“Thank God for your safe delivery,” she said and stood up. “Now we must pray.”
“María,” my father complained, “but we have prayed all night!”
Nevertheless we had to kneel for one more prayer. Then she went back to preparing food and we knew she was happy, and everyone sat for the first time and there was quiet.
“Tell me about California!” my father begged.
“We were only there a few months,” Andrew said shyly.
“Tell me about the war.”
“It was all right,” León shrugged.
“Like hell,” Gene scowled. He pulled away from us and sat by himself. My mother said he was like that, a loner, a man who did not like to show his feelings. We all understood that.
“Eugene, shame, in front of Ultima,” my mother said.
“Perdón,” Gene muttered.
“Did you see the vineyards?” my father asked. The whiskey made his face red. He was excited and eager now that his sons had returned. The dream of moving west was revived.
“Ay Dios, it was so hard without you,” my mother said from the table.
“It will be all right now,” Andrew reassured her. I remembered she said he was the one most like her.
“I would give anything to move to California right now!” my father exclaimed and banged his fist on the table. His eyes were wild with joy as he searched the eyes of his sons.
“Gabriel! They have just returned—” my mother said.
“Well,” my father shrugged, “I don’t mean tonight, maybe in a month or two, right boys?” My brothers glanced nervously at each other and nodded.
“¡León! Oh my León!” my mother cried unexpectedly and went to León and held him. León simply looked up at her with his sad eyes. “Oh, you are so thin!”
We got used to her unexpected outbursts. We ate and listened while my father and mother asked a hundred questions. Then fatigue and its brother sleep came for us, and we stumbled off to warm beds while in the kitchen the questioning of the sons who had returned continued into the early morning.
My three brothers were back and our household was complete. My mother cared for them like a mother hen cares for her chicks, even though the hawk of war has flown away. My father was happy and full of life, regenerated by talk of the coming summer and moving to California. And I was busy at school, driven by the desire to make mine the magic of letters and numbers. I struggled and stumbled, but with the help of Miss Maestas I began to unravel the mystery of the letters.
Miss Maestas sent a note to my mother telling her that I was progressing very well, and my mother was happy that a man of learning was once again to be delivered to the Lunas.
Ocho
The lime-green of spring came one night and touched the river trees. Dark buds appeared on branches, and it seemed that the same sleeping sap that fed them began to churn through my brothers. I sensed their restlessness, and I began to understand why the blood of spring is called the bad blood. It was bad not because it brought growth, that was good, but because it raised from dark interiors the restless, wild urges that lay sleeping all winter. It revealed hidden desires to the light of the new warm sun.
My brothers had spent the winter sleeping during the day and in town at night. They were like turgid animals who did things mechanically. I saw them only in the evening when they rose to clean up and eat. Then they were gone. I heard in whispers that they were wasting their service money in the back room of the Eight Ball Pool Hall. My mother worried about them almost as much as she had when they were at war, but she said nothing. As long as they were back she was happy.
My father increased his pleas that they plan a future with him in California, but they only nodded. They did not hear their father. They were like lost men who went and came and said nothing.
I thought that perhaps it was their way of forgetting the war, because we knew the war-sickness was in them. León had shown the sickness most. Sometimes at night he howled and cried like a wild animal…
And I remembered Lupito at the river…
Then my mother had to go to him and hold him like a baby until he could sleep again. It wasn’t until he began to have long talks with Ultima and she gave him a remedy that he got better. His eyes were still sad, as they had always been, but there was a gleam of hope for the future in them and he could rest nights. So I thought perhaps they were all sick with the war and trying to forget it.
But with spring they became more restless. The money they had mustered out with was gone, and they had signed notes in town and gotten into trouble. It made my mother sad, and it slowly killed my father’s dream. One warm afternoon while I fed the rabbits they talked, and I listened.