Free Night at the Fiestas: Stories by Kirstin Valdez Quade Page A

settle back and try to sing along, listening hard, each word coming a little too late. Sometimes Amadeo would sing, too, his voice filling the cab, and Angel would look up at him, delighted.
    Now she resembles that child again—her cheeks full and pink—but there’s something frightening about her. It’s as though she’s reentered the world, proud to be a member in good standing. Now she regales Amadeo with facts she’s learned in her parenting class, facts about fluids and brain stems and genitals. “Like, did you know he had his toes before he even got his little dick?”
    Amadeo looks at her, surprised, then back at the TV. “Why you gotta tell me that?”
    Angel faces him enthusiastically, grinning around her big white teeth, one foot tucked under her belly. “Weird, huh, that there’s a dick floating around in me? Do you ever think about that? How Gramma is the first girl you had your dick in?”
    “The fuck. That’s disgusting.” Amadeo is horrified; this is his daughter .
    “Jesus, too,” she says, singsong. “Jesus had his stuff in Mary.” She laughs. “Couple of virgins. There’s something for your research.” She settles back into the couch, pleased.
    Angel has seemed only mildly interested in Passion Week, which is a relief to Amadeo, and an irritation. “So it’s like a play?” she asks.
    “It’s not a play—it’s real. More real . . .” He doesn’t know how to explain it to her. More real even than taking Communion, Tío Tíve had said months ago when he sat with Amadeo at the Lotaburger and offered him the part. Tío Tíve looked at him severely. “You got a chance to thank Jesus, to hurt with Him just a little.”
    Angel asks, “They’re going to whip you and stuff? Like, actually hard?”
    He’s proud, can’t keep the smile from creeping in. “Yeah.”
    “My friend Lisette cuts, but she just does it for attention.”
    “It’s not like that. It’s like a way to pray.”
    Angel whistles low. “Crazy.” She seems to be thinking about this, turns a pink crocheted cushion slowly in her hands.
    Amadeo waits, exposed.
    “So it’s gonna hurt.”
    He tries to formulate the words to explain to Angel that the point is to hurt, to see what Christ went through for us, but he’s tongue-tied and shy about saying these things, as shy as he’d be if he were explaining it to his old friends. And he isn’t even sure he’s got it right. But here it is: his chance to prove to them all—and God, too—everything he’s capable of. “But it’s a secret, right? You can’t go tell nobody back in Española.”
    “Why?”
    “The Church don’t agree. You just can’t say anything.”
    “Can I see it? The morada?”
    He’d like her to see it, to see what he’s at the center of. “Tío Tíve don’t let women in there. You can go to Mass at the church. You can be in the procession.”
    Angel scrunches her face. “Can’t I just see it? Once? You’re Jesus , aren’t you?”
    “Tío Tíve would kill me.”
    She’s good-natured in her pleading, all smiles. “Come on .”
    “Women can’t go in. And besides . . .” Before he can stop himself, he glances down at her belly. Her face slackens and she turns back to the TV. When Amadeo looks again, she’s crying soundlessly, her face blotchy and ugly, mascara running down her cheeks.
    It’s not his fault. He didn’t tell her to be a girl. He didn’t tell her to get knocked up. They were doing so well, she was showing some interest, he was feeling so good. “It’s just a building. It’s mostly empty, anyway.”
    But now Angel’s shoulders rock. She has her fist pressed over her mouth, and she’s still not making a sound.
    “Hey. Hey, don’t cry.” He turns awkwardly on the couch, pats the shoulder near him.
    When she speaks, it’s with a gasp. “You think I’m too dirty for your morada. Is that it? Too dirty for your morada, too dirty for prom, too dirty for everything.”
    An image flashes: Angel naked, sweaty and