FILTERS 19

MAITE Y ERNESTO

Andrew's watch beeps. He counts several seconds then rolls to his side, one hand passing underneath Emilia's shirt to rest on her back as he leans close. "Em," she turns slightly, "it's four, we need to get ready."

"Okay."

He walks into the bathroom and turns the shower faucet. Emilia calls to him from the bed, "When do we need to go?"

"Five-thirty." he says, removing his shirt and tossing it through the doorway to his hamper.

"Así que tenemos un poco de tiempo. . ."

He raises an eyebrow, she's looking at him, sleepy smirk.

Andrew drives them to Gainesville's tiny airport, carrying their backpacks into the terminal where passes are checked and bags are placed on the belt while wallet, phone and keys go into plastic tubs before they walk through metal detectors. Emilia looks longingly at the coffee kiosk but shakes her head and they sit at the quiet gate, her eyes closed, head on his shoulder as his sight is in the clouds. The hall fills with passengers and boarding is soon called, they're second on the plane after a wheelchaired man and his companion. Seated at the front, Andrew stows their things while Emilia unwraps the plastic around a blanket and covers herself with it. She's asleep before takeoff, before the plane is full, before the stewardess places coffee on the tray table beside his phone, a clip of Kyoto playing, the dancing walk, the bow, the inscribed orb.

An hour into the flight the man across from Andrew and Emilia receives yet another drink from the stewardess and glances at Andrew and does a double-take. "Holy shit, you're Drew Black!" Andrew recognizes but can't place him and the man keeps talking. "I have to tell you that watching you is so great but it also fucking sucks sometimes because you're so good but I went to Florida State so I had to watch you demolish us last year and I'm going to have to watch you do it again on Saturday."

Andrew laughs. "Sorry, man," then he recognizes him, "oh! You're that comedian! You had the show in Gainesville last–"

The man barges through, "Were you there?"

"No, uh, sorry. Did it go well?"

"It was so great. Florida audiences are the best. What are you going to Dallas for? Cowboys game?"

"Yeah, kinda. Thanksgiving with my girlfriend's family, but then we're going to the game."

"Me too! Nice! Maybe I'll see you there!" and he turns back to his drink.

"Is he that comedian?" whispers Emilia.

"Yeah, Bart something."

"I think it's Brent. How close are we?"

"It'll be another hour, you can go back to sleep."

She does, faint smell of shampoo coming from her hair against him.

Andrew continues talking to the comic, darkly fascinated by the amount of alcohol he consumes without showing effect other than florid cheeks. He is indeed funny, but cumbersome, something that must be exhausting outside of a plane. He also knows his stuff, he's watched almost all of Andrew's games, and there's a novelty to hearing experiences on the field recounted from the perspective of a fan.

They land and taxi. The man holds up his phone and says "Drew, say cheese!"

Emilia turns to the window, Andrew habitually smiles for the selfie.

The comic bobs his head. "Thanks, man. It was great talking to you. Oh, hey! Wanna give me your number?"

"Uh." Andrew has to let the bizarreness of the hours of conversation wash over him. So many strangers have his phone number already, what's one more? "Yeah, sure."

SUP DREW!

Skylink to the next terminal, Emilia looking through the tinted glass to planes preparing for takeoff, Andrew the same but focus elsewhere, on the movements of figures at DFW that alone might be more numerous than all of Gainesville. The automated voice announces their stop and they turn around. Two pilots are outside the doors and one of them, a blonde, smiles and mouths Andrew Black and he nods at her but feels Emilia's hand on his waist pushing him forward. He's recognized again at Starbucks, a pair of young women call his name and run up to him to take pictures, Emilia turning away. After they leave she pinches his arm from underneath his sleeve. When he looks at her she's stone-faced, drinking her coffee. He laughs, she laughs.

He reads news at the gate, a breaking story of Redhat in South America, loudly announcing his hope of finding another controller. Andrew notices a boy peeking at him nervously from behind a Switch and looks back to his phone, but then the boy is standing in front of him. "Um, Andrew, could my mom take a picture of us?"

He looks past the boy to his so-clearly exhausted mother. "Yeah, of course."

"Thank you, Andrew!" says the boy and Andrew says "Hey, give me a high-five," and when their hands connect he hears thunder and in his other sight the boy is no longer black but gray. He looks at the boy's mother and she mouths Thank you but the nicety of the exchange quickly leaves him, forced to dwell on power. He looks around the terminal, to Emilia holding her cup with both hands, to another family beside the gate, to crowds avoiding a slow-moving cart, to standing in line in restaurants and newsstands. He draws back to see the terminal, the airport, the city. How many would turn gray with a handshake or high-five? And if it were a broken or someone like him, what then? He wonders about the boy's future, about his life as he might soon enough reach for a toy lightsaber and pretend he's Luke or Obi-Wan. Andrew suddenly laughs, "I'm a Jedi, mom!"

