The Annotated Church of the Old Mermaids

One-2

Myla glanced up again. “Thanks, Crow. I owe you.”

The wash continued across the road, but Myla did not follow it. The road marked the end of the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. She turned around, walked a few yards, then started up a path to the Wentworth house. She had memorized the paths to each house, but she never traveled the desert thoughtlessly. It was too prickly for that. Besides, the desert moved. Like a glacier. She was convinced. Well, she shrugged, maybe not exactly like a glacier.15 Maybe like a slow dance troupe. When the moon came up, the mesquite, palo verde, saguaro, and prickly pear did the two-step. Or maybe yoga. She shook her head. She was getting a bit too fanciful; Gail would say she was spending too much time alone.

Not too much, really.

Myla walked around the outside of the Wentworth house to see if anything was out of place. Her feet crunched over the pebbly dirt. This house looked similar to other houses in the sanctuary, made from adobe or fake-adobe, this one with a tiled roof. A small covey of quail scurried across the dirt drive, whimpering and cooing, reminding Myla—as quail often did—of a group of nuns bustling from sight, worried they might become tainted if they did not hurry, hurry, hurry away.

Myla pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket, searched for the Wentworth key, put it in the lock and turned it. She stepped inside the dark, quiet house and closed the door behind her. She paused in the foyer for a moment and wiped her feet on the mat. She looked down to make certain she was not bringing in any dirt or cactus thorns. Then she walked to the living room and called, “Buenos dÌas! Es Myla.”

A moment later, a five year old girl came running around the corner from the hallway, her arms outstretched, her long black ponytails bouncing on her back. Myla bent over and enveloped the girl in her arms.

“Oh, Lily my Lily,” Myla said in Spanish. “You are the most beautiful flower in this desert. I’ll have to take you home with me and never let you go.”

Lily kissed her daintily on the cheek.

“Ahhh, stingy with the water are we,” Myla said.

Lily turned her cheek to Myla, and Myla gave her a wet kiss. Lily laughed and wiped it away.

“Oh! You don’t want my kisses? Okay. The kiss is on your hand now, so if you want it back, you can touch your cheek any time.”

Lily put both hands up to her cheek and smiled. Her mother walked into the room.

“Hola, Maria,” Myla said. “CÛmo est·s?” She embraced the thin young woman.

“I am well,” Maria said, running her hands through her short black hair. “Lily had another nightmare.”

“I was in the water,” Lily said. “I couldn’t breathe.”

“We had to cross a river coming here,”16 Maria explained. “It was higher than we expected. Below her knees, but the current was too strong for her. She started screaming. It was nearly dark. Everyone started running, afraid they’d be caught. She fell and the water grabbed her.” Maria squinted, remembering. “But I got her right away. Didn’t I, Lily?” She looked down at her daughter. “I would never do anything to put her in danger.” She looked at Myla again. Both women knew she had risked her daughter’s life by crossing la frontera17 and bringing her into the desert. “I couldn’t leave her behind,” Maria whispered.

“Did you eat?” Myla asked.

Lily slipped her hand into Myla’s as they walked into the darkened kitchen.

“We made the oatmeal like you showed us,” Maria said.

Microwaved. Less chance of them catching anything on fire.

“Then I washed the dishes and put everything away,” Maria said. “It is very kind of these people to let me use their house.”

“Yes, well,” Myla said, “tonight we will have dinner at my place, when I get back from the Church of the Old Mermaids. Will you be all right until then? If anything happens, remember you can walk out onto the road and the second house on the right is where I live. There’s a phone in my apartment in the barn. I will leave my door unlocked.”

“I remember,” Maria said. “You showed us.”

“By the way, you can leave these kitchen curtains open if you like,” Myla said. “No one could see you from here.”

“Any news on my husband?”

Myla shook her head. She had discovered Lily and Maria in the desert a few miles from the border several days earlier, after their guia18 had deserted them. Myla had been searching for items for the Church of the Old Mermaids in a wash that ran through a stand of cottonwoods when she heard a child crying. She followed the sound until she discovered Lily, alone. A few moments later, Maria seemed to appear out of nowhere. She took Lily into her arms and explained to Myla that she was looking for her husband Juan who had come to the United States three months earlier. She had not heard from him since. Could Myla help her, Maria wanted to know. Finding Maria’s husband would be like finding a particular thorn in the desert, Myla thought at the time—and she still thought so—but she did not say that to Maria then or now. Besides, maybe Theresa would find him.

Myla looked from the mother to the child now.

“I need to get going,” Myla said. “I’ll see you both later.”

“Thank you, Myla,” Maria said.

“Don’t go,” Lily said.

Myla crouched down. “I’ll be back. I’ll tell you another story tonight.”

Lily turned her cheek to her. Myla bent over to give her another wet kiss. Lily laughed as though tickled.

