The Farming of Bones_ A Novel - Edwidge Danticat [9]
She turned to look at the white candle on the layette chest, the wick half buried in a mass of melted paraffin, the flame long since extinguished by all the movements in the room.
“I wish you had known Mami, Amabelle,” she said.
“I wish I had known her as well, Señora.” But her mother had died even before my parents had drowned, leaving us both to parent all our childhood dreams out of ourselves.
Juana walked in with a tray of steaming soup and a sweet tea brew and placed them on the bed, in front of Señora Valencia.
“Eat well, Señora,” she said. “Remember, the children feed from you.”
Tears began to stream down Juana’s face again. She turned to me and said, “See that the señora eats,” and then she ran out of the room.
“Juana was at Mami’s side both times Mami was pregnant,” Señora Valencia explained.
I placed an embroidered shawl around the señora’s neck and handed her a spoon. After the señora had eaten a few spoonfuls, Rosalinda began to whimper. I picked her up and brought her to her mother.
“My tiny little one, she must grow strong, or how will she defend herself when her brother wants to tussle?” Señora Valencia said as she took her from my hands. “I can’t wait for Pico to see the children. I hope he and Papi will return tonight.”
“I know the señor will want to come,” I said.
“My Pico is so full of ambition. He told me that he’s dreamed since he was a boy of advancing in the army and one day becoming president of this country.”
“And you the wife of the president, Señora?”
“I wouldn’t like it,” she said, wrinkling her nose, as though smelling something sour. “When Pico procures everything he wants, he might not want me anymore. As a boy, he was so poor. Now he can’t accept that he has a bit of comfort and he doesn’t have to fight to make the sun rise every morning.”
“The señor’s work is important.” I told her what I knew she also believed.
“I wish I could see him more,” she said. “I miss the dark taste of cigars in his mouth.”
Señora Valencia raised the little girl up to her shoulder as if she had already been doing it all her life.
“I’ve thought of everything I want to tell the children,” she said, “things they might need to know and other things as well, where I may have to hold my tongue.”
“You know what best to do, Señora.”
“What you did for me today, Amabelle, Mami should have been here to do, except she was like me and would have been screaming in agony, too.” She threw her head back and laughed at the pain linking her with her mother. “Amabelle, after my mami died, Juana told me that in our faith if there is a choice between a baby and a mother during a birth, you must choose the baby.”
“I am glad we never had to choose, Señora.”
“If you’d had to make this choice, I’d want you to look after my children. See what we’ve brought forth together, my Spanish prince and my Indian princess.”
“Wouldn’t you like to be a princess?” Señora Valencia murmured into her daughter’s face. “She will steal many hearts, my Rosalinda. Look at that profile. The profile of Anacaona, a true Indian queen.”
“Juana and I will sleep in the house with you tonight,” I offered to the señora.
“Juana will only drown us in more of her tears,” she chuckled.
“I will ask her to call on the patron saint of tears to stop hers.”
“I think it best if she sleeps in her own house and you in your room.”
“One of us must stay with you, even if Señor Pico returns.”
I left the señora to the care of one of her husband’s girl cousins, who had come from the village with more old hen soup, eggs, nutmeg, money, and dog’s teeth for the babies’ protection, and went down to the pantry to find Juana.
Juana was sitting at the table, stirring a wooden spoon around the plate of stew in front of her. Her eyes were red from all the crying she had done. She got