Noemí walked among tombstones and moss and wildflowers, her chin lowered, tucked close against the folds of the sweater. She saw the mausoleum and in front of it the stone statue of Agnes. Noemí peered up at the statue’s face and her hands, which were weathered with speckles of black fungus.
She had wondered if there was a plaque or marker with the name of the deceased on it, and she saw that there was. Noemí had overlooked it during her previous visit, although she could hardly be blamed for missing it. The plaque was hidden by an overgrown clump of weeds. She plucked the weeds away and brushed the dirt off the bronze plaque.
Agnes Doyle. Mother. 1885.That was all Howard Doyle had chosen to leave behind to commemorate the passing of his first wife. He had said he had not known Agnes well, that she’d died within a year of their marriage, yet it seemed odd to have a statue carved of her and then not even compose a proper line or two about her passing.
It was the nature of the one word etched beneath the woman’s name that bothered her too. Mother. But as far as Noemí knew, Howard Doyle’s children were born of his second marriage. Why choose “mother” as the epithet, then? Perhaps she was making too much of this. Inside the mausoleum, where the woman’s body rested, there might be a proper plaque and a proper message about the deceased. Yet it was unsettling in a way she could not define, like noticing a crooked seam or a tiny stain on a pristine tablecloth.
She sat there, at the statue’s feet, and tugged at a blade of grass wondering if someone ever bothered setting flowers inside the mausoleum or at any of the graves. Could the families of everyone buried in the cemetery be gone from the area? But then, most of the English folk must have come alone, and therefore there had been no kin to bother with such things. There were also unmarked graves for the local workers and with no gravestone to their name, there could be no crowns of flowers for them.
If Catalina dies, she thought,she’ll be buried here, and her tomb will be bare.
What a horrid thought. But she was horrid, wasn’t she? Simply horrid. Noemí dropped the blade of grass and took a deep breath. The silence in the cemetery was absolute. No birds sang in the trees, no insects flapped their wings. Everything was muffled. It was like sitting at the bottom of a deep well, shielded by the earth and stone, from the world.
The merciless silence was broken by the sound of boots upon grass and the crunching of a twig. She turned her head and there was Francis, hands deep in his thick corduroy jacket’s pockets. He looked, as he often did, quite fragile, the faint sketch of a man. Only in a place such as this, in a cemetery with drooping willows and mist licking at the stones, could he acquire any substance. In the city, she thought, he’d be shattered by the banging of the Klaxon and the rumbling of motors. Fine china, tossed against a wall. But she liked the look of him in that old jacket, frail or not, his shoulders hunched a little.
“I thought you’d be here.”
“Hunting for mushrooms again?” Noemí asked, setting her hands on her lap and steadying her voice so that it was not strained. She’d nearly wept in front of them last night. She did not wish to do it now.
“I saw you leaving the house,” he confessed.
“Did you need anything?”
“My old sweater; you are wearing it,” he said.
It wasn’t quite the answer she was expecting. She frowned. “You want it back?”
“Not at all.”
She hiked up the too-long sleeves and shrugged. Any other day she would have taken this as a cue to engage in charming banter. She would have teased him and enjoyed watching him grow flustered. Now she picked at blades of grass.
He sat down next to her. “It really isn’t your fault.”
“You’d be the only person who thinks that. Your mother won’t even tell me if Catalina is awake, and Virgil wants to throttle me. I wouldn’t be surprised if your uncle Howard wished to do the same.”
“Catalina woke up for a bit, but then went back to sleep. She had a little broth. She’ll be fine.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Noemí muttered.
“When I say it’s not your fault I truly mean it,” he assured her, his hand falling upon her shoulder. “Please, look at me. It isn’t. It’s not the first time. This happened before.”
“What do you mean?”
They stared at each other. It was his turn to pick a blade of grass and spin it between his fingers.
“Well, come on. What do you mean?” she repeated, snatching the piece of grass away.
“She’d taken that tincture…she’d had a reaction to it before.”
“Are you telling me she’s made herself ill, the same way? Or else that she’s tried to kill herself? We are Catholic. It’s a sin. She wouldn’t, never ever.”
“I don’t think she wants to die. I mention it because you seem to think you did this to her, and you didn’t. It’s not your presence that has made her ill; it’s not you at all. She’s miserable here. You should take her away immediately.”
“Virgil wouldn’t let me do that before and he certainly won’t let me do it now,” Noemí said. “She’s under lock and key, at any rate, isn’t she? As if I could even see her for a minute right now. Your mother is furious at me—”
“Then you should leave,” he said brusquely.
“I can’t leave!”
