leland quarterly | autumn 2016
On Sundays, they went to the big church on the plaza. Her friends sat next to their husbands and children. Soledad sat next to Mamá. Thirty years old, and still sitting with her mother in church. How would she would draw the scene? The vaulted ceiling. The way the light glinted off the gold panels on the walls. She held the drawing inside of her like a superpower as the priest droned on. Everywhere Soledad went, she collected things to draw. A flock of rainclouds. Mamá’s hands making tamales. Children dancing to a boombox in the middle of the street. Pink flowers on a balcony. An old woman, barefoot, carrying a burden with a strap around her forehead. A dog with one ear that limped in a cobblestone alley and turned to look at her, eyes bright and lucid. There were so many old women. So many dogs. The old women had rotten teeth and no shoes. The dogs had no names and their ribs jutted out of their bodies. There were so many it made you want to turn away. But if you just drew one, you could look at it. One dog in an alleyway. She shaded his fur meticulously. She worked on his eyes for hours. “There are no dogs in San Francisco,” reported Reina. “Or hardly any. And the ones they have here, they keep on leashes. They wash them and cut their fur and they all have enough to eat.” * Mamá died one winter morning, just as the sun was rising. Soledad called Reina. Reina cried. Her children, Teresa and Miguel, cried. Soledad stood, listening to them cry, through the cell phone. Behind her, neighbors filled the apartment with candles and weeping. The melting wax smelled bitter. Ahead of her stretched San Cristobal de las Casas under pink and silver clouds. Here Mamá had stood to hang the laundry. Soledad could hear the city breathing. All the dogs and old women
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