Night at the Fiestas: Stories

CANUTE COMMANDS THE TIDES

THE NOYES’S NEW HOUSE WAS ON A REMOTE HILL NORTHEAST of Santa Fe surrounded by piñon and chamisa. The first time they approached, in the real estate agent’s Volvo, Margaret had clutched the armrest. She’d been sure even then that this was it. As Harold, up front, kept pace with the agent’s steady commentary, Margaret gazed out the window and collected in her mind the scenes she would paint: an abandoned blank-eyed adobe near the highway exit, a line of leaning mailboxes foregrounding a purple mesa, two dirty children playing in an old blue truck on blocks. When they finally arrived at the base of the long dirt driveway leading up through squat, dense piñon, Margaret found herself holding her breath. “You’ll want a four-wheel drive,” the agent had advised. From here, it was point-seven miles on the odometer every time. Even now, it gave Margaret pleasure to note it when she returned home.

From the high, wide windows of her studio, Margaret could see for miles: the late summer storms were coming, black clouds packing themselves firmer as they moved across the sky, distant shafts of sunlight breaking through and lighting the pink earth below. This house, with its antique double doors, soft adobe lines, and windows all around, was their retirement home, but Margaret didn’t feel old. She was still slim and upright (except for a bony bump at the back of her neck, which she did her best to hide with scarves), she walked daily, and had never once dyed her hair — had, in fact, been pleased when it faded from a rather nondescript blond to shining silver. And she felt more creatively vibrant than she had in years, full of ideas, ready to buckle down.

The way Harold told it, laughing agreeably with their friends, was that out of the blue Margaret had announced that they were moving to New Mexico. “She wouldn’t take no for an answer!” Harold was still back in his office in Fairfield, surrounded by legal briefs. Margaret had known he was reluctant to retire and couldn’t move right in the middle of a big case, and though she’d made a show of disappointment, she was secretly glad she’d be alone. She insisted she had to leave as soon as possible to get them settled.

Her sister-in-law had offered to accompany her, but Margaret had wanted to drive across the country alone with her dog, Daisy. By the time she arrived, the movers had already unloaded the furniture and boxes and more or less arranged them in rooms according to the diagram Margaret had supplied. Walking through the empty rooms, Daisy close at her heels, Margaret had felt on her bare feet the warm afternoon sunlight and the cool terra-cotta tile, and she thought of their first house in Guilford forty years ago, the furniture from the old apartment spread thinly through the rooms, the bare wood floors, all of it waiting, still and quiet, for the lively clatter of babies.

She spent the first few days seeing the sights. She drove to Tesuque, visited artists’ studios and glass foundries, had brunch at the Market. In Santa Fe, she walked the Plaza and dipped in and out of galleries on Canyon Road. One night she went to the Opera—Rigoletto—though she was exhausted and left at intermission.

On the way home, Margaret stopped at the convenience store five miles down the highway with the idea of asking about anyone in town who might be available for housework and to help her settle in. Margaret thought of it as “town,” but there was no town, not really. Just the convenience store off the exit and a trailer with a sign over the door that said BEAUTY HAIR NAILS.

At the counter, Margaret wrote her name and number, and was about to jot her address, too, when she thought better of it. The heavy Hispanic woman at the register sat on her stool and watched impassively. “If you think of anyone, have her call me. We can meet, see how we like each other.” Margaret thought interview sounded pushy, though of course that’s what it would be.

A Carmen Baca phoned and arrived at the arranged time with a pink plastic tub of rags and cleaning solutions, apparently thinking she’d already been hired. Legs trembling, Daisy barked at Carmen Baca, who paused uncertainly in the door and held her cleaning supplies high.

Margaret scooped up the dog. “Don’t mind Daisy. She thinks she’s a guard dog, but she’s harmless.”

Carmen wore pale jeans and a teal t-shirt snug across her breasts and belly: GOLDEN MESA CASINO: WHERE MORE WINNERS WIN MORE! “I don’t know, but dogs have always made me nervous.” When the woman smiled, her round face creased good-naturedly. “But this one’s cute.” With one finger she gingerly patted Daisy behind an ear, pulling her hand back quickly when the dog licked her. “It’s a puppy?”

“No,” said Margaret, in the pleased, slightly regretful tone she used when people asked this. “She’s eight, a Yorkie. Come sit down!” Margaret gestured to the table in the raised dining area, where she’d set out cups pulled directly from a moving carton and a plate of almond butter cookies. “Tea? Coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”

Carmen placed the tub next to her chair and crossed her white sneakers primly. “My, my,” she said, nodding at the cookies.

Margaret wondered if this woman was making fun of her, but Carmen just smiled blandly.

She was in her early forties, no more than five feet tall, hair pulled into a black ponytail that exposed sideburns and a swath of coarse hair growing down the back of her neck. But what Margaret couldn’t stop looking at was the scar: a pink ragged line across Carmen’s brown throat, raised and stretching at least two inches, nearly to her ear.

Carmen surveyed the sunken great room, furniture still wrapped in plastic, wide foyer, the gleaming steel kitchen. “Pretty fancy,” she said.

