Loving Time

Maria looked modestly away, as her hijo had nothing on but the gold medal of St. Sebastian nestled in the soft thicket of curling black hairs on his chest and one of the smaller towels stretched across his groin. She directed her eyes to the door frame, not wanting to see any telltale bulge of le verga en ristre in the baby she loved so much and could no longer hold and caress. No longer even talk to.

“It’s six-thirty, m’ijo,” she said softly. “Won’t you be late?”

It was Tuesday and she was back in her usual black. He squinted at her dress, plainer than a nun’s habit and a very far cry from the shiny, stiff purple number of Sunday. “I never get up before six-thirty,” he pointed out. “What’s going on?”

“Are you leaving me, m’ijo?” Maria whispered. “I don’t want to bother you, but —”

Mike closed his eyes. “Give me a minute, Mami.”

She nodded as he closed the door, her son the Sergeant with the loaded gun on the chair beside his pillow and a Chinese girlfriend with very small chichis and no sign of being a Catholic. Sighing, Maria padded through the living room to the table by the window, sat on the wooden chair next to the one Diego had taken when he came to lunch. She was thinking, as she had for two nights, about the things Diego had said after Mike and his pretty novia china had left. She smoothed her hand over the rich surface of the wood, darkened and glistening after many years of polishing and repolishing.

“Marry a man who will respect you, Maria,” her father lectured to her long, long ago when she was just a little girl playing before dinner under the dusty canopy of the old tree split down the middle by a bolt of lightning. He talked, she played with a rag doll. Mami had fed and sweated over the old woodstove making her father’s, and only her father’s, favorite things to eat.

“Marry a man who can cook,” Mami had liked to tell her. And following that, “Mexican men are defective. Hiposexuado. They cheat on you and they’re lazy, tambien. Marry an Anglo or an Italian, Maria.”

“Where will I find an Italian, Mami?” Maria had wondered, in that old town on the border of Mexico and Texas.

“Rosario Tebrones married an Italian. He went to Canada, then came here to visit a friend. Remember Rosario, Maria? She went to Canada and became very rich.”

Maria could no longer remember Rosario. She could hardly remember her Mami, dead of fever at thirty when Maria was only twelve. But she remembered the soft whispers, the exhortations like prayers in her ears each night before she slept. “En el nombre del Padre, del Hijo, y del Espirit? Santo marry a good man, Maria, or your life will be fuego del infierno from the first day to the last.”

Maria got up to pour a coffee thick as soup for her hijo, anticipating his arrival only seconds before it occurred. She inhaled his morning collection of fragrances: deodorant, toothpaste, Irish Spring soap, shaving cream, some kind of crema hidratante to soften his skin after shaving—and the strong perfume of many flavors that overshadowed everything, lingering in the apartment for hours after he was gone.

He sat down, his eyes, for a change, soft with concern. He did not begin with a thousand questions about Diego, and for that she was grateful. “What are you worried about, Mami?” he asked.

She sighed. “I saw the papers in your room. Are you getting married?”

“To April?” Mike swallowed some coffee down and choked, laughing at the same time. “You jump to the finish too fast, Mami I’ve never even kissed her.”

Maria was surprised.

“She’s a—serious kind of woman. She doesn’t play around.” He shook his head, lifting a shoulder as if a little ashamed at how hard he had to work toward that end. “It’s complicated.”

“What about the apartment papers?” Maria asked, puzzled. “You’re moving to Queens? You never said anything.”

He looked guilty. “I’m getting reassigned, so I’m thinking about it.”

What did that have to do with it? Maria gave her son a searching look. “You want a companera de cama in Queens. That’s far away, m’ijo.”

She traced the wormholes in the polished wood with a tentative finger. She didn’t believe her son had never even kissed la china. He was leaving home for her, so she must have grabbed him in the important place.

“She’s very nice, muy bonita, muy simpatica. I liked her, m’ijo.” Maria didn’t say, Even though la chica had no womanly flesh and clearly wasn’t a Catholic. She loved her son. What can you do?

Mike smiled. “Thank you, Mami.”

“Is your promotion in Queens?” She licked the tip of her finger and rubbed at an imaginary spot on the glossy table.

“Ah, no.” Mike changed the subject. “Mami, I’m surprised at you. You didn’t tell me you had a—”

“Amigo. He’s a friend, m’ijo. I met him in Church,” she said pointedly.

“I’m sure you did, Mami. And you told me you were finished with men, an old woman ready to fly up to Heaven. Remember?”

Maria’s round cheeks pinked at the lie. Sunday Diego had told her his philosophy of women. It was very interesting and not the philosophy of a Mexican man, that was for sure. Diego’s theory was that there was more to a woman who had finished with her babies than one who hadn’t started with them yet. And he didn’t mean thickness around the belly, either. He meant more enjoyment, more time for eating and talking. Ola, Diego liked to talk. He wanted a woman of his stage in life who’d lived through the things he had and wouldn’t think him a fool.

Maria thought Diego was a wise man, possibly even a saint. And she felt his appearance in her life at such a time must be a sign from the Almighty Father Himself. It was not impossible. Such things had happened before. Not lately, perhaps, and not to anyone she knew, but Todopoderoso could do anything He wanted. And if He wanted a good woman to care for a saint, He could certainly reach down to such a woman from Heaven above—as she prayed in His holy place, don’t forget that—and breathe new life into the deepest part of her soul. The Holy Book, after all, was full of such miracles.

“Maybe not yet,” she said of herself and Heaven.

“Well, what do you know about Diego?” Mike said suspiciously. “When did he turn up? What does he want?”

“M’ijo, remember that dog your father brought home? Big as this table and covered with flies?”

“Fleas. Yes, I remember. He said the dog was Jesus and we had to keep him.”

“That dog followed him home.”

“Uh-huh.” Mike remembered that bit of insanity. “So?”

“Diego tambien.”

Mike pursed his lips. “Diego is a dog?”

“No, m’ijo, the other.”

“Diego is Jesus.”

Maria nodded soberly. “I met him in Church. God spoke to me.” Her meek eyes flashed with sudden passion. “That is more than you can say about la china.”

Mike put down the coffee cup. He was not smiling anymore. Diego Alambra was the headwaiter in an Italian restaurant. So far that was all he’d had time to check out the day before. Diego’s parentage and country of origin were still a little on the vague side, but Jesus he was not. “Mami, we will talk more about this later.”

“Forgive me, m’ijo. I only want you to be happy. And no one can be happy without