By Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera

Isabel gripped the doorknob tightly, stepped out the back door and onto the back step. The tall old salt cedar trees cast wide shadows that didn’t quite reach her, until the sun fell behind Coyote Mountain.

Yoli reached out to hold Isabel’s hand, distracted for a moment by two neighbors from across the circle.

“Hello there!”

“Como sientes?”

Yoli waved and whispered, “They are loud when they – you know.”

“Do I look like I care about their sex life?” Isabel scowled. “I almost died. The doctor said I lost a lot of blood in there.” But she didn’t look at Yoli, hid how grateful she felt for this loss. She didn’t need two more children. Five at home was enough. She squinted into the sun, tried to conjure the faces of her two oldest sons, the baby she’d left behind and the one who’d been stolen from her. She hoped Jaime had learned a lot from Miss Julie, gone to college like her son had. David would be in high school now, probably had a new mother, more siblings. Probably didn’t know she existed.

Isabel dropped a yellow cushion onto the concrete and sat near her new plants. She stared at them, knew they would listen to her woes. “Even though the twins were dead, I still had to give birth as if they were alive.” Isabel felt a tug in her abdomen, an ache between her legs, and relief in her voice. “Mi Viejo, he couldn’t stop crying.”

Yoli took the last drag of her cigarette, eyebrows raised. “You sure you’re okay to be out here? I can do it by myself.” She reached down for the lantana. “If Caro was here, you wouldn’t even need me. You heard from her?”

Isabel shook her head and swallowed the lump in her throat. It had been several months since her second daughter, Carolina, had left home with the carnival worker. Every morning Isabel’s husband, Armando, lit a candle and prayed for her safety. Every night, the oldest, Julia, cried herself to sleep. Isabel listened for Caro’s return, regretted letting her go so easily, and hoped she’d been wrong about her daughter’s new life.

“Lucky flame,” Isabel read from the plastic tag. She’d ordered the bright orange and yellow flowers before she went to the hospital. Yoli’d been sprinkling them with water every other evening while Isabel was in bed last week. If she didn’t plant them today, they could die. And she didn’t trust Yoli to do it right. “We’re going to give you a new home preciosas,” she whispered into the pungent leaves.

Yoli snorted at Isabel’s cariños. She’d never understood how to love her plants.

“Aquí?” she asked, dangling the roots over the damp earth.

“Allá.” Isabel pointed a little more left with her big toe, its tip touched the cool soil.

Yoli dug more holes for the salvia.

“These two didn’t help at all. The other kids wanted to escape. All four girls and even Junior’s giant head – no problema. But these two wanted to live inside me forever. Ay no! At least they were small.” Jaime had been small too. Really small. Miss Julie said Isabel was lucky he could breathe on his own when he was born. Isabel took a cigarette from Yoli’s pack and puffed gently. “It has been too long since I enjoyed this.”

Yoli took it from her, inhaled deeply, and held in her smoke a little. “What’s next?”

“My summer jewel.” Isabel loosened the long velvety stems from their plastic shell. “Put these in the back row.” She imagined the bright red blooms scattered across the dull off-white stucco building. “Cuidado,” Isabel said before taking another short puff. “They’re fragile.”

“Are they even gonna live through summer? It’s supposed to be hotter than ever.”

“It’s always hotter than ever here.” Isabel closed her eyes and wished for a cool breeze, a gust of wind that didn’t reek of chemicals or manure. “I had to name them, you know. Mi Viejo tried to be strong, held my hand while the priest gave Joseph and Magdalena their sacraments.”

“He said you fainted.” Yoli took a drag from the cigarette, left it between her lips and reached for the last salvia plant. “He said the nurse thought you were having another baby.”

“Por tonta. She probably never had a baby. How would she know?” Isabel lowered her voice. “They took everything out. Said it wasn’t gonna work right anymore. Might as well.” She grabbed her belly flesh with both hands. “Maybe this panza will finally go away.” She reached up for another puff, but Yoli had finished the cigarette with one long drag. “At least I can’t get pregnant anymore. Thank God.” Isabel cursed herself when she saw Yoli’s lingering sadness.

When Isabel and Armando had first moved from Central California to this Imperial Valley neighborhood with the two older girls, Yoli was all celosa. “You’ll never be alone,” she’d said. Her sadness sat in the heat.

