He starts walking, slowly, back through the village. A few thin trees loop over the street, but they don’t have many leaves and provide no shade. When he’s standing in front of the cerulean green jewelry store at the other end of the village, it feels like his whole body is gushing. Everything sticks. Parts of him, Derek notices, are much hotter. So he looks down, and right where each of his lower bicep starts to curve rises a bulge like a bright red mesa, a dark smear of purple in its center. The top half of each arm feels cut off from the rest of it. The bottom half of each arm looks white and blue-tinted. Before this, each hand stung to flex, as if all his fingers were stiff with tar. That was a day ago, just hours after he got to this bright little New Mexico village.

            Above the chalky gray door of the jewelry store the cerulean green wavers like a sea current. But maybe, Derek hopes, that’s just the heat. The wind chimes start howling and Galisteo lurches to his paws and shuffles straight back, disappearing behind the low glass counter. Jeanette comes around it, smiling as she ruffles Galisteo’s ears. Derek looks at her, and then he asks her for a favor. “Of course,” she says, and very carefully, very gently, she pulls out the cell from his front pocket. She presses SEND, and holds the phone to his ear.

            “Jesus, finally. Did you make it?” his wife says.

            “Yeah.”

            “What’s it like?”

            “Loud.”

            “Is that how your mom described it?”

            “She said a lot of things about it.”

            “Why do you think she mentioned it?”

            Derek looks down at the toes of his shoes, mottled grey with his sweat.

            “Baby,” his wife says. “She might not have realized, you know, what she was saying. She was hallucinating, at the end.”

            Derek keeps looking down. “How many times are you going to say that?’

            “I don’t mean to be insensitive, Derek. You know that. I just don’t like you being there, not when your arms are… like this. The doctor said driving was risky. He said it was risky for a reason.”

            “I had to come here.”

            “I’m not sure you did.”

            “I’m not arguing with you again, Lisa.”

            “I’m not saying you shouldn’t go there at all, I’m saying you could’ve waited until after your surgeries.”

            “That’s too far away.”

            “Baby, it’s only three weeks.”

            “I had to come here.”

            “Well, you’re there now,” she says, tiredly. “Are you at least writing about all this?”

            “Is there anything else you want to say?”

            His wife sighs. “How have your arms been feeling? You would tell me if they threw a clot, right?”

            “They’re great.”

            “Really?”

            “They’ve never felt better.” He nods at Jeanette. She hesitates, and Derek nods again. She presses END as Lisa rushes out the words, “But I thought they were getting—”

            Derek breathes in. He breathes out. Then he looks at Jeanette, and he asks her for another favor. Jeanette looks at him, but Derek nods again. After a moment, she acts like she holds down the buttons that turn off the cell, and then she slides his cell back into his pocket. Derek breathes in. He breathes out. He can maybe feel sweat start to run off the back of his neck, cooling his skin. Galisteo’s black nose pokes out from around the low counter. “It’s okay, sweet boy,” Jeanette says, and he comes trotting out toward her. She glides her palm across his face. He sits and licks her fingers. The old lady’s bright clear eyes dip, briefly, at Derek’s arms, and then her hand comes out of her pocket with a cell phone. She lifts it to her ear and turns her head. Blue lights suddenly buzz the ends of Derek’s vision. Noises split. Everything wobbles. But then, gradually, everything reorients. He waits. Something still feels tenuous. He feels on the edge of something. Then the old lady touches his shoulder, and he feels her guiding him toward a chair.

            “It didn’t used to be like this,” he says.

            Jeanette nods her head, her cell back in her pocket, focused now on sitting him down very carefully, very gently, into the chair.

            “No,” he says, because that’s not what he means.

            “My first memory of her,” Derek says, “she was standing in the kitchen, and I saw my feet hanging over the counter, and then I looked up and saw her grimace and say, ‘Oh, this,’ and I said, ‘Heddy-ache.’”

            His entire head is cool and very heavy. Jeanette is bending down, her hands hugged around his knees, looking up at him and nodding her head.

