“Doña Felicia—how hot do you think it is today?” Caridad called out to her guide after they had traveled a long while. At that point it really didn’t matter how hot it was, because hot can only be so hot before it’s just hot. The sun was pounding on Caridad’s head right through the Raiders cap, sweat dripped down the sides of her face and down her neck. She was drenched under her breasts and armpits and her T-shirt was soaked. Caridad had only asked so as to make conversation, since she was lonely walking in single file all that long way.

“Don’t talk,” doña Felicia responded over her shoulder.

“¿Por qué no?”

“Because it’s hotter if you talk …”

They walked, rested, slept in a huddle at night, rose at dawn, and walked some more until Good Friday, when they caught up with the penitente procession. While it’s not every day that you see a crowd following a Christ-like figure carrying a cross along the highway (unless your people are from Chimayo or Tome or similar places throughout the territory controlled by the Spanish queen and friars for centuries with such ferocity that neither Mexican nor U.S. appropriation diluted the religious practices of the descendants of the Spaniards who settled there, including this procession that has been performed annually for two hundred years and will probably go on for two hundred more, such is their fervent devotion), Caridad, who had not been in love with anyone since Memo, fell in love that Holy Friday, and this took her by such surprise that every other marvel around her paled in comparison.

So, the telling of the penitente procession, the description of Francisco, doña Felicia’s godson, who carried the huge wooden cross over his bare shoulders for miles under the piercing sun, and all the rest of that impressive spectacle will be forsaken because it was surpassed by the one of Caridad falling in love.

When they reached el Santuario it was swarming with tourists and others also making their Lenten Week pilgrimage. Caridad stayed close to doña Felicia. “You’re getting more like your sister Loca everyday,” doña Felicia scolded her, pulling her faded tapalo away from Caridad’s grasp.