The Temptation of Demetrio Vigil (30 page)

Mom, unsurprisingly, took Interstate 25.

Things began to get surprising, however, when,
instead of taking the turnoff to the ski area in Santa Fe, as she’d
said we would, she turned onto Highway 84, driving past the Santa
Fe Opera and out of the city limits, into the artist colony of
Tesuque, and then onto Highway 502, toward Los Alamos, through the
village of Pojoaque. Clouds covered the sky now, and a light snow
began to fall.

“Where are you going?” I asked her.

“Don’t worry. We’re not lost.” That’s all she
said.

After a few turns onto increasingly narrower,
less-paved and bumpier roads, we arrived at a heavily guarded gate
for what appeared to be a ranch, given the words Rancho la Curación
emblazoned across the thick adobe walls in large gold lettering on
either side of the metal egress. My mother stopped the car, and
rolled down her window, all business and control, as a guard
stepped forward with his thick moustache and dark glasses leading
the way.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“Maria Ochoa,” she told the guard
condescendingly, “we have a nine o’clock appointment with Doctor
Bergant. She’s expecting us.

“What’s going on?” I asked as the guard buzzed us
through and my mother rolled her window back up.

“I’m
helping
you,” she said snootily as
she drove through the opening and onto the compound.

“I have a
doctor
’s appointment?” I asked. “Are
we skiing after that?”

My mother did not answer me. Instead, she wove the
car down a few curving paths, among several beautiful upscale adobe
houses separated by snowy expanses that I imagined were lawns and
gardens in the warmer months. This is when I noticed there were
people sitting outside on rocking chairs, and that every porch on
every house had exactly the same kind of rocking chairs, and the
same kind of blank-faced people smoking or muttering to themselves
there.

“This is a mental institution,” I said in a whisper,
my breath shallow as the full weight of the realization hit me. “Oh
my God.”

“Make yourself useful and help me find building 19,”
my mother mused, squinting at the houses as we passed each one. I
was too busy looking at the sorrowful faces of the people on the
porches, and peering out at us from the windows of the houses, to
help her.

“Is it?” I asked, a sick feeling
washing over me. “Is this a loony farm? You’re putting me away in
an
asylum
?”

“Oh, you’ll see.” She smiled at me
without a hint of kindness. “It’s not nice to use that terminology,
Maria. Very politically incorrect. We prefer to think of this is a
healing retreat for you. That’s exactly what it is. A nice,
peaceful place with lots of helpful people to fix you right
up.”

“But I don’t need fixing.”

“The ones who need it most never think they do,” she
said.

“I’m calling dad. He’ll get me out.”

“No he won’t. We already spoke. He’s signed off on
all your paperwork. He agrees it is not in my - I mean, your - best
interest for you to date a hoodlum. Plus, Kelsey’s mother told me
about you having bad dreams about death and coyotes, and your
father said he overheard the two of you talking about ghosts as
thought you believed it. But worst of all, Missy - whom I normally
despise but who seems to care about you, though I have no idea why
- tells me you might have even seduced an elderly plumber they
hired.”

“What?

”My mother regarded me with
disgust.

“I don’t
know
what happened to you when you
had that crash, Maria, but it has to stop. You’re endangering
yourself. You must understand.”

“I did not seduce that old man!” I
screamed. “Are you completely crazy? He - he heard us talking about
the dream, and he’s some kind of religious person. He said he
thought it meant something. That’s all. He thought I was seeing
ghosts. I swear, you’re crazy. You. Not me.
You
!”

“And the way you’re speaking to me! It’s
shameful.”

“Mom. Please. You have to believe me.”

“I’m doing this because I love you. I know that’s
hard for you to understand right now, but someday you’ll thank me
for it.”

“How long are you leaving me
here?” I asked in a panic as I looked around and realized just
exactly how isolated, and barricaded, this place was. There was a
razor wire fence around the entire encampment, as though it were a
fortress, or a prison. For a brief moment, I did wonder if she were
right, if I were imagining all of it, including the ceremony, and
the dead dog, and the cows and traveling with Demetrio via
descanso. It was all so absurd, viewed from afar. God, maybe
I
was
losing my
mind.