            “That was my first word,” Derek says. “Since I was three I was finishing her sentences. And later, when she’d catch me staring out the window, she’d say, ‘So what happened between you and Cassie, or Sarah, or Alison,’ or whichever girl I was dating at the time. And later, when she’d catch me staring at a blank piece of paper, ‘You’re not easing up, Derek. You’re not letting enough go.’ You see, we could always read each other like that. That’s why what happened makes no sense.” Derek closes his eyes. “A month ago, we were playing double solitaire, like we always do when I come over every day for lunch, and suddenly she puts her cards down and says, ‘You’re not taking care of yourself.’ It made me upset because I was taking care of myself now. I was at the gym five days a week, I was eating salmon instead of steak, broccoli instead of fried potatoes. She asked why was I having so much pain in my arms then. She asked why were my fingers tingling and going numb. She asked why did my arms get so tired. She asked why did I keep fumbling the cards. I said I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know, and she said maybe I’m not working out right. She said maybe I’m working out too much. She said clearly I’m doing something wrong and I wasn’t trying to change it. I didn’t know what to say. She wouldn’t stop. The only way she would ever stop is if I stopped going over there, and eventually that’s what I did. I stopped answering her calls. I stopped answering her texts. I mean, I was getting panic attacks now. I was getting anxious. My own mother was making me anxious. My own mother, who….” Derek opens his eyes. “Of course that only made her call and text more. It only made her accuse me more of not taking good enough care of myself.” Derek looks down, at the old lady’s hands hugged around his shivering knees. “Then I get a call from the hospital.”

            Jeanette nods, looking up at him.

            “I go straight there. I leave my teller desk and go right over. The nurses say she’s hallucinating. She’ll go back and forth, from lucid to confused, lucid to confused. I ask if that’s normal. I ask why does that happen, and they say it happens when the brain doesn’t receive enough oxygen. I ask why would the brain not receive enough oxygen, and that’s when my mother starts shouting and I go into the room and when she sees me, she stops. I stand in the doorway. She’s under the blankets, her head turned to me, her hands across her lap. One of them flinches, like maybe she wanted to reach out for me but wasn’t sure if she could, or should. She doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. And then she smiles. But as I walk toward her, her hand still doesn’t reach out for me and I still don’t reach out for her. It’s like I am internally scolding myself. It’s like I am telling myself reach out for her, reach out for her, touch her, say something, do something, and no part of me will.” Derek’s head shakes. It keeps shaking. 

            “She was white when I came in, and when she sees me the smile in her face turns her pink. I stand beside her bed. Still neither one of us reaches out for the other. And then she tells me to listen carefully. She says it is important. She says it will help turn my life around. She says if I do this one thing to take care of myself, she will be happy. I still can’t say or do anything, I feel immobilized, standing there looking at my mother in that hospital bed, but she nods and says ‘good’ like I did say something. She says it’s not that far south of Denver, this little New Mexico village nestled in the sagebrush that is so idyllic and liberating and full of artists. She says I will find inspiration there like she did. My mother was a traveler, you see, after my parents got divorced, she used the money she got and went all over, trying to find meaning again in her life. And this is what she wants to tell me. She says in this little village there’s an old motel behind the tavern with inexpensive rooms. She says there are all kinds of sounds from all the art galleries and if this little village happens to be quiet enough at the right moment you can hear the sounds drift so beautifully down the street.” 

            Derek closes his eyes.

            “She says what inspired her most, what she stood there so transfixed by for what felt like hours, was what stood in the Plaza de Espana. She says it was night, the Madrid sky a rich velvety black, and the monument rose shimmering gold up into the air.”

            When Derek opens his eyes, the ends of his vision wobble. Galisteo’s right ear pricks at the distant sound of a siren.

            “She says the man sitting as if on a throne high up in the air on top of the monument had lost his left hand fighting against the Ottoman Empire, and that’s why that arm is covered with a cape, and he’s looking down on his two most famous creations, on horseback, Don Quixote and his trusted squire, Sancho.”

            Derek lets out a big breath, and the ends of his vision buzz dark blue.

            “She says the monument’s shimmering gold from the lights below were reflected in the long dark pool of water before it. My mother says she would draw it someday, or paint it, or write about it. She says she would have to do something with it someday in some form or another because it was too magnificent not to. She says it was the most gorgeous monument in all of Spain.”

            Derek sits up straighter, even as the entirety of his vision wobbles. Galisteo’s ears prick toward the doorway. Jeanette glides her palm across his face. The dog doesn’t lick her fingers.

            “Then she tells me to get the goddamn bedpan and leave because what, do I want her to shit all over herself? She says why do I have to make her wait so long? She says can’t I see she is dying from her COPD? She says I am always so goddamn selfish, not following directions, always acting out, not listening to sound advice when it’s given by someone who only loves me more than the fucking world.”

            Derek’s face stiffens. Everything around him wobbles. “It was the very next day, right after, when I had another test, and three days later the doctor told me what was wrong with me.”

            The ends of Derek’s vision buzz black. He clears his throat. He tries to sit up straighter.

            “Now, if you could please direct me to the monument please,” Derek says, and looks straight at Jeanette. “I’ve come a long, long way, ma’am. I do not intend to come all the way to Madrid, Spain, and leave without seeing that monument.”

            Jeanette doesn’t nod. She glances quickly at the doorway. So does Galisteo.