“It’s bigger than we needed,” Margaret apologized, “but we couldn’t pass it up. We fell in love with the place. I’ve never seen anything like this light.” She thought of some man — boyfriend, husband, stranger — holding Carmen against his chest, his mouth in her thick hair, pressing the blade of the knife against her throat. Margaret circled her own warm neck with her hand.

Carmen twisted in her chair (the scar stretching taut and shiny), nodded at the boxes stacked along the walls. “You got some project here.”

“I’ll say. That’s why I need the help. Harold, my husband, is still in Connecticut. He planned to cut down, work a few weeks at a time back East and spend the rest of the year in New Mexico, but a big case came up.” She was talking too much — because of the scar, she was sure. It made her eyes water. Margaret tried to force her thoughts elsewhere, looked hard at Carmen’s hands as they spooned sugar into a mug. She counted the etched gold rings tight on the fingers: six. “So you grew up around here?”

“Yep. Live in the same house my dad built.” Carmen selected a cookie, pinky turned out, and nibbled as she explained that she lived next door to her diabetic mother. “She’s stubborn as heck. Won’t let anyone help with the shots, but wants you to stand in the bathroom watching.”

Margaret was surprised to learn Carmen had a twenty-five-year-old son and a six-year-old granddaughter, whom Carmen watched in the afternoons. “She lives with her mom, Ruben’s old girlfriend. I wanted them to get married, but”—heavy sigh—“what can we do?”

“I’d never have guessed you had a granddaughter. You look so young.”

Carmen hooted. “I wish!” She sighed again. “Well, Ruben’s not perfect, God knows, but he’s my baby.”

Margaret was wondering how she’d describe Carmen’s accent to Harold. “I’m planning to learn Spanish. Maybe you could tutor me.” She said it without thinking, then faltered.

“I don’t speak Spanish. Not good, anyways.” Carmen shook her head, and for a moment the scar disappeared in the crease of her neck.

Suddenly, Margaret was afraid Carmen might not agree to work here. She was about to explain that she’d only assumed because of the accent when Carmen looked up, grinned. “The only words I know are cusses.”

That smile — the white, even teeth — Margaret could have hugged her for that.

Carmen stood, wandered to the kitchen, aimlessly opened an empty cupboard. “I think this will work good.”

MARGARET TOLD HAROLD about Carmen that night on the phone while she chopped mushrooms for her salad. “She’s wonderful, Harold. Great sense of humor. And a saint, takes care of everyone. She’ll come in the mornings and leave in time to collect her granddaughter from school. It’s the perfect setup—” Then she added: “At least for now. When you get here we can reconfigure.”

“Good, Mags. I wish I were there. This case is rough. One useless deposition after another.” He talked about work for a while, and Margaret let her mind wander because she could tell he was happy. Carmen had clearly had a difficult life, but she was cheerful, open. The blade of the knife slid smoothly through the pale flesh of the mushroom, and Margaret thought once again of Carmen’s scar. She pictured the knife, or the accident — it might have been an accident — a piece of glass from a car’s windshield, a childhood collision with a sliding door. Whatever it was, there would have been blood everywhere. Her fingers felt weak.

She was on the point of telling him about the scar when Harold’s voice trailed away. He cleared his throat. “You’re sure everything’s okay, Margaret?” he asked. “With us?” His voice was husky, pained, and all at once the harmony drained from the conversation.

Lately, Harold had been oddly intuitive as he’d never been before. Just three weeks ago, as she was packing the kitchen, setting aside duplicate dishes for Harold to use in his new condo, he’d stood in the doorway watching her. His thin wrists seemed gray, exposed by the rolled sleeves of his Oxford. “Are you leaving me?”

“Of course not,” Margaret had said, looking at him steadily from the mess of newspapers and dinner plates. He’d searched her face a moment, then relaxed, reassured.

And she’d meant it. In those months leading up to the move, Margaret had felt tremendous tenderness for Harold. She needed to keep him safe as much as she needed to be apart from him.

Now she said: “Of course everything’s okay. I forget how late it is there with the time difference. I’ll let you go, sweetie.”

From the living room, Daisy whined, in response, maybe, to the wail of a coyote too far for Margaret to hear. Daisy wasn’t used to the new house yet. She peered around corners, clung to the walls, eyeing the kitchen or bedroom before scrambling wildly across the open spaces, nails clacking on the tile.

Margaret lifted Daisy and held the dog’s warm, quivering body against her chest. She pressed her forehead against the cold window, peering past her reflection into the darkness beyond. You had to be careful with little dogs way out here, the real estate agent had said. They could be carried off by coyotes or bobcats or, more rarely, mountain lions. Even a hawk might swoop down and lift little Daisy into the air, tearing her silky gray fur with razor talons.

MARGARET HAD HAD OCCASIONAL gallery shows in Rockland, Maine, near where they spent their summers, and she periodically illustrated text-heavy children’s books about historical events. While the books never sold very well, two had won obscure awards for historical accuracy; and over the years she’d sold a number of paintings — fourteen — of abandoned farmhouses and docks and lobster boats, children crouched at the water’s edge. It wasn’t much, perhaps, but many artists did their best work in their later years, and Margaret hoped — with all her heart she hoped — that this would be true of herself.