"What?" asks Emilia.

He isn't lying when he says "It's surreal."

"You made that little boy's day."

"It's not always bad."

Bombardier to Embraer, no A380 for their puddlejump to CLL. Assisted passengers again embark first, again Andrew and Emilia are seated at the front. A young man coming in points at him and says "Andrew Black!" and he's recognized twice more, the last in the most preferable way as an older black man nods at him and only says "You're a hell of a football player." Andrew thanks him and shakes his hand and soon they're airborne.

His laptop is open to a high-resolution picture of the orb at the Kyoto palace with text explaining the kanji–お時宜–quickly translated as "Timely" but more specifically "The opportune timing to do something." Opportune timing indeed, like stopping a sphere then breaking into a museum. He changes pages, reading through old rumors. Is Japanese organized crime really so different? Are American notions so naive such audiences accept implicitly someone with superpowers would fight crime? Must fight crime? Funny, Japan might match America in success of media franchises, their popular canon full of stories of the lives of the empowered. A seminal work about psychics, no less, although perhaps exactly what set expectations apart. Was it that they called every rumor a larp, all too American? Maybe that's another under-translation. They didn't reject the possibility in whole, rather they were skeptical of certain claims and a feedback loop of negative impression pushed popular misperception as All-American Bullshit, not the truth of fair criticism.

"Firefight in Kumamoto!"—American indeed, gun violence in Japan is almost nonexistent, even among Yakuza.

"Bloodbath at Fukuoka fishing depot, a dozen gangsters decapitated!"—Culturally closer, but nothing more than tweets, and that would have been major news, c'mon.

"Lightning heist, bosses lose millions!"—that was dismissed, but a controller would certainly have the ability, and one did just steal from Japan itself. Attached is an article reporting a slight increase in crime in Kyushu. Financial destruction could be the cause, but this might call back to American sensibility.

"Traffickers of the underaged found dead, victims freed"—this is actual news, the criminals showing apparent gunshot wounds, but the police found no evidence of firearm use. It could have been a bearing ball, but that's thinking zebra; bullet wounds with no bullets recovered, don't think controller, think fastidious killer. Still, it happened.

"Nagasaki pub destroyed"—this one has pictures. Though the building stands the interior looks like it's been bombed, with concentric shrapnel from the once-bar counter. The report says no evidence of an explosive device and it's suddenly obvious. An explosion without explosives, yes, think zebra. Andrew shakes his head, he would have recognized this for what it was had he only looked, evidence as clear as the lack of debris in Kyoto. The Japanese controller must have taken a sufficient volume of air contained at high pressure and released it in the middle of the pub. He feels a sharp pang of an old thought, pushed back first for lack of knowledge of others and since for their generally upstanding behavior. What if someone wants to do something bad with this? The debauchery of Suraj would be welcome over a controller choosing mass destruction. Andrew rubs his eyes, wishing he could run.

Andrew returns to the page with the orb and scrolls to a high-resolution picture of the man.

"I like what he's wearing. What do you think?" asks Emilia.

"Yeah, I like his jacket, and his routine in the air was visually neat. Mike sent me a meme of one of those alignment charts that has him as 'chaotic neutral.' I get the literal meanings of the words but not whatever the deeper context is other than knowing it's Dungeons & Dragons stuff. He stopped the sphere but broke into a museum. He did a whole performance showing himself off but bowed and left a gift. Even the meaning of what he wrote on the orb, 'Timely,' it's comedy. It's like he's just having fun."

"What were the others labeled as?"

"Redhat was lawful good, Shajangali was neutral good, the First was true neutral, and Suraj was neutral evil, but Mike said there's been big debates about all of these except the First and Shajangali."

Emilia says "I get it. I used to like reading those D&D books. Redhat said he would intervene every time and he has except for Japan, but he was probably on his way. It's kind of like he's an emergency responder, so his label is fitting. Shajangali has been helping wherever he can, and that's just what a good person would do. The First only showed up once and hasn't since, that seems totally neutral, and Suraj, hmm. Suraj claims he's Shiva, but none of the others have claimed to be gods. He hangs around that temple and takes tributes and people come and worship him," she lowers her voice, "and I read he just has sex all day." Then says "But I think it's lazy to call him evil, or too easy. Look at everything he can do, what if he's telling the truth and the others aren't? Not that I really think that, but I understand how someone who could do all those things would believe that. It's too easy to call him evil, he is hedonistic, but he could be doing worse things than that, and how many people would do the same thing he is if they had control?"

