Since my brother’s life was so viciously taken, Mama does nothing but sleep. Our father is gone and has been for many years—killed in a mining explosion where they only recovered his left hand, the simple wedding ring intact. It goes without saying that Estevan provided for our family. I am not yet married, and I fear the things I will be forced to do in order to feed myself and Mama. And if they ever read this, the men who murdered my brother, officers of the law, those who claim to protect us, I have a message for you. My brother Estevan was not a worthless body to discard as trash. He was a man, a big brother, a son. His heart was gentle and good. He made coffee every morning, a little extra for Mama and me. He learned to bake cakes for our birthdays, and he was a beautiful artist, a real talent with his pictures of mountains and faces. This pain, the absence of his life, it is unnatural, it goes against God’s will. I am embarrassed that I have prayed for the dead to come back to life. Please God, I have begged, give me back my brother, let me visit my father, give me a moment of their joy. But my prayers are never answered and I am so angry with God that I am ashamed of myself. And you, the men who murdered my brother? You face nothing, no judgment, no consequences for killing. I wonder if you even can feel the sickness in your souls?
When she finished, Luz read the statement aloud and squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to see the pool of blood spreading from the pictures in her mind into the room before her.
* * *
—
That night after work, Luz met Avel at the Emerald Room for Tuesday Night Open Mic. Avel hoped some of the local musicians might hear him play and invite him into their bands. Luz liked the idea because she could read leaves there. The owner was a flighty older woman from the Midwest named Lady Red who encouraged audience participation and, during late-night shows, varying levels of public nudity. Of course, the Emerald Room was often cited by police, and several times a month, without warning, was closed until Lady Red paid the bribe.
The club’s ceiling was a vast atrium, a sky of glass. Luz had been offered a corner booth where Avel sat beside her, shining his trumpet with his red handkerchief. He looked handsome in a yellow shirt. He smelled good, too, a scent like autumn when some of the leaves are scattered around the streets.
“Are you nervous?” she asked, and Avel shook his head, moved close.
“I only get nervous when I have to speak. But play music? I can do that all night.”
A young woman approached the booth then, a nickel between her forefinger and thumb.
“A customer,” Avel shouted and sprang from his seat, kissing Luz on the forehead. “I’ll leave you to your work.”
Luz smiled at the young woman and began fixing her tea. Avel’s name was called, and Luz watched as he confidently walked to the stage, next in line, his trumpet glinting with bluish light. They had been on several dates since their time at Teatro Oso—a picnic in the mountains, a picture at the Santa Fe, walks alongside the river at sunset. The first time Avel had kissed Luz, a rainbow trout leapt from the water and smacked against a boulder before flopping into the foam line. Luz gasped and Avel figured the breathlessness was for him, or at least that’s what she let him believe.
* * *
—
A singing ensemble finished their set as Avel waited in the darkness to the left. Luz read tea leaves for the young woman, then three sisters, and quickly for a husband who was certainly lying to himself and his wife about his bedroom needs. Luz stared into the atrium. String lights crisscrossed the room, as if God had wrangled the stars inside. Avel was called to play as Luz made herself a cup of tea.
“I said ‘Don’t work too hard.’？” It was David, standing before her. “And here you are, working some more.”
“I didn’t know you come here,” said Luz coolly, masking her surprise.
“I don’t,” said David. “My date does, who has currently been in the ladies’ a very long time.” He edged back in his shiny shoes, searching the barroom.
“Maybe she skipped out,” Luz said.
“Occupational hazard.” David winked. “My yaya used to do this.” He pointed to her tea leaves and kettle. “She read spoons, too.”
Luz smiled and looked past David, where Avel was taking his position center stage beneath a blue light. He made eye contact with her through the crowd, beamed as he held his horn. There was an angel’s halo of light inside the instrument’s bell.
“My name’s Avel,” he said, “and I’ve just come here from California.” The first notes of his breath moaned like the trumpet itself was crying.
“David,” Luz said, glancing upward slowly.
“No,” he said, “I don’t want a fortune reading.”
Luz shot him a bored look. She took the opportunity to bring up what had been gnawing at her. “Today in the ledger, I saw that girl named Eleanor Anne visited you, but you didn’t charge her anything. Why?”
David peered downward, scratched his head. His curly hair fell into his eyes. “Luz. Sweet Luz. I can’t tell you that.”
Luz looked to Avel then, his cheeks inflated like balloons. She couldn’t hear his song very well and with David standing beside her, Luz felt torn for her attention. “Does it have to do with Diego?”
The vacant echoes of Avel’s horn moved around, distant and low. There was a moment between them where nothing was said. David smiled in an ineffectual way. He asked if he could sip her tea, and Luz considered saying no before sliding over the cup. David drank once and set the porcelain cup down. She wondered about his mouth, and where it had been.
“I helped her with an arrangement, housing,” he said. “You should pity her, really.”
“Pity her?” Luz said. “My brother isn’t here anymore because of that girl.”
“There’s more to it.”
“They attacked Diego.”
“Imagine the worst men in the world,” he said. “Men who hate anyone different from themselves. Now imagine that’s your whole family.”
“Then I imagine I’d be just like them.”
Avel returned to the booth then, and Luz hadn’t realized his song had ended. He was wiping sweat from his face with the same cloth he had used to shine his horn. He stepped beside David and asked Luz what she thought of his song. Ashamed of herself, Luz had barely heard a thing. “Beautiful,” she said, breathless in her lie.
“Wonderful job,” said David, removing a dime from his pocket and leaving it on the table. He waved across the room, seemingly to his date. “Thank you for the reading, Luz. You always have such clear sight.”
After David walked away, Luz watched as the room swelled with movement, the chatter of a silver tray, a drunk woman’s laugh, the bartender’s shout. More than once, musicians approached Avel. “Take my name,” said a few. “We can always use another horn player.”
Avel talked and music blared and the Emerald Room faded into blackness between acts. Luz looked through the dark until in the distance of her mind she saw a figure slowly coming into view, skin smoothed over bone, eyes shadowed by a felt hat, a face she knew anywhere. A pristine moon, Luz realized, floated in her cup.
EIGHTEEN