Her current project, Canute Commands the Tides, was promising, completely different from anything she’d done before — more personal, more urgent. It was based on the legend of Canute, the Danish king of England, old fool, who, claiming he could stop the tides, ordered his throne carried to the waterline, where, predictably, it was swamped by waves. It seemed to Margaret there was something marvelous about Canute’s determination. Instead of submitting to the tide of life, letting old age drag him away and under, Canute had railed against it.

She’d started Canute Commands the Tides two years ago, after their daughter Charlotte relocated to Johannesburg. Margaret hadn’t even known they’d been considering a move until Charlotte and her husband announced they’d be packing up the girls and going clear across the ocean.

What had really shocked Margaret, though, was the stunning, paralyzing sense of abandonment she’d felt. When Harold was at work and Margaret had the house to herself, it seemed she couldn’t stop crying, and when she wasn’t crying, she wandered from room to room, feeling utterly without purpose. “I don’t think it’s nice,” she told Charlotte coldly, long-distance, hating herself. “We’re not young, you know. We need our granddaughters.”

The real problem, she realized, when she began to get hold of herself, was that all her life, she’d never really chosen, just allowed the currents to pull her this way and that. Even her art — especially her art — she’d just let happen to her. She’d never truly decided, thrown herself into it headlong, made it matter.

Canute himself was not in any of Margaret’s paintings: just his throne and the lapping white-tipped waves. In her first attempt, the throne was gilt-edged and red velvet, sinking in the sand, upholstery sodden. But the year was so early, 1015. She pictured what she knew of those feudal lords. Brutal battles fought with clubs and spears and seaxes. Thanes. Thralls. Feasting kings distributing the spoils of war among subjects in heavy-beamed mead halls. The next version of the throne was a plank-backed wood armchair, high and hard. In her next attempt, she downgraded Canute again, giving him one of the yellow-spindled kitchen chairs that had been in her childhood home in Marblehead. Still, the painting wasn’t right.

Now, in her new home, Margaret sliced the packing boards from her canvases and laid the paintings side by side on the floor, discouraged by the blank backgrounds, the crooked sketched lines, the paint that had been worked and reworked into mud. Daisy nosed the corner of one, and Margaret nudged her away with a toe, still studying her attempts.

Margaret rubbed her face with anxious hands, and the familiar and nauseating cocktail of emotions surged: guilt, impatience, dread, ambition. She must get herself organized: set up the studio, begin a strict schedule. She would tackle Canute; she would move forward.

THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS were spent unpacking. At Carmen’s insistence, they dealt with the house room by room, beginning with the studio. “Lord,” said Carmen, hands on hips, as she stood in the doorway. “Looks like you had pigs rooting around in here.” Margaret watched with admiration as Carmen’s quick hands sorted her materials into piles, filled toolboxes and coffee cans and bookshelves, made it all manageable so that after only one morning the studio was ready.

“This is what I’m working on,” Margaret confided, turning a canvas that was facing the wall, the painting of the kitchen chair.

Carmen, crouched by the bookshelf, looked over her shoulder briefly. “What’s that chair doing on the beach?”

“It’s based on a myth—”

“It’s a pretty picture. Reminds me of when me and my sister went to San Diego, oh, ten, twelve years ago. I love the beach.” Sigh. “What would I give.”

MARGARET HAD BEEN UNEASY about getting rid of things from the old house when they’d moved, so she hadn’t, the result being that the more she and Carmen unpacked, the more claustrophobic she felt. The cornflower striped couch, the one she’d loved and which had looked so elegant and Colonial in Connecticut looked terrible here: fussy and wrong. So many of their things were like that.

“You must miss your husband,” said Carmen as she unwrapped the stemware.

“Of course it’s hard, but he has work there and I have my work here.” It wasn’t good for men to be on their own, Margaret knew that. They suffered without their wives, died earlier. In those same studies she’d read that married women were unhappier than those who lived alone.

Carmen looked at her, head tilted, questioning.

Her fury, this last year, had been as debilitating as her depression, and it was directed squarely at Harold — and why? Because he’d married her? Because they’d had a lovely girl together and their lives had been blessed, and he’d had a purpose while Margaret had drifted through it all? Margaret couldn’t articulate her fury, and Harold wouldn’t have known what to do with it even if she could.

Instead, night after night Margaret initiated in bed, and usually Harold responded, laughing, joking about her new insatiability. She demanded that he fuck her — said those words, though she never had before — and he did, his face serious and intent above her. She came in silent, anguished rage, and each time after, she cried — another thing she’d never done. Poor Harold was solicitous and baffled. He stroked her hair and asked what was wrong; had he been too rough, had he hurt her?

Carmen had moved on to the wedding china, wiping each piece with a dishcloth. “I have a set like this,” she said, holding up a plate. “It was a door prize at the Golden Mesa.”

“Oh,” said Margaret, deeply embarrassed for Carmen. She gassed up at the casinos; gas was cheaper there, and the restrooms always clean. Once, on an impulse, she’d pushed through the glass door that separated the convenience store from the casino itself. Inside it was dark, air thick with cigarette smoke, walls lined with mirrors reflecting the rows and rows of old people sitting before the blinking slots. Jangling manic sounds, frenetic lights, and, suspended from the ceiling, giant pots painted in the black and white geometrics of the Anasazi. Margaret had felt profoundly depressed, too depressed even to flee, until a skinny red-eyed man offered to buy her a drink. She’d shaken her head mutely and turned to go, grateful and disoriented when she stepped into the bright sunlight. It was all so tasteless, she’d told Harold later on the phone, such a misguided cheapening of culture.