"A lot." says Andrew.

"Mmhm. But I do like Shajangali more, and since that guy in Japan is real maybe those rumors you had up are also real. I kind of like the idea of a mix between them, flying around, helping people, messing with organized crime, but having, I don’t know, fun while you're at it? Like dancing in the sky. Why do you think Shajangali doesn't fly?"

"Maybe he can't, or doesn't know how."

She frowns, "Why wouldn't he know? All the others can fly."

"Random thought. There must be some reason he walks everywhere."

"Yeah. Maybe he doesn't like it, maybe he's afraid of heights! Or maybe he feels he would be losing something. I think about how he must feel so alone, like for so long thinking there's maybe a couple people like him in the entire world but they're in America and they wear masks so they might as well not really exist, but then one shows up in India and they don't wear a mask either. I bet he was excited, I wonder if that changed. Maybe he feels even more alone now. I think that's why he doesn't wear a mask and why he walks everywhere instead of flying, and helps anyone who asks. Because he doesn't like it, or isn't happy about it, so he takes this thing that forces him to be so completely different from everybody else and uses it to make everybody else happier."

"That's a great way of looking at it. But I wouldn't want to walk everywhere."

She laughs. "No, you'd run!"

He laughs and their gaze meets and soon her cheeks flush and he kisses her and she bites her lip.

"So you're going to meet my family, soon. . ."

"Yeah, I'm excited."

She's still biting her lip. Andrew asks "What are you thinking about?"

"You meeting my parents and what they'll think when they finally see you, and that makes me think about them arguing after we moved back, and that whole thing with my mom saying she would be fine if they stayed and he'd been a writer but he didn't act like his heart was in it, and my dad being sad about that but trying to hide it. And now for some reason I'm remembering looking across to the boys' campus at Irish and seeing them sometimes in those suits with the green ties. I liked those ties. And now all that just makes me think of my grandparents' house and the orange doorframe and their dog and all those days I know I spent there but how little I can remember it."

"Would you like it if I wore a green tie?"

"Yeah."

He wants to tell her. He needs to tell her. And yet.

Easy and wrong to call her speculation ignorant or naive, he would do the same if he were anyone else. But it's easy to talk about control and easy to speculate on the motives of men far away and scorn one and praise the other. Easy to imagine what-if when you can reset for the night and wake up human. Her perspective is good just as she is good, but it enjoys freedom as hypothetical. Not like long conversations with his father, especially after the fifth-and-first, when options were laid bare and "if" was replaced with "should" and then "did," which was to stay and play football while leaving the constituent elements of the truth pushed away the same as making a firm decision on his life. That's something she didn't mention, the advantage Dinesh has. Not hiding himself frees him in his service to others. He has made himself entirely real, to see him is to know him. She knows Andrew just shy of best, she has talked with him and touched him most, seen the most of his interactions with others, all while feeling some hint of who he is without comprehending. What does the First actually mean to her? Easy to compartmentalize that entity in the air as apart from the human beside you, to rationalize and forget, to think of the thing in the mask as "not really existing." But when she can't? She will be afraid, why wouldn't she be?

And–easy to want to end inequities, but which? Murder in one city, maybe. Narcotics? The generations of UQM, the enhanced, can barely get high and show no chemical dependence. Who gives a shit about drugs anymore? Fighting human trafficking would be unquestionably noble, but consider what it would take. Find every sex worker in every city and make sure they aren't being exploited by pimps? Crime is antifragile, suppress it now and it will reappear quickly enough, likely worse than before. Extreme measures could work but at what lengths? Kill every criminal you find? Stop crime by becoming the worst criminal of them all, hear yourself speak. Yes, he has options others don't, why bother with footsoldiers when he can hit the leaders? Because he can't be everywhere at once. Threats won't be enough, they'll challenge him to prove it, and in some places that would be the government challenging him to prove it. He could, but that would throw countries into chaos. Half a million global deaths from overdoses, oh, he can do better, he can set continents on fire. Cut off blow and Los Zetas and Mara Salvatrucha and Envigado aren't just going to pack up, they're going to fight like hell and might move from being beneficiaries of state corruption to just becoming the state–after a million or two or ten are dead, because so many understandably but incapably ask if and he has to ask should-and-then-what? No, I should not. That refusal may be an inequity, but unique, set apart truly from all other inequities visited after that most ancient: having more fists-clubs-swords-guns than the poor bastard dead.

