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1.
Maria hadn’t said anything when the woman came in, blood in her teeth and a purpling bruise on her cheekbone. She’d been dressed too warmly for the mild spring, a puffy overcoat that hid her arms, her whole body, all the way down to her knees. But Maria hadn’t said anything, not when the woman ducked into the diner’s bathroom, coming back with everything washed away but the dirt under her nails, not when when she wanted the table by the window, and a cup of coffee, just coffee. (Cream and sugar? Maria had asked, but the question seemed to confuse her.) Maria hadn’t said a word as the woman sat there, coffee untouched for hours, until it was almost closing.
She was still staring fixedly out the dark window, as though the coming and going of the truckers at the gas station next door were some code in need of deciphering.
Maria cleared her throat, making the woman startle. “We’re about to close the kitchen, did you want a fresh cup?”
“A fresh—oh. No, I don’t–don’t like the way it tastes.”
“Did you want to order something else?”
“No, no, it’s just—people are always ordering coffee. I thought it must taste…not like this.”
Maria was startled into laughing, and was gratified to see a tentative smile cross the strange woman’s face. “That might just be Jenny’s day-old roast. You probably ought to try Starbucks or something before handing down the final verdict,” Maria told her, smiling.
The woman had kind eyes. “I will.”
Maria looked at her for a second, then set the coffee pot down on the table. She slid into the booth across from her, and folded her hands together. “Look, it’s none of my business, but—if you’re in some trouble, I got a friend who works in Family Services, I’d be happy to call her for you.”
There was a flash of panic across the stranger’s face. “No, I—I don’t have any family,” she said carefully, looking at some point over Maria’s shoulder.
“Whoever gave you those bruises—”
“I fell.”
Maria’s heart ached. “Look…”
The woman frowned, her dark eyes searching Maria’s face as though trying to read the thoughts behind it. “No, I really did fall,” she insisted.
“Okay. Okay, just—I’m putting it out there. You should know there are options, you don’t have to stay. Look, I’ve got to get the dishwasher running, so…don’t go anywhere, okay? I’ll walk out with you.”
When Maria came back to the table, the untouched coffee was still there. Underneath was a twenty dollar bill, the edges very slightly singed.
2.
“You know, I never got your name,” Maria said, sliding into the same booth across from the same stranger with the same dark eyes. It had been two weeks and the bruises on the woman’s face were healing, though she still wore that enormous coat. Maria had brought her hot chocolate this time, with the stale marshmallows she’d fished out of the back of the pantry.
Hot chocolate was received much more positively than the coffee had been.
“Oh,” the stranger said, uncertainty flickering across her face. She set down her mug on the linoleum table with a faint clatter. Outside, an eighteen-wheeler swung away into the night, the headlights blinding Maria through the window. “My name. Um. Hasdiel?”
“Hasdiel. That’s…interesting.”
Hasdiel didn’t seem to take offense at her tone–but then, Maria imagined with a name like ‘Hasdiel’ you got used to people’s reactions. “Yes. It is interesting.”
Maria wondered if suggesting a nickname would offend her. “Does it have some special meaning, is it a family name…?”
“No,” Hasdiel said after a long moment of staring down at her mug of hot chocolate, tapping a lone finger on the rim. “No, it’s just my name.”
Maria could hear Josh in the kitchen, the clattering of dishes being stacked up beside the washer—she’d promised him it would be just a second. But Hasdiel’s eyes were dark and gentle, and Maria didn’t want to leave, not just yet. “I’m Maria, by the way.”
“Maria!” Josh called from the kitchen, a warning note in his voice.
Hasdiel’s frowned, and she met Maria’s gaze for the first time that night. “I thought—do you not go by Citlalmina?”
Maria’s spine went stiff, and she felt suddenly cold. “Only my grandmother called me that,” she breathed. “How did—how did you–?”
“Maria!”
“I’m coming!” Maria snapped, and Hasdiel recoiled, almost upsetting her mug of chocolate. The look of wild panic on her face, like a child who didn’t understand thunder, choked Maria off. She swallowed, and forced some gentleness into her voice. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I just—how did you know? How did you know that was my name? Hasdiel—”
“You should go,” Hasdiel said. She had wrapped her arms around herself, as though retreating into the armor of her enormous coat. “I don’t—you shouldn’t lose your job.”
“Hasdiel—” but Maria found she had had nothing to say. She went.
There was another singed twenty left on the table and ‘I’m sorry’ scrawled on the curling receipt. Hasdiel’s signature was labored and uneven, as if she’d never had to write it out before.