            “Correct me if I’m wrong,” Derek says, “but time is of the essence, is it not? My mother said they close the plaza at ten.”

            Jeanette turns back to Derek. So does Galisteo. Jeanette looks at Derek’s arms. The siren is screaming and Galisteo shifts his paws, points his fogged blue eye at the old lady, then at Derek. Jeanette looks at Galisteo.

            “Lady,” Derek says, “either point me in the direction of the monument, or point me in the direction of someone who can point me in the direction of the goddamn monument.”

            Jeanette puts her hand on Derek’s knee, her other hand on Galisteo’s head.

            “If my hands were not currently soaking in the ice tub right now,” Derek says, “I would slap your hand away.”

            The siren stops. Someone from outside calls out, “Hello!” and Galisteo jerks his head at the doorway. “In here!” Jeanette shouts, and keeps rubbing Derek’s shivering knee.                         

            “Lady, honestly,” Derek sighs.

            The paramedic strides in followed by two others wheeling in a stretcher. Jeanette stands and exchanges a few words with the first paramedic. Galisteo stands and looks at the old lady, then back at Derek. “Incorrigible, isn’t she?” Derek says.

            Jeanette and the first paramedic turn to Derek. The paramedic nods at the two with the stretcher and they wheel the stretcher forward.

            “Hey, I have a question,” Derek says. “Are they supposed to be this blue?”

            The paramedic looks confused, as if he thought Derek meant the lower half of his arms, but Derek is nodding his head at him, at the paramedic’s uniform. “Hey, buddy,” the paramedic says. “Can you tell me how long your arms have been this way?”

            “Look at you,” Derek says, and lets out a big, dragging breath. He shakes his head even though shaking his head makes everything around him wobble faster. “Not following directions, always acting out. What am I gonna do with you?”

            Jeanette touches Derek’s knee. “Honey, how long have you been this way?”

            “You mean how long have I been soaking my arms in the ice tub?” Derek squints. Everything slows, a little. “It’s not like I started a timer.”

            The paramedic nods at the two with the stretcher and the stretcher wheels closer.

            “Oh I don’t think so,” Derek says, and swiftly hoists his knees up to his chest.

            The paramedic leans down, close to Derek’s face. “Do you want to go see the Plaza de Espana or not?”

            “You guys are taking me to the Plaza de Espana?”

            “Yes, sir, we are.”

            “Well why didn’t you mention so?” Derek says, and swiftly stands. He starts to droop sideways and the paramedic grabs him securely around the waist. The two others assist Derek onto the stretcher, strapping him in very gently, Derek smiling and offering peppy bursts of encouragement. They start to wheel him toward the door. Galisteo shuffles his paws straight at Derek and the old lady grips the dog by the collar. Then she reaches out and rubs Derek’s shin. He grins. “I’ll miss your strange ways, old lady.”

            The two paramedics wheel Derek quickly through the doorway toward the ambulance idling on the side of the road and he is being slowly turned around, as the back ambulance doors are being swung open, when he sees Galisteo yanking Jeanette through the doorway. The dog has his harness on, and the old lady is trying to hang on to the leash. The dog keeps straining at the end of it, whining feverishly. He keeps jerking his head back at the old lady, his paws scrabbling at the loose pebbles of gravel.

            “It’s okay, sweet boy,” Derek says, but just to make sure, he tilts toward one of the paramedics lifting him into the ambulance and says, “You fellas know how to get there, right?”

            “Of course, buddy,” the paramedic smiles.

            Derek faces forward and nods, or thinks he nods. It’s really a long slanting lull. He keeps watching the dog. He’s confused as to why the dog is straining so explosively at the end of the leash, his whines like desperate wind chimes spiraling into the bright sky. The dog has yanked close enough that Derek can see his one blue eye, no longer fogged to Derek but clear, as though it is now seeing something it didn’t before, as though whatever it is seeing is making the dog thrash his paws even faster at the loose pebbles, trying to prevent it from happening.

            “It’s really okay, sweet boy,” Derek says, for everything is now clear to him, too. “Just two extra ribs. That’s what’s wrong with me. That’s what’s compressing my nerves and blood vessels. Cervical is the technical term. It’s called thoracic outlet syndrome, and it’s just the way I was born.”

              The dog lunges and slaps and scratches his paws at the ambulance doors that begin to close.

              “No one knows why, but it doesn’t usually cause symptoms until later in life.” Derek nods and his head lolls all the way to the left. The dog keeps lunging and slapping and scratching his paws at the closing ambulance doors.

            “I’m meeting my mother there, you see, at the Plaza de Espana,” Derek says, and smiles, “where it will all be taken care of.” Derek smiles wider and wider even as the paramedic covers his nose with the oxygen mask, for he knows nothing can now stop him from where he is finally going.