Vigil
ALSO BY CECILIA SAMARTIN
Tarnished Beauty
Broken Paradise
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Cecilia Samartin
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Atria Books Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Samartin, Cecilia.
Vigil: a novel / by Cecilia Samartin.—
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-6548-5
ISBN-10: 1-4391-6548-3
1. Women immigrants—Fiction. 2. Salvadorans—United States—Fiction. 3. Women refugees—El Salvador—Fiction. 4. Nannies—Fiction. 5. Upper class—Fiction. 6. Problem families—Fiction. 7. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.A449V54 2009
813'.6—dc22
2008040487
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For my soul children
Sarah, Matthew, Jack, Lucy,
Caroline, Catherine, and Holden
It often happens that those who spend their time giving light to others remain in the darkness themselves.
—Mother Teresa
Vigil
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
One
AS THE SUN ROSE, Ana watched for Dr. Farrell’s car from the second-story window. An orange glow had begun to bleed across the sky, and the shadowy shapes that moments earlier looked like sinister creatures ready to pounce were transformed into the benign shrubs and trees of the garden. As everything became infused with a soft silvery light, Ana waited for that mystical sense of hope to ease into her soul as it always did when she saw the sunrise. But on this morning the cold she’d awakened with remained untouched. Instead of receiving the gift of a new day, she felt as though she’d been robbed of what had become most precious to her—time.
Moments later, Dr. Farrell’s headlights flashed through the gate, and Ana rushed downstairs so she could get to the door before he rang the bell. She wanted to prevent hearing its deep melancholy tones echoing throughout the house at such an early hour, yet she was unable to prevent the aching in the pit of her stomach. The only way to muffle the dread was to once again remind herself of the miracles modern medicine could achieve. Doctors reattached severed limbs and transplanted organs from one body to another, and if caught early enough, they were even capable of curing cancer. When she thought about it in this way, it seemed perfectly rational, even sensible, that she remain hopeful. Perhaps the reason Dr. Farrell was stopping by so early was that he was eager to tell her of a new treatment he’d heard about and he didn’t want to waste any time getting started. But when Ana opened the door, just as he was preparing to ring the bell, and looked into his defeated eyes, took in the stoop of his shoulders and the descending curve of his mouth, she knew that they’d finally reached the end.
A few months ago this revelation would’ve been a total shock to anyone who knew her beloved. He’d always been a supremely healthy and robust individual and Ana secretly believed that he’d been blessed with superhuman strength that made him immune to the petty ailments plaguing lesser mortals. Yet this was little comfort as she listened to Dr. Farrell.
She nodded silently as he explained the results of the most recent lab tests following this last round of chemotherapy. Adam hadn’t responded to the treatment as they’d hoped, and another growth had been discovered along the base of his spine. It had begun to infiltrate the bones of his hips, and before long he’d lose the use of his legs and his most basic bodily functions. Behind thick glasses Dr. Farrell’s eyes grew misty as he said that all efforts should now be directed toward keeping him as comfortable and pain free as possible and that Ana needed to take care of herself as well.
“These final days are always hardest on the caretakers,” he said. That’s how he referred to her, but she wasn’t offended, because she understood that Dr. Farrell was relying on his professional jargon to maintain his composure. He’d been one of Adam’s oldest and dearest friends.
Ana wavered on her feet and Dr. Farrell took hold of her shoulders to steady her. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine,” Ana replied.
“You don’t look fine. You’ve lost more weight.”
“Not much,” Ana replied, trying to dismiss it.
“You can’t afford to get sick now, Ana. After I leave I want you to lie down and rest. You look as though you haven’t slept in days.” Although she was over forty, and her short, dark hair was laced with streaks of silver, at that moment she appeared as vulnerable as a lost child.
“I will,” she replied softly.
“Have you spoken with the kids recently?”
“I spoke with Jessie yesterday. She should be arriving today.”
“And Teddy?”
Ana lowered her eyes, unable to hide her disgrace.
“I’ll call him,” he said. “I’ll make time this morning.”
Ana looked up, her eyes clear and focused once again. “Tell him that his father needs to see him now more than ever.”
“I will,” Dr. Farrell said, glancing at his watch. “I arranged for the nurse to come by this afternoon, but I’ll be back first thing tomorrow morning. I don’t have any surgeries scheduled, so I’ll be able to stay longer.” He squeezed her shoulders with fatherly affection. “Actually, before you lie down, I want you to eat something first. Can you do that for me?”