3.
“Are you okay?” Maria asked, setting the mug of green tea in front of Hasdiel. It was the first time she’d seen her in the daylight, the first time since—but Maria forced herself to focus on the way the shock—white of Hasdiel’s hair, the little silver strands that caught the light. “I mean, you’re clearly a little strange, but are you okay?”
Hasdiel wrapped her hands around the mug of tea. “I think so,” she said finally. She looked up at Maria, and the corner of her mouth twitched upwards. “Yes. Maybe.”
Maria felt shivery, scrutinized. She swallowed. “Well—good. I have to go.”
Hasdiel nodded. Maria spent the rest of her shift feeling watched, but never caught Hasdiel looking. By the time the lunch rush cleared out, the other woman was gone.
Maria sat in bed that night, staring down at the charred edges of the three twenty-dollar bills, and one smoke-colored feather that Hasdiel had left with the tip. Almost absently, Maria lifted the feather to her mouth and traced her lips with the soft edge. It made her feel hot and sick and weightless, a sudden fever that made her jerk the thing away, bury it under the junk at the back of her closet.
She fell asleep with her mouth humming, and a dreamed strange dreams.
interlude.
When Maria was eight, there was a man in her grandmother’s room. He had kind dark eyes and a shock of white hair, and he had told Maria not to be afraid. They had helped Maria’s abuela into her best dancing shoes, the ones that hadn’t fit for years because of the diabetes. Maria had to stand on the bed to zip up the dress with the cornflowers embroidered on the hem, but her grandmother had done her hair–plucked the straight pins from it one by one, until it fell around her shoulders in a shining curtain of silver.
The man had offered his arm like a gentleman, and Abuela bent to kiss Maria on the forehead. Be good, sweet girl, she told her, breath smelling of flame and smoke, the strange waxy sweetness of the candles they lit in church.
Maria’s mother had come home after work and found Maria asleep on the couch, still waiting for her grandmother to return from the dance hall.
4.
Maria banged into the bathroom without much thought. “Hasdiel, did you want fries, or—”
Hasdiel froze. Her enormous coat was thrown over one of the sinks, and she had a mass of feathers clutched in one hand. But it was the wings–large enough to crowd the little bathroom, feathers bent at odd angles where they met the walls. They looked almost like the bills Hasdiel had been leaving on the table–licked by fire along the edges, smoke-stained and curling.
They disappeared behind Hasdiel’s bare shoulders.
“Oh shit,” Maria breathed.
5.
“God, I must have seemed so ridiculous to you,” Maria groaned, burying her face in her hands. “‘I fell’—and I kept talking about Family Services—”
“No,” Hasdiel said fiercely. It was soda today, in the flimsy plastic cups from the gas station. Hasdiel had made a face at the sticky rest stop picnic table, but Maria had promised they wouldn’t be disturbed. “No,” Hasdiel repeated more insistently. “I could never…I thought you were kind. I thought—you were so good, and kind. You brought me coffee.”
And then, much later: “Were you scared, falling?”
“Not then. I was in too much pain to be afraid. But after…well, then you were there, and I was not afraid anymore.”
epilogue.
They were walking along the graveled edge of the highway, passing a forty of cheap beer between them, the brown paper rustling. Hasdiel’s mouth left behind a faint aftertaste of metal, a pang of hot sickness that Maria remembered well. (The single feather was still buried somewhere at the back of her closet, waiting for Maria to gather the courage to throw it out, or tell Hasdiel—but Maria squirmed away from the thought.)
“What was it like?” Maria asked, tilting her head back and squinting up at the gathering dusk.
“What was what like?” Hasdiel returned amicably. Her wings made faint rustling noises against the long grass, a soft susurrus of sound.
“Heaven.”
Hasdiel was quiet so long that Maria straightened and glanced over, trying to read Hasdiel’s blank face. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer.”
“It was like this, mostly,” Hasdiel answered after a moment. She was also staring up at the darkening sky, and when a passing car’s headlights bathed them in light, Maria saw her pupils contract into slits, like a cat’s. “Like this, but more–everything. Brighter, warmer. More beautiful. There’s more laughter, and more dancing. Even the weeping—it is cleansing, and once it is done, it is done forever. It is wonderful.”
“Why leave?”
Hasdiel laughed softly, and when she met Maria’s gaze, her eyes were dark and kind. “Oh, well. I wanted to be surprised.”