Placidly nursing a Diet Coke, Afton sat on the sidelines at his wife Concita's youngest sister's backyard Quinceañera two days after his return from Arkham following the bite incident and Sammy's disappearance less than two days after Zach's funeral.
The old keyed-up Afton would have been the life of the party, shaking hands and networking. But tonight it was almost as if he were listening to someone whispering in his ear as he sat quietly smiling and occasionally nodding to himself on the flower decorated patio out back beneath the hundreds of twinkling party lights and softly glowing luminarias on the tables where family, friends, and neighbors mingled over some of the most amazing home-made Mexican food Henry and his wife, Taco Bell having recently been their only experience with south of the border cuisine, had ever experienced.
Henry put his business partner's unusual serenity down to medication, and instead watched the birthday girl, Juanita, Concita Afton's youngest sister who'd come all the way from Jalisco to help her with the children after Afton had his breakdown, mingle with her guests like a newly crowned queen in her elaborate white ball gown and tiara just as the Mariachi band struck up a waltz.
Juanita's father took a blushing, giggling Juanita's hand and guided her with great dignity to the little portable dance floor which had been rented for the occasion and led her through the steps before handing her off to her male relatives– even the littlest ones, all anxious for their turn at whirling the guest of honor around the polished wooden dance floor to enthusiastic applause from her mother, sisters, grandmothers, cousins, and aunts.
Vaguely smiling, Afton stared at nothing, even after Concita led him to join the other guests when the music shifted to something more informal. Eventually, Vinnie, who along with Maggie had been part of his aunt's royal court during the religious portion of the event in the big Catholic Church, who, having shaved off all five whiskers from his chin for the first time that morning and was wearing his first real tuxedo, bounced up to where she sat hunched over her sketchbook and colored pencils, eyeing the Mariachi band with a look of intense concentration. Henry, who'd shown Vinnie how to use a razor because Afton had still been asleep with less than an hour to go before everybody had to pile into the long line of cars to the church after lunch, didn't hear what the arm-waving boy said, but Maggie reluctantly set aside her sketchbook, timidly took his hand, and let him lead her to the dance floor with the rest of the guests, her dress a smaller version of Juanita's.
Maggie had been an unforseen blessing, helping unasked Mrs. Henry take care of Charlotte when all his wife wanted to do was sit in bed staring at a snapshot of Sammy holding up his new Turtle action figure in front of last year's Christmas tree. Maggie'd even held Charlotte, in a fluffy pink party dress, in her arms by the altar during the ceremony and later keeping the three year old quiet during the actual mass while the adult Henrys, Methodists lost among clouds of exotic incense, kneeling, rising, and incomprehensible Latin, tried not to remember Zachery Juan Pedro Alonzo Afton's little white rose covered closed coffin in front of the alter earlier in the year while agonizing over the fate of their own missing child.
Tonight, she let Vinnie, who had quieted down after losing Zach and Sammy, lead her through the unfamiliar steps. The Henry's hadn't thought it was a very good idea to have such a big party so close to their shared tragedies, but maybe they had been wrong. Maybe such livliness, such happiness for Juanita on her special day, was exactly what everyone needed.
And later that evening, Henry, his wife with a limply exhausted Charlotte who had been passed from old lady to old lady and spoiled dreadfully draped snoring over her shoulder, as they walked to their house across the street, stuck his hand in his pocket for his keys and instead, found a folded piece of paper.
Standing beneath the street lamp in front of his house, Henry pulled it out, and with the Mariachi playing one last waltz in the background, unfolded it. Maggie had drawn the leader of the Mariachi band as a mustachioed bull, with the other musicians as various other animals: a rooster, a coyote, an armadillo with an elaborately decorated shell – and off to one side, a red fox in a suit like Vinnie's, and a pink and white fox girl with flowers behind her perky ears and a dress like Juanita's, waltzing.