“I’m leaving you here until they fix you.” She
smiled her politician’s smile at me, sending a cold wave through my
flesh. “There are visitation days, and I will come to see you. Your
every need will be met, including a tutor to keep you up to date
with schoolwork, and there’s a gym here, and a salon, and a spa.
Everything you could want or need.”

“What about my friends?”

“Once you’re settled, I’ll tell Kelsey and Victoria
where you are, if that’s what the doctor thinks I should do. It
would be nice for you to have your friends visit you.”

“This isn’t happening,” I groaned.

“Cheer up, it could be the best thing that ever
happened to you. You can’t know yet. Try it before you judge. I
picked the best facility in the state, the most exclusive and
luxurious. You really will be very comfortable here.”

Soon, we had parked in the small lot in front of
Building 19, a two-story adobe house flanked by towering cottonwood
trees whose naked branches looked to be begging the sky for
forgiveness. Pots of dead flowers sat on the porch, as did two
girls who looked to be about my age. They did not look happy. Or
nice. I caught sight of the arms of one of them, and it was
crisscrossed with long cuts, scabs and scars. I shuddered.

“Come on,” said my mother, popping the hatchback.
“Get your suitcase. In you go.”

“My suitcase? Why?”

“Oh, never mind” she said, seeing a woman in nurse’s
scrubs walking toward us with a clipboard. “I’m sure they’ll get it
for you. God knows I paid them enough. They better have valet.”

The nurse came directly to my door, and waited for
me to open it.

“Maria Ochoa?” she asked, smiling
fakely.

“Yeah.”

“Hello. I’m Debbie. I’ll be your intake nurse.
Welcome to Rancho la Curación. We’ve been expecting you.”

My mother waited impatiently just behind Debbie,
with a cold, hard, vindictive look in her eyes.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I
asked my mom. “There’s nothing
wrong
with me.”

“You’ll have someone get her things, I assume?” said
my mother in her regal way.

“Of course, Ms. Romero. Joshua will get them
shortly.”

“Good.” My mother exposed her heartless smile to
nurse as the orderly, Joshua, a bald man with kind eyes, fetched my
suitcase in a servile way.

“I really don’t need to be here,” I told the nurse.
“My mother does. But I don’t.”

“Follow me, please,” said Debbie, flashing my mother
a knowing look, as though everyone who was brought here said the
same thing.

My mother let the nurse pass her,
then put her arm around as though she loved me, holding me close to
her, pinching my arm and saying in my ear, “I’m doing this because
no one, and I mean no one, is going to ruin my chances at the
mayor’s seat, Maria. I have been
very
clear with you. I cannot afford
to have a crazy daughter. They’ll fix you here. I’m paying a lot of
money for it, so they had
better
fix you here. Do you understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I said, resolutely.

“Good. I’ll be back for you when you’re ready to
cooperate.”

♦

An hour or so later, after having stood at
the window of my upstairs suite and watched my mother drive away in
the increasingly heavy snow, I found myself face to face with Dr.
Bergant. She was an elegant woman in her early 30s, with short
light brown hair and intelligent brown eyes that seemed to pull you
in as you spoke. The doctor didn’t wear clinical doctor-type
clothes; rather, she wore jeans and a dark brown cashmere sweater,
with diamond stud earring and a delicate pendant necklace with gold
in the shape of a star contained within a circle. Her boots looked
to be designer. Her nails were perfectly manicured.

We both sat on a small floral sofa in the cozy
sitting area of my suite, near a kiva-style corner fireplace that
crackled with good cheer. Dr. Bergant had brought a plate of hot
and gooey chocolate chip cookies and a pot of green tea with her,
and was pouring me a cup. The room was exactly the sort you might
find at one of the upscale resorts my mother favored, done in a
pueblo Indian style and decorate in muted earth tones with splashes
of red and black for accent. The main difference, I soon realized,
was that the windows here did not open, and the doors locked from
the outside. It was, in every sense, a beautiful prison.

