Free Hotel of the Saints by Ursula Hegi

to her feels light as she heads out, her back to the peninsula. If she wants to, she can imagine there’s no land in sight, no place to return to once her arms and legs get too tired to keep her afloat. But why not accept the solid sand behind her and, despite its safety, choose the open expanse of water and sky? She swims, her eyes on the horizon, yet knowing the line of the shore and the rock ledges that become smaller and more urgent where Baja ends and the Pacific merges with the Sea of Cortés.

Moonwalkers
    My father has the heart of a twenty-seven-year-old woman. While waiting for a transplant, he didn’t worry about the donor, because he forced all his strength into willing his own heart to endure long enough. But now he speaks about her as though she were still alive.
    â€œShe is studying to be a librarian,” he whispers to me when I arrive at the hospital, where he lies hooked up to tubes and monitors. The puckered skin beneath his chin stretches, tissue-thin.
    Beyond his window, the sky is streaked with the blues of dusk; but inside, the lights are as white as the sheets and walls, sealing my father from all that lies out there, from time past and time yet to be. He seems oblivious to the noise around him: machines beeping; wheelchairs clattering; people shouting; televisions droning.
    â€œReading … She is constantly reading. Her parents…”
    As he raises both hands toward me, I’m once again alarmed by how uncertain they’ve become, how brittle. Only a year ago, when he retired from his physical-therapy practice and surprisedmy wife, Eleanor, and me with a visit, his hands were still rugged. He helped us rake the fallen leaves behind the house, caulk the skylight in our sunroom. He has always relied on his hands—their knowledge, their wisdom —more than he relied on sight. But now he’s maneuvering through uncharted territory. “She is two months younger than you,” he tells me.
    Smells of iodine and cleansers and gladiolas clash in his cold room. Two gurneys rumble past his open door, harsh against the tiles. White sheets cover the patients to their chins, and I wish I could follow them—away from my father. Instead, I sit down on the edge of his bed. Stroke his wrist with two fingers. Trace the plastic bracelet with his name. My name. John Bauer. His name used to be Hans, but he changed it to John when he emigrated from Austria as a young man. For him, touch has always been easy, part of his work. But for me, it’s not easy to be near my father. I feel ashamed for noticing, ashamed for not being a more compassionate son. But touching my father shrinks the distance between us too much. Will I still be able to say no to him now that he is frail?
No, I cannot take off from work to go hiking with you. No, I cannot call you back in five minutes. No, I
—
    â€œShe carries books with her wherever she …” His head lolls to the side, and his eyes follow the arc of the branches. This time of year is his favorite, the leaves still full while starting to turn red or golden.
    I try not to notice the flaky skin on his scalp. Against the pillow, his baldness is almost aggressive. Though he had no hair left when I started my junior year, I rarely saw him without a hairpiece so well crafted it could pass for real. By the time I graduated from high school, I had my own bald spot, and it haswidened since, the way snow gives way to piss in a nearly perfect circle. I have promised myself two things: to never wear a hairpiece, and to never comb my few remaining hairs sideways across my bald spot.
    My cousin, Nick, still brushes his hair like that, long blond wisps that flop in the wind and make Nick look even balder than he is. The day before my graduation, he and I split the cost of an aerosol spray that was guaranteed to camouflage hair loss. It came in three colors—black, brown, beige—and we picked beige because that was close enough for