Mi gente, here's the sixth part of "If God Will Give Us License." I know that I missed a week, but my life's kind of gone to hell. In case you haven't been keeping up, here are Parts One, Two, Three, Four, and Five.

25.
    Benjamin was leaning against the adobe fence next to his father's room. He was quiet, distracted, looked a little downhearted. His family was mistaking his melancholia for sadness about leaving Mexico. And, three days ago, he would have been sad about leaving Mexico for the reasons that they thought were his.
    They put their arms around him and said that he could come back to Mexico every year if he wanted to, and would always be welcome. Aunt Christina took his hands in hers and said that they would leave his and David's room just as they left it. He looked up at her, knowing that this was the last night that he would ever spend in Mexico, that when he closed the door to his room in the morning that he would never enter that room again, that Aunt Christina would die and he would not come back, even though he loved her deeply after only six days of knowing her.
    Six days ago his plane had touched down in Mexico. He had not been happy to be there, was anxious to leave. Then, for the first three days, he had thought that he could live in Puerta De Chula, eat breakfast every morning with his aunt who had given up on her own life to take care of the ones she loved, who had ended up living alone in a house that was too big for her.
    Benjamin could take a few months off from newspaper editing to finish a first draft of his book. His book. How could he work on it now?
    His aunt pressed his hands to her cheeks. They looked at each other through teary eyes and he did not want to lie to her about coming back—he had lied enough, through his actions and inactions, in the last three days to last him the rest of his marred life—so he tried, but failed, to smile.

26.
    Uncle Luis stayed near his brother. He knew that he was past the time when he could speak honestly to him, about the dead child or anything else. That one secret would weigh on everything Luis might ever say to his brother. Phone calls would be made from thousands of miles away and all that was said would be colored, would be distorted, by what had not been said and would never be said. Every word would be a lie because every word was not about a son, another son, a truck, a bicycle, a boy, a drive into steep and dangerous hills, a drive back.
    There would be this curtain between them now, as if they had fought violently in the street, or one stolen a woman from the other. No, this would be worse. Worse because only one of them would know why the curtain had come down. Santiago would wonder for the rest of his days what he had done wrong to create this distance between himself and Luis, but he would not ask because brothers did not ask that question of each other.
    Uncle Luis stayed near his brother because he loved him and because they would never again be close and because he mourned the loss of that closeness. In the morning, Luis would come back to see off his brother and his nephews, although he would be glad to never again see David and Benjamin, all that they had wrought.

27.
    Aunt Christina knocked on David and Benjamin's door at four a.m. She had been up for hours, lighting the fire for the hot-water heater, cooking breakfast, and already missing her brother and her nephews.
    The house had been empty for decades. All of her nieces and nephews had grown up, didn't need a babysitter anymore. She cooked only for herself. She swept the courtyard when it did not need sweeping. She knitted more blankets than she could give away. She looked at her photo albums, at pictures of her dead parents, her brothers' families, her younger self.
    There was one picture she turned to again and again, of her sitting in a dark-blue restaurant booth. She couldn't remember why she had been there, or with whom, but she would see that her hair was black and that she was smiling. She had been beautiful. She would touch her now gray hair and try to recall that version of herself, a version who never thought that she would end up alone in a house that she had never once left. The sadness of her life would startle her. A sense that her life had been wasted would leave her melancholic for days at a time.
    But having Santiago and David and Benjamin in her house, in their house, had made her happy like she hadn't been since her parents had been alive and nieces and nephews played in the courtyard. She walked back toward the kitchen and looked at the shrinking pile of firewood and dried cactus against the fence wall. She could see a dark dust outline on the fence of where branches and cactus had lain against it, dark because the piles worked their way down slowly, almost imperceptibly. But, now, the cactus was being used so quickly. She would have to ask Luis or one of his sons to bring her more, and the thought of this made her smile.
    The thought of David and Benjamin coming back, she thought, could help her get through her days. David and Benjamin talking about their lives in America. David and Benjamin sitting at her kitchen table eating her food and planning their day. David and Benjamin listening to her when she told them to use an extra blanket because it will be cold. David and Benjamin dropping their bags in the courtyard to hug her when they first arrive. She could be like a mother to them every time they came to Puerta De Chula. She stopped walking to catch her breath, to bow her head and lift a corner of her shawl to her eyes.