“It seems like the casinos could cause a lot of social problems on the reservations,” Margaret ventured.

“Oh, I know,” said Carmen, tucking a strand of hair into her ponytail. “They’re getting so rich.” Sigh. “Oh, well. The slots relax me.” Carmen stood, pressing herself up on her thighs, then carried the stack of plates to the kitchen.

Margaret smiled brightly and sliced the packing tape on another box.

Why had she never noticed how much fabric she’d been surrounded by in her old life? The plush towels, the brocade and rugs, all the throw pillows and merino afghans, all meant to swaddle and muffle. And her clothes — heels, tailored jackets, stiff leather handbags — boxes and boxes of the stuff.

Carmen held a silk charmeuse blouse by the neck, displaying the label. “Ooh, Calvin Klein. Fancy lady.” Daisy nosed Carmen, who rolled her over with a palm and rubbed the soft pink belly.

“Take it.” Margaret examined then tossed aside a herringbone skirt. “I can’t believe I wore all this.”

“Are you sure?” Carmen asked about each item as she folded it neatly and set it behind her.

“God, yes! Take it all.” There was no way Carmen would fit into most of the clothes, but perhaps she would make them over.

Each day when Carmen left, she swung full garbage bags into the trunk of her dented Chrysler LeBaron, and each day Margaret felt lighter. It pleased Margaret to think of Carmen using her things. It must have felt like a windfall for her. Most of Margaret’s belongings weren’t cheap, were probably nicer than the things Carmen bought for herself. And perhaps she sold some of it, though Margaret didn’t care for that thought nearly as much.

In the end, Margaret kept a few of the ornate mahogany bureaus and side tables — family pieces — and the dining room set. Harold’s brown leather chair and about half the books. In the end, it was mostly her things she got rid of. All she wanted now were clean surfaces and straight lines, mental and creative space.

She packed Charlotte’s old drawings and school papers, ceramic frogs and elephants, spent a fortune to mail the box all the way to Johannesburg. Just last year, she’d sooner have died than part with these wobbly self-portraits and plaster handprints. Standing in line at the post office now, though, it felt essential to shed the weight of them. Charlotte would be wounded, but she was grown now, and Margaret was not, after all, an archive.

CARMEN’S TECHNIQUES WERE pleasingly old-fashioned: she cleaned with scalding water, bleach, white vinegar, wiped the windows with newspaper, scrubbed the kitchen floor with rags on her hands and knees. “Mops don’t do nothing,” she declared. “They just move the dirt around.”

She watched television while she worked. First the news programs, then the morning game shows. Soaps, talk shows. They worked their way through the day. Margaret found herself looking forward to some of the programs, talking about the personalities as though they were common acquaintances. “Bob Barker must be a million years old.”

“Oh,” said Carmen knowingly, “he’s had work. Just look at that neck.”

Of course, Margaret thought afterward, these television personalities were the only common acquaintances she and Carmen had.

If Margaret went for a walk, when she returned, the channel was often switched to a Spanish station, where women with bright makeup and clothes too sparkly and tight wept and ranted at surly, hard-jawed men. “Sorry,” Carmen would say and change it back to one of the English networks.

“No, no,” Margaret protested, but Carmen waved her away.

“It’s more fun if we can talk about it,” she said.

And talk Carmen did. Instead of painting, Margaret spent the mornings with her, sometimes paying bills, sometimes working alongside, sometimes just watching. Carmen’s own grandmother had been a traditional healer, a curandera.

“Oh, she was mean. The other kids were scared of her because she always wore black dresses down to here, and, my God, did she complain. She used to tell us stories to make us behave, about how La Llorona was going to go drown us in the river.” Carmen laughed. “Me and my brother ran away from her when she was watching us one night. We ran to our cousins’ and slept on their porch. All night on the porch, up against each other like puppies. Were we spanked when they found us!” She laughed and wiped her forehead with her arm, holding the wet rubber gloves over the sink so the water wouldn’t drip down her sleeves.

Sometimes during the soap operas, if a character was particularly charming and incorrigible, Carmen mentioned her troubles with her son. It seemed she supported him entirely. “Ruben tries, poor baby, but those supervisors. You know how people can be when they get power, and if they treat him so terrible, of course he’s going to get mad. He’s doing good now, though, got himself a new job, driving equipment to the road crews up there in Raton and all over.” Carmen snapped a towel, folded it exactly without even looking. “He tells me in the break room they got a sign that says DRINK ON THE JOB AND KISS THE JOB GOODBYE. My daughter, she says if he’s good for six months, really serious, she’ll help him pay for long-term therapy.”

Carmen’s daughter Vivian was a high school teacher. She’d married well and lived in Albuquerque in a house with two sinks in the kitchen and three and a half baths. Every month or so Carmen visited, and her daughter took her to dinner and various touring performances. “Oh, the play was beautiful,” Carmen told Margaret after Lord of the Dance. “You should have seen the clothes.”