Myla left the house. She stood outside for a moment until she heard the door lock behind her. Then she walked down the dirt street to the Martin house. She went around the outside of the building, then inside. All appeared to be as it should, although she needed to take down the Christmas lights sometime before the next holiday. She locked the house up again and walked back across the wash to the Castillo place. It looked as though the javelinas had been trying to dig up something near the palo verde by the master bedroom. No harm done though. Javelinas did what javelinas did. She went inside the house, stood in the semidarkness, then called out, “Hola! It’s Myla, Ernesto.” No answer.

She walked across the living room and looked out the sliding glass doors at the enclosed patio. Ernesto lay on one of the chaise lounges in the shade of a tall conifer. He was covered from head to foot. Myla nodded. This was good. He needed the rest. He had gotten sick picking cotton, probably from pesticide poisoning. His friends had taken him to the hospital emergency initially, but he wouldn’t go back after the first visit. He was afraid someone would report him to la migra.19 He had not been able to work for two months, he had no money for rent or food, and he hadn’t been getting any better. That was when Theresa heard about him from a friend of a friend. She told Myla about his situation. Two weeks at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary and he was almost back to his old self.

Myla opened the sliding glass door and went outside.

Ernesto looked up, took off his sunglasses, and started to stand.

“No need to get up,” Myla said. “You’ve been eating the soup?”

Ernesto stood despite her protestations. He looked far older than his thirty-five years, fragile, his body slightly bent.

“I have been eating your soup, seÒora,” he said. “It is a miracle soup! You are a miracle worker!”

“Just thank the Old Mermaids,” Myla said.

Ernesto smiled.

“I will be gone until dark,” Myla said. “But we will have dinner at my place tonight. Should I have Stefan come get you?”

“I can come on my own,” he said.

“Still, wouldn’t his company be nice?”

“That is true,” Ernesto said.

“Until then,” Myla said. “I’m late so I have to go.”

“I will see you out,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said. But he followed her anyway. They slowly walked to the door together. She said good-bye again, stepped outside, and listened for the door to lock behind her. She hurried down the path to the wash, then headed toward the Crow house.

Cathy and her teenaged son Stefan were at the Ford20 house, but Myla would not have time to stop there this morning. They would be fine without her looking in now. At least she hoped so. She did not normally have this many people at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary—and never anyone except migrants. Until now. Theresa had vouched for Cathy, an old acquaintance of hers who was fleeing an abusive husband. She could not stay with her, Theresa had pleaded, because Theresa was still a newlywed. It would only be a few days, she had promised. It had been ten days so far. Myla was not sure why she had agreed; maybe it was because Theresa never begged and she was so desperate for this second marriage to work. In any case, Myla had let Cathy and Stefan come to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary.

Myla hurried by the Crow house and empty horse corrals to her apartment on the north side of the barn. She went inside and dropped the plastic bag full of trash in the garbage. She added the contents of the ruby bag to a cardboard box. Then she put that box onto another cardboard box and carried them outside just as Gail drove up. Myla waited for the dust to settle, and then she went to the back of the car. The hatchback opened as Gail got out of the car.

“Good morning,” Myla said.

Gail looked irritated, but she often looked irritated. Myla was convinced she would be a beautiful old woman: her face a network of wrinkles—like arroyos on a mountain—from a lifetime of frowns.

Gail pushed her curly brown-hair out of her eyes and asked, “The table inside?”

“Yep,” Myla said. She put the boxes in the back of the car, then followed Gail into the apartment and picked up two more boxes and carried them to the car. Gail got the table. They packed the car, closed the hatchback, and both got in.

Gail started up the car. “You been rushing around this morning?”

“Of course,” Myla said. “Saturdays are busy.”

Gail turned the car around and drove down the dirt drive. She glanced at Myla. “Someday you’re going to have to take me on one of your walks in the wash, so I can see exactly what you do.”

“Nothing exact about it,” Myla said. “And you know the Old Mermaids like me to walk the wash alone.”

“Yeah, right.” Gail turned out onto the road, and they headed for the main road that would, eventually, lead them into town. “I’d think you’d have all the alone time you’d need out here.”

“You’d think,” Myla said.

1 A wash is an arroyo or dry riverbed that sometimes fills with water. ka

2 In Portland, I recalled a place called Church of Elvis. I remembered it was just some guy selling junk at a table outside a*****e in NW Portland. As it turned out, I was conflating two different things: There was a Church of Elvis in Portland, but I’ve never been there, and there was some guy selling junk at a table outside a*****e somewhere in Portland. In any case, I liked the idea of someone selling things they had found in the desert at a table in Tucson, on Fourth Avenue near the university. I tried to figure out what kind of church would be charming. Eventually I settled on mermaids, but I didn’t want people to think of the little mermaid or any number of those depictions of sexualized mermaids. I knew some of the oldest goddesses in art and recorded history were fish or fish women. They were essentially ancient mermaids. Thus: Church of the Old Mermaids.