Blessed Are Those Who Weep

by Kristi Belcamino

  I walk back over to him, and we lie down with his arms wrapped around me and my face pressed against his chest. I kiss him, lifting his shirt up as my lips make their way downward. But then I hear it. Snoring. He’s asleep.

  I’m tempted to wake him up. I shake him a little, but he rolls over on his side. Anger, disappointment, and frustration shoot through me as I stand. I also feel guilty for being so angry with him. He has to go back to work in two hours. And he just got home. No wonder he fell asleep. But it still feels like rejection. If he wants a baby as much as I do, wouldn’t he have tried to stay awake just in case there was still a chance?

  Wide awake, I grab a blanket and head out the sliding-­glass door to the balcony. Pulling out a metal bistro chair, I sit, putting my bare feet up on the balcony railing. The smell of jasmine and basil from the pots in one corner combines with a whiff of ocean carried on the breeze.

  Leaning back, ignoring the way the metal digs into my back through the blanket, I exhale slowly up into the crisp night air above me. The clouds part and reveal a slice of moon and stars. In front of me, the fog blows away, revealing the spires of Saints Peter and Paul Church across the park.

  The distant bellow of a foghorn is comforting, but it fades as I’m back inside the church, as if it were yesterday. On tiptoe, I peer into my sister’s coffin, staring at her in the white communion dress she never had a chance to wear. I’m yanked back from the coffin by my aunt, who rushes me back down the aisle, where I’m forced to sit with my two brothers in their too-­tight black suits. I can almost feel the scratchy crinoline of my dress, the one we picked out for me to wear to Caterina’s first Eucharist.

  Every time I see the church spires, I’m taken back in time. They aren’t always bad times. Sometimes they are happy memories of playing in Washington Square Park, across from the church. My mother sitting with the other moms and laughing. My brothers playing bocce, imitating the old guys at one end of the park. Caterina sitting with the older girls, giggling and ignoring me when I try to get her to play with me. She’s too cool for her younger sister, even though we are only a year apart. Over the past few months, memories of my dark past have been pushed down as I deal with my new, private grief, but they always linger there under the surface.

  A gust of wind sends a chill through me, and the night grows darker as clouds cover the moon and stars.

  Chapter 11

  WHEN I WAKE, the sunlight streaming through the windows helps me momentarily forget my nightmare from last night, and my anger at Donovan has lessened some.

  Donovan left hours ago, even though it’s Sunday. That’s the thing about dating a cop—­there is no such thing as a weekend for him. Ever since we met, he’s angled to get Sundays off, because he can’t pass up the after-­party at my nana’s house, when everyone gathers to eat after Mass. But this weekend, the first forty-­eight hours of a homicide take precedence.

  Before my moka pot percolates, I speak to Kellogg and Mrs. Castillo, Maria Martin’s mother.

  After I pour my coffee, I open the breadbox to fish out the remains of a sourdough loaf. Along with the bread, I spot a tiny white box with a red ribbon on it. It’s signed with a D.

  Inside is a religious medal. St. Gerard, it says. I finger the miraculous medal of the Virgin Mary on my neck as I turn over the newer, shinier medal in my hands, looking for some clue as to why Donovan gave me this. I know a lot of saints, but this one escapes me. On my bookshelf, I take down the bright yellow spine of my Book of Saints for Children and flip through the pages.

  St. Gerard is the patron saint of expectant mothers.

  The realization makes me slump onto the couch.

  I read on. When I get to the prayer to St. Gerard, it makes more sense. Donovan wants me to wear this when I get pregnant again.

  This one line says it all: “ . . . shield the child which I now carry, that it may see the light of day and receive the lustral waters of baptism.”

  Reading this makes my arms feel so empty. Donovan is so confident that I will get pregnant again. Me? I’m convinced something is wrong and I’ll never be able to have children. If only I had his faith.

  When I strip for my shower and see my flat stomach in the mirror, it sends me spiraling back in time to another day I can’t forget, when the doctor told me there was no heartbeat.

