At the side of the road a slightly higher stretch of ground offered itself. She drove atop it and killed the engine. Even if another flash flood came down the arroyo, it wouldn’t come as high as the wheels. She rolled up all the windows and locked the doors, not that it would stop anyone stealing the car if they were of a mind to, but no use wishing somebody would! The old wreck was beginning to cost more than it was worth, just to keep it going. Unlike Bert, who could cheerfully rob Peter to pay Paul, and then rob Paul to bet on football, Benita’s ghosts wouldn’t let her risk it. In her life there were no discretionary expenditures. Every penny was committed.
She studied the clouds massing in the west, readying themselves for a full-scale downpour, checking to be sure she had both a hooded rain poncho and a sweater in her pack. She didn’t plan to go more than a half hour away from the car. Gingerly, she placed one foot on the mud flow, which turned out to be a false alarm – only half an inch of clayey goo spread over silt that had settled into a brick-like mass.
Just ahead of her the road turned up the canyon between two groves of ponderosa pine. This world was empty, no people, no sounds of people talk or people machines. Saturdays people slept in, read the papers, did yard work, maybe had a barbecue or went to visit family. Since Mami died, she hadn’t had any local family except Dad. Since she’d become a recluse outside of working hours, she hadn’t had any real friends. Anyhow, she wouldn’t want to see anyone, not for a few days.
Half a mile up the road the pines gave way to aspen and fir around grassy glades, and within a hundred yards she saw the first mushrooms gleaming from the dappled shade. She knew what they were. Mami had taught her what to avoid as well as what to pick, but she walked over to them anyhow, admiring the picture they made, like something out of a child’s fairy tale.Funga demonio, Mami had said.Amanita muscaria, s aid the mushroom guide. Red with wooly white spots on the cap. Also amanita pbailloides, white as a dove’s wing, graceful and pure. She stood looking at them for a long time, pretending not to think what she was thinking.
With a heaving sigh, she left the death caps behind and wandered among the trees parallel to the road. One winy, plate-sized bolete crouched in a hollow among some aspens, a triple frill of tanpleurotus fringed a half-rotted cottonwood stump, half a dozen white domes of acjaricuspoked through dried pine needles in a clump, gills as pink as flamingo feathers. There wasn’t a single wormhole in any of them. That was enough. She had learned a long time ago not to take more than she could eat in one day, unless she was drying them for winter.
Lately she hadn’t been in the mood to do anything for winter, or for any future time. No more planning. No more preparation. No more dedication. Getting through each day was enough. No use drying mushrooms when she’d be the only one to eat them. Bert had never cared for mushrooms, not even on pizza, and the kids weren’t here to eat them. Benita had always imagined the summers between college terms as a time of homecoming, but it had been only imagination, not thought. Thought would have told her that once they were gone, they would stay. Angelica had a job she couldn’t leave. Carlos said he was getting a job. Cross your fingers and pray. He needed to work, at something, not to go on doing . . . whatever it was he did. Angelica begged her to come visit them, but somehow … it hadn’t seemed to be the right time.
She glanced at her watch and went on upward, strolling now, relaxed by the quiet, the soft air, the bird murmur in the trees, keeping an eye on the shadows. When they said near enough to noon, she sat down on a flat rock and unpacked her lunch. Diet soda. Turkey sandwich. Two white peaches from the orchard behind the house, apricot trees, peach trees, plus plums, pear, apple, cherry. This year the peach trees bloomed even earlier than usual, but instead of the blossoms being killed by the April frost, they’d managed to set fruit before it happened. Pears, apples and cherries bloomed later. July was for pitting cherries, night after night, to freeze for pies. August and September were for making applesauce, apple jelly, and putting up pears.