Ask her if she’s got her paperwork in order.

Ask her if I can pick up some special food she’d like? The sheriff had commented to Antonia that Lulu hadn’t touched any of the jail meals. Not that he was surprised. Someone whose tasty food had been all the rage.

Tell her I’m real sorry about all this.

They were talking in his office, after Antonia’s interview with Lulu in the visiting room. His intercom crackled constantly with static voices, deputy officers reporting in. At one point, the sheriff had to take a call, shielding the mouthpiece to whisper, The Feds. Antonia used the time to look around the room: guns, stacks of forms, photos of Sheriff Boyer with all the muckety-mucks in town. Her eyes suddenly caught on a small bottle of red nail polish on his blotter. The intriguing detail that opens a door to another’s soul. Was Sheriff Boyer into cross-dressing? She checked his nails for residue chips or traces of his secret. None. But then, he was a cop. He had to know how to get rid of evidence.

Before she left the jail, she couldn’t resist asking, What’s the nail polish for? She lifted her chin to point to the bottle. Someone—was it Izzy?—had said that was a Dominican way of pointing.

Oh that, Sheriff Boyer chuckled. That’s how I paint my dummy bullets for target practice. Wouldn’t want one of my officers to pick up the wrong kind for their ammunition.

The same protective attention to detail had driven him to call Antonia, to ask Lulu what she might want.

What she wants is the laws changed, Sheriff. She wants to keep cooking her enchiladas and selling them so she can build a house that will not tumble when the next hurricane hits Mexico.

They wait for the state trooper to come back. The minutes tick by. Some glitch has come up, Antonia is sure of it. Sure, enough, she sees lights flashing, as another squad car races past the first cruiser and pulls onto the shoulder ahead of her own car. Oh boy, they are in deep trouble if the first officer has decided to call in reinforcements. Now she, too, feels like joining the wailers in the back seat.

?Oigan, mi gente! Antonia calls their tense trinity to order. We have to stay calm, okay? She levels a look at Mario, who has reached for the door handle. No running away! Or the next thing they know the police will be firing warning shots in the air, and then, it’s anyone’s guess. It happens all the time in cities and every once in a while in sleepy rural towns. Unarmed men with dark skin holding cell phones or car keys that look suspiciously like weapons have been shot to death.

Nothing we can do but pray. As if she has spoken literally, Estela and Mario bow their heads, intoning the prayer they learned by heart at their mothers’ knees, entranced by the cadence even before they could understand the meaning of the words, no less the mystery they hoped to summon forth. Santa María, madre de Dios . . .

Looking out her windshield, Antonia has to laugh at her own cynicism. Feet first, followed by his hefty torso, Sheriff Boyer emerges from the second cruiser. He knocks off his hat on the rim of the door, stoops to pick it up, slowly straightens, red-faced, and heads toward them. The expression on his face is unsurprised; he already knows Sam’s widow has been caught speeding out of town with two aliens in her car.

He stops at her window, glances inside, craning his neck to include them all. Hola, he greets the occupants, who reply in a hushed chorus, Hola. Doing a little speeding? he levels his gaze at Antonia, a pretend reprimand.

Sorry, I guess I wasn’t keeping track, Antonia apologizes again. She explains the rush. I need to get these two folks to the consulate and then the airport in Boston, or they’ll miss their flight back to Mexico.

There, she’s made it perfectly clear: she can get this troubling pair out of his hands, pronto, as well as add to the coffers of the DMV. Just give her her ticket and Antonia’ll be on her way. Win-win situation. No?

Let me see what I can do. Sheriff Boyer nods at each one in turn, although only one of his listeners understands his words. But like all who live in the shadows, Mario and Estela are fully fluent in tones of voice, facial expressions. They sigh with relief at the sheriff.

Cute little bambina, the sheriff adds. Got some good lungs on her. He nods at the hysterical baby, who has been handed over to the front seat to see if Mario can work his magic.

Antonia watches the sheriff stride toward the first cruiser, wagging his head, as if he’s tired of all of them, including his young colleague for his overzealous ticketing of a minor speeding incident. Antonia overhears the back and forth, a good cop / bad cop routine she knows all too well. This time she is rooting for the good cop to win out.

?Mira, mira! Mario is pointing out something to the baby he’s been bouncing on his knee. ?Un avioncito! At first, Antonia thinks Mario is just trying to distract the crying baby. But she sees it, too. Up in the sky the glint of a jet is leaving a gratifyingly foamy contrail.

Marianela blinks, peering into the sky. For a blessed moment, the car goes silent. Antonia watches as the speck in the air crosses her windshield and disappears into a bank of clouds. Just then, the first cruiser pulls back onto the road and races away as if in hot pursuit of other fugitives aboard the tiny plane.

Sheriff Boyer slaps the back side of her car as he approaches her window.

You’re good to go, he says to Antonia, handing her back the documents the trooper had requested. Then addressing her passengers, he adds, Hasta la visa. Antonia has to bite her lip to keep herself from correcting his mistake.

Hey, hold on a sec! He stops her before she has shifted into gear and pulled away from the shoulder. He nods toward the back window and its outdated sticker. I see you haven’t given yet this year. It takes Antonia a moment to know what on earth the man is talking about.

epilogue

Japanese repair technique

Consider kintsugi, the mild-mannered, soft-voiced Asian man begins the last workshop in the Zen series. His skin is brown and smooth as a nut released whole from its shell. Antonia wishes she could take him home, a lucky charm to keep her safe from all the dragons.

A Japanese repair technique, he explains. They have gone around the circle, each person giving her or his name. They are mostly females, Antonia notes, their teacher appending teacher to each one’s name. Antonia Teacher is next to last before their teacher, who introduces himself as No Teacher. The class nods reverently.

A joke, No Teacher says, giggling like a child being tickled.

He holds aloft a serving platter as if he is waiting for them to bid on it. Then, shockingly he knocks the plate against a nearby rock in the pebble garden they learned to rake into patterns last Saturday. The group gasps, but the small man throws back his head and laughs, then kneels to collect the broken pieces. A few of the attendees come forward to help, but No Teacher bows to each one.

Is unnecessary, he says in the same playful voice.

In reassembling the platter, No Teacher will not be using transparent glue and attempting to hide the broken places. He gestures toward a lineup of five bowls on a low table, then tilts each one in turn to display its contents: one filled with a thick amber lacquer, another with gold powder, a third with a clear liquid that smells like turpentine, one with plain water. The largest vessel is empty, and in it he mixes the lacquer and gold powder, adding several drips of water. He pulls up a footstool and sets to work, reuniting piece with piece, dabbing his brush into the gleaming paste, until the platter is mended, the gold intersecting grid showing where it has been broken. No Teacher clamps the platter firmly between his hands, waiting for the glue to set. Is time to meditate, he says, closing his eyes.

Antonia closes her own eyes. She sees herself falling out of the sky like that boy in the poem she taught maybe a hundred times in her teaching life. All the things she is breaking in her plunge are being reassembled, a painter’s brush correcting her errors, the lines of repair showing up as lines in poems and stories she has loved, evidence of the damage done.

She should not be having these thoughts. She should be meditating.

Is whole, No Teacher remarks, waking her from her reverie, beaming his transfixing smile, his face a scratchpad of wrinkles. He holds up the repaired platter. For a moment, Antonia fears he will smash it into pieces again.

The platter goes around their circle, each one tracing the ridged gold lines, the damage made visible, the platter repaired. It tells a story. That it has been broken.

Is beautiful, No Teacher concludes.