  “I’ve been doing this for twenty-­five years,” she said. “In that time, I’ve told hundreds of women the same thing, and within a year, I’ve delivered their baby.”

  Although I never told Donovan what the doctor said, I clung to those words like a lifeline: Within a year, I’ve delivered their baby.

  Later, I asked my regular obstetrician when we could start trying again. He must have heard the desperation in my voice.

  “It’s safest to wait until you’ve had at least three more regular cycles again.”

  Three months.

  It has now been four.

  The chart I have taped to my bathroom cabinet marks every day. Last month, the first month we could “try,” I read every book on conception I could find and began taking my temperature and charting my cycle. I quit drinking and smoking. The night I told Donovan “it was time,” I was so excited. That disappeared two weeks later when my period came.

  Last night would have been another chance to try. I swallow back the disappointment and anger. The last thing I need is to resent Donovan and his job. But deep down inside, I know it’s too late.

  Chapter 12

  TERESA CASTILLO LIVES in San Juan Bautista. Kellogg reluctantly gave me the thumbs-­up for the trip because it will be the first interview with a family member of the victims. He made a point to remind me that covering the Mission Massacre was still Nicole’s job, but that it’d be okay if I wrote this one story, a profile piece of Maria Martin. Gee thanks.

  The trip will take most of my day. I’m missing Sunday dinner at Nana’s. But I’m slightly relieved I can postpone facing my family and all their questions about the Mission Massacre.

  And I’m doubly glad I don’t have to see Donovan today. While I know it’s not entirely his fault and that I’m being childish, I’m still furious we missed our window. Part of me wishes I would’ve pushed him and said, “Come on, let’s just have a quickie!” Nothing wrong with that. Instead, a tiny nugget of resentment against him forms.

  The sun is creeping over the Gabilan Mountains in a misty haze when I zip past San Jose. The light this morning is amazing, golden and hazy, mingling with lingering coastal fog.

  I know I’m close when the car fills with the pungent smells of Gilroy’s garlic fields. I pull over at a roadside stand, where I grab a latte and a braid of garlic for my kitchen.

  It feels great to fly down the freeway with my windows down, cranking The Cure’s “Just Like Heaven,” buzzed from the caffeine in my latte. Even though I’m filled with disappointment, a tiny part of me is relieved that I don’t have to worry about getting pregnant for another month. The feeling of a weight being lifted combines with a pang of sadness that my body will go even longer without a baby inside it.

  I make great time, so when I pull into San Juan Bautista, I’m forty minutes early for my meeting with Mrs. Castillo. After cruising past her tiny bungalow so I know where it is, I park a few blocks away and head for the mission. I’ve seen it in movies so many times that I’m anxious to see it in real life.

  A small line is formed in front of what must be the village bakery. The smell of fresh bread reminds me I skipped breakfast. I’ll stop in the bakery after I visit the mission.

  At the chapel, a crowd pours out after what must have been the 10:00 a.m. Mass. I creep inside and genuflect before kneeling toward the back.

  Closing my eyes, hands clasped, I pray. The wood kneeler digs into my bare legs.

  I pray for Lucy. A lurid image of the death scene in that apartment rushes back. I press my eyes even tighter, my face scrunch
ing up. I pray for my own baby. And pray for the chance to get pregnant again.

  I know I don’t deserve it, but I want to be a mother so badly.

  I think about Caterina, and for once, I don’t pray to avenge her murder.

  Father Liam once told me to try praying for Caterina’s killer. I don’t know if I will ever be capable of that. Right now, I fear I would pray for his long, painful death at my own hands.

  But thinking of him has stopped my thoughts of my dead baby. Pushing my hair back, I look up. The church has nearly emptied.

  A dark head is bowed in the front pew.

  The altar’s bright colors draw me closer. The woman in the front pew briefly looks up, and her eyes brighten when she sees me. She gives me a small smile and nod, and bows her head once more.

