It was easier at first. I had a destination, an end goal. I had seen these sights before. And Emilia was there, talking to me, encouraging me to keep going, even though she most likely needed my comfort after what she had just been through. When a new pain shot through me, I would tip my head back, dig my fingers in, massage the spot until it faded. They came more frequently; the stories were restless, terrified, furious.
I ignored them because I had to. Because I had to keep going.
Eliazar spoke to me. I don’t know if I imagined it. But he was in my mind as Emilia told me more about Solado, about the isolation she experienced, about how strange it felt to be out in the open air.
That is how I felt, niña, Eliazar told me, his deep voice mournful, singing in my head. Your heart does not know how to deal with freedom when you finally get it.
Are you free, Eliazar? I asked him.
Freer than las palomas, he said.
“Who are you talking to?” Emilia asked
I smiled at her. “An old friend,” I said.
She went silent.
Eliazar spoke to me. Then Soledad. Then Manolito. I listened to them all, let them construct a poetry in my mind, and down, down, down we walked, cast in the dawn light. We pushed deeper into el valle, farther from you, closer to ourselves.
I stumbled. Emilia caught me before I could pitch over the edge and slip off the trail and then I would be gone, gone, gone, and when her fingers closed around my arm, I could feel her fear, her concern.
I sent my own back.
I sent more.
She could feel my exhaustion, couldn’t she? It had a color—gray, like the stone of the wall of La Reina Nueva. It had a sensation, too. Rounded edges, thick like aloe vera, and she knew.
She knew so much about me when we touched.
What did I know of her?
Her stories woke in me, finally, and I saw a young girl, so eager to explore the world. I saw a daughter, desperate for her father to love her, desperate to know what had happened to her mother. I saw una poeta, a person whose heart could turn feelings into words, into a beauty that could reach across deserts to touch the spirit of someone who needed them. I saw a story, still being told, still alive.
She had been through so much. Missed so much. Did Emilia still think of Alegría? Did she believe she would one day be reunited with her?
No. I think she accepted that loss. She wove it into the fabric of herself, and she moved forward.
Para adelante.
I couldn’t talk anymore. I only listened to Emilia.
There was silence eventually, and then Emilia spoke again, asked me more questions. About what I knew of Obregán. Of the land south of Empalme. Of my childhood. I tried my best to share myself with her, but my answers became shorter. Clipped. Until I was responding with a single word.
Then, nothing.
“No, Xochitl,” she said. “You cannot fall asleep. Stay awake.”
How?
“Tell me things.”
What things do you want to know?
“Where were you born?”
Empalme.
“What is your brother like?”
Silly. Annoying. Curious. He gets that last part from me. I think I made him like that.
“What was Empalme like before we arrived?”
Quiet. Dedicated. We still struggled. We still fought. We still waited for Solís to save us all. Maybe we waited a bit too long. They never showed.
“What are you looking forward to the most?”
Sleep.
“Me, too.”
No, that’s not true.
“Well, then what?”
I don’t remember what I said. But I wanted her by my side, at the end. I wanted us, most of all.
Us.
I liked the way that sounded.
I hope I said something about that.
She made me drink more water. Gave me her canteen. I guzzled it down, tried to ignore how sick it made me feel, how the stories tried to reject it.
I’m sorry, Solís. I know I have to tell you the whole story, but this part is hard. I remember images, and I remember feelings, but I was slipping away by then. I stuck a hand out to steady myself at one point, and the needles of a saguaro pressed into my palm, and Emilia screamed at me, ripped my hand from the green, leathery trunk of the cactus, but there was nothing there. Tiny pinpricks of blood appeared, but did not run down my skin.
I had so little water in my body that I could not bleed. I just oozed.
I’m sorry, Solís. I don’t remember.
She carried me, Solís. By the time we were close to the bottom, I was delirious, babbling about El Mar and stories, and you were so far away, close to the horizon in the east, rising into the world, and I let the darkness in my head get so close to taking me.
Emilia swung her bag around, let it hang in front of her, and then hoisted me up on her back.
She carried me down, Solís.
En las bajadas, she set me up next to a large paloverde, rested my back against it. I don’t know if she said anything. I like to imagine that she kissed me on the forehead and told me to rest.
And I did. She stayed awake to make sure we were safe, and she did this all for me. She did this despite the terrible pain she must have been in herself, aching over the loss of everything.
Was I finally not alone, Solís?
Was this what I had been yearning for?
Emilia was on one side.
Amato on the other.
Descansé porque estaba segura.
I dreamed again. Maybe my spirit was trying to make sense of this journey, of finding the person who had created las poemas, or maybe I had been in so
