“Fani Cordova will admit to providing the drug to my daughter, and my daughter will admit to getting it from her,” Tía Isabela said. “She will testify that Delia knew absolutely nothing about it. In fact, she realizes she’s alive today because of Delia’s quick thinking. I guess Edward would say his sister’s begun to grow up.”
“This is all just confusing the situation,” Señor Bovio insisted.
Mr. Simon turned to Teresa. “When was the last time you changed Mrs. Newell’s bedding and dusted under that bed, Teresa?”
“Today, sir. This morning.”
“And can you tell us anything about the item you found and put back in the bedsprings?”
“It’s still there, sir. Last I looked.”
“Well, we have no search warrant, Mr. Bovio, but I would think you would want to get to the bottom of this as quickly as we do,” Mr. Simon said. “It would also go far to prove you weren’t part of this.”
Señor Bovio looked at us and at Teresa. We were all staring intently at him.
I held my breath. Would he tell us all to get out, or would he do what Mr. Simon asked? Was Mrs. Newell’s grip on him and his happiness so strong that he would blot out the truth?
He saw a tear escape my eye. I wiped it away quickly, but he nodded and stood.
We all rose and followed him out slowly. Our march to the stairway and the slow climb up was so somber I could feel the weight of all of the darkness I had gone through on my shoulders. In my heart of hearts, however, I believed Adan was walking up those stairs beside me.
Mrs. Newell heard us coming and stepped out of Adan Jr.’s room. She held him in her arms. He was asleep. “And what’s this?” she asked.
Señor Bovio paused. “Maybe nothing,” he said. “Maybe everything.”
He nodded at her bedroom, and Teresa opened the door.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Newell asked, stepping forward.
Adan Jr. squirmed in her arms but didn’t awaken.
We entered her bedroom. The lights were on. She came in behind us. I stood beside her, watching Adan Jr., dying inside to reach out and take him from her arms but deathly afraid to do anything to interrupt.
Teresa went to the bed and got to her knees. She looked under the bed and then up at Mr. Simon and nodded.
“What is this?” Mrs. Newell demanded now. “This is my bedroom!”
“For the moment,” Señor Bovio said, nodding at her, “let Delia hold Adan Jr.”
“What?”
“Just do what I ask, Mrs. Newell.”
She turned to me, but I didn’t think she was going to relinquish my baby. I moved forward and reached for him. She hesitated, tightened her grip, and then relinquished him. I held him closely.
Edward moved forward and lifted the mattress. Mr. Simon shook the bedsprings, and then Teresa reached under and brought out the packet.
Mrs. Newell seemed to freeze. Even her eyes turned to ice. She didn’t move. “I don’t know what that is,” she quickly said.
Señor Bovio looked at her and took the packet from Teresa. He stared at it a moment.
He didn’t look up at Mrs. Newell when he spoke. “I would like you to pack up your things immediately and be out of this house and off my property as quickly as humanly possible.”
“What? I tell you I don’t—”
“As quickly as humanly possible,” Señor Bovio repeated, looking at her coldly this time.
“You are making a big mistake, Mr. Bovio. Why, if your son was alive—”
His lips trembled. “He would be smiling,” Señor Bovio said. He looked at me and Adan Jr. “He’s smiling now, I am sure,” he said.
My tears fell on Adan Jr.’s face.
He opened his eyes and looked up at me.
And I would swear until the day I die that he smiled.
Epilogue
One day in early April, mi tía Isabela’s head housekeeper, Señora Rosario, came to Adan Jr.’s nursery to tell me I had a visitor. He was waiting outside. She said he wouldn’t come into the hacienda. I had just finished feeding and changing Adan Jr. and set him in his crib, contented and ready for his nap.
“Quién es?” I asked. The days of no Spanish permitted in the house were gone. I thought Señora Rosario appreciated that more than anyone.
“No sé. Él no diría.”
Why wouldn’t he tell her his name? I wondered. For a moment, I thought about the boy with whom I had gone on that dreadful double date when I was with Fani in Los Angeles. I don’t blame him for not giving his name, I thought, and marched to the front entrance. I had no patience for this.
It had been months since I had returned to live with Adan Jr. in Tía Isabela’s hacienda. Edward had returned to college, and Sophia was attending a college-preparatory school in San Diego. Her near-death experience had matured her in ways Tía Isabela had lost faith in ever seeing. I had put off nursing school until the fall and now would attend the one in San Bernardino, which meant I could commute and not be away from Adan Jr. too long. With Inez and Señora Rosario assisting, I felt comfortable about all of it.
Señor Bovio was a frequent visitor, never arriving without gifts for Adan Jr. and me but sometimes bringing something for Tía Isabela as well. They were starting to see each other socially again, and he was even talking seriously about returning to politics. He had finally gotten to the point where he could look at me without tons of guilt darkening his eyes and lowering his gaze. It was Adan Jr. who, with his wondrous smile, tied us together in ways that would bring us to forgive.
I opened the front door and stood for a moment looking out with a mixture of surprise and happiness but also some fear.
Ignacio stood by his father’s truck, his arms folded across his chest. He looked even bigger than the last time and still had that military-style short hair. I walked down to him slowly.