  I pause in front of the altar. There are six cubbies, lined with red curtains that contain intricately painted statues. I recognize the one that is most prominent, John the Baptist, but the others I’m not sure about.

  When I turn to ask the woman in the front row, I realize she must have silently slipped out a side door, because the church is empty.

  A FEW MINUTES later, I knock on the door to the bungalow. Small yellow flowers in terra-­cotta pots flank the entryway.

  Soft singing from inside the house filters out an open window, and a moment later the door opens. It’s the woman from the church. Her black hair is cut in a Louise-­Brooks-­type bob, with a silver streak down one side. She wears blood red lipstick on her full lips and a black turtleneck with black Capri pants.

  A small smile spreads across her face, but her gray eyes are possibly the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. The loss of her daughter weighs heavy in them, but the warmth in her smile is genuine, and I can’t help but return it. I thrust a warm loaf of rustic bread at her.

  “This smelled too good to pass up.”

  “Gracias. We’ll have some with our coffee.” She opens the door wider so I can enter.

  Inside, the main room is nearly empty. A small wood table pressed against one wall holds an old-­fashioned stainless-­steel percolator and two coffee mugs. The main feature of the room is a large easel with a seascape partially completed. Stacks of finished canvases lean against the lower parts of the white stucco walls. Most of them appear to be Mexican landscapes featuring tall, soaring cactus with purple and red flowers against a cobalt sky.

  “You’re an artist?”

  The woman gives a graceful shrug. “It pays the rent.”

  She has a thick accent, but she obviously learned American colloquialisms quickly. I wonder how long she’s lived here.

  “Excuse me, why did they say your daughter didn’t have any other family in America?” I say as I take the cup of coffee she hands me.

  “Let’s go out to the patio.”

  A small door through the kitchen leads to an inner courtyard filled with flowers.

  “I am dead to him,” she says once we are seated at a small metal bistro table outside. Her tone has grown somber. “A few months ago, I tried to get Maria to leave him. She told him. He forbid her from speaking to me. But she did anyway. I am her mother.”

  “Her husband? Joey Martin?”

  “Yes. He met Maria on leave in Mexico. He wants to ‘save’ her, he says, he marries her, brings her up here, and leaves. She is so lonely. He brings his parents and sister and nephew to live with her. He is overseas the whole time.”

  “So, he was gone most of the time?”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Castillo pours us more coffee.

  “How often did he come to visit since they married?”

  “Not much. Maybe three times. Only for a day or two.”

  Long enough to knock her up, though.

  “But the last time, Maria asked me to come to stay when he is on leave here.” She raises an eyebrow as she says it. The last person I would want around when my husband was home on leave from overseas would be my mother.

  Mrs. Castillo butters some bread and hands me a thick slice. I take a bite, chewing. Despite the smell, it tastes like everything else I’ve had to eat lately—­cardboard. Even so, I am halfway done with my piece while she gingerly nibbles on the crust of hers.

  Maria asked her mother to stay in her small apartment when her husband was last home on leave.

  “Why did Maria want you to stay?”

  “She was afraid.” Mrs. Castillo says this matter-­of-­factly.

  “But she was never really alone, was she? You said his parents were up there, and his sister as well, right?”

  “Yes, they live in the same building as Maria. They watched baby Lucy for her sometimes.”

  They lived in her building? Did the police search their apartment, as well?

  “Do you remember what apartment number?” I keep chewing the soggy piece of bread, which is lasting an eternity in my mouth.

  “312. I remember it because it is the same as my birthday—­three, twelve—­March twelfth. Maria spent a lot of time there, too. She liked his parents.” Her bright eyes blink back tears.

  I finally swallow the bread.

  “There was also his friend,” she says, and I wonder why she is bringing this friend up. Is there a reason? “He was always around. Wish Maria would have married him. Much nicer. Good family,” she says and takes another tiny nibble of her bread, running a fingernail around her mouth to make sure her lipstick hasn’t smeared.

