her first formal dance.
“Are you sure I should go, Mama?”
“Laura, for God’s sake, what can you be thinking about?”
“About Papa.”
“Don’t worry about him. You know I’ll be taking care of him.”
It began with the slightest of pains in his knee, to which Don Fernando paid no special attention. Leticia rubbed on some Sloane’s Liniment when the pain extended the length of his leg to his waist, but soon her husband complained that he was having difficulty walking and that his arms were numb. One morning he fell to the floor trying to get out of bed, and the doctors had no difficulty in diagnosing a diplegia that would affect his legs first and more intensely than his arms.
“Can it be cured?”
The doctors shook their heads.
“How long will it last?”
“It may last the rest of your life, Don Fernando.”
“What about my brain?”
“No effect. You’re fine. You’ll need help moving, that’s all.”
This was why the family was thankful the house was on only one level, and María de la O offered to travel to Xalapa and be her brother-in-law’s nurse, to take care of him, to push him to the bank in a wheelchair.
“Your grandfather’s well taken care of in Catemaco by your Aunts Hilda and Virginia. We talked it over and agreed that I’d come to help your mama.”
“What does Papa always say in English? It never rains but it pours or something like that? In other words, the thunderstorm is upon us, Auntie.”
“Go on, Laura. Just one thing. Don’t try to defend me if someone mistreats me. You’ll just make trouble for yourself. The important thing is to take care of your father and let my sister Leticia tend to the house.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I owe your father as much as I owe your grandmother, who had me come live with all of you. One day I’ll tell you about it.”
The double care that fell on the house, added to their mourning for Santiago, did not terrify Doña Leticia. She simply became thinner and more active. But her hair began to turn gray and the lines of her beautiful
Rhenish profile slowly but surely covered with extremely fine wrinkles, like the cobwebs that covered sickly coffee bushes.
“You have to go to the ball. Don’t even think about it. Nothing is going to happen to your father or to me.”
“Swear that if something happens you’ll send someone for me.”
“For heaven’s sake, child. San Cayetano is forty minutes away from here. Besides, it isn’t as if you were all alone and helpless. Elizabeth and her mama will be with you. Remember, no one can say anything about you … if something were to happen, I’d send Zampaya with the landau.”
Elizabeth looked divine, so blond and beautifully shaped as she was at the age of sixteen, although she was shorter and plumper than Laura. And with more décolleté as well, having been shoehorned into a by now old-fashioned, though perhaps also eternal rose-colored taffeta dress with infinite layers of tulle and ruffles.
“Girls, never show your boobs,” said Elizabeth’s mother, Luca Dupont, who all her life struggled to decide whether her name was as common in France as it was aristocratic in the United States, although how she could have married a Garcia, only the masculine charms of her husband could explain, not her daughter’s obstinacy in saying her name was only Garca and not Garca-Dupont, that’s right, with the distinguished Anglo-American hyphen.
“Laura has no problems because she’s flat, Mama, but …”
“Elizabeth, child, don’t shame me.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it. God, with your help, made me this way …”
“All right then, forget your tits,” Elizabeth’s mother blurted out, with no hint of shame. “Just remember that there are more important things. Look for the most distinguished connections. Make a point of making friendly inquiries about the right families—Ollivier, Trigos, Sartorious, Fernández Landero, Estevas, Pasquel, Bouchez,
“Are you sure I should go, Mama?”
“Laura, for God’s sake, what can you be thinking about?”
“About Papa.”
“Don’t worry about him. You know I’ll be taking care of him.”
It began with the slightest of pains in his knee, to which Don Fernando paid no special attention. Leticia rubbed on some Sloane’s Liniment when the pain extended the length of his leg to his waist, but soon her husband complained that he was having difficulty walking and that his arms were numb. One morning he fell to the floor trying to get out of bed, and the doctors had no difficulty in diagnosing a diplegia that would affect his legs first and more intensely than his arms.
“Can it be cured?”
The doctors shook their heads.
“How long will it last?”
“It may last the rest of your life, Don Fernando.”
“What about my brain?”
“No effect. You’re fine. You’ll need help moving, that’s all.”
This was why the family was thankful the house was on only one level, and María de la O offered to travel to Xalapa and be her brother-in-law’s nurse, to take care of him, to push him to the bank in a wheelchair.
“Your grandfather’s well taken care of in Catemaco by your Aunts Hilda and Virginia. We talked it over and agreed that I’d come to help your mama.”
“What does Papa always say in English? It never rains but it pours or something like that? In other words, the thunderstorm is upon us, Auntie.”
“Go on, Laura. Just one thing. Don’t try to defend me if someone mistreats me. You’ll just make trouble for yourself. The important thing is to take care of your father and let my sister Leticia tend to the house.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“I owe your father as much as I owe your grandmother, who had me come live with all of you. One day I’ll tell you about it.”
The double care that fell on the house, added to their mourning for Santiago, did not terrify Doña Leticia. She simply became thinner and more active. But her hair began to turn gray and the lines of her beautiful
Rhenish profile slowly but surely covered with extremely fine wrinkles, like the cobwebs that covered sickly coffee bushes.
“You have to go to the ball. Don’t even think about it. Nothing is going to happen to your father or to me.”
“Swear that if something happens you’ll send someone for me.”
“For heaven’s sake, child. San Cayetano is forty minutes away from here. Besides, it isn’t as if you were all alone and helpless. Elizabeth and her mama will be with you. Remember, no one can say anything about you … if something were to happen, I’d send Zampaya with the landau.”
Elizabeth looked divine, so blond and beautifully shaped as she was at the age of sixteen, although she was shorter and plumper than Laura. And with more décolleté as well, having been shoehorned into a by now old-fashioned, though perhaps also eternal rose-colored taffeta dress with infinite layers of tulle and ruffles.
“Girls, never show your boobs,” said Elizabeth’s mother, Luca Dupont, who all her life struggled to decide whether her name was as common in France as it was aristocratic in the United States, although how she could have married a Garcia, only the masculine charms of her husband could explain, not her daughter’s obstinacy in saying her name was only Garca and not Garca-Dupont, that’s right, with the distinguished Anglo-American hyphen.
“Laura has no problems because she’s flat, Mama, but …”
“Elizabeth, child, don’t shame me.”
“There’s nothing to be done about it. God, with your help, made me this way …”
“All right then, forget your tits,” Elizabeth’s mother blurted out, with no hint of shame. “Just remember that there are more important things. Look for the most distinguished connections. Make a point of making friendly inquiries about the right families—Ollivier, Trigos, Sartorious, Fernández Landero, Estevas, Pasquel, Bouchez,
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