Crash Into Me by Jill Sorenson

Author:Jill Sorenson [Sorenson, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary romance, Fiction
ISBN: 9780553906264
Publisher: Bantam Books
Published: 2009-01-27T01:21:24+00:00

Anita Vasquez had been dreaming about Mexico. Though originally from Guatemala, her family had moved to Arizona when she was ten, and they often crossed the border to visit relatives in the Sonora Desert. Some of her most cherished memories were of that strange and barren land. Like Ocotillo Wells, the Sonora was endless and arid, isolated in its beauty, with dusty sand dunes the color of her daughter’s hair.

When she looked into her child’s eyes for the first time, she saw that lonely, desolate place, underneath a sky so immense she’d reached up to touch it, again and again, yearning toward something unattainable until her slender arms ached.

That was exactly how she felt about Sonny.

A thousand times, she’d reached out to her. And come up empty, every time. It was her own fault, she knew, drawing the blankets around her. She had never been good with women. Girls.

She’d had four older sisters growing up, all dark and heavy-featured, none pretty and delicate, like her. Their jealousy had made her turn away from other females, even her own mother, who was too worn and old from having seven children before the age of thirty to give her youngest daughter any attention.

Anita got all the attention she needed from men. A sway of her hips, and they were hers. Men were not always gentle, but they were easy. If they had quick fists, and so many of them did, they were also quick to apologize, to soothe, to kiss away the pain.

Men were easy. Daughters, complicated.

Giving up on sleep, Anita got out of bed and put on a pot of coffee. She stood in the kitchen, looking out the window, struck by the memory of her daughter at seven years old, pulling on her mother’s skirts. Sonny had been wearing a blue cotton dress, one of the few she owned, and it showed her scabby knees. A tortoiseshell clip was stuck in her light hair, hair so thick and unruly that Anita fought a battle with it on a daily basis, and lost.

“I don’t believe in God, Mama,” she said.

Anita whirled around, wiping her wet hands on her apron and stepping away from the sink. “Ave Maria Purísima,” she cried, making the sign of the cross and dragging her daughter to kneel before La Virgen. “Pray, mija. Pray for forgiveness, right now.”

Sonny crossed her arms over her chest defiantly. “No. Why should I pray to something I don’t believe in?”

Her jaw dropped. “You will go to hell if you don’t. You will be condemned to perdición, para siempre.”

Sonny shrugged. “I don’t believe in hell. Can I go play instead?”

Perhaps she should have slapped her daughter’s impertinent face. More often than not, Anita had shaken her head, sighed, and let Sonny do as she wished. For all her strangeness, the girl was intelligent, and she never got into trouble at school like her brother.

For Rigo, Anita had made allowances. But fighting was one thing, sacrilege another. She made Sonny kneel in front of the statue for three hours.

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