  “What friend?” Why does she want me to know this? What is she trying to tell me?

  I wait as she finishes chewing. “Army buddy. Nice boy.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  Mrs. Castillo looks off into the distance as she tries to remember.

  “Marnie? Arnie? Maybe something with an A, but some type of girl name. On a boy.” She says this as if it’s a travesty. Fingering her chin, she gives a big sigh. “It will come to me. One of these days.”

  “Can you call me if you remember that friend’s name?”

  She nods, absentmindedly handing me another slice of bread she has buttered.

  “Do you have a picture of Maria I could borrow? I could make a copy and mail the original back today.”

  The screen door slams behind her as she heads inside. I lean back, looking up at the blue sky for a few seconds before I take in the morning glory flowers snaking up a trellis beside me.

  When Mrs. Castillo returns, her eyes and nose are red, as if she was crying and blew her nose because she didn’t want me to know. She hands me a glossy five-­by-­seven picture. It’s a wedding photo.

  It is a candid shot of the ­couple walking on the beach. Maria wears a white gown that is severely buttoned up to the neck, which somehow highlights her voluptuousness. He is dressed in his army uniform. Only his profile shows as he looks at Maria.

  Maria’s face is lit from within. She is laughing merrily, hair slightly mussed, holding his hand in a way that looked like they had been swinging their arms. Tucking the picture into my notebook in my bag, I ask about Maria’s childhood.

  Mrs. Castillo tells me how Maria grew up on the family ranch in Mexico, helping her father with the horses and cows. How she rode the wildest horses, taming them, having them eat out of her palm. And how shortly after her father died, she met Martin. He was visiting a friend on a nearby ranch, and he saw her riding bareback in a dress with her long hair flowing behind her. He decided right then she would be his wife. He was charismatic and handsome, and Maria told her mother it was love at first sight.

  Glancing at my watch, I realize I’ve skirted around the issue long enough. “Why did you want to speak to me in person? Why do you want to stop Lucy’s father from getting her?” I take another sip of my coffee.

  “He is so crazy about her, he wants to be with her all the time. He was so angry he had to go overseas. His own fault. He signed the papers. Twelve more years.”

>   Twelve more years enlisted? That’s a serious commitment. She stands and begins puttering with her plants, stroking the leaves and checking the soil for moisture. She’s avoiding my eyes. I see her swipe at her eyes when her back is turned.

  “Mrs. Castillo? I know this is difficult for you, but you haven’t answered my question. You called him a monster. Said you would rather die than see your granddaughter end up in his care.”

  She gives a nervous laugh and doesn’t look up from an azalea plant. “I don’t know. Sometimes I say crazy things.”

  Why is she backing off now? What has changed? I can’t figure it out. I stand and set my coffee cup down. I open the door to her bungalow, and she follows.

  “You told me on the phone that more than anything else, you needed to stop him from getting your granddaughter,” I say once we are inside, standing near the front door. “You need to explain that. I didn’t drive down here for the coffee.”

  When she looks up at me, I see the answer in her eyes. Mingled with the sadness is a look of terror.

  “You’re afraid, aren’t you? You’re afraid of whoever killed your daughter?”

  She acknowledges my words with a nod so slight it could be imagined.

  “Lucy will not be safe if he has her. . . . That little girl is all I have now. All I have of my Maria . . .”

  She trails off.

  “Why won’t you tell me why you’re afraid? You called me down here for a reason. Why won’t Lucy be safe with her father? Please tell me.”

  She shakes her head no.

  Something dark and unfathomable stirs inside me for a second. She looks up and takes my hands in hers.

  “Can you save Lucy?” Her sharp fingernails, painted the same blood red as her lipstick, dig into my hands.

  “Tell me what you’re afraid of.”

  She won’t look at me. Her demeanor conveys a desperation that doesn’t match her words. I sense her fear, shooting through her hand into mine.

  “He is here. He has been here. He was here the day Maria died.”