When Isabel had repeated what Yoli’d said, “I’ll never be alone,” it was with dread.  This wasn’t the life she’d imagined when she was younger. She wanted to travel but not to work fields in another dusty town. She had dreamed about places she’d only seen on the globe at school, wanted to learn new languages too.

“Closer to the edge.” Isabel pointed again with her other foot so Yoli didn’t put the last plants too close to the rest. The portulaca needed space to grow wide. Its thick needle leaves would fill the corner of the bed, a barrier protecting the more delicate blooms.

No one protected Isabel like that. Her delicate was gone when she had her first son at fourteen. Nine kids later, she could finally stop. Maybe be free. But it was too late for dreams. She only knew Spanish and English and hadn’t made a world wish in years.

“Should I water them all now?” Yoli stood, dusted the grains of soil off her knees, and twisted her back.

The foulness of her sweat made Isabel’s eyes water. She coughed. “Gracias, Yoli. I can manage the hose.” But first she lengthened her legs and put both feet flat on the earth. She closed her eyes and tilted her face toward the setting sun. “Palermo,” she said.

“Qué?”

“Barcelona.”

“What?”

“Casablanca.” Isabel opened her eyes wide and Yoli’s crotch was too close to her face. She leaned back and reached both hands up.

Yoli helped her stand.

“That’s all I can remember.” Isabel imagined her elementary classroom. Kids had screamed and chased each other with sticky hands. Someone’s milk had gone sour. She had spun the blue/brown metal ball, watched it with her head tilted sideways so the words were straight. She had ignored the chaos around her and waited for the globe to slow before she placed a fingertip on its bumpy surface, stopped the spinning with her destination choice. “Of all the places I wanted to visit, I can only remember those three names.” Names in Spanish. The others she couldn’t really pronounce. But she’d touched the raised black letters and spelled them to the smart kids nearby. A nice boy with green eyes and freckled nose had said the names for her. Isabel had repeated what she’d heard and smiled with gratitude. But that was all lost now.

“Who’d you be visiting?” Yoli asked and sat on Isabel’s yellow cushion. “Your family?”

“My family was swallowed by Texas. When I was a kid, I just wanted to go.” Isabel turned her back to Yoli and moved the trickle of water slowly over her plants. Wet and shiny and new. “Mira que bonitas,” she said to them. “In a few weeks, your beautiful blooms will make all the neighbors jealous.”

“Nobody just goes like that, Chavela.” Yoli got another cigarette.

“People do.”

“Not our people.” Yoli took a few short puffs. “What about Paris?”

“No!” Isabel’s voice is sharp, louder than she expected. So loud it hurt her gut and echoed across the circle. “No,” she repeated more quietly. “Never Paris.”

“Because you don’t know French?”

“Because there’s a Paris in Texas. We drove through there once.” That memory singed the innocence of her schoolgirl dreams. She closed her eyes and tried to keep her hot, dusty past from returning. She and Julia had left Texas with a man who promised California would be different. He was no different from her first husband. She held her lower abdomen, still pained from its recent loss. “I almost lost Carolina,” she whispered. The pop-pop of a passing car made her gasp and open her eyes wide.

“We could learn French,” Yoli said, oblivious to Isabel’s pain. “Maybe buy those tapes.”

“You could do that.” Isabel let the cool water splash speckles of soil onto her ankles.

Yoli passed the cigarette to Isabel. A crop duster flew over them, had dumped its toxins in a nearby field. They traded the cigarette back and forth until it was done.

“If you don’t need me anymore,” Yoli said, “I’m going home now. Maybe tomorrow we’ll travel.” Yoli flip-flopped on the asphalt, shuffled slowly back across the circle.

Isabel wiggled her toes in the edge of the mud, drizzled the cool water over them, and whispered to her plants, “Palermo, Barcelona, Casablanca.”

Chicana Feminist and former Rodeo Queen, Tisha Marie Reichle-Aguilera is an editor for Ricochet Editions and on the leadership team for Women Who Submit. She writes so the desert landscape of her childhood can be heard as loudly as the urban chaos of her adulthood. She is obsessed with food. A former high school teacher, she earned an MFA at Antioch University and is working on her PhD at USC. www.tishareichle.com