Of course the saved wouldn't think the same. It's not like the victims in Japan would say "Oh but he didn't save everyone in bondage so better he never tried." He rejects this. There may be a time for such measures, but it is not today. Like sicking Superman on muggers. Better to have him turn a crank or lift ships to space; unbounded good. Especially now, when a little bit of compressed air can blow up a pub or a little bit of psychic break, a fraction of power can turn a city to sand. Now is the time to get humanity off this rock, then he can worry about getting them out of the box.

Emilia had to book the rental car. Best she drives in her hometown, anyhow.

She detours through the A&M campus, Andrew thinks man Manziel was an idiot as they pass Kyle Field. He knows more than 100,000 people can fit in there but he wonders if his mind is tricking his eye or if it really does make The Swamp look small. She talks of her parents' work there, her mother as an accountant, her father as a professor. Late nights in her bedroom when she could hear the faint flutter of papers on their kitchen table and her father pacing the room below hers. Once hearing the pop of a cork and clinking and then breaking glass and her mother's footsteps down the hall and muffled scoldings change to muffled laughter and two sets of muffled steps going to bed. "Ohhh, cómo escondí mi cabeza debajo de mi pillow. Pero ahora pienso. . . ahora los aprecio, sus pasión."

"Eso es lindo."

She glances at him then back to the road, he sees she's waiting to say something, then she does quickly. "What about us, Andrew? Es ese nuestro futuro?"

They've been together for a little more than a year, and for his experience of time and the passage of days it is a true year with her on his mind. Full days spent with her and beside her, morning to evening and morning again, and this effect of power no longer isolates. She was right again, Dinesh took that which set him apart and gives it to others, and what set Andrew apart gave him this year with her, to learn her best, to talk with her and touch her and see her interactions with others and to want to continue to experience all of that for the rest of his life. Es ese nuestro futuro–Is that our future? Yes, of course, if—"Do you want it to be?"

She doesn't immediately answer, naming buildings instead. "The Albritton Bell Tower"–"the old YMCA." Andrew faces her while she faces forward, they pass "Milner Hall" and briefly a street that exits campus where on a large building beyond he reads CANTON CLINIC. Past the utilities complex and more halls and the East Lawn and they park at the Polo Fields. She points to a concrete installation partially obscured by a low hill and explains the Bonfire Memorial, then she goes quiet.

Eventually she says "I do want that to be us."

But the air changes in the car. College Station is small, end-to-end it's shorter than some of his runs. This detour wasn't taken for fun, it was delay. It was to have this conversation. Because she's crying.

"Emilia–"

She holds up a hand. He waits.

"My parents are going to want to talk to you, and I know you want to talk to them, and I know what about. I know you're going to tell me eventually what you've kept from me but I don't care because whatever it is can't mean more to me than you already do. I'm yours, Andrew, there's never been anyone else and there will never be anyone else. I don't. . ." She's shaking her head and her eyes close, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I don't care. As long as you stay. Quédate conmigo."

He holds her cheek. She wipes her eyes and blinks quickly and looks at him, and he says "As long as you want me, there is nothing in this world that can keep you from me."

She holds his hand in both of hers and they stay, content in silence.

Then she drives them to her house, her family waiting.

"¡Esta es mi familia! Mi padre, Ernesto"–her father is almost as tall as Andrew, with white hair and white beard, closely trimmed, and blue eyes behind glasses–"mi madre, Maria Ester"–Emilia is her mother's daughter, the resemblance remarkable, eyes, cheeks, brow, he knows her smile, he knows her expression, he has seen both so many times before–"y mis hermanas, Sofia, Julieta, y Elodia." Though Emilia's young sisters all more resemble their mother, Sofia takes the most after their father, his eyes, but no glasses. Andrew smiles at her and she returns it politely but she stays where she stands while Julieta and Elodia surprise Andrew by running up to hug him together. Andrew laughs and says "¡Mucho gusto!" and as the youngest step back he turns to Maria. She places her hands on his arms and looks him over in bald appraisal, then says "Llamame Maite, Andrew." and she too hugs him.