Ana’s stomach turned at the mere thought of food. Ever since Adam had stopped eating she too had been unable to eat, and when the chemotherapy treatments caused him to retch, she felt like doing the same. Nevertheless, she assured Peter that she’d eat something right away, and then waited until his car drove out of the gates to go back inside.
Numb and depleted as she was, it took every ounce of her strength to climb the stairs she’d bounded down moments earlier when she thought there might still be hope. Now she feared that she’d slither back to the bottom if she didn’t deliberate every single step. Even so, her feet faltered once or twice and it seemed that she’d never reach the top. Every step brought to mind all there was to do, to prepare and plan for.
When she reached the last step, she looked about in a stupor, as if she hadn’t spent the last twenty years of her life in this house. If someone were to ask her where she was or even her name, she might not have known how to answer.
Taking firm hold of the banister, she peered down the long corridor. It undulated before her like an endless snake, and there were so many doors to choose from, but somehow she managed to find the one behind which Adam slept. And with small, well-practiced movements s
he entered the room, and the heavy, stale air of the sickroom brought her back to her senses.
She approached the bedside and gazed down at him. Nestled among so many pillows and blankets, he looked impossibly small and tender to her, more like a newborn beginning life than a man on the brink of death. Surely there was still time for them. Perhaps even more time than Dr. Farrell knew.
Inspired by this consoling thought, Ana smoothed out the blankets. She rearranged the collections of pills on the nightstand, and then passed her hand gently across her beloved’s brow. His eyelids softly fluttered, letting her know that he was aware of her presence, and she smiled.
She lowered herself into her chair by his bedside and folded her hands on her lap. She closed her eyes and her lips began to move in silent prayer. As sunlight streamed in through the bedroom window, her agony began to ease with its warmth, but then she remembered what Dr. Farrell had just said, and the aching in her stomach resurged. She tried to overcome it with prayer, but it pounded and wailed, creating such a hideous clamor inside her that it overwhelmed her orderly chants and left her feeling hopeless again. Without her natural optimism to buoy her spirits, she sank deep into a bleak and all-too-familiar place.
“I don’t want to be left behind again,” she murmured. “Please, I don’t want to live without him.”
A voice straining to be heard above her anguish answered her, although later she would question whether she’d been dreaming. “You must look back on where you’ve been to know where you’re going,” it said.
“What difference does it make? The past doesn’t change the present or the future.”
She waited for an answer, and when it didn’t come the deathly silence spread over her again, stealing away her breath little by little. After some time she opened her eyes and tried to clear her head and calm her heart, to prepare for this parting that she feared was beyond her strength to endure. But weak as she was, she couldn’t resist the call to “look back,” and found herself pushing and pulling on this pitiful patch of time she’d been given with a newfound conviction. Perhaps she’d be able to stretch it beyond its limits until it frayed and tore along the seams of her understanding. Then she’d be able to weave it all back together again, thread by precious thread, to create a new understanding of herself and her life.
Her body melted into the chair, and her face became slack. “What else can I do but remember?” she murmured. The sound of her voice caused her beloved to shift his head slightly toward her, but she was too caught up in her memories to notice.
“You ask too many questions, mija,” Mama said, glancing up from her sewing with a critical eye.
“I just want to know what he was like. Was he short, or tall? What color were his eyes?”
“Your father isn’t a man worth remembering. The less you know about him the better,” she snapped.
But often she’d break down and tell me about him when she felt most frustrated with life. When the few chickens we kept in the yard were stolen, leaving us without meat or eggs for months, she scorned him lavishly. And when she smashed her finger while repairing the roof during a particularly heavy rainstorm, his name along with a colorful assortment of foulmouthed descriptions erupted from her mouth with every whack of the hammer, filling her with strength and conviction, and reminding us both that we wouldn’t be defeated by his absence. Quite the contrary, at those times I was grateful that we didn’t have a “foul, lazy drunkard who couldn’t find work in the day or his way home at night” to deal with.
When my mother calmed down, she’d also blame herself as she bemoaned my father’s innumerable faults. “I was the greater fool to believe that a man’s sweet words and caresses could ever ease the harsh realities of life.”
In the village where we lived there was no electricity or running water, and when the rainy season came it wasn’t unusual for several of the huts to wash away in a torrent of muddy water. For weeks afterward children combed the banks of the muddy river in search of clothing and pottery they might exchange for a few coins if they were lucky. In our world harsh realities were as common as mosquitoes on a hot humid night, and it was ludicrous to imagine life without mosquitoes.
My mother wasn’t alone in her predicament. Many of the women in our village had been left by their husbands to raise their children alone. And there was little hope for those who’d managed to keep their men under their roofs a bit longer than the rest.