“Has he tried rehab before?” Margaret fingered the laundry piled between them on the couch. She wished she could have been the one to offer to pay for Ruben’s therapy. These sorts of thoughts had begun to occur to her — that she’d like to give Carmen something, do something to make her life easier.

“The state paid for an eight-day detox just last year after his DUIs. And some therapist sessions. I just pray to God this time he’ll get better.”

“It can be hard,” Margaret said, “but sometimes the best way to help someone like Ruben is to cut him off. Let him know that you trust he can pull it together on his own.”

“I know, I know.” Carmen sighed. “That’s what Vivian tells me, but he’s my baby, you know. And the law sure don’t make it easy for him — like last year, they take away his license and still they make him show up once a week to meetings. Plus he has work. Well, how’s he supposed to get there if he can’t drive?”

“Ah,” said Margaret.

“You got to help your kids until you can’t. Besides, there’s Autumn to think about. She can’t do without, just to teach Ruben a lesson. Maybe he won’t make good of himself, but at least I can try. Autumn’s mom never gave him the emotional support he needs, and now she’s talking about trying to take his custody. It’s terrible. Nothing’s ever come easy for him, not one thing.”

Carmen put the stacked towels in the basket. “You know, Ruben’s real good at fixing stuff.” She glanced around the room, as though looking for items that needed fixing. “You give him an engine, and he can figure out what’s wrong with it in no time. He retiled my whole bathroom. Anything you need done.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Margaret, and wondered if there were some outdoor jobs she could give the boy. Maybe it would encourage him to stay on the right path. She imagined getting to know the family, being invited to their big parties, then caught herself and blushed. “I’ll keep it in mind.”

That afternoon, as she was leaving, Carmen said, “Honey, you don’t need me every day. You don’t make near enough mess.”

“Yes, I do.” Margaret was surprised by the insistence in her voice. “There’s so much that needs to be done. The windows. And the linens need to be rewashed. The van must have been stuffy.”

IN THE AFTERNOONS, after Carmen left, Margaret found herself taking frequent stock of the kitchen cupboards, looking for a reason to drive into town and away from her studio, a mission for the day that was both achievable and time-consuming, anything to keep from having to be alone with her painting. There was so much to do, but Margaret didn’t know what, and she couldn’t sit still long enough to let it come. So instead, she organized her supplies, cleaned her brushes, made lists of colors she needed.

One afternoon, on one of these errands, she drove with Daisy to Santa Fe, bought lunch downtown and ate it on a bench on the Plaza. As the shadows of leaves shifted around her, she watched the faces of the other women. Perhaps she would meet someone — for some reason the black and white photographs of Georgia O’Keefe always rose in her mind — with whom she could talk about her art. But they all seemed to be tourists. She wished there weren’t so many people, wished the Five & Dime didn’t just sell disposable cameras and plastic chile ristras and cheap postcards and souvenir scorpion magnets. She would have liked it all to be a little more real, and felt a pang of regret for not having moved out here twenty, thirty years ago.

Two elegantly dressed women her age walked toward her with shopping bags in their hands. They didn’t gaze in shop windows or photograph the Native Americans under the portico of the Palace of the Governors. They walked like they belonged here. One wore a silver squash blossom necklace over a black silk shift.

As they approached, Daisy spied a hot dog wrapper in the path. She strained on her leash, whining.

The squash-blossom woman smiled as she passed. “A beauty! I have two Yorkies of my own.”

Margaret tugged Daisy back sharply, irritated. These women were the kind of people Carmen would despise, the kind of people Margaret might be mistaken for.

WHEN SHE DID FORCE herself to pour out linseed oil and squeeze paint onto the palette, Margaret took a great deal of time over the preparations, and for every dab of paint on the canvas, she stepped back and considered. The perspective was off on one of the chair legs, the waves looked sculpted in plasticine, there wasn’t nearly enough contrast. It was so hard to get into her work; she pushed tiny bits of paint across the edge of the canvas, avoiding, avoiding, avoiding. After only twenty or thirty minutes, she wanted to stamp her foot and whine like Charlotte had when she was four and frustrated over her shoelaces: It’s too hard.

Early one morning, however — Sunday, Carmen wouldn’t be in today — Margaret awoke thinking of the sandstone formations along the highway to Santa Fe and decided she’d integrate them into her piece. After all, this place had changed her, and Canute Commands the Tides should reflect that. Old Canute would not be on the Maine coast, but on a mythical desert-like beach that had never existed, a beach ringed with cliffs and red sandstone balanced like meringue.

Without brushing her teeth or putting in her contacts, Margaret ran to her studio in her nightgown, exhilarated. She stepped out on the cold patio in bare feet to scoop sand, which she drizzled through her fingers onto the palette. Oranges and reds and browns, paint mounded thick. All morning she worked, chilly, yet sweating along her sides and at the back of her neck. Under her feet, sand gritted.

When she stepped back, the euphoria was lost. It’s true her cliffs resembled Camel Rock and the others, but the whole effect was self-consciously mystical, like an image on a new-agey Taroh card. And this kind of textured painting had already been done, and done better.

