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Show in my father's house/ 140 to sing, smiling over his shoulder at me as his nasal tenor filled the car: "Vaya con Dios, my darling. Vaya con Dios, my love." My mother harmonized with him, and I felt tears push into the corners of my eyes. I watched the gigantic orange moon as it sat, seeming suspended on the horizon. At last it slipped skyward, like an over-ripe dream. For a moment I buried my face in my father's hair, then turned back to the window. "Goodbye Mexico," I whispered. "I'm going home." Long after we returned home and the rest of us had recovered, my baby brother deteriorated. One night his breathing became so shallow and irregular my father wakened everyone and called us into the livingroom. He held the baby out in front of him as we knelt toward the Salt Lake Temple and repeated each phrase of his prayer, asking that the infant's life be spared. Because of the worry and the long nights of walking the floor -- and perhaps because we were home with the doubt and frustration that plagued her before -- my mother's illness redoubled. Soon Aunt Helga took over for her, moving the baby's crib into her own bedroom so my mother could sleep. Although bleary-eyed and irritable each morning when she left for work, Aunt Helga always had some improvement to report: the baby kept a tablespoon of chicken broth down, his temperature lowered one degree, the abdominal massages seemed to be working. But |
