The Hummingbird's Daughter_ A Novel - Luis Alberto Urrea [95]
Loreto said: “I have always known!”
“Oh Christ,” said Tomás.
“You,” Loreto said. “You had no idea!”
Tomás wished he had a cigarette, that he was back at Cantúa’s, watching Gabriela. He put his hands in his pockets.
“I don’t even give a damn anymore,” he said.
Loreto gathered her chicks and hurried to her buggy. Loyalty to womanhood suddenly overcame Huila’s general delight in Yori misfortune, and she rushed to the buggy and climbed aboard as Loreto whipped her horse. Tomás watched them speed away in the wake of Juan Francisco and Aguirre. He was alone in the middle of the road.
Suddenly, Father Gastélum burst out the door crying, “What! What!” He glared at Tomás then scrambled onto the bee wagon and lashed the tired nag and headed off after Loreto. “My bees!” Tomás shouted.
Segundo, suddenly grown respectful, led the vaqueros away.
Tomás stomped into the courtyard and kicked a flowerpot, which burst in a shower of dirt and geraniums. He flew into a rage of flying arms and legs, kicking pots and benches, cursing as he broke everything he could reach. He slapped plums off the tree and they splattered on the adobe walls of the house. When he had worn himself out, he stood there panting, head hanging down, hair in his face.
He noticed Teresita sitting primly on her bench.
“You’re still here,” he said.
“Sí, señor.”
He said, “Only you remain.”
“Apparently, sir.”
He stood straight and pulled his hair out of his face.
“Are you really my daughter?” he asked.
“That is what they say.”
He shuffled over to her bench and sat heavily beside her.
“Your mother?”
“Cayetana the Hummingbird.”
He rubbed his face and groaned.
Tomás pointed at a lone bee investigating the slaughtered geraniums on the flagstones. “Better than people,” he said.
“Oh,” she replied.
They sat.
“Do you think they’re coming back?” he asked.
“Not soon.”
“No.”
After a time, he said, “Daughter.”
She turned to him.
“Yes?”
“May I call you daughter, or are you mad at me, too?”
“You may.” Then: “I’m not mad.”
“What a relief,” he said. “Everyone is mad at me.”
She patted his knee.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “These things pass, and life returns to normal.”
He sighed.
“You’re right,” he said.
She folded her hands in her lap.
“I have been very bad,” he said. “I didn’t mean to be bad, but I have misbehaved.”
“Yes,” she said. “I saw.”
They laughed.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“I do not know . . . Father. May I call you Father?”
“Why not.” He waved his hands over his head. “Why the hell not.”
He stood.
Put out his hand.
“Since it’s just you and me,” he said, “why don’t we go inside and enjoy my little country home?”
She took his hand and he helped her up, as any gentleman would for any lady. No one had ever offered Teresita a hand before. She took it in her cool fingers and rose.
“Gracias,” she said.
“I still have your grandfather clock,” he said as they went up the steps. “And weren’t you fond of cookies?” he asked. “I seem to remember you had a fondness for cookies,” he said as the big door swung closed behind them.
Thirty
TOMáS HAD CERTAIN DEMANDS for his daughter. The course of study began on that first day.
Item A: Baths
Tomás immediately had a bath drawn for her in the big tin tub in the washroom. He pried open a couple of Loreto’s trunks that had made the journey from Ocoroni. He delivered soaps and shampoos and lotions to Teresita as she went in the steamy room with the cook. Teresita had never taken a hot bath in a deep tub, and she was shocked, yet delighted, to feel the water cover her entire body. Bath salts and flowery pink oils went in the water and created the miracle of bubbles. She watched her own legs vanish beneath a rising mountain range of foam.
The cook poured a gourd of water over Teresita’s head and worked French shampoo into her hair with long hard spidery fingers.
Outside the door, Tomás called, “A lady bathes every week!”
Item B: Grooming
The cook tortured Teresita with a hairbrush for a half hour. Her hair was tied back with red silk ribbons. The cook made