Angel can’t look at her mother, because her eyes have filled.
Connor is grasping the edge of the couch. He looks up at his family, grinning crazily, swinging his belly to and fro, swaying on his wobbly legs like a drunk. Delighted by their eyes on him, he pushes off and takes a step and another, emits a screech, and then, startled by his own sound, falls on his bottom. His face is blank for a moment, then cracks into a lopsided smile.
“Whoa!” cries Angel. “Keep trying, baby. You’re working hard.”
The hermanos are already making their journey up Calvario in their white pants. Amadeo and his daughter and grandson are late, and they stand at the base, watching Isaiah struggle up the dirt path with his cross. The hermanos form a neat line behind Isaiah, swatting their bare backs, and behind them, a cluster of women bend over their clasped hands. In all, there’s a dozen or so figures. The wind carries the pito’s distant whistle and scraps of the alabados, but they cannot make out the words.
The cool air lifts around them, and the sun is a light shawl across their shoulders. Somewhere down the road, someone starts up a motor. Closer, a family of quail emerges from the chamisa. The parents catch sight of Amadeo and his daughter and stop, and the babies—four identical walnuts—halt, too, bunching up. They swivel their heads back and forth, plumes waving like antennae, then dart back into the brush, feet too fast to see. Everything is alive, going about its business, indifferent to the drama taking place above them on the dusty slope.
“Do you feel left out?” Angel asks. In her arms, Connor shakes his fist, sending out a stream of commanding jabber.
Amadeo considers. He doesn’t. Looking back on his own crucifixion the year before, Amadeo remembers a pureness of feeling that he can’t recapture.
Watching Isaiah’s body bent under the weight of the cross, Amadeo holds in his mind the suffering of that man two thousand years ago, suffering that was new and astonishing, but also just like the suffering of the men crucified beside him, just like the suffering of every person before and after. The tiny form of Isaiah pauses, then continues up the hill.
At their feet, a shiny beetle trundles over the dirt, bottom high. Connor squawks, straining toward the ground. “Here, let me hold him,” Amadeo says.
“Anytime.” Angel hands the baby over and stretches. Connor puts his fat arm around Amadeo’s neck and pats him casually.
“Think he’ll ask for the nails?”
“Nah. Isaiah knows better.”
To feel a little of what Christ felt, Tío Tíve said over a year ago. And what Christ felt was love. Amadeo doesn’t know how he lost track of this. Love: both gift and challenge.
Standing there, the spring air high and dry, the sky a distilled, wincing blue, he wants to explain this to Angel. She pulls her heavy hair back, twirls the length of it until it twists upon itself, then secures the whole thing in a messy bun on her head. It is a simple gesture, assured and graceful. He holds Connor tighter.
“Are there things you wish you’d told Gramma?” Angel asks.
Amadeo is quiet a long moment. “Yeah. I wish I’d thanked her. Hey. You okay?”
“They made it to the top.” She shakes Connor’s foot, nodding toward Calvario. “See those people, baby? See that man up there? He died for our sins. Yours, too. Like your diaper this morning. That was the stinkiest sin I’ve ever seen.”
The hermanos are tiny at this distance, like toys, like distant figures in a painting. The cross rises, tips one way, then another, settles upright. The figures cluster around it.
“Look, baby.” Connor does not follow his mother’s finger. He is transfixed by her expression, his own face awash in wonder.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest gratitude is due to my marvelous agent, Denise Shannon, and to my brilliant, insightful editor, Jill Bialosky, who, all those years ago, first asked me if I’d ever considered extending my short story into a novel. Also at Norton, I’m so grateful to Erin Sinesky Lovett, Steve Colca, Drew Weitman, Don Rifkin, Lauren Abbate, and everyone else who helped shepherd this book into being. Many thanks to my copyeditor, Amy Robbins.