The Black Witch of Mexico Read Online Free PDF

junk mail jammed in the mailbox. He sneaked a look in the back of the Subaru wagon parked in the driveway, it looked like someone had dumped their trash in there.
    When she opened the door he handed her the mail and she tossed it in a bowl on the hall table without even a glance.
    “They’ll just be bills and shit,” she said.
    Their black Lab, Gaucho, ran in barking, and when he saw Adam he rolled straight over on his back to get his tummy tickled. “Great guard dog,” Adam said. He tripped on a plastic truck in the kitchen. She picked it up and tossed it onto the sofa. “Matty, don’t leave your toys on the floor, how many times?”
    He couldn’t even see his nephew, but he could hear him, he could hear both of them.
    The boys, three and five, were a moveable riot. Lynne never really gained full control; she just hustled the trouble from one place to another. A sheepdog in a track pants. But he found the crocheted and framed homilies about Jesus and the kids’ crayoned pictures stuck on the refrigerator oddly comforting. He could never live this way but it was good to know that someone in his family knew what normal looked like.
    He stared at the photograph of Mom and Dad on the kitchen dresser; they looked like America’s Greatest Couple. Dad had a great smile when the camera was on him. He should have been a politician.
    There were clothes piled on the table just off the line. Lynne cleared a space. “How’s Elena?” she said.
    “She’s fine.”
    “What are you guys doing for Memorial Day?”
    “She’s going upstate to see her folks.”
    “You’re not going with her?”
    “I heard you and Tom were having a barbecue. Thought I’d get myself an invite, spend some time with my sister.”
    “You two broken up?”
    “Everything’s fine”
    “Then why aren’t you spending the holiday together?”
    “What is this, Homeland Security? We don’t have to live in each other’s pockets.”
    Lynne gave him one of her big sister looks she had been giving him all his life whenever she caught him out in a lie. “You know you don’t want to leave her too long without a ring on her finger.”
    “Who says she wants one?”
    “Yeah, right.”
    “You can’t go chasing women forever.”
    “I’m not ready to settle down. That doesn’t mean I want to go chasing other women. I just want to let things happen at their own pace. She’s okay with that.”
    “Is that what she told you?”
    There was a yell from outside. Jake, her youngest, had fallen off the swing. She opened the kitchen window and told him not to be such a baby, then shouted at his big brother, Matt, told him not to swing so high. He ignored her and almost knocked his kid brother through the neighbour’s fence. Now he was really yelling. Lynne swore under her breath and headed out the back door to sort it out.
    He shook his head. He didn’t think he’d have the patience.
    He wasn’t going to be rushed into it, and if Elena couldn’t be patient, there were plenty of other girls out there.
     
    * * *
     
    He took her to a Mexican restaurant in Cambridge. It was softly lit with brass sconces and framed Mexican rugs hanging on the walls. She sat there with an uncertain smile, kept checking the door as if she thought they were being watched. The waiter brought them margaritas. They struggled for conversation between mouthfuls of the pork tamales, the sautéed chicken livers with tomatoes.
    He hadn’t seen her for six weeks. Jay had told him that was how long it took for someone to really miss you.
    She was wearing all white, there was a gold crucifix at her throat, and her hair was tied back in a French braid. She must have spent all her time at the beach.
    She looked happy, happier than he had seen her a long time. There was a high colour to her cheeks. He hated that she should look like that when he felt so desperate.
    He remembered what his sister said, you let her go, you’ll be sorry. Well he wouldn’t let her go. It had only been just