“I thought if I sent in my name, you would not come out,” he said.
“What a foolish idea,” I told him, and he smiled.
“Someone with some influence managed to get me out early.”
“I’m happy for you and for your family, Ignacio.”
“Sí, gracias,” he said, and then he looked away and confessed that he had been out for almost a month.
“A month? I did not know.”
“I was afraid to come see you. I was afraid you hated me now or wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me.”
“Another foolish idea,” I told him.
“My parents knew all about you, about your returning to live with your aunt. Do you still want to be a nurse?”
“Sí. I’m going to school in the fall.”
“That’s good. I’m sure you will be a very good nurse.”
“Are you working again with your father?”
“For now. He keeps pressuring me to go to school, too. While I was in prison, I worked in the warden’s garden. I changed a lot, and he liked it very much. My father thinks I should study landscaping and become a fancy gardener.”
“That would be wonderful, Ignacio.”
“He says it’s a holy thing to bring beauty into the world.”
“Él es un hombre sabio.”
“Sí. I should only be as wise at his age.”
“You will.”
“Maybe. How is your son?”
“He is very well, gracias. He’s sleeping now; otherwise, he would be in my arms.”
Ignacio laughed. “I’m sure you don’t let go of him often.”
“That time comes soon enough.”
“You sound as if you’ve become very wise, maybe too wise for me,” he said.
“I can afford to share it,” I said, and he laughed. Then he nodded. “It’s been a while since I really laughed. I’m glad I stopped by.”
“Then you’ll have to return often. It’s better to laugh than to cry.”
“Another saying of your grandmother’s?”
“No. This is my own.”
“Now I know you’re a fully grown wo
man. You have your own sayings to pass on.”
“Then you’ll be back?”
“Sí,” he said. “We’ve both come too far, made too many crossings, to turn and walk away.”
“I’ll be waiting,” I said.
He unfroze his arms and embraced me. In that long moment as we held on to each other, all of the pain and suffering we had endured seemed to fall away, dropping to our feet like old, dead leaves. He pressed his lips to one of my tears.
“The salt of your body is now the salt of mine,” he whispered, and then he got into his truck, smiled, waved, and drove off.
I watched until he was gone.
I didn’t know that Tía Isabela was watching from a window. She was waiting when I entered the hacienda.
“That was a surprise for you,” she said. I studied her face and saw an impish smile.
“Maybe not so much for you,” I told her.
She laughed. “Ray did whisper in my ear a while back, but I did not want to say anything for fear Ignacio would not contact you. No more disappointments are permitted in this house,” she declared.
“That’s good,” I said.
We were both in a good mood, anyway. Edward was coming home to spend the weekend with us.
Later, we had a nice dinner together. Edward was very excited about his decision to go to law school and talked so much that neither Tía Isabela nor I had a chance to tell him anything. It made us laugh even harder. Finally, toward the end of our dinner, he put down his coffee cup and leaned toward his mother.
“I have been meaning to ask you something,” he said. “I didn’t want to bring it up, because I didn’t want to spoil everything.”
“What is it, Edward?” Tía Isabela groaned, throwing me a look of feigned agony.
“When we were on our way to Señor Bovio’s home that night, you told us you had gotten him to grant the meeting by making him a promise. You never told us what that promise was. What was it?”
She looked down at her coffee cup and fiddled with her spoon, a slight smile on her lips. “I promised him I would marry him,” she said. “Who knows? Maybe I will keep it.”
“I thought you always wanted to marry him,” Edward said.
“Not while he was living with a ghost. If I had married him then, I’d probably be doing what Delia had to do, wearing his dead wife’s clothes, maybe even her wigs.”
“That was quite a chance you took, then,” Edward said.
She looked at me and nodded. “I thought it was time to take one.”
None of us spoke. I took a deep breath.
“I think it’s time to do one more thing,” she said.
“What?”
“Let it be a surprise.”
We didn’t pursue her. When Sophia’s spring holiday began, and Edward’s as well, she revealed it.
Two days after we were all together, she presented us each with a plane ticket.
The following morning, we were all on our way to the airport. The flight and the drive took most of the day, but we arrived in our village in Mexico before the sun had gone down. Sophia was all eyes as we navigated the broken streets and passed the cantinas to the square, where the people had gathered to eat and sing. For her, it was truly like visiting another planet. It was even a little like that for me. I had been in such a different world.
It wasn’t until we reached the cemetery and got out to stand before the family graves that I felt I had truly come home again.
And when I looked at Tía Isabela, I could see she finally felt something similar.
She smiled and talked about her parents. She knelt at their graves and my parents’ graves and said her prayers.
“I’m sure my father is still angry at me,” she told us.
“Not anymore,” I said. “You’ve returned and won’t let him die the third death.”
She smiled and put her arm around my shoulder. “Gracias, Delia, gracias for bringing us all here.”
We joined hands, the four of us, and walked to the car to go to the square, where we would find the Mexico that was in us, that would not die, that would take us farther than we had ever dreamed, that would help us to cross over any obstacle.
And where the spirits of our family waited to embrace us and help us light the candles to guide us forever through the darkness.
V. C. Andrews, Delia's Gift
(Series: Delia # 3)
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends