She Walks in Shadows (22 page)

“I think it’ll be a relief for her. I’m more worried about Sara,” he said. “She’s still young. She has better things to do with her life than take care of old people and living corpses.”

“I don’t plan to be a living corpse any time soon,” I told him firmly.

Tío Gaspar gave me a sweet, almost chummy, smile. “Me, neither.”

Once, years ago, I had gotten Grandpa Estéban to tell me about New York. Sara was thinking about medical school at Columbia and he wanted me to tell her she couldn’t go.

“I can’t talk her out of it if you don’t tell me why you’re asking.”

“It’s not a good place for us.”

“You haven’t lived there in must-be eighty years. Everybody who knew you and Abuelita will be dead.”

“Eighty-five. And they won’t remember me, but Mamá and I remember New York.” His forehead furrowed. “You know my father died when I was young.”

“Abuelita said you were eight years old. The flu, she said.”

“They called it the
Spanish
Influenza. That made it even worse for a young widow and her son. There was no more school for me after that.” Although he didn’t need to breathe, Grandpa Estéban still sighed when he wanted to. He drew a breath then just to let it out.

“But Mamá was strong. She and I were the only ones in the family who survived. And she worked hard. We had an old house and she let rooms in it. Mostly to other Spaniards, who knew we hadn’t brought the influenza. One was a doctor. Doctor Muñoz.”

His usual raspy whisper dropped to a softer, more affectionate sound. “I brought him his meals and whatever he needed delivered … supplies, medicines, some of the same things we use today. He was kind to me, like a new father. But Mamá ….” His mouth twisted in disgust. “Mamá said his work was unholy. After a while, she wouldn’t let me visit him, anymore. No one ever took good care of him again. He passed too soon to learn one of the chants we sing to this day, one that might have prolonged his life.

“When Doctor Muñoz passed, I stole some of his notes. Some of his books. His work is the foundation of this family, of our life everlasting.”

I worked my numb fingers inside my mittens. I had never heard this story before. “That still doesn’t tell me why Sara shouldn’t go to Columbia if she wants to.”

“Your
bisabuelita
was fluent in English.”

“What?”

“She had a heavy accent, but she was fluent. But the day Doctor Muñoz passed from our home, she stopped speaking it completely. The shock.”

He gripped my hand in his, bone-cold even with a mitten between us. “She’s the reason we’ll never go back to New York. It would kill her.”

I told Sara I would mail her application to Columbia, but I threw it in the trash, instead. I have since come to regret that, not just because of the betrayal, but because of the reason behind it.

The unemployment payments on my ReliaCard ran dry in November and sure enough, I didn’t have another job. I’ll be fair: I was picky. I didn’t want to work someplace chatty and I didn’t want to work far from home. Abuelita was slurring her words and having trouble following conversations. She ran her fingers over the velvet of the jewelry roll until she dropped it from weak fingers.

It was hard to be sure, since she’d been blind and bald for years, but I think it was the lead in the paint that was doing the trick.

I added frankincense to Abuelita’s skin oil to welcome the season and sweeten the scent. She rubbed it into her skin carefully, reverently. I helped apply it to her legs and feet, since she couldn’t bend to reach them.

She still knew the touch of my hand, even through gloves. Abuelita and I were always close in a way that Grandpa Estéban and I never were. Whatever it was that made him want to live forever, we didn’t have it.

“
Tu regalo
,” she whispered.
Your gift
.

With unemployment over and years to go before I was eligible for retirement, it seemed like all I had to give anyone.

I ran into Debbie at the post office again just after Thanksgiving. Always the over-achiever, she was mailing out Christmas packages. She turned as if she were going to say something, then closed her mouth and looked away. She couldn’t tell me I looked great, because I didn’t. I was gaunt and graying.

I didn’t mind. It was a relief, one more connection severed from the world.

Abuelita died on December 23rd. I tiptoed in to check on her in her tiny, cold room and took off a glove so I could hold her hand as she passed. She didn’t breathe, and her hand was already cold, but it went slack — more limp than it did in sleep — and a foul smell crept in under the scent of frankincense and myrrh.

I was sorry she didn’t get another Christmas Eve. Although she hadn’t been to Mass in decades, she always listened to Midnight Mass on the radio. She loved the hymns.

“
Vaya con dios
,” I whispered. For the first time in years, I dared to kiss her on the cheek. It was tissue-soft and very, very cold.

Immediately after Abuelita’s passing, I trudged through the blowing snow out to the old barn. We used it for storage, mostly, but it was also our garage for the RV and the truck. I started the truck in the dark and let it warm up, keeping an eye out for lights in the house. No one stirred.

Careful in the snow, I drove the truck further out into the country, out to the property of a self-described gentleman farmer who spent his winters in Phoenix. I ran the truck into a ditch. Then I made sure the windows were secure, turned up the heat, and peacefully breathed in the fumes as the snow gradually covered the windshield.

I woke to the smells of frankincense and myrrh and old woman.

Abuelita was gone and I was in her bed. The jewelry roll was sitting on the dresser, all rolled up as if it actually had jewelry in it. Sara was sitting in my old place, the chair beside the bed.

“Welcome back, Mom,” she said. She looked exhausted. “You’re just in time for the New Year.”

I tried to speak, but it came out in a whisper. “What ....”

“You really did a number on yourself.” Sara gave me a sharp look through her tears. “Mom, couldn’t you have told me? I could have mixed something for you. Something safer. They kept you in a locker at the morgue for a day. I was afraid they’d do an autopsy on you, just like on Tía Rosa, and you’d never be right again.”

“Where’s Abuelita?”

“She died. You knew that, didn’t you? You wouldn’t leave her.” Tears spilled down Sara’s face. “We took you home and said we’d bury you, and we buried her in the grave Gaspar made in the barn a while back. We’re hoping nobody ever exhumes it, but if they do, maybe they’ll think it’s you.”

“I wanted to die,” I murmured. “Really die.”

“I won’t let you, Mom,” said Sara. She took my hand. I felt the pressure, but not the warmth. “I’m an Herrero at heart and we alwa
ys take care of our mothers.”

We loaded everything we needed into the RV and the truck over the next five days. They packed me into a chest freezer for the journey.

“Are you comfortable?” Tío Gaspar asked. “I could get you a blanket for padding. You’re not giving off heat.”

“I’m fine,” I told him. “I don’t really feel anything.” It was just barely nightfall and the temperature was already dropping. I was outside after dark without a parka, without gloves, for the first time in months.