“It’s just a matter of time before your tía Juana finds out that Carlos isn’t hiding out in the hills to avoid the National Guard. He has another woman, and a whole other family besides,” my mother said. “And then she’ll know what I knew the minute I laid eyes on him.”
“What’s that, Mama?”
“That he’s a smiling scoundrel who’ll never change,” she answered with a dismissive little shrug.
“Have you actually seen him with the other woman?” I asked.
“No, but I see it in the way he looks at every woman who crosses his path. And if I were blind, I’d be able to smell it on him too.” Her dark eyes burned with an inner fire. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t see as much as I do.”
Mama had predicted too many calamities for me to doubt her. She was a practical mystic who was able to assess the circumstances before her and understand in seconds what it took others weeks, months, or even years to understand. Unlike many of the other women who’d suffered, she’d learned from her mistakes and had found a way to transform her agony into wisdom—wisdom she applied to her own life, time and time again.
“Why won’t you say hello to the man from town who smiles at you, Mama? Don’t you think it would be nice to marry a rich and handsome man?”
Mama briefly thought about this. “Sometimes I think it would be nice, but…” She clucked her tongue the way she did when she shooed the chickens out of the house. “The truth is that you’re more than enough headache for me,” she said with a teasing smile.
A continuous flow of human drama played around us, confirming Mama’s discerning view of humanity and providing us with a kind of sordid entertainment as well. One time I remember well, I was walking home from the market when I saw our neighbor Dolores throw herself at her husband’s feet. He’d been away hiding from the National Guard in the hills for some time, and it was well known that in his absence she’d made extra money by cooking and cleaning for the same wealthy man who always smiled at Mama. It was also well known that Dolores’s husband was a very jealous man, and that the mere thought of his wife in another man’s house would drive him mad.
She threw herself at his feet, sobbing while he frowned as though his shoes had been wet not by a desperate woman’s tears, but by a urinating dog. I was afraid that he’d kick her face away but he ordered her back into the house instead, and she immediately scurried inside, grateful, it seemed, that he hadn’t struck her. Then he took his machete from his belt and began to throw it against a nearby tree, again and again, each time striking his mark with alarming accuracy.
Mama nodded, listening to the impassioned recounting of what I’d just seen and heard. “Do you think he’s going to hack her up with his machete?” I asked, horrified.
“No,” Mama replied. “She’ll lose her life little by little, not all at once.”
I wasn’t sure what she meant by this, but a few days later we saw Dolores at the market, both her eyes rimmed by the most spectacular shades of purple and blue I’d ever seen. They were so swollen that it was a wonder she could see the peppers she tossed into her basket, and I noticed that her basket was full of vegetables and a freshly killed chicken besides. Apparently, after beating her soundly, her husband had allowed her to spend the money she’d earned.
“You see,” Mama whispered, sad for Dolores, but nonetheless pleased to have made another accurate prediction, “if Dolores wants to keep working for that rich man, she’ll have to pay with bruises and broken bones. And one day, when there are no bones left to break, or eyes left to blacken, he’ll kill her once an
d for all.”
“That’s terrible, Mama. We should warn her so that she can get away from him now before it’s too late.”
Mama shook her head. “It’s no use, mija. Look at her. She’s happy that today her basket is full and her husband is home. She can’t see beyond that.”
It was only after the day was done and we lay in our hammocks listening to the night sounds, the scuttle and cries of the creatures that lived in the jungle nearby, that my mother allowed herself a romantic thought or two completely lacking in practical wisdom. At these times she’d whisper to me in a dreamy voice full of possibilities, “Let’s imagine, mija. Let’s imagine that we’re floating on a little boat in the middle of the ocean far away from here, and that millions of stars are twinkling above us, and that just as many colorful fish are swimming below us.” Or, “Let’s imagine, mija. Let’s imagine that we’re sleeping in a magnificent house with enormous glass windows and tile floors, and in the morning we’ll wake to the sound of guitars softly strumming.”
Every night lovely images like these colored my dreams, and because of them, no matter how many harsh realities I encountered during the day, I never had trouble sleeping.
My favorite playmate was my cousin Carlitos. We most enjoyed playing down by the riverbank, where the mud could be sculpted into all manner of objects for our amusement. Sometimes, when we were still too young to be embarrassed by our nakedness and the river was high enough to reach to our waists, we’d strip and cake our bodies with layer upon layer of mud until it was impossible to know who was the girl and who was the boy. If we should happen upon anyone who knew us, we’d challenge them to guess, and laughing hysterically, we’d jump into the river and wash ourselves clean just to prove how wrong they were.
Vigil Page 1
