“Esther,” David called from the living room, tying off a finishing knot. “¿Y Ernesto?”
She answered after a pause. “Rosa didn’t want him with them. I’m not sure where he went, but I made sure he knew better than to come back here.”
Río’s brothers snickered. Her sister chimed in: “Mommy played tag with Tío using a two-by-four.”
David asked Río to wait until the rest of the family went to sleep before slipping into Tía Paloma’s clothes. Mom still needed time before she felt comfortable explaining things to the kids, and it was best that no one else knew what they were going to do. At midnight, Río and her father slipped into the attic, David lighting the incense and placing arroz y tamales on the altar while she changed.
La falda roja plumed when Río let it fall from her hips to her ankles, the cotton soft and twirling as it moved. The black huipil had large red roses and marigolds woven into la tela, smaller ones embroidered in shining thread front and back, leaves decorated in three colors of green. Paloma’s rebozo matched the skirt, deep crimson, black hem and fringe. Río wrapped it around her shoulders, put the rose her father had given her back behind her ear, and smoothed down her black hair.
She turned toward her father. Her cheeks burned. Gaze trained on the floor, she took an anxious step forward, stopped when he looked over his shoulder and rose. His hand covered his mouth. Río clenched her shawl.
She gave a broken chuckle. “I bet it looks—”
David wrapped Río up into his arms and pulled her in tight.
Wordless minutes later, they pushed the truck half a block down the street before cranking the engine. They drove dark, empty streets for ten minutes, David turning off his headlights when they rolled beside the fence. Río hopped out before he came to a stop. She pulled the heavy-duty bolt cutters from her waistband and bore down on the padlock, forearms flexing, shoulders straining. She heard it snap and tore the chain away, pulled back the gate and rolled it into place the second her father backed the truck onto the construction site.
Under the clouded moon, David stepped onto the land. He took the chain from Río’s hands and wrapped it around the fence posts, pulling his own lock from his pocket. “Go.” He tossed her a flashlight. “Ten cuidado.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to come see her?” She ground gravel as she pivoted toward him.
“You didn’t see me there when she showed you she wanted you to come.” He snapped the lock into place, patted her head. “Besides, I’ll see Paloma anytime I look at you.”
Río’s heart swelled.
“Watch for my headlights. One flash.”
She nodded and ran.
Her work boots pounded the dusty ground of the torn-up streets, the hem of her skirt in her hand, flashlight beam swinging in front of her. She darted toward the rounded curves of St. Cajetan’s, able to see them dark against the sky despite the black of the night.
“Gota.”
Gales carried Paloma’s voice to Río, gusts growing stronger the closer she drew near. She wheezed, the air cold and hard, but she kept dropping one foot in front of the other, even when she stumbled over rubble, even when sweat dripped into her eyes and stung.
She passed St. Cajetan’s, the church feeling too tall, walls pulling in and out, inhale and exhale. Río drove forward, thought the ground started to feel like membrane, soft and springy. Wind whistled high and low. Maybe the land was singing.
“Dame una gota.”
She skidded onto the dirt road that led up to the Ninth Street houses, veered right at their fence, knew where her home would’ve stood even though the streets were missing. Tripping her way down a rocky path, she scrabbled over rubble that jutted from piles, splintered wood beams biting into her forearms, shattered glass tearing at her palms.
She got caught on a broken wall a few feet off the ground, her thick locks grabbed by fractured rafters. She pulled but couldn’t break free, seeing stars in front of her eyes. Something translucent reached past her face, wind whipping into the wood and knocking it back.
She fell. The air knocked out of her lungs when she hit the ground.
Then she realized she was there. Río staggered to her feet, spun in place. “¡Tía!”
“Dame una gota de nuestra sangre.”
The clouds over the moon parted. Río turned off her flashlight and saw Paloma in wispy translucence, standing in front of the wreckage that was their home. Her intangible form wavered in the night, but Río could tell Paloma’s hand stretched toward her, palm upturned, fingers cupped. Río reached, her hand cut open from the glass of the ruins.
“Our blood is in the streets.” Paloma’s body became as solid and bright as the moon when Río’s droplets fell into her hand. “Our blood is in the ground.” Thick red pools grew under Paloma’s feet, spread into the wreckage. Wind gusting, earth shaking, broken bricks and girders rose from their open graves and stitched themselves back together. Paloma stepped toward Río as glass crashed into wholeness. Mortar slapping against brick, nails hammering into wood, shutters cracking open, and doors slamming shut. Paloma flashed so bright Río had to cover her eyes.
“We are the land,” Paloma whispered. Her hands wrapped around Río’s face. She pressed her cold forehead against Río’s, closed her eyes, and as she lingered, she grew warm.
Lights flickered on in the homes that stood tall again, gabled roofs cutting into the dark sky, colors deepening under the moonlight. Blue curving trims, red arches over windows, white brick shimmering with rainbows while pines and cottonwoods sprung from the ground.
Children chased barking dogs through swept dirt yards. Mothers gathered on porches, lips red, heads tossed back. Men smoked together on corners, shoving each other and smirking. Battered trucks puttered down paved streets, dandelions lining the sidewalks. Work clothes fluttered in the breeze, strung from crisscrossing lines. Aroma of baking bread, stewed tomatoes, simmered garlic, onion, and oregano. Milk bottles knocking by the dairy. Hops and yeast marrying in the brewery.
Paloma opened her eyes. St. Cajetan’s doors flung back with a scream, candles burning in the stained-glass windows. Hymns poured from the walls. Organs spun melodies. A torrent of blood rushed down the church steps, spattered into the street, joining the scarlet rivers seeping from the Ninth Street houses.
“Never let them forget,” Paloma’s voice echoed across the neighborhood. The ground pulsed. Río saw people she did and didn’t know rise from the earth to stand across Auraria. Skins of brown, bronze, and black, dark eyes turning toward the moon.
“Make them remember us.” Paloma spread her arms wide. “Walk tall and speak for those who have fallen.”
Four years later, Río stood beside her father, mother, sister, and brothers at the back of a crowd that gathered for a ribbon cutting at Metropolitan State College. Her thick black hair swept her waist as the wind rustled the red skirt she wore, silver bangles on her wrist shining in the sun. It was bright, the concrete hot. Río stared at the large brown square the city built over razed homes. Much of Denver was turning into the shape of building blocks. Río wanted to knock them all over.
A blue ribbon hung between hand railings placed on either side of the building’s glass door. Mayor McNichols stood in front of it, at a mobile podium with a speaker that made his crackling voice bounce across sidewalks.