How to capture it? How to convey what the story meant to her, what Canute meant? Margaret looked with despair at all her attempts, lined up around the studio. It wasn’t fair. She tried and she tried, but this rot could be hanging in any motel, except with a yellow kitchen chair dropped in. And now the metaphor was becoming tangled in Margaret’s mind. Was the story about admirable gumption, Canute’s resolve to determine his destiny in the face of mighty, indifferent reality? Or about his foolish, maniacal arrogance? Some sources, insisting on his wisdom, said Canute had actually ordered his throne carried to the sea to prove to his admiring courtiers the absurdity of arguing against God and nature. Perhaps this is what her subject should actually be: gracious yielding to the forces that had shaped her life. Or maybe the whole thing was just a joke and the story was about nothing more than plain old defeat.

Angrily, Margaret flung her brush at the canvas. It flipped to the ground, splattering the tile. She dropped to her knees, swiped the floor with her rag of turpentine, but the oil spread across the clay.

IT HAD NEVER OCCURRED to Margaret that she might forget what the ocean looked like. She thought she would always see the water clearly in her mind’s eye, having always lived so near it. But now it eluded her. She found herself painting not water, but likenesses of water she had painted before, imitations of other artists’ renditions of water. One night she filled the stainless-steel kitchen sink and tried to make currents in it with her hands, watched the kitchen light waver against the sides.

Outside, only darkness. Margaret leaned over the sink, closer to the window, trying to see past her reflection. Perhaps she should set the chair here, among the round hills and piñon woodland. The subject caught her, and for a moment she was pleased with the novelty of her idea, the unlikely twist.

But here there was nothing to threaten the chair, just time and sun and occasional rains. Here mud structures took hundreds of years to wash away. Even the bodies of rabbits and coyotes killed on the highway didn’t rot and rejoin the earth, but shrank and stiffened. Here the problem wasn’t that nothing lasted, but that nothing disappeared.

FOR THREE WEEKS Carmen was on time and never missed a day. Then one day she didn’t show. Margaret called her house and left a message. She vacillated between irritation — she’d come to depend on Carmen’s presence — and guilt over her irritation. Maybe something had happened to the diabetic mother.

It was noon before Carmen arrived with her granddaughter Autumn in tow. “Sorry,” she said at the door. “No school today. I hope you don’t mind.” She turned to the girl. “You be good and don’t go touch nothing.” Autumn, wearing lavender platform flip-flops, jeans, and a pink halter-top, stood close to her grandmother. Her hair was pulled back so tightly it tugged the corners of her eyes, and the curls of her ponytail were stiff with gel.

“What a day,” said Carmen. “Ruben’s got my car. His truck’s in the shop, and he has to go down to Albuquerque. But he’ll be back in time to get us.” She was already rummaging under the kitchen sink, pulling out bleach and sponges. “I got Autumn’s lunch here—” she gestured at a bag of Taco Bell on the counter. “She brought her Barbies, and she’ll be happy watching TV.”

“Do you like art?” Margaret asked the girl. “Let’s see if we can’t get you some pastels and good paper. Come with me.”

Autumn didn’t follow, just stood with her backpack on her skinny shoulders. She still hadn’t budged when Margaret returned, arms full of supplies.

“We’ll set you up at the table.”

As though she’d been waiting for permission to move, Autumn walked slowly around the living room, touching each picture frame lightly with one finger. “These are your grandkids?”

“They are. Nine and eleven.”

Autumn bit her lip. “Are they sisters?” Her teeth were small and sharp and slightly bluish, the color of skim milk.

Margaret nodded. “They live far away now. In South Africa, which is a country in the continent of Africa.”

Autumn examined another picture from years ago: Margaret and Charlotte in the kitchen, flour-covered, smiling up from their work of tracing maple leaves into piecrust.

“That’s my daughter, Charlotte. She’s an only child.”

“Like me,” said Autumn.

Autumn spent the morning drawing page after page, frowning earnestly at her work. Margaret showed her how the pastels could be blended; soon Autumn’s fingertips were thick with green-brown waxy smears.

Carmen spread newspapers and brought out the tub of silver polish and rags, then settled at the table next to the child with Margaret’s grandmother’s tea service, which hadn’t been touched in years. “Look at that. She’s gone and used up all your colors.”

“That’s what they’re for.” Margaret wanted to give this child things, lifelike stuffed animals and educational toys. She wished Autumn were her grandchild. Her own were so assertive and articulate now, so at home in the world, absorbing it all — their private school, safaris, school vacations in Thailand and Indonesia — without a flicker of self-doubt. With Autumn she could make a difference.

It was relaxing to watch the child work. Autumn tilted her head, considered, then bent back over the page. Her shoulder and whole arm moved with her hand. Soon the table was strewn with lush green landscapes that had nothing to do with New Mexico.

“Autumn is lovely,” Margaret told Carmen.

Carmen nodded, scouring the sugar bowl with her rag. “She’s my blessing.” At the sound of her grandmother’s voice, Autumn stood and put her hand on her grandmother’s knee, looked up at Margaret gravely. The child’s expression struck Margaret as one less of affection than allegiance.

Margaret felt a sudden jealousy. She remembered holding Charlotte when she was tiny and asleep, that trusting limp weight against her chest, how she’d bend her neck over Charlotte’s, bury her face in the warm skin, wanting so much to merge with her again.

