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Back Lomita For Ever
Chapters (42)
  1. Cover
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. Chapter One
  7. Chapter Two
  8. Chapter Three
  9. Chapter Four
  10. Chapter Five
  11. Chapter Six
  12. Chapter Seven
  13. Chapter Eight
  14. Chapter Nine
  15. Chapter Ten
  16. Chapter Eleven
  17. Chapter Twelve
  18. Chapter Thirteen
  19. Chapter Fourteen
  20. Chapter Fifteen
  21. Chapter Sixteen
  22. Chapter Seventeen
  23. Chapter Eighteen
  24. Chapter Nineteen
  25. Chapter Twenty
  26. Chapter Twenty-one
  27. Chapter Twenty-two
  28. Chapter Twenty-three
  29. Chapter Twenty-four
  30. Chapter Twenty-five
  31. Chapter Twenty-six
  32. Chapter Twenty-seven
  33. Chapter Twenty-eight
  34. Chapter Twenty-nine
  35. Chapter Thirty
  36. Chapter Thirty-one
  37. Chapter Thirty-two
  38. Chapter Thirty-three
  39. Chapter Thirty-four
  40. Chapter Thirty-five
  41. Chapter Thirty-six
  42. 1

They were escorted to the basic casitas but on their way passed the bar; it was Lomita who asked Carlos if he could make one of his margaritas and maybe prepare some food. She turned to Manita to assess her response and fell to the ground. She had fainted, passed out: out cold. Was this the heart condition, or just sheer exhaustion? Two hours after the tablets had been consumed, just before they reached Tecate, she had said her heart was getting better. Ever looked at her, fragile as the skin that surrounded her, picked her up in his arms, her head fell back and he whispered softly that it was going to be all right and no one was going to leave her. They took her straight to lie down, sensing the fever in her as she fell restlessly into a sleep.

Ever was exhausted from the day and took a bottle of tequila from the bar to sit and watch the stars.

Manita bedded down next to Lomita, making sure she took all her medication, including another beta blocker in case it was the heart; it was impossible to get any coherence out of Lomita. She was in and out of feverish sleep.

Ever tried to get some kind of perspective on the turn their lives had taken in the last twelve hours. The stars in the heavens were in their same constellations but for him and for Lomita, their constellations were irreversibly altered. He drank the Don Julio añejo tequila and wondered what he had brought about in the placidity of these peoples’ lives. He was, had always been, a force of destruction, a breaker of comfort, a black hole in the middle of a white light. Why was Orion unperturbed by him? Because they had gone, the stars, a long time before all this happened, and they were now in a state of the past – non-existence. He felt his love for Lomita, sat with it like it was an animal, allowed it to comfort him; he prayed that she felt it too.

In the morning she was no better. The drive through the desert, the boulders and cerrito trees was overlooked: it seemed just more relentless beauty in the agony that was connected with the concern for Lomita, who lay on the back seat in a state of sleep and startled wakes.