She broke into a loud sob and rushed to Daniel with outstretched arms. Swift as lightning, Meridia planted herself between them. The force of her fury pushed Eva back against the door.
“How long will you lie? Your daughter is dead, and yet still you mock her memory. You knew all along that Ahab wasn’t the man he pretended to be. Admit it! You dangled Permony in front of him, dressed her up, shoved her right into his lap, knowing exactly what kind of beast he was. Don’t deny it, Malin told me everything. Permony would be alive today if it wasn’t for your greed!”
“No, I didn’t know!” cried Eva. “Ahab deceived me just as he deceived all of you. Had I known, I would never have consented to the marriage. Speak in my defense, son! I consulted you on multiple occasions, and didn’t you say that Ahab was the best possible husband for Permony? Didn’t you agree with me that he was as upright and blameless as the best of them?”
“I did, Mama,” said Daniel gravely. “But it was you who convinced me we had nothing to worry about. When I wanted to look into his background, you said it was unnecessary. Meridia warned me about him, but I refused to listen to her. I believed you and so I agreed to let him have Permony. Mama, do you realize what we’ve done? What you’ve done?”
Outraged, Eva wept louder. “How could you pin this on me now? We always see eye to eye—why don’t you believe me when I say I’m innocent? Don’t you see what your wife is doing? She’s trying to divide us, make us turn on each other—she’s been doing this from the day you married her! I swear, son, I’ve never kept anything hidden from you!”
This was what Meridia had been waiting for. Without missing a beat, without even noticing the tears running down Eva’s cheeks, she sprang on her like a lioness.
“That’s a lie. You’ve been playing us like a fiddle. What did you do with the letter Daniel wrote for Noah? You never delivered it to him.”
Eva jerked her head up. The hatred pinching the corners of her mouth was fit to slay a horse.
“My letter? Noah never received my letter? But Mama, you told me—”
“That I tore up the letter before Noah could read it?” Meridia was unstoppable now. “That’s not all she’s done. She never told me you were sick. She came to see me once, but only to say you wanted nothing more to do with me. She threatened to take Noah from me, by crook or by force, and she put that—that whore—downstairs in the shop where everyone could see her and made her pretend she was mistress of this house. If you only knew! If you only knew!”
Her voice broke as she dragged the last phrase through her teeth. Jamming her hand into her pocket, she clung to something there as if her life depended on it.
“But Mama—Mama said you refused to see me,” stammered Daniel. “She said you only shrugged when she told you I was ill, and you wouldn’t allow Noah to come no matter how much she begged you…I—I thought you hated me so much you no longer cared for me…I never asked her to take Noah from you, and Syl—she—she was nothing—” Suddenly he bit off his words. A nerve on his forehead stood out and trembled angrily. “Why, Mama, why? When I was lying here sick to my soul!”
Eva shook her head with all her vigor. “You got it all wrong, son! I was only trying to protect you. I thought it was best if you—if you moved on…I can explain everything. Please don’t turn away from me…Please!”
Stumbling toward his wife, Daniel did not heed his mother.
“Don’t come any closer,” Meridia said, stopping him. “It’s finished between us. You’ve used up all the love I had for you.”
She yanked her hand from her pocket and threw something at his feet. It slid with a hiss across the floor and stirred up all the ashes in its path. Without waiting for Daniel’s response, she pushed Eva aside and ran out of the room.
“Meridia!” He started after her, but a swarm of fireflies rose from the ashes and surrounded him. Instantly he recognized their furious flapping wings, the bright tiny bullets that had robbed him of sight. Eva screamed in horror. Daniel waved his arms frantically and fell to the floor. The fireflies closed in and plucked at his lids, shooting a terrible pain to the roots of his eyes. “Meridia!” he shouted in agony. “Meridia!”
He groped along the floor and found the object she had thrown at him. No sooner had he touched it than the pain subsided. The furious wings stopped beating, the tiny bright bullets ceased exploding his eyeballs. A thin yellow line danced at the edge of his vision, faint yet undeniable. It was his first ray of light since she left him.
Eva threw herself on the floor and put her arms around him. “What has she done to you? Do you doubt me now? She’s a demon! She summoned those creatures straight from hell!”
He struggled to his feet and broke away from her. More light flooded his eyes, and the darkness that for weeks had kept him captive began to crumble like a smashed wall. In wonder, his gaze traveled from the door to the broken window, from the upturned chair to the bed littered with burnt wings. Swaying like a drunk, he looked down on his palm and saw the coil of gold that had restored his vision. It was Gabriel’s necklace, once given to Pilar to save Patina’s life and redeemed by him as a token of his love.
“Drop it, son! She’s put a curse on it! Drop it!”
Daniel ignored this and brought the necklace to his heart. And then he turned to his mother and said, “Get out of my house and don’t come back, Mama. You are done talking. Don’t let me catch you saying another word.”
FORTY
The wake was held three days later. In order to attend to last-minute details, Malin arrived early at the funeral home. With quiet efficiency she put out candles next to the flowers, straightened chairs, paid the funeral director, and confirmed that the caterers would arrive at noon with a hot lunch. At half past nine, two coffins were brought from the inner chambers and placed at the front of the hall. The baby’s casket, bearing the beggar woman’s child, was sealed. The men carrying Permony’s handled it with a reverence befitting a holy object. Malin requested a moment alone and approached the coffin.