BY SIX O’CLOCK, Ruben still hadn’t arrived. Carmen tried calling. “He must not got his cell with him.”

“No problem, I can drive you.”

“I’m sure he’ll be here,” Carmen said doubtfully. “I hope he’s okay.”

Autumn rolled her eyes. “Daddy always forgets.”

“I know — you and Autumn could stay here tonight! If you want. I have extra toothbrushes, anything you could need. We’ll have a girls’ night, eat pizza, do masks. Autumn, I can set up a real canvas for you in the studio.” Margaret’s pulse throbbed in her neck, and she could feel her head warming. With Autumn here, the day already had a holiday feel to it. They’d stay up late, drinking wine and laughing. She looked at Carmen. “If you want.”

Carmen shook her head. “We couldn’t.” Her voice was uneasy.

Autumn pulled on her grandmother’s shirt. “Yes! Yes!”

“It’s just one night. At least have dinner. If you change your mind I can drive you guys home before bed.”

While Margaret cooked, they listened to Autumn’s CD on the stereo — pop music sung by some blond girl in a tube top — and the three of them danced around the house. In the studio, Margaret had set up a new canvas and adjusted the easel so it was Autumn’s height. Soon Carmen seemed to relax. They stood around talking and laughing, drinking wine, while Autumn squeezed the bright acrylics onto a fresh palette — too much, but Margaret didn’t stop her.

After dinner, Carmen dug through her purse for a bottle of pink nail polish. She propped her feet on the coffee table and buffed and painted her toenails. “Here,” she said, waving the bottle at Margaret. “I’ll do you.”

Margaret sipped her wine and shook her head. “No. My toes look terrible. I’d hate for anyone to touch them.” She thought of her feet, long and pale, the skin thin and dry. An old woman’s feet.

“You’re sure? I used to do hair and nails professionally.”

Margaret hesitated, nearly changed her mind. Autumn was stretched on the carpet with Margaret’s oversized sketchpad, drawing intricate lines with a pencil.

“If you wanted, you could do something with my hair,” Margaret said shyly.

Carmen nodded. “Sit.”

Autumn glanced up. “She’s really good.”

Margaret sat on the floor between Carmen’s knees, and Carmen began to rake her fingers across her scalp. Autumn’s pencil scratched. After a moment Margaret allowed herself to relax against the couch, her whole body warm and electric with Carmen’s touch. She was drunker than she thought.

“You’ve got good curl. I used to love giving permanents.”

She remembered her friends at Mount Holyoke, winding each other’s hair in curlers at night, the smuggled bottles of rum they mixed with pineapple juice from large cans and drank out of their coffee mugs. It wasn’t the nights they snuck out with boys from Amherst or UMass that she missed; it was the nights they spent in, intending to read, that instead unfolded in wonderful laughter and silliness.

In college Margaret had slept with three boys: two boyfriends, the other the visiting brother of her roommate. Margaret liked sex, liked the intrigue, the playacting, the real passion that invariably caught her by surprise. She also liked the ultimate safety of it, orchestrated and anticipated and reviewed as it was with her friends. It was this intimacy, the intimacy with women, that had really mattered.

Margaret shifted ever so slightly, leaned her shoulder into Carmen’s thigh.

“What happened?” Margaret murmured.

“Oh, I got away from it, and six years ago Reina Sanchez opened the salon by the gas station. Anymore, I have a heck of a time getting the energy to do my own hair.”

AFTER AUTUMN HAD BEEN put to bed — both Carmen and Margaret had tucked her in — they sat in the living room petting Daisy and watching a late show. It was past eleven when the driveway light flicked on. Margaret went to the window and looked out. She could see Ruben backlit by the glow of the spotlight, a dark, unsmiling face in the driver’s seat. He wasn’t looking toward the house, but at some point in the distance.

She backed away from the window, suddenly afraid of being seen. When the doorbell rang, she didn’t move to answer it.

“Ruben.” Carmen sighed and rose to open the door, as if she lived here. Daisy trotted after her.

Up close, Ruben wasn’t nearly as tall as Margaret had imagined, just an inch or two taller than she. His facial hair was scraggly and long, his teeth crooked and scummy-looking.

“What’s wrong, hijito?” Carmen said.

The remaining sensation of drunkenness washed away and Margaret felt sharp and dry and alert. “Come in,” she said politely, even though he was already inside and something was clearly wrong.

Ruben looked over Carmen and Margaret’s shoulders, his head darting about in quick stabs. Margaret had imagined him handsome, disarming; she had imagined she might have to brace herself against his charm. Instead, she was repulsed. This was the son Carmen spent all her money on? This was the man responsible for half Autumn’s genes?

“Where’s my daughter?” he said, head jerking. He moved into the living room.

“Hijito,” Carmen said again, voice wary. “What’s the matter?”

“Where were you? Where have you been?” His voice was whiny.

Daisy began to yap foolishly. Over the noise, Carmen continued to step toward her son. “We’ve been waiting for you.” Her eyes were on something in his hand.

With a horror that flooded her throat and extremities, Margaret realized Ruben was holding a gun. She’d never seen a real handgun before — shockingly solid and metallic.

