At the word ambulance Mrs. Rosario tried once more to get to her feet. This time she fell across the table. The tabled tilted, and she slid slowly and gracefully to the floor. Almost immediately her face began to darken. Bending over her, Pinata felt for a pulse that wasn’t there.
Juanita was staring down at her mother, her fists clasped against her cheeks in an infantile gesture of fright. “She looks so funny.”
Daisy put her hand on Juanita’s shoulder. “We’d better go into the other room.”
“But why does she look so black, like a nigger?”
“Mr. Pinata has called an ambulance. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“She isn’t dead? She can’t be dead?”
“I don’t know. We...”
“Oh, God, if she’d dead, they’ll blame me.”
“No, they won’t,” Daisy said. “People die. There’s no use blaming anyone.”
“They’ll say it’s my fault because I was bad to her. I broke her crucifix and the door.”
“No one will blame you,” Daisy said. “Come with me.”
It was only by concentrating on helping Juanita that Daisy was able to keep herself under control. She led Juanita into the front room and closed the door. Here, among the shrines and madonnas and thorn-crowned Christs, death seemed more real than it had in the presence of the dead woman herself. It was as if the room had been waiting for someone to die in it.
The two women sat side by side on the couch in awkward silence, like guests waiting for a tardy hostess to introduce them to each other.
“I don’t know what it was all about,” Juanita said finally in a high, desperate voice. “I just don’t know. She asked me to lie, and I wouldn’t. I never met any Mr. Harker.”
“He’s my husband.”
“All right, then. Ask him. He’ll tell you himself.”
“He’s already told me.”
“When?”
“Four years ago,” Daisy said. “Before your son was born.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was the boy’s father.”
“Why, he’s crazy.” Juanita’s fists were clenched so tight that the broad, flat thumbs almost covered the knuckles. “Why, the whole bunch of you are crazy. I don’t even know any Mr. Harker!”
“I saw you getting out of his car at the parking lot outside the Clinic just before your baby was born.”
“Maybe he just gave me a ride. A lot of people give me rides when I’m pregnant. I can’t remember them all. Maybe he was one of them. Or maybe it wasn’t even me you saw.”
“It was you.”
“All right, maybe I’m the one that’s crazy. Is that what you’re getting at? They oughta maybe come and take me away and lock me up someplace.”
“That isn’t going to happen,” Daisy said.
“Maybe it’d be better if it did. I can’t make sense of things like they are now. Like the business about my Uncle Carlos and the money — he said my mother had been lying about Uncle Carlos.”
“Who said?”
“Foster. Or Fielding. He said Uncle Carlos was an old friend of his and he knew a lot about him and what my mother told me was all lies.”
“Your uncle’s name is — was Camilla?”
“Yes.”
“And you think my fa — Mr. Fielding was telling you the truth?”
“I guess so. Why shouldn’t he?”
“Where is he now, this Mr. Fielding?”
“He had an important errand, he said. He asked to borrow my car for a couple hours. We made like a bargain. I gave him the car; he gave me the dope on my uncle.”
Daisy had no reason to doubt the statement: it sounded exactly like the kind of bargain her father would make. As for the important errand, there was only one logical place it could have taken him — to her own home. Fielding, Juanita, Mrs. Rosario, Jim, her mother, Camilla, they were all beginning to merge and adhere into a multiple-headed monster that was crawling inexorably toward her.
Outside the house the ambulance had come to a stop with one last suffocated wail of its siren.
Juanita began to moan, bent double, so that her forehead pressed against her knees. “They’re going to take her away.”
“They have to.”
“She’s scared of hospitals; hospitals are where you die.”
“She won’t be scared of this one, Juanita.”
After a time the noises from the kitchen ceased. A door opened and banged shut again, and a minute later the ambulance pulled away from the curb. Its siren was mute. The time for hurrying had passed.
Pinata came in from the kitchen and looked across the room at the moaning girl. “I called Mrs. Brewster, Juanita. She’s coming over to get you right away.”
“I’m not going with her.”
“Mrs. Harker and I can’t leave you here alone.”
“I got to stay here and wait, in case they send my mother home. There won’t be anybody to look after her if I...”
“She’s not coming home.”
The strange blankness had come over Juanita’s face again, as concealing as the sheet that was used to cover her mother’s. Without a sound, she rose to her feet and walked into the bedroom. The candle in front of Camilla’s picture was still burning. She leaned down and blew it out. Then she flung herself across the bed, rolled over on her back, and stared up at the ceiling. “It’s just wax. It’s just ordinary beeswax.”
Daisy stood at the foot of the bed. “We’ll stay with you until Mrs. Brewster gets here.”
“I don’t care.”
“Juanita, if there’s anything I can do, if there’s any way I can help you...”
“I don’t want no help.”
“I’m putting my card with my telephone number on it here on the bureau.”
“Leave me alone. Go away.”
“All right. We’re leaving.”
Their departure was marked by the same words as their arrival had been: Go away. Between the two, a woman had died and a monster had come to life.
20
Dust and tears, these are what I remember most about the day of your birth, your mother’s weeping, and the dust sifting in through locked windows and bolted doors and the closed draft of the chimney...
The drapes were drawn across all the windows as if there was no one at home, or the people who were at home didn’t want to advertise the fact. A car, unfamiliar to Daisy, was parked beside the garage. Pinata opened the door and examined the registration card while Daisy stood waiting under a eucalyptus tree that towered a hundred feet above the house. The pungent odor of the tree’s wet bark, half bitter, half sweet, stung her nostrils.
“It’s Juanita’s car,” he said. “Your father must be here.”
“Yes. I thought he would be.”
“You look pale. Are you feeling all right?”
“I guess so.”
“I love you, Daisy.”
“Love.” The sound of the word was like the scent of eucalyptus, half bitter, half sweet. “Why are you telling me that now?”
“I wanted you to know, so that no matter what happens tonight in connection with your father or mother or Jim...”
“An hour ago you were trying to get rid of me,” she said painfully. “Have you changed your mind?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I saw a woman die.” He couldn’t explain to her the shock he’d had of complete realization that this was the only life he was given to live. There would be no second chance, no certificate of merit to be awarded for waiting, no diploma for patience.
She seemed to understand what he meant, without explanation. “I love you, too, Steve.”
“Then everything will work out all right. Won’t it?”