28.
    David and Benjamin put the last of their belongings into their backpacks. They dropped their bags in the still-misty courtyard and then went into the kitchen for breakfast while their father showered. They drank coffee and ate beans and scrambled eggs wrapped in tortillas along with slices of cheese and avocado. David and Benjamin would glance up at each other and then quickly look away. When their father came into the kitchen, Benjamin jumped up to go shower. Sitting down, Mr. Santiago asked David, "How did you like Mexico?"
    David tried to think back to his first three days in Puerta De Chula, when he had been glad that he had come, when he didn't have to excise a little over an hour-and-a-half from the coherent narrative that he was trying to construct out of and for his life.
Everything before and after that hour had been…agreeable, even pleasant.     Everyone had treated him with respect, had deferred to him in conversations and in decision-making. He had gotten to talk about his work with teenagers and what he hoped that they learned from his counsel without his listeners glancing sideways at each other and thinking that he was too full of self-regard. David said, "I liked it. I liked it a lot, Dad," to his father and blinked his eyes hard to push the image of the boy disappearing from view under the hood of the truck back into the cool darkness, the small, tight emptiness, that he had created for it inside of his head.
    Aunt Christina stood behind David and put her hands on his shoulders. "It gives me joy that you liked your land," she said, kissing the top of his head and then going back to making tortillas.

    Benjamin came out of the bathroom and went into the kitchen. David stood up and Benjamin took his seat. Benjamin knew that Uncle Luis had been unable to tell his father about what had happened. Benjamin’s father had been too happy at last night's party to know the sad truths about what had started out as bad luck and that had turned, a little at a time, in almost no time, into a reprehensible act from which there would be no solace or salvation..

    If Benjamin still believed in God, he thought, he could be sure of his own damnation. Only Uncle Luis still had a chance to save himself. Once the plane was up in the air, he could call the police and explain what had happened. He could say that he had been the first to say that Cesario needed a doctor, which was true. He had been the only one, thought Benjamin, to his own great shame. He could say that he had been bullied, which was true. He could say that he had been betrayed by his nephews, had been forced to betray himself by his nephews, which was true.
    Benjamin was startled out of his thoughts by the sound of the gate opening. Nestor and Uncle Luis came out of the darkness and toward the kitchen's light. Uncle Luis looked haggard. The lines of his face looked sharper, deeper. Nestor picked up a tortilla and rolled it around a slice of avocado. Uncle Luis stayed in the doorway.
    Benjamin and Nestor loaded all of the bags onto the back of the truck. David came out of the bathroom and threw his bag next to the others. They all walked to and stood at the gate. Aunt Christina started crying. Santiago put an arm around her and said that they would all come back and be together again.
    "If God will give us license," Aunt Christina said through her tears.
    "What?" Benjamin said.
    "I said, 'If God will give us license,' mijo."

    David and Benjamin looked at their uncle, at how he flinched as if he had been struck, at his eyes, at how they reddened and teared at the mention of God and His license, at how he gripped his hat with both of his trembling, barely controlled hands, as though he feared dropping it onto the dusty and still dark earth.
    They exchanged hugs. Luis cried on the shoulder of his brother, let go and then held his face in his hands. Santiago was embarrassed by the depth of affection his brother was showing for him. Santiago stepped away and got into the truck cab, squeezing his eyes tight. Nestor and David got in on both sides of him. Benjamin climbed into the back and his aunt took off her shawl and gave it to him to fight off the cold on the two-hour drive. He thanked her and put it around his shoulders. He sat against the cab and tapped on the glass that he was ready.
    Nestor turned on the truck, put it into gear, and started off toward Morelia. The tires kicked up dirt and Benjamin looked at his aunt and uncle start to fade in the dust and mist.