Margaret had the impulse to run to the child, asleep in the guestroom, and push her deep under the bed. The old childhood memories of hiding from her shouting father. Autumn must have the same instincts.

“Where’s my fucking daughter?” He scratched at his neck as though clawing something out of him. “You been talking to that bitch Chelsea? The two of you keeping my daughter from me?”

Margaret drew herself up. “You need to leave my house. You need to go.” She extended a hand toward the door, an absurdly formal gesture.

But Ruben didn’t hear. He lunged at Carmen, the gun swinging at his side. “You stupid cunt bitch, trying to—” He stopped short without touching her, put his face right into hers. “Where’s my fucking daughter?”

“I’m not keeping her from you, honey. We’ve been here, waiting. For you.” Carmen’s voice was imploring. She didn’t shift her eyes from her son’s.

Without warning, Ruben lifted the gun, shot it into the ceiling, barely missing a recessed light. The crack stunned Daisy into silence, and they all stood frozen as the gypsum dust rained down. Then Daisy started yapping again.

Margaret tried to think how far out the police would be. Ten minutes. Longer. Maybe a highway patrol would be near. Maybe not. They might have trouble finding the turnoff, navigating the dirt road at night. A lot could happen in that time.

“I’m calling the police.”

“Please,” cried Carmen. She did not shift her eyes from Ruben’s. “Please! He’s a good boy. He’ll stop.”

Margaret looked wildly at the German knives lined up in the block on the kitchen counter. She remembered something she’d heard about knives being no good for self-defense because they can so easily be turned against you. She lifted her hands, looked at them: so thin, veins showing blue through her skin, the wedding band heavy and loose.

Ruben’s voice rose. “You better listen to me. Listen to me, listen to me. You never listen to me.” He moaned as he spoke, as if in physical pain.

“I’m listening, Ruben. I’m listening. Tell me what you have to say, and I’m listening.”

“Don’t you fucking tell me what to do!”

He was shaking, jumping, scratching at his neck, so there were red lines running down it. Margaret wondered if the skin might break. Margaret wondered if this was meth, if this was drunkenness, if it was a combination of the two.

Margaret imagined the scene from outside, where she wanted to be: the house all lit up like a silent stage, the terrible drama going on inside. But the house couldn’t be seen from the road. And any shout would sound like the wail of a coyote.

The car keys were on the counter in the kitchen. With her purse and her cell phone. Could she grab Autumn, grab the keys? It would take too long. There were too many open spaces in this house. It was all exposure and space. These were surfaces you could crack your head on.

Daisy’s bark hammered off the high ceilings, incessant. Margaret longed to run to her, clamp her mouth shut, longed for her to shut up so she could think. “I’ll give you money,” Margaret cried, hands shaking. She swung her arm wildly. “Take whatever you want, just leave us…”

Ruben turned fast, and Margaret shrank against the wall. “Fuck you,” he said, the words cutting. “I don’t want your money, rich cunt. Fuck you.”

Give this maniac Carmen, give him Autumn. Negotiate. You can have them all, she shouted in her head. Just leave, just leave.

“Calm down, hijito. Calm down.”

He turned back to his mother. “Don’t you fucking get near me! You want to keep me sucking at your fat tits.” Sinking to a crouch, Ruben buried his head in his arms, weeping. The gun hung loosely from his hand. Carmen knelt beside him and touched his shoulder gently.

Margaret’s courage returned. In a loud voice, so that she could be heard over Daisy’s panicked barking, she declared, “Get out now. I will not allow you to terrorize us.”

Carmen whipped around, eyes savage. Her voice was quiet, cruel. “You leave him alone.”

Whatever this was, they all understood it. Even Autumn. The terror and fury and love and whatever else was mixed up in it was theirs alone, and it was Margaret’s own stupid fault it was taking place in her house. She wanted them out, all of them, the little girl, too. She didn’t care what happened to them — they could tear each other limb from limb for all she cared — she just wanted them away from her. She wanted it all gone: the sun finding its way in, the dust sifting under the doors. Rattlesnakes. Coyotes and scorpions. God knows what else. Everything wailing, crying, howling.

Daisy barked, sharp, relentless.

Ruben rose in a sudden roar, grabbed the dog in his thick hands. “Shut the fuck up!”

Daisy squealed when he threw her across the great room. Her body hit the window with a thud, dropped to the ground in a gray heap. The thick pane didn’t break. When she stood, her black eyes were open, glassy, and she breathed in quick shallow breaths.

There was blood, just a little, in the fur at her ear. Daisy made her way unevenly toward Margaret, tags jingling, then stopped and tipped her head as if perplexed.

Margaret made her move: swept Daisy into her arms, ran across the tile to the heavy door, pushed it open, and burst into the cold night. Point-seven miles to the road. Her feet tore on the stones of the driveway as she ran.

After a time, she realized she was sobbing. She stopped and looked up the hill at the lit house, clutching the dog’s little body to her chest, her breath ripping through her. The scent of piñon was sharp and acrid in the cold air.

Above, the bright window hung against the darkness like a canvas on a gallery wall, framing Carmen and her son. They were motionless, as minutely wrought as figures in a medieval miniature. His face was buried in her lap, and she bent over him, so close their heads were nearly touching, the two of them as destructive and unstoppable as any force of nature.