RICK COLLIGNON

Felix wasn’t exactly sure just when it was he began to know that he was seeing. He had been gazing in the direction of the plate-glass window in the café when he became aware of the dark shape of the mountains and how they were rimmed in light. He could see a thin jagged line of trees on one high ridge silhouetted by the oncoming dawn. He took in a sharp breath of air and his hand reached absently for the cigarettes in his shirt pocket that were long gone. He had never seen anything so quiet or so beautiful, and he wondered how he hadn’t noticed it before. Then he heard the sound of the front door opening, the brush of wood on the mat just inside the room, and he saw the woman standing in the doorway.  She wasn’t much more than a shadow, and she stood motionless, her arms at her sides. Her head was bent slightly and a shawl covered her hair and hung down her back. She was wearing a black dress that fell loosely away from her legs and down to her feet. It was too dark for Felix to see her face, but he thought that she may have nodded at him. As she walked toward him, he could hear the sound of her shoes hard on the tiled floor.
She sat at a table not far from his, and for a while the two of them sat in silence. Outside, the top of the mountains had turned gray and a dull, heavy light was crawling down the slopes. A truck hauling cattle passed by on the highway, its brakes hissing, headlights sweeping the road. When the sound of its shifting gears was gone, the woman turned her head toward Felix, “I told you I would see you again, hijo,” she said.