'You sayin' my mama's a liar?'
'I'm saying your mother doesn't know me.'
'Unh-huh. Mama says only time you come east of the highway is when you wanting to get reelected. Rest of the time, we don't never see you.'
'Well, you're seeing me now.'
'Mama says she saw you play football on TV, says you wasn't no good, says-'
That did it. Now Bode got in the kid's face. He spoke through clenched teeth while smiling for the cameras.
'Yeah, well you tell your mama I was a two-time all-American and I got scars up and down my goddamn knees and anytime she wants she can come over to the Mansion and kiss my big white-'
'Okay, kids!' Jim Bob said, loudly enough to drown out Bode's voice. He stepped between Bode and the black kid like a referee breaking up a fight. 'Time for the governor to go.'
Bode exited the classroom and gave the reporters his standard spiel about public education being the future of Texas then finally escaped the cameras. When they got out of microphone range, Jim Bob said, 'That'll make a nice commercial.'
The governor of Texas turned to his strategist and said, 'Next time, let's hire some kids.'
Tears ran down the child's dirty cheeks. She was perhaps five or six and looked like the girl who had run up to Lindsay when they had first arrived at the colonia, with the same stringy hair and gaunt face and dangling earrings. She whimpered softly; the doctor handed her a tissue.
'That is a nasty cut,' he said in Spanish to the girl.
Lindsay and Congressman Delgado had just entered a small clinic housed in a white modular structure situated at the northern edge of the colonia sporting the distinct scent of disinfectant and a sign over the door: Medico. A golden retriever lay just inside the front door next to an unoccupied desk. The girl sat perched on a stainless steel examining table along the far wall. The doctor sat on a rolling stool in front of her with his back to them. But he glanced up at a mirror on the wall, apparently positioned so he could see who entered the clinic. The space was compact but orderly and well lit 'The lights,' Lindsay said. 'How does the clinic have electricity?'
The congressman pointed to the ceiling. 'Solar panels on the roof. When he built this clinic, Jesse put in a solar-powered generator, small, but enough to power the clinic. There is much sun on the border.'
— but the shelves seemed too bare for a medical clinic. Fans sat propped in open windows and created a warm breeze. An office with a desk occupied one back corner, the examining table under a bright operating room light the other. A woman stood next to the child and patted her hand, more to soothe her emotions than the child's, it seemed. The doctor examined the girl's foot under the light and spoke to her softly. After a few moments, he held out a shard of glass with tweezers.
'You must wear shoes, Juanita.' She was the same child. To the mother, the doctor said, 'Does she have shoes?'
'No.'
He began cleaning and bandaging her foot.
'Jesse Rincon,' the congressman said to Lindsay. 'Our celebrity doctor. Inez, the doctor's assistant'-he glanced over at the unoccupied desk by the door-'is gone. She must be on an errand.'
The congressman stepped behind the desk and rummaged through papers as if he had done it before.
'Inez collects his press clippings in a book. Ah, here it is.'
The congressman picked up a thick binder and came back around the desk to Lindsay. He held the binder out as if he were a preacher reading scripture from the Bible. The pages were filled with newspaper clippings.
' 'Harvard Doctor Returns Home to the Colonias' — Laredo News. ' He turned the page. ' 'Doctor Trades City Practice for Colonia Poverty' — Brownsville Post. Jesse graduated from Harvard Medical School, then surgical residences at Boston Mass and Johns Hopkins. He could be getting rich performing heart surgeries in Houston or giving Anglo women the large new breasts in Dallas, but he came home to work in the colonias.' He paused a moment then looked at her. 'Who does that sort of thing these days?'
He flipped the page. The clipping showed a grainy photo of a young man speaking at a podium.
'When he came home, Jesse spoke to civic groups to raise funds to build clinics in the colonias up and down the river. The local papers picked up his story. You have not heard of him in Austin, but from here to Boca Chica, everyone knows of Jesse Rincon.'
He held the book out to her. She took it and turned through more pages and read of the doctor's early life in Nuevo Laredo and his education at Jesuit in Houston and Harvard in Boston, her concentration interrupted by the girl's sudden cry. The doctor had given her a shot, no doubt tetanus.
'Juanita,' the doctor said, 'look in that box and find a pair of shoes.'
He lifted the child with her freshly bandaged foot down from the table. She wiped her eyes and limped over as if the bandage were a plaster cast and then leaned so far over she almost fell into the box. He glanced over at Lindsay and the congressman while the girl rummaged then emerged with a pair of pink sneakers and a broad smile.
'You like those?'
' Si. '
The doctor hefted her onto the examining table again then slipped the shoes on her feet as if he were the prince putting the glass slipper on Cinderella.
'You must wear these always.'
He lifted her down again then reached into his coat pocket and gave her a yellow sucker. The child grabbed a naked doll off the bed then gave the doctor a quick hug. Her mother said gracias many times. The girl limped toward the front door with her mother following but noticed Lindsay and stopped. She ran a hand across her snotty nose then turned her wet brown eyes up to Lindsay.
' Que bonito el cabello. '
' Gracias.'
She and her mother walked out the door past the dog. Lindsay turned back to the binder and a black-and- white photo from the Laredo News of the doctor standing outside the clinic. The caption read: 'Dr. Jesse Rincon, 33, home from Harvard.' The story was five years old. He wore a black T-shirt under a white lab coat over jeans and boots. His dark hair was long for a doctor and combed back, but strands fell onto his angular face. His smile was soft, his teeth brilliant white. He was Latino and 'He is handsome, no?' the congressman said.
'He is… Yes.'
Lindsay stared at the photograph a moment longer then looked up and found herself staring at the doctor himself-at his eyes just a few feet away. They were as blue as the sky.
'My father,' the doctor said, answering her unasked question.
He peeled off the latex gloves and tossed them into the trash basket then removed his lab coat and hung it on a rack. He was again wearing a black T-shirt. He was lean and muscular with silky black hair. He appeared not to have aged since the photo five years before.
'He was American, my mother was Mexican. She fell hard for his blue eyes.'
He spoke with a soft Latin accent, not as pronounced as the congressman's, but with the same formality of one for whom English was not his native tongue. He stuck a hand out to the congressman.
'So, Ernesto, what brings you to the colonias today?'
'The census.'
The doctor grunted. 'Good luck with that.'
He looked Lindsay up and down.
'I see you have suffered the wind and the dirt.'
Her cream linen suit now appeared gray.
'Jesse,' the congressman said, 'I would like to introduce the governor's wife. Mrs. Bonner, this is Dr. Jesse Rincon.'
'It is a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Bonner.'
He took her hand. She had shaken thousands of strangers' hands as the governor's wife, but never as a woman. He held her hand and stared into her green eyes. It had been a long time since a man had stared at her. The congressman broke the spell with a chuckle.
'Jesse can seduce money from misers, which would make him a very successful politician. We had a charity