They exchange pleasantries about the flights then Emilia takes Andrew through the house, through the kitchen and dining room that opens to the living room and to a hall with bedrooms, up a staircase at the back. Even as he could see the house and what lay within he had no standard for a girl's bedroom, but he sees her in it. Bookshelves his eyes wander over, finding Pedro Páramo amidst Harry Potter and Pratchett. A pinboard above a white desk with pictures and papers, and postered walls, Natalia Lafourcade, Carly Rae Jepsen, Motion City Soundtrack.

Andrew is smiling.

Emilia says "You can sleep in here, Sofia and I are going to share her bedroom."

"Okay."

"And, um, my mom will want us to go to mass tonight."

"It'll be in Spanish, right?"

"Yeah."

"That'll be fun."

They don't stay long, taking their bags from the car then leaving again. Emilia drives them around the city, to her middle school and her high school, to the library she would spend hours at when she was younger. They have lunch at In-N-Out, Andrew's first time, then return to her house. As expected, Maite calls to Andrew from the garage. "Andrew, ayúdame, por favor."

Not that she needs help with anything.

"We'll speak in English, I want to be sure there's no misunderstanding."

"Okay."

"I know you haven't been here long, but what do you think?"

"Your family is wonderful, I've been looking forward to talking books with your husband, and College Station is nice. I didn't get to see it much when I was here for football. Kyle Field is beautiful and Texas is definitely a change, but a pleasant change from Georgia and Florida, although I'm reminded in little ways of UF. I saw a Canton Clinic earlier and Gainesville just had one open."

Maite nods and leans back against the hood of one of the cars.

"We didn't like Emilia choosing the University of Florida. You know her father and I work for A&M, it would have been so much easier for her to go here. That's probably why she left.” With this she gives Andrew a little glance as if to say you know her well enough to know that, right? “Not that we had any say since Florida is paying her to go,” she continues, “but being so far away with nobody she knows. . . she had a hard first year, Andrew, which I told her would happen, but she persisted and even as she was being paid to go she got a job and not even a week into it she met you."

Andrew nods.

"She calls me one day and tells me that she's met a boy, well that's the first time that happened, and the boy is so tall and so handsome and reminds her of her father, and oh, the boy plays football." Maite loudly hmms, "American football. She told us how everyone she worked with was excited that you were coming and she sent us pictures of you on the cover of that sports magazine and, well, we were concerned even more."

Andrew says nothing, Maite clearly has more to say.

"I imagine you enjoyed a great popularity in high school and that's only increased in college. People recognizing you everywhere, eyes lingering on the handsome and famous güero. We know you are going to be rich, and it will be nice if our daughter and our future grandchildren live in comfort–but we know you keep things from her. We know there are times when you are laughing with her one moment and cold to her the next, and we know there are times you have been completely unreachable. And when Emilia has rightfully held you accountable you refuse to explain yourself. She has been so happy with you, she has never been this way before, she tells me she doesn't even mind the ambiguity as long as you're beside her. So tell me, Andrew. Are you beside her? Because I worry your eyes have lingered elsewhere and that with so much attention you might one day leave her behind."

Andrew feels a touch of anger at her insinuation. Of course he's received attention, endless attention, as other women on the campus looked him up and down and tried to flirt with him, apathetic to or emboldened by Emilia's presence, as if they would be better, as if they could ever be better when the most they read is tweets and the most they see him as is opportunity for attached status. Their presence may be physically enjoyable for twenty minutes, but nothing there to make laying beside them through the night worth it, nothing to make them the bright point of a year of endless thought. Be it dumbstruck luck or providence, Emilia fits where he thought no one could.

"My eyes do not 'linger elsewhere.' They never have. All that popularity? Sports Illustrated and ESPN interviews? I hate it all. I hate football, every bit of it. I know what you mean by enjoy but I don't enjoy it, no. By the time I was old enough to drive I stopped hanging out with people at my high school. In Florida I only spend time with Emilia, my brother, and sometimes other football players. I don't usually dislike the people themselves who want to be friendly with me, I understand why, and it's flattering, but I'm not interested in them. Yes, there have been girls who have tried flirting with me even with Emilia standing right beside me and I ignore them to their face. They aren't her and they could never be her, because meeting Emilia has been the only truly good thing to come out of football. She's your daughter, who could know her better than you? I hope with what you say you see in her for knowing me, you believe me when I say I cannot imagine life without her, but if not I will be fine with however long it takes to prove it to you."

"Then why do you sometimes behave so contemptibly? What do you hide from her?"

