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Show in my father's house/ 13 5 She nodded. "Cinco." "Cinco," I repeated, pleased. She held up a single, bony finger. "Uno." "Uno." When I could count to ten, she patted my shoulder and motioned me into the wicker chair beside hers. She spoke mostly Spanish, but I understood her, somehow -- perhaps because of smatterings of English in her speech, or because of the bits of Spanish my father spoke. Or perhaps we understood each other because children retain and old people regain a peculiar sense of language in which the words mean only as much as the body can communicate, making translation immediate and realizeable. "You live here?" she asked me. I shook my head. "Visiting. From Salt Lake." "Salt Lake?" I tried to remember the other names. "Utah. United States." She nodded. "Mamcita?" "Yes." I nodded vigorously. "Papa?" I shook my head. "In Salt Lake. In Utah." She looked at me and her eyes saddened. Then they brightened. "He will come, yes?" I shrugged, then felt terribly uncomfortable, thinking she might say something to the Mexican police who patrolled the |