by Natalia Ortiz Lopez
Elisa del Valle walked into town with clean brown shoes and splintered feet. She came from a region in South America whose name English speakers couldn’t spell or pronounce correctly, much to her relief. She liked that nobody could remind her of home. Leaving had meant cutting her heart free of its vines and thorns with shears, but she was far from the first immigrant to come to the town. The church had repurposed an old plantation house as a halfway house that was dutifully run by Mrs. Fontaine, the widow of the previous pastor. On the first night Elisa had arrived, Mrs. Fontaine insisted on her resting from her journey and offered her a chance to bathe.
“We’ll find you some new clothes soon, but I can clean your old ones at least,” Mrs. Fontaine said, carefully, unsure of Elisa’s strong English. “Oh my.” She paused as Elisa took her brown shoes off, revealing the bloodied underside of her feet. Her shoes were undamaged. A paradoxical occurrence, or rather a miracle, as Elisa and her family called it when they made unusual things happen.
“It’s not that bad,” Elisa said.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit,” Mrs. Fontaine exclaimed and promptly recovered the kit. She came back as Elisa was muttering a hymn under her breath. A splinter was exiting her foot on its own. Elisa stopped the minute Mrs. Fontaine sat down across from her. Her face pink at having been caught.
“Oh, don’t worry, dear. It’s nothing I haven’t already seen,” she said softly. “I was a social worker for over thirty years. I’ve seen all manner of life, and learned not to judge.”
“Thank you,” Elisa said. “It’s a force of habit.”
“You spared your shoes, but not your feet?” the older woman asked.
“I can’t have both things at once,” Elisa replied. “Especially with how long the trip was.”
Mrs. Fontaine nodded. “Okay. We can do things your way here, but the townsfolk, I’m afraid, are a superstitious lot.”
Elisa nodded and then gestured for the first-aid kit. She continued speaking as Mrs. Fontaine attended to her with the first-aid kit. “It’s not safe to do Milagros at home anymore. People started coming in and wanting to own what wasn’t theirs. So people like me had to go.”
That was the last time she willingly talked about her home. Before long, she was set up with a job washing clothes. It tested her patience but didn’t break her determination to do it by hand. It didn’t mean she didn’t feel the loss. One day after it rained, she willed her shoes to remain clean, regardless of the puddles she stepped in. She smiled and had just taken down a blanket from the cord when a sheepdog came pouncing on her. Its paws were muddied, but it panted joyfully.
She laughed, unbothered by the intrusion. Then she looked up to see the dog’s owner, William Lawson, who was quite apologetic. Max had been cooped up all day yesterday, he said, before Elisa cut him off, saying it was all okay. She couldn’t keep the laughter out of her voice, and really, she hadn’t had much to laugh about recently. Later, Will would tell her that that was the moment he fell in love with her. She would respond incredulously in the same laughing voice, and he’d say she was proving his point. He walked her home that first day they met, and things unfolded from there.
William was the second son of a farming family in the town, but his brother’s sudden passing had thrust the sole inheritance of the farm onto him. He took his new role to heart for his parents, Diane and Robert Sr. He was a gentle soul, prone to people-pleasing. It was only with her that he showed his naturally jovial disposition. Will couldn’t stomach taking things seriously all the time without it dampening his mood.
Will didn’t have a lot of free time, and eventually Elisa started helping out to spend time with him. When she cast her first miracle on the farm, it was a rotting fence Will kept trying to fix, and he’d hurt his hand out of impatient frustration. Then it was a leak on the roof, a splinter on a dog, and regrowing some crops that got eaten by the animals before anyone noticed. Elisa made sure nobody knew. The townsfolk never spoke kindly about miracles, and there was unspoken tension whenever they were brought up on the farm.
It made Elisa nervous to ask. It wasn’t until her and Will’s engagement dinner that she found out why. Robert Jr. had lost a game of cards to a miracle worker. He accused him rightly of cheating and was shot by a gun, lying untouched on the table. The shooting was ruled an accident.
“But we know it wasn’t,” Diane said softly, tears in her eyes. “Robert told us at the hospital before he passed.”
The air had gone out of the room. Elisa couldn’t speak. The ringing in her head was broken by Will’s muttering swears about magic under his breath. She didn’t recognize his voice. The hate and anger made him a stranger. Before the room could spin, Elisa excused herself. She ran to the bathroom. Tears rising. Was she doomed always to have an enemy? She closed the door behind her and then saw her old brown shoes. They were dirty, externally damaged at last, unlike her. She sat down beside them, wondering if she should clean them again.
A minute or two later, Will came to check on her, found her teary-eyed, and asked what was wrong. He was her Will again, the man so gentle he was worried she wouldn’t believe him the first time he said he loved her. She had to believe that was enough.
She took a deep breath before she spoke.