Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [169]
She was the friend of his childhood, the flirtatious señorita of his adolescence, the loving and valiant wife who followed him wherever fate led in his pursuit of glory on the battlefield. She was such a part of him that he could not envision life without her.
During her wake, he kept his eyes on her face, now devoid of expression. He’d watched her sleep so often that he expected her nostrils to flare, her lips to purse as if kissing the air, her lashes to flutter. He wanted her to live. He wanted her to sit up from the satin-lined coffin and organize every aspect of his civilian life. He wanted to feel her lovingly pinning the ribbons and medals on his uniform. He wanted to feel her palms pressing down on the lapels of his jacket until they lay flat. He wanted to feel her fingers quietly flicking a mote of dust, invisible to everyone else, from his shoulder. He wanted to hear her laughter when he said something funny, to hear her singing when she watered the plants in the courtyard, to hear her playing the harp. He wanted her to walk across a room, her step firm and determined yet feminine. He wanted her to dance again, her skirts swinging back and forth like a bell. He wanted her powdering her round shoulders and applying scented cream to her arms. He wanted to touch her hair, soft as cobwebs, to touch her lips and feel her kissing his index finger, to press back the lace around her nightcap and loosen the ribbons on her nightgown. He wanted to touch the parts of her no other man had ever seen or touched. He’d loved her since he was five and she was a few months old, and he didn’t want to live without her.
He wandered through their house, the first real home he’d given her, expecting to see her arranging a curtain or placing cut flowers in a vase. He tried to sleep on their bed only to awaken reaching for her in the night. He sat at the head of the table, Miguel and Elena on either side of him, as always, but when he looked across, he faced an empty space that seemed more desolate than a cloudless sky.
After the wake, after the funeral, after the Masses and the novenas, after reading the letters of condolence and choosing the words to be carved on her tombstone, after choosing the words to be carved on his, and after making sure that Mr. Worthy had everything in order, Eugenio went to bed one night two months after he’d buried Leonor and repeated her last words over and over in a litany of sorrow and despair.
“Forgive me.”
He held the rosary she’d given him so many years ago that he couldn’t remember the occasion and prayed to her for forgiveness, and prayed to God to forgive him for praying to her as if she were a goddess. He couldn’t forgive himself for scheming behind her back to send Miguel to Spain, even though it was for his own good. Miguel needed independence and experience, the company of men, the uncertainties of living on his own.
In the weeks of plotting with Simón, Eugenio had avoided telling Leonor, hoping that the great honor bestowed upon Miguel would convince her that it was the right thing to do for her boy. But she’d lost two sons, and he should have known that if the queen herself summoned Miguel to Spain, Leonor would have resisted sending him far from her watchful care, from her fears and premonitions.
“Forgive me,” he said over and over again, expecting to hear her voice absolving him, knowing he’d never hear her voice again. She’d never wanted to come to Puerto Rico, had suffered what no mother should ever experience in her lifetime. Her heart, broken twice, could not go on beating if she lost her only grandson.