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They would discuss Detective Willoughby, who kept dropping elaborate e-mail hints about coming to Mexico to play golf, and wondering if there were any good courses near San Miguel de Allende. Miriam said she didn’t want to encourage him, but Su
Eventually-not the next day, or even the day after, but several days later, sitting with drinks as the sun went down and the white peacocks strutted in the twilight at Las Mañanitas-Su
“You’re asking,” Miriam said, “if it’s your fault that your father and I broke up. Su
“But that’s the thing,” Su
“Not necessarily,” Miriam would reply. “By the way, I created the border in Heather’s room. But if I didn’t tell you that, would the memory be wrong, would your father have loved you any less? I think not.”
Finally, when it was dark, really and truly, when they could not quite see each other’s faces and they were alone in the garden, or felt as if they were, they would get around to the subject of Stan Dunham. “Your father would have been tempted to do the same thing,” Miriam said, “if you or Heather had done something wrong.”
“I did-” Su
“That’s what parents do, Su
Su
“Still, I like to think your father would never have caused anyone as much pain as Stan Dunham caused us,” Miriam said. “You say he was kind to you, and I’m grateful for that. But I can’t forgive what he did to us, even now that he’s dead.”
“Yet you forgive me.” It was the bruise she couldn’t stop fingering, the same way she’d been unable to stop picking the scab of her vaccination, which was what had made it so tender and vulnerable to helpful Heather and her flyswatter.
“Su
“Heather would. Hold me responsible.”
Here her mother surprised her by laughing. “She just might. Heather could hold a grudge as tightly as she held a nickel. But I think even Heather has to acknowledge that you never wished her harm.”
One of the peacocks shrieked, its voice chillingly human. Heather having her say? Su
But all these conversations would come later, as time and travel and darkness made intimacy possible. Right now they were in the gallery, still a little strange and unfamiliar to each other, and Miriam suddenly made a rude face above the oblivious head of her cranky customer, rolling her eyes and sticking out her tongue. The kind of face I make, Su
“Yes, she does take after her father,” her mother said. “This is her first trip to Mexico, and we’re going to Cuernavaca for Christmas, to stay at Las Mañanitas.”
“You couldn’t pay me to go to Cuernavaca,” the woman said. “And Las Mañanitas is overpriced.” She shoved away from the counter as if pushing back from a table after a heavy meal that had failed to please, and lumbered out of the store without so much as a good-bye or a thank-you.
“And to think,” Miriam said, coming around the counter to embrace Su
Just thirty years , Su
Instead she chose something simpler, something she knew her mother could understand, a need that her mother, any mother, could meet. Like Max in Where the Wild Things Are, she had tired of the wild rumpus, sailed home, and taken off her wolf suit. She wanted to be where someone loved her best, even if she believed she had long ago forfeited her right to that unconditional devotion.
“I am hungry,” she said. “Planes don’t serve real meals anymore, not in coach, but then, I haven’t been on a plane since I went to Ottawa with you, when I was a little girl.” A flash of Heather and her in their matching dresses, Su
The two women linked arms and walked out into the bright, chaotic street, where Javier had to shout to be heard above a passing bus. Su
She met his gaze, no longer scared of his face now that she knew where the hole was, what was missing there. If only she could so readily show the world what was missing in her. Who would avert their eyes from her face, who would be unable to look at her straight on?
“Gracias,” she said, then remembered the most important word that anyone can hear, what had meant so much to her, even when it was false and unearned, wholly wrong. In pretending to be Heather, Su