back of her body. He could see her head move slightly every so often, and he wondered what she was doing still standing in the rain. He turned the key in the ignition and flipped on the heater switch. He wished Ramona would hurry so he could get home and drink a cup of coffee and smoke some cigarettes.
Ramona did not know what to say to Loretta. She could hear the engine of Flavio’s truck turn and then start. She thought that this conversation with her sister-in-law had gone on long enough. “I must go,” she said.
“Promise me,” Loretta said, still with a smile.
“I’m not a young woman,” Ramona said. The ice that had gripped her body had receded, but now she could feel the dampness of her clothes against her skin, a warm feeling in her head like a fever. Even the thought of a seven-year-old boy made her feel like there was no blood in her body.
Loretta waved her hand gently at her and shook her head. “I don’t want to sit in the rain forever, Ramona.” And when Ramona didn’t answer, Loretta said, “Thank you.” She lay back down in her casket, letting her body fall softly.
“Loretta,” Ramona whispered.
Loretta raised her head above the edge of the pine box. “Yes, Ramona.”
“I don’t understand any of this.”
Loretta made a slight shrugging motion. “How could you, Ramona?” she said. “You will get sick standing in the rain.”
Ramona and Flavio drove from the cemetery in silence, not speaking even when the truck slid out of the ruts going down the steep hill and Flavio had to take his foot off the brake and pray the vehicle would pull back. When they made it safely to the highway, Flavio breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at his sister. Ramona was staring out her side window, watching the rain run like a small creek down the side of the road. Flavio looked back out the windshield. He wondered how he could have a sister so different from himself. Between them, even “good morning” seemed difficult. He thought of his brother and Loretta and then of how he would have to go to their trailer soon and board up the windows and shut off the gas and empty the refrigerator before things began to spoil. The idea of cleaning out the food from his