Meridia had not exaggerated. Dressed in a royal jade tunic they had picked out the day before, Permony was the very picture of love and loveliness, as empty of pain as she was full of grace. Her veins glowed with the same phosphorescent flame that had kindled Patina’s in her last days, illuminating her honey brown skin to the point of transparency. Overcome by the miracle, Malin stood still. She had done her share in tormenting Permony, treating her abominably in order to earn Eva’s praise, and every meanness now came back like a knife to her heart. As children, they wasted so much time playing pawns, each unwisely falling into their mother’s hands, and yet even after they caught on to her tricks, they never became close friends, so powerful was the divisive force Eva had wielded over them. It was now too late for forgiveness—only atonement. This, then, would be hers: to raise the child to the best of her ability, to love him as her own, and make him honor his mother to the end of his days. Malin sealed the oath by clasping the warm dead hand, and then for the first and last time, she placed a kiss on her sister’s cheek.
Afterward, she could not remember which happened first—the door opening or the wail piercing her eardrums. By the time she spun around on her heels, Eva was already in the room, wild-eyed and crumpled, as if she had not seen a comb or pillow in days.
“What’s happened to us, Malin? Your sister—my dear Permony!”
Quick as an arrow, Malin shot down the aisle to the door.
“You have no business being here. Leave before I throw you out.”
Eva stopped aghast in her tracks. There was dust and sweat on her face, streaked through by flowing tears.
“Be kind to me,” she pleaded, fingering the hem of her heavy crepe dress. “I have no one left in the world. Your brother is furious—he blamed me for everything and wouldn’t hear my side of the story. That hateful wife of his told him so many awful things about me, things she had so twisted and blown out of proportion my own son now thinks I’m a perfect monster—”
“Stop it, Mama! I’m not here to listen to your lies. Permony told me everything before she died. Now leave before you embarrass yourself further.”
Eva swallowed hard, the deep, dark rings tightening around her eyes. She blinked rapidly in an attempt to understand, yet the effort only increased her air of bewilderment.
“Be kind to me,” she repeated weakly. “I’m old and tired and unwell. Can’t you see how pale I am? I’ve walked and walked and I haven’t slept in three days. I kept tracing her route from the house to the cemetery, and from there to Ahab’s and back again, and I don’t understand why she didn’t make it home. It’s such a short distance and she was well when she left me, she assured me so herself…Malin, I’ve always stood by you from the day you were born…Why won’t you believe me?”
Malin answered at once, “You’re wasting my time. I’m not interested in your melodrama or your make-believe. You gave Permony to Ahab knowing full well what he was. I know he asked you to name her price, and you did! Now Permony is dead. Nothing you say will bring her back. I shall never forgive you for it. From the very start you set me against her to satisfy your own vanity. It amused you, didn’t it, to see me going at her? You never loved her, or any of us—only yourself. I’ve had enough of you. From this point on, we’re finished being family.”
Eva gave a strangled cry. “She’s poisoned you, too! I’m your mother, Malin. Are you going to abandon me like your brother?”
“No, just like you abandoned Permony. I mean it. I never want to see you again. Now go before the mourners come and mistake you for someone who’s capable of grief.”
Sobbing and trembling, Eva watched her daughter with horrified eyes. She had the peculiar sensation of stepping back in time and looking into her own young face. She recognized that hardness of will, that defiant and merciless stare, and the denouncing words that crushed her spirit like a millstone. She had taken part in this scene before—had in fact carried it off to a triumphant finish—but back then it was she who had done the disowning, and Patina had been on the receiving end. Suddenly, as her memory blurred with the present, Eva felt a slab of gravestone leap out of the past and smash against her back. The impact buckled her knees and dropped her to the floor.
“Don’t do this to me”—she tugged at Malin’s skirt painfully—“I have every right to mourn my daughter.”
“Horseshit!” Malin retorted, jerking her skirt free. “You never mourn for anybody but yourself. You never consider anybody’s feelings but your own. You know what you are? You’re a vile, rotten, venomous bitch who’s hardly fit to mother a beast!”
Eva sank to her heels, wincing as if a large lump were obstructing her throat. Slowly she lifted her wet lashes and took in her daughter’s face.
“You’re being cruel,” she began again. “I’ve made my mistakes, and I’m paying for them dearly. But I have always loved you and there’s no reason why we can’t get on. I’m begging you, Malin, let me see my grandson. I’ll go if you say so, but let me hold him just once.”
To her surprise, her request was met with a smile. A flame of hope shot through Eva’s heart, and she clung to it like a drowning man clutches a drifting log.
“You want to hold him?” asked Malin softly. “Very well. I’ll show you where your grandson is.”
Eva pulled herself up with difficulty. Her legs were shaking so badly she could hardly stand. When she raised her eyes, Malin’s smile had vanished without a trace.
“Do you see that little casket next to Permony’s? There’s your grandson. Didn’t you hear? He didn’t make it after all…It happened so suddenly yesterday.”