He lowers his head slightly to emphasize his look in her eyes. "Why? Control and my fear for the future of our world. Those times I've gone cold? Those times she can't reach me? It's when I get the alert that a sphere has happened somewhere and every time after the first I could do nothing but think about every single person trapped inside. Then controllers appeared and that was nice for a few days, but today on the plane I started thinking again about what happens when one of them wants to do worse than enjoy their little debauched life in a temple and I wonder what are we going to do about that? So sometimes all of that hits me at once, not being afraid for myself, being afraid for my parents and my brother and Emilia and sometimes I leave my phone behind and I run and run until I feel just a little bit better, but even that's temporary. But my feelings for Emilia are not."

Her look is frozen and he could believe in that moment she saw to the depth of his soul and recognized who stood before her. She looks aside, ashamed. "I fear that as well. I'm–I'm sorry for what I suggested. Please forgive me, Andrew." Then she says "You are committed to her, aren't you."

She spoke rhetorically but Andrew still says "Completely."

"I'd like to speak with you more this evening. With my husband."

Andrew turns toward the door but she says "Una cosa más, vamos a misa esta noche. ¿Te gustaría ir con nosotros? Emilia nos ha dicho que tú también eres Catholic."

"Ah. . . si, de mi madre. Mi hermano y yo, nosotros fuimos–baptized–en La Iglesia." Lapsed of course, only showing for Christmas and Easter mass. His most religious quality is his name, Andrew Peter.

"Si, tus nombres. Santos, Andrew y Michael, apóstol y ángel. Por supuesto, tu padre James. ¿Y él?"

"Mi padre va a misa con mi madre, cuando mi madre quiere ir, pero él no es Catholic."

"¿Entonces qué es él? ¿Es ateo? Atheist?"

"No. Es complicado, pero no."

"'Complicado?' Dígame."

Andrew looks at her with hesitance. She reads him and says "Conoceré a tu padre, si? ¿Cuándo asumes la responsabilidad? Mejor que lo sepa ahora, o ahorita?"

Andrew doesn't quite understand the last of it, but the tone is clear. She will meet his father soon enough, and she seems the type to ask James directly if Andrew doesn't explain it now. "Bueno, mi padre se describe a él mismo como Christian, pero él dice que theology es un viaje en solitario y él no puede dar direcciones."

Maite looks at him with clear and rising skepticism until she smiles wryly. "Oh, of course. You learned this habit of strange behavior from your father. Will you go with us tonight?"

Andrew supposes he and his father deserve that. "Si, iré, I'll go."

"Good. But we don't have room for all of you in our car, so you and my daughter will take yourselves. Don't be late."

They arrive ahead of her family at Iglesia Católica de Santa Teresa, a warm and idiosyncratic take on the traditional form. No ornate carvings, no grand towers with abutments, but the shape is there, the long chambered hall and nave roof with stained glass lit from behind. The entrance is a spot of subtle beauty, with columns that flank large arched doors, nativity already set in the lawn beside, with lit Christmas lights on the straw and wrapped around the simple wooden frame. There are people gathered who warmly greet Emilia and she introduces Andrew to old friends. Her family arrives and they sit together near the front and when the father enters Andrew has to blink and rub his eyes, so strong the fleeting impression that despite different attire he saw the man from Mexico City.

When the service is finished Emilia speaks briefly to the father then rejoins Andrew and her family as he's introduced to more members of the church. Some recognize him still, though fewer than he feared might, and they are polite when they mention it, none asking for pictures, let alone running up unbidden. As the numbers dwindle and Maite and Ernesto are among the last still talking, Emilia whispers to Andrew "I need to take care of something," and he nods and watches her walk to an alcove in the hall and enter the confessional. He looks within for just a moment but then pulls back, closing his other sight completely, some ineffable sense of impropriety perhaps instilled by the hours in that place.

After their late dinner, Andrew watches YouTube with the sisters while their parents talk in the kitchen. Ernesto soon comes in and says "Mijas, Andrew and I are going to have a chat."

"Okay, papa." says Elodia.

Maite has gone to the bedroom, they enter the room beside it, another bedroom but repurposed as office and library, busy with two couches and a small desk and large shelves with more books than his parents' entire house. Ernesto gestures to a couch and walks to a place in the shelves with glass-inset cabinetry, saying "Emilia has said you're an avid reader."

"Yeah, when I was a kid, and then I picked it back up a few years ago. My dad has a lot of books, but not this many."

"What did you think of Pedro Páramo?"

"I enjoyed it! But I did come away from it wishing I had a stronger foundation in Spanish literature, because I feel like there was so much I wasn't able to appreciate properly."

Ernesto nods. "If you would like I could find something for you, although I would need to think about it."

"Yeah, please."