“Tell me why you think your mother sent you here,”
said the doctor, her eyes oozing sympathy and understanding. It was
a far cry from the cold, hard, spectacled male doctor I had somehow
expected. This almost felt like talking to one of my
girlfriends.

“I think my mom thinks I’m at
great risk of ruining her political career,” I said. “And her
political career comes first. It always has, now that I think about
it.
That’s
why
I’m here.”

I felt tears sting my eyes, unexpectedly. I hadn’t
realized how deeply it wounded me to realized I came second for my
mother.

“And why do you think she thinks you’re going to
ruin her political career?” asked the doctor, as she stirred a
dollop of honey into her own cup of tea.

“Because, my mom wants everything to be perfect. She
thinks people will only vote for perfect people. Family problems of
any kind ruin things for politicians, I guess. And in a city like
Albuquerque, where everybody knows everyone else, news gets around,
especially in the political world. A lot of my classmates have
powerful parents in town, and I guess everyone knows I’m ‘crazy’
now, and my mom thinks it’ll ruin her.”

Dr. Bergant looked thoughtful, and sorrowful, as she
listened.

“And how does all of that make you feel?” she
asked.

“Terrible. Like a failure.”

“Why a failure?”

“Because I’m not the perfect daughter my mom wants
me to be. Because I tried to be for so long, and now I just
can’t.”

“Why not?” she asked.

I sighed and watched the fire jump and dance for a
moment before answering. “Because I fell in love with the wrong
kind of boy for her tastes, I guess.”

Dr. Bergant smiled peacefully at me. “Do you want to
tell me about him?”

I shrugged. Truthfully, I did. I wanted to tell her
everything, and I felt like maybe I could because she was such a
nice person. But part of me also knew it would be foolish to
mention to a psychiatrist that my boyfriend was a ghost.

“He’s this nice, sweet guy from Cerrillos,” I began.
“He used to be in a gang, but he got out and got his life together,
and even had a scholarship to go to St. John’s.”

“Had?” she asked. “Did he lose it for some
reason?”

“No. Not exactly.”

Dr. Bergant watched me, and I was aware of how
uncomfortable I must have looked.

“Is he in school now?” she asked.

“No. Yes. Sort of,” I said, in rapid succession.

“Maria,” she said, patiently. “If
we’re going to make any progress here, and I want that very much so
that you can go back to your life, then you’re going to have to be
honest with me. There’s no room for lies here.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said.

Dr. Bergant laughed. “You make me feel so old with
that.”

“Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s fine. I guess I’m almost twice your
age.”

We sat in silence for a while before she spoke
again.

“I should tell you, when I was your age I had a
similar situation.”

“Oh?” I asked.

“Yes,” she smiled fondly at the memory. “I came from
a strict Baptist family, down South, and I fell in love with a
black man from the wrong side of the tracks.”

“Really?”

“You can imagine how well that went over with my
family. He was a mechanic, of all things, but very smart, and so
handsome and kind to me. We met at a science fair.”

“What happened?”

“I married him,” she said with a smile. She took her
wallet out of the designer handbag next to her and opened it to
show me photos of herself and her husband, and their two
children.

“Wow,” I said.

Dr. Bergant put her hand on my arm and said,
“Sometimes, you have to follow your heart, and not your mother’s
heart. I’m sure your mom wouldn’t like to hear me telling you this,
so here’s what we’re going to do, okay?”

I nodded, feeling an incredible sense of relief that
I wasn’t in the clutches of someone who agreed with my mom, or even
respected her having brought me here.

“You and I,” said Dr. Bergant, “are going to have a
few sessions like this, and I’m going to chat with you about life
and love, and we’re going to come up with some positive strategies
for finding ways to coexist in your mother’s world for the
remaining time you have in it, so that she never forces you into
anything like this again, and then we’ll call her, and you’ll go
back, and everyone will be happy. How does that sound?”