Though Malin had not shouted, had in fact lowered her voice significantly, Eva felt she was going deaf from the words. She faltered backward, dividing her glance between Malin and the little casket as if she had no idea what she was looking at. When the cry came, she felt it surge from the depths of her bowels and tear out of her mouth like a primal living thing.
“No! He can’t be…Meridia told me he was well…No!”
Malin smiled more radiantly. “But you never believe what Meridia says, do you? Why should it be different now?”
Even before the questions flung their net about her, Eva knew she had been trapped. For a moment she could only shake her head and stare stupefied at her daughter. Malin’s smile was an unbroken taunt, a steel wall constructed from a lifetime of resentments. Eva’s head swam. Try as she might, she could not find the laugh or gesture that would dispel the violence of the taunt.
“No,” she said. “That woman has never spoken a true word in her life.”
With her last strength Eva rallied herself and tottered to the door. A crippling pain from the gravestone slab shot up her back when she tried to straighten her shoulders. Later, Eva would discover that her spine had permanently bent out of shape. From where she stood, Malin watched her mother leave with arms crossed. Not once did she betray her wonder when she saw Eva’s feet drag across the floor with Patina’s old limp.
THE MAN HAD SPENT three days and three nights outside the house. Noah had first spotted him from the living room window shortly after dinner, leaning against the street lamp with his head bare and his thin frame draped in a heavy overcoat. An hour later, while his aunt Malin was putting the baby to bed, Noah had glanced out the bedroom window and sighted the man again. This time he was standing on the stone steps, staring at him with a beseeching look. Noah went to bed at ten, but twice in the night he woke and stole to the window. The man was there both times, changing his posture and station but not the insistence of his gaze. After each peek, Noah would return to bed and tighten about him the words that fueled his private anger.
Go away. You have no business being here.
On the third night his aunt Malin, who was sharing his room with him, noticed his agitation and asked if there was anything the matter. Not wanting to tell her, he said he was having a bad dream. “But why do you keep looking outside?” she asked, going to the window to check for herself. After a pause, she said that she could not see anything. “You’re a little warm,” she said, coming up to the bed to feel his head. “Will you get some rest? The baby can’t be the only one who sleeps in this house.” He nodded, and she pulled the blanket over him before resuming her post by the bassinet. From his mother’s room next door came the sound of pacing, which had increased in length and frequency over the past few nights. But he did not want to think about this either, especially with the man lurking outside the house, so he fastened his gaze on his aunt instead. Her rapturous look outshone the lamplight as she bent down and smiled at the baby.
The morning brought glorious sunshine but no respite from the man. He was now standing in the garden, his knees carelessly brushing the geraniums his mother had planted. Noah feared that any minute the man would ring the doorbell. He watched with apprehension when, at a quarter to eight, his aunt Malin excused herself to leave early for the wake. He watched her open the door and step out to the stone steps. He followed her from the window and saw the man wave his hand to catch her attention. Her stare was directly leveled at him, but she walked by without hearing or seeing him. Suddenly his mother darted out, and his heart dropped when he thought she was running toward the man. But she only came out to remind his aunt, from the safety of the porch, to confirm lunch with the caterers. The man, having shouted and gestured in vain, retreated again. It dawned on Noah then that he was the only one who could see him. He alone had the power to make the man visible, or condemn him unseen forever.
All morning long, he observed his mother as she went about her tasks. She seemed fitful and absentminded, paying the grocer’s boy without counting the bills, rinsing plates that were already clean, and spilling milk as she poured it into the baby’s bottle. He watched her as she sat in the front hall and fed the baby. He knew she had gone to see his father three days before, and she had come home looking immensely drained and dispirited. Now she looked even more tired, faded, as though all the light and bloom had been let out of
her. The sound of her pacing echoed in his ear, and with it he noticed her nervous gestures and the pale depressions on her cheeks. He drew up and knelt by her chair. Without lifting his eyes, he asked, “Are you unhappy, Mama?”
She stopped rocking the baby, her fingers tight around the milk bottle. “Don’t be silly,” she said with a laugh. “How can I be unhappy when you’re with me?”
He did not reply but bent his head lower still. He knew that her eyes, no matter what her lips said, would hold the real answer.
After the baby finished feeding, she laid him down to sleep in the bassinet, which she had earlier placed in the front hall. Faintly, she smiled at the little creature, stroked the thick black hair that was so much like Aunt Permony’s, and then went to stand at the window. Noah crept over to the bassinet and pretended to play with his cousin. All the while his eyes were studying his mother.
She rested her head against the pane, pensive and aloof as her glance swept across the garden. At her sight, the man came bounding to the window and stopped directly in front of her. Noah held his breath. Only the pane stood between them now; the man pressed his palm against it, imploring her with sorrowful eyes, but her glance passed through him without seeing him. She did not seem to hear when he began rapping on the window, but moved to sit at the desk with her back to the room. The louder the man knocked, the less Noah could hear it. One by one, his mother produced her sketches from a drawer. From where he stood, her back was a pillar of stone. She doesn’t need him, he told himself in silence. She’s capable of living without him.