He opens the cabinet, Andrew can't see through the pane for light cast on it from a corner lamp, but he knows the shapes inside all the same. Two bottles, two glasses, and three books. Ernesto sets the bottle and glasses on the coffee table between the couches then goes back to the cabinet to lift a hardcover held within a lime green slip case. The spine is blue with the same lime green in font, another copy of Pedro Páramo. Ernesto angles it such that the book slides enough to take the spine, then hands it to Andrew. The cover is the same green, but without words, only an illustration in the same blue, a two-faced man, half in flesh, half in bone. Andrew turns pages written in English until he comes upon an illustration, a curious but compelling sketch of idyllic Mexican scenery of hills and agave, cast surreal with the heads of two mustachioed men, one above the other, floating in the sky. "This is beautiful." says Andrew.

"Isn't it? That copy is signed by the artist, though not for me specifically–"

Maite joins them, Ernesto continues once she's seated.

"Emilia found it very meaningful that you speak Spanish well enough to converse with her. You and I are both güero, but I was born in Mexico; my mother had quite the same complexion as my wife. Emilia said you have no Spanish heritage, so we've been curious what drove an American football player to it, to attract our daughter with it and to warrant Spanish literature as a Christmas gift. Did you put in special effort in high school? Are you gifted in language?"

At the second mention of gift Andrew realizes he has never considered his proficiency beyond the casual thought though earnest appreciation of it being a serendipitous effect of the time afforded by his, yes, gift. But four years of foreign language in high school is no usual source for that skill but more often time wasted, especially when witnessed and felt in vicarious embarrassment for the clumsy well-intentioned ordering fajitas.

"I guess I must be. I had never really thought about that before now. I had three years required in high school and I opted for a fourth, and in my senior year my teacher had us find Spanish YouTubers and transcribe their videos and then write our own ideas as scripts for their videos, and that was actually a lot of fun. When we were finished I just kept watching them. Now I read and watch Spanish news, and Emilia and I watch some shows, lately it's been Los simuladores, and that's been fun. I guess it just clicked with me. I definitely don't have any heritage, my uncle was pretty good at it when he was still playing baseball, but not so much anymore, and of course he never taught me anything." Anything other than Puerto Rican profanity, that is.

Her father nods. "Do you know how mezcal is made?"

Maite looks across at him, "No lo aburras, Neto."

Ernesto says "Esto tendrá sentido, mi amor."

Andrew says "I know that tequila is a form of mezcal, which is made from agave, but that's it."

"Yes. It is a humble spirit. I hope you have a better idea of what Mexico looks like than most Americans, but one might think of the agave as a plant persisting in barren desert, and it does grow in the desert. But in Tequila, in Jalisco, the blue agave or Weber azul spends many years growing in the shadow of Volcan de Tequila, and that is no desert, but vibrant highlands, the hills a soft-sweeping blue from the agave.

When the years have passed and they have matured and it is time for harvest, the workers, los jimadores, spread through those hills with their axes, la coa de jima, to prune the thick leaves and reveal the heart, la piña, and take them to great hornos to be roasted and then crushed por la rueda, llamada 'la tahona,' and that sopping fibrous mass is gathered for distillation and finally bottled." He removes the cork and inhales. "I do love the smell. Agave can grow quite large, this bottle would have been one of several made from a single plant. Volcanic soil is a famous medium for growth: in Italy, on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius, wonderful tomatoes are found and there are of course vineyards, but I care less for wine. There is something to it, an arbitrary elevation. I do not disrespect the craft, but I sometimes feel something has been lost."

Andrew's father is a skilled storyteller but nothing like this. Even Maite, with her warnings of boredom, shows fondness for his words.

"When I smell this I smell the plant and the sun and the years and my homeland and if mixed with the bitter notes there is also the scent of sweat from the plebeian hands involved in its creation, all the better to be reminded. I do not find that in wine, there are cheap bottles in supermarkets meant for mass consumption but there are also far more expensive wines that I think forget their place. Divorced from so necessary, so vital commonality. I will use no euphemism for mezcal, 'affordable,' it is cheap! Es barato, o quizás, mezquino. Jalisco's bounty, favored for partying and taco Tuesdays with discount margaritas, getting 'tequila drunk'–as if–taken advantage of by so many American celebrities spinning up Tequila brands of their 'own,’ although sung of pleasantly by Jimmy Buffett. But vintage wine. . . even expensive tequila is not expensive. No French Laundry heist to abscond with a sum worth of añejo that could buy a house, though not if it were in Napa Valley. And why? Because of arbitrary esteem by people–" he pauses, "who do enjoy it. Like professional sports. I love my family and I know that we are common. You, Andrew, I understand your father is good with his money but I know you do not come from wealth, you were common but you are no longer, and so I fear for my daughter as you carry her into your world. Maite tells me she believes that you are committed to Emilia, do you intend to marry her?"

