As the cabby unloaded her bags at the airport in Newark, she mused, “I’m ready for some of that healing power.” She was ready for home.
Thirty-Seven
Fulgencio groomed his white mustache in the mirror as Carolina powdered her face by his side. She was all in white, a light linen dress. He wore a crisp white guayabera and khaki pants. Their youth faded now, they still cut a sharp and beautiful couple.
“You excited?” he asked.
“Yes, my love.” She smiled at him in the mirror.
“Our baby’s coming home.”
Thirty-Eight
Little David picked Paloma Angélica up at the airport in the antique Corvette convertible. Heading straight to El Dos de Copas, she absorbed the blasting sun as the Gulf breeze rushed through her hair.
When the Corvette pulled to a stop in front of the hacienda she had helped conceive in her childhood, she marveled at the historic integrity of the design. Good work, she had to admit, for a child.
Fulgencio and Carolina stood beneath the arched doorway to the stone house, their smiles lighting up the sky. Paloma Angélica ran toward them, her arms open wide.
Little David pounded the car horn in jubilation as the family shared a joyous embrace. Relatives and friends flowed into the central courtyard before the old hut with the relief of the Virgencita still on the adobe wall. Together, they celebrated Paloma Angélica’s return—Fernando Cisneros, Brother William, Cipriano, and the ranch hands. A pig turned on a spit over the raging fire. And La Virgencita danced on the wall to the latest music disk that Paloma Angélica brought for her, headphones over her radiant halo, her fingers snapping beneath her bright green cloak.
Fulgencio cocked an eyebrow and noted to Carolina that La Virgencita had never appeared in color before, but now she looked more vibrant and lifelike than ever.
“First update I’m installing is Wi-Fi,” Paloma Angélica asserted. “That way the Virgencita can stream her favorite tracks.”
That night beneath the stars, the party carried on with the mariachis playing, Fulgencio singing and the margaritas flowing. In front of the majestic hacienda, cars and trucks gathered, bringing campesinos and neighbors from miles around to the fiesta.
There in the central courtyard, embraced by the optimistic gathering, her face warmed, and illuminated by the flickering campfire, Paloma Angélica revealed her grand plans to build a city upon the river so they could all be joined with their loved ones from El Otro Lado.
Thirty-Nine
The chants and jubilation of the crowd still rang through the air as Fulgencio and Carolina retired to their bedroom. In the comfort of their bed, they gazed into each other’s eyes and smiled.
“She’s home,” Carolina whispered.
“Yes, and our job here is done,” Fulgencio said.
“I always thought our destiny was purely to love each other,” Carolina said, “I didn’t realize until Paloma Angélica came along that we had an even higher purpose in life.”
“Sí, sí señora,” Fulgencio mused in his now gravelly voice, “It seems we are but part of a greater pattern. I was always too busy stumbling through the maze to see it from a distance, to discern its grand design.”
“We have been blessed by her.”
“Yes,” Fulgencio leaned ever closer toward Carolina, brushing his tired lips against hers. “Tonight, she sounded more like a revolutionary than like an architect.”
“But what is a revolutionary . . .” Carolina pointed out, “if not the architect of a new way of life?”
The two fell into a deep sleep, but in the middle of the night, Fulgencio’s eyes fluttered open and he heard himself comment: “I don’t want there to be an obituary written about us.”
Carolina agreed.
“Those things never tell the true story,” Fulgencio said. “Besides, I never enjoyed reading them.”
“Except for maybe that one day . . .” She smiled.
He remembered the paper falling onto the pharmacy floor, the twenty-two letters that liberated him to pursue their destiny once again.
“Yes, except for maybe that one day,” he confirmed. “And since that day, I’ve known: the end is only the beginning. And so, why put a period on our lives when we will surely carry on?”
She smiled at his confidence in the impending wonder of life after death.
They kissed gently as darkness enveloped them and their souls relaxed within their nestled bodies. Falling deeply. They felt as if they were two glasses of water being poured into one larger container. Swirling and settling in the darkness. Never thought they could be even closer. Two as one. Healing. No distance. No wounds. No borders. No limits. No separation. No vacuum between them. Just unity. Just homogenous continuity. Simply and purely dissolving into each other. One. In the dark. Shadows. Then light. Strolling hand-in-hand along the mesquite-lined path. Young again. Carolina’s white linen dress flowing in the breeze. Her smile contagious. And Fulgencio, holding her in his arms forever.
Forty
As the roosters crowed, Paloma Angélica awoke with the knowledge of what had transpired. She arranged for the burial of her parents by the lake—not far from Brother William’s spot—
beneath a giant gnarled mesquite tree. One stone, she said. They wanted to be buried together. Their bodies wrapped around each other just as they had been found lying in bed.
Brother William officiated over the brief ceremony, his silver cross gleaming in the high noon sun, his black robes swirling around him.
La Virgencita de Guadalupe tore herself from the adobe wall in the hut and dragged Fernando Cisneros from his card table, cataract eyes squinting in the blasting sun of the courtyard. “It’s time we moved, Old Man,” she said as they joined the funereal gathering behind the hacienda.
The crowd parted for the Virgencita as she approached the mound of fresh earth that had just been shoveled into place over the lowered coffin. Brother William bowed to her in deference. And as she opened her flowing emerald cape, an avalanche of roses—red and white—exploded forth, covering the burial site and nearly pushing Brother William into the lake.
La Virgencita looked straight into Paloma Angélica’s eyes. And together they knew without speaking what was next. The entire crowd, the same one from the night before, mounted their horses and began to ride quietly north through the meadows toward the Rio Grande.
As they passed a grove of mesquite trees, they heard the laughter of two young lovers dancing on the breeze. Dismounting, Paloma Angélica wandered through the thicket of trees, pushing away the low-hanging branches and leaves, until at last she stumbled into a clearing in the center. It took her a moment to recognize Fulgencio and Carolina, looking just as they did that night of their first date, cuddled on the ground upon a brightly hued serape.