Time has become strange: too swift, then gummy. She marvels at how much she used to accomplish in a day: all those hours at work, the grocery shopping, paying bills, cooking, sometimes even getting her nails done. Yolanda examines the chipped pink polish. She chose that color from the gleaming array on the wall, but can’t recall when, or whether it was in the salon in Santa Fe or the one in Espa?ola. The nail bed is purple where the nails have grown out. The skin around them is fragile, waxy yellow, taut.
“Dodo? When does—that girl come home?” She shakes her head in irritation. “Angel. Angel.”
“Soon. Can I get you anything?”
Outside, a car on the gravel. Yolanda turns again to the closed blinds. She’s trapped in this dusky, closed house. “Open the shades, would you, hijito?”
He hops to, eager. “Maybe that’s Angel, home early.” Then: “Oh, shit.” Outside, the black BMW comes to a stop behind his truck. Casting a cringing look at his mother, he slinks down the hall to his bedroom and shuts the door. Amadeo was to fix Monica’s windshield, she recalls, but the events leading to her seizure are wispy and dreamlike and her head hurts when she tries to concentrate on them. It must have gone well, because Monica is here.
As she pulls herself up, she decides not to care about what she’s wearing—faded sweatpants, an old sweatshirt of Amadeo’s with frayed cuffs, that disconcerting bandage taped to her head—but when she opens the door, Yolanda registers, in the slow, shocked way Monica takes her in from behind the massive bouquet, just how bad she looks.
“Oh, you sweetheart.” Monica makes as if to hand her the giant crayon-colored roses and lilies and plasticky greens, but seems to think better of it, and instead inches around the walker and sets the vase on the breakfast bar. “This is from everyone at the office. We miss you.” Technically, Yolanda is on medical leave, but, based on the size of that bouquet, it must be clear to everyone else, too, that she won’t be returning.
Monica gives Yolanda a gentle hug over the walker. Yolanda’s hands tighten on the rubber grips; she’s afraid she’ll tip. Over her boss’s shoulder, she sees herself in the mirror by the door: the dull clumps of hair emerging from the bandage, her dry, creased face free of makeup.
Monica herself is neat in black, fragrant as always. Yolanda wonders if she considers this visit a professional obligation. She should be able to tell, having worked with her every day for three years, but Monica is so adept at social niceties. “Come sit,” Monica says, as if she is the hostess. “Can I get you water? Make you tea?”
Yolanda rolls the wheels over the carpet, back to her armchair, the maroon jacquard puckered from her many hours sitting, and lowers herself. “There’s a bucket,” she says. “For the flowers.” She flaps a frustrated hand at the cupboard above the breakfast bar.
Monica pauses in unwrapping her scarf, a fine, transparent black wool. Her face contorts in a showy effort to understand. “Oh? It came with a vase. See?” She taps the vase. Her voice is high, sunny.
Monica has also brought a card. When Yolanda sets the sealed envelope on the cushion beside her, Monica tears into it herself, handing the open card to Yolanda so she can read the cramped, cheery messages of goodwill. “We all signed it.”
“Ah,” says Yolanda, setting it down without reading. “That’s nice.”
Yolanda tries to see her house through her boss’s eyes: the gold-framed photos of her kids and grandkids, diapers and wipes stacked on the table, the toys scattered across the floor, half a cold frozen pizza languishing on the coffee table that her son served for lunch. There was a time when Yolanda would have been powerfully moved to have Monica visit her, when she would have cleaned and shopped and cooked in preparation.
Monica sits on the edge of the couch, smiling brightly, doom in her eyes.
“How are you, Yo? Everyone misses you at work.”