Andrew hears his father say Inflicted her with it. "Yes."

"And was part of your motivation for coming here to gain our blessing?"

Andrew has had something of the same conversation with his father. Maybe it's because I only have a brother and I only have sons, but blessing a marriage has never been something I believe in. I asked your mother's parents for their blessing, but she told them she would marry me regardless. Emilia's family may expect it; you don't need it, but it will be easier for her, which means it will be easier for you, if they approve, and they will.

"Yes."

"Emilia always listened to us until she met you, I don't think it is ours to give anymore. You are the only man she has ever spoken of who is not family or an educator. Has she told you how lonely she was in her first year? Has she told you how she almost moved back so she could go to school here so she could at least be with her family? What if taking her with you only worsens that? What if your celebrity further isolates her?"

Andrew shakes his head, heart heavy at the thought of her cut off, alone, and the thought of her having returned after all, that they would never meet, that he would have faced the last year alone. Maybe he would have done as Dinesh, running one night and never stopping, leaving Gainesville to drift place to place.

Maite breaks the silence, "You told me before that you hate football. What will you do when you turn pro?"

Andrew looks to the bottle, label turned away, then back to her parents. "I'm not going to play in the NFL. I'm still playing for the school because that's what I promised. Maite, as I told you, I'll always be thankful for the opportunity because I got to meet your daughter. But once I graduate, that's it. I'm going to work at Epitaxial, with John Canton, whatever it takes. I don't know if Emilia has told you, but materials science is what I'm studying toward, and I'm good at it."

They show great surprise. Maite asks "You hate it that much?"

"More than I can even put into words. I used to say I only hated all the fanfare and playing was fine, but that's not even true anymore. I don't enjoy it, I just happen to be good at it. I hate people recognizing me everywhere I go, I hate them calling out my name and running up to me to take pictures and even asking for my phone number. I don't have any hope left in it. You're right, Ernesto, that commonality, that appreciation for my fellows? if I stay in football I will have none of that. But it's there in what Canton's doing. Getting into space and researching ways to stop spheres? That's for the good of all. I understand why we're all marching on even with the disasters but those and controllers, that's what I worry about. It's nice that people have a distraction, but it doesn't work for me, not anymore. I would hate myself if I could be doing something better than catching a ball, no matter how big the paycheck."

Maite's hands are on her cheeks, Ernesto's hand is on the back of his head and he asks "You would throw away millions for that?"

"I am going to, yes. But for what it's worth, Epitaxial pays well."

Maite says "Are you sure they'll hire you? You convinced me that you are committed to our daughter, and it is good, since she will follow you without our approval. But to say you're choosing this? Is your hatred of fame pushing you to do something foolish? I think it would be better if you're uncomfortable in football than if you're pursuing recklessness.. But this. . . are you giving your future and our daughter's future proper consideration?"

He hears the tide and he hears thunder. He sees the sphere and the woman inside, feels his hand on her head and the call in the field as he turned buildings to dust. He feels the weight of the bodies he carried and the injured woman's gaze. The weight of the dead he freed only so they could be buried again. He wishes he could consciously impress this on her parents, that they might hear a whisper of to whom they speak. Maybe he can, didn't Maite see what Emilia sees in his eyes? Emilia says she feels something when she's with him, what else would it be? It's always here–yes, not suppressed, but not encouraged. Andrew looks upon the room, sees it in his other sight. He doesn't take it, but control is there, it's always there. Hand open but grasp threatened. No, I am not common. Know to whom you speak.

"I am making the best decision for our future."

Ernesto leans back as Maite's head tilts and in each Andrew can see their chests move in sudden heavy breath. "This must be your famous air of ambiguity." says Maite, "Okay, stand up."

She walks around the table and hugs him tightly, no, motherly. "Okay, Andrew, okay," and she kisses him on the cheek and leaves the room.

Andrew understood the purpose of the box Ernesto carries, but that does not lessen the feeling when it is revealed and given to him. "This belonged to my mother. It already fits her."

The box is heavy in his hand. "Thank you, Ernesto."

"You are welcome, and it is not of nothing." He pours into the two glasses. "Now, drink with me, I know it will have no effect on you, but there is still much to discuss and I do not wish to drink alone."