He grunted and made a lifted half nod with his chin. “Do you need to leave?”
“Not yet. I’d like to get through this paperwork while we can. Qu— he’ll be all right.”
“I’m sure he will.” He stood up and put the death report back into a neat, squared-off pile on the table before motioning for me to follow him. I went along and I noticed that he paused to lock the office door behind us as we left.
TWELVE
Dinner at the Solis house was served in the dining room under tension that seemed to have less to do with my presence than that of Ximena’s mother—whose name was the long and rolling Maria del Carmen Gomez Baranca de Moreno, but was shortened by everyone to Mama Gomez. Chatter was carefully regulated and dish passing was accomplished with a degree of solemnity I had rarely seen in a house full of subteen children. The table seemed a bit unbalanced with both me—in the uncomfortable middle—and Ximena’s mother on the same side and three of the four kids on the other. Ximena was at the foot of the table with the two youngest—Martha Carolina and Claudia Elena—seated on either side. Solis sat at the head with the oldest boy, Oscar Luis, on his left. Mama Gomez was on his right and I thought it wasn’t so much for any honor the place conferred as the ease with which Solis could keep an eye—and if necessary a hand—on her. Directly across from me sat the youngest boy, Mario Diego, who at seven years old was still a bit too small to manage his own plate and the serving bowls at the same time, which made the progress of dishes go backward: food started not with the head of the table, but with the youngest children and Ximena, then passed on to me and Mama Gomez, and finally to Solis, Oscar Luis, and Mario. This seemed to annoy Mama Gomez and she muttered continually while casting me black looks from the corner of her eye and eating mechanically.
The food was more a collection of meats and a few side dishes than a specific meal, but it was delicious. The amounts were ample and no one complained, though the feeling of something about to shatter hovered over us. Eventually Mama Gomez said something under her breath that brought a low-voiced reprimand from Solis and a giggle from Martha.
“She called you a witch,” Martha said, looking at me with big, sparkling eyes.
Solis pressed his lips together and seemed about to say something but I forestalled him with a wave.
“It’s all right,” I said, addressing the little girl. “I’ve been called a lot worse and I recognized the word, anyway.”
“Do you speak Spanish?” Martha asked. “Papa says it’s rude to say things the guests don’t understand in front of them, but if you speak Spanish, we can talk normal now.”
“No, I don’t really speak Spanish. I’m sorry. I know only a few words and they are mostly very impolite ones.”
Martha was crestfallen. “Oh.”
Mama Gomez grinned and repeated herself a little louder, staring at me as if issuing a challenge. I returned her stare with a bland face and didn’t use any of my precious store of profanity, waiting to see what she’d do now. I’d caught exactly three words of what she’d said: “silver,” “gold,” and “witch.” The rest meant nothing to me with my terrible Spanish.
Ximena gasped and looked taken aback.
Solis narrowed his eyes but it was the only outward sign of his irritation. “Apologize, Mama.”
Mama Gomez whipped her head around to face him. “Why should I?”
I’d already figured out that she understood English perfectly so I wasn’t surprised she spoke as well as her daughter did. I kept my face and body stilclass="underline" This showdown wasn’t really about me.
“Because you have insulted our guest,” Solis replied.
“I spoke only the truth,” she objected.
“Truth or not, you meant harm. When you do harm to my guest, you will apologize or you will leave. My house, my rules.”
From the corner of my eye I saw Ximena bite her lip. Both her daughters looked to her in confusion and she glanced back, shaking her head and laying her finger over her mouth.
Mama Gomez also turned to look at Ximena, but she didn’t like what she saw. “Ximena!” she demanded.
Ximena’s eyes were huge and her lip trembled but she replied quietly, “Apologize, Mama.”
Mama Gomez made a strangled noise and flew to her feet. She glared back and forth between her daughter and her son-in-law, eyes bulging and mouth pressed tight to suppress her rage that sent violent red shocks into the Grey. Finally she looked at me. Since I was sitting and she was tiny, her face was just about level with mine.
“I’m sorry you’re a witch!” she shouted, and wrenched herself around to rush from the room, knocking over her chair and lurching into the built-in sideboard as she went. The room seemed to shiver as she left it, some glimmering residue of anger dying out of the air.
The whole room seemed to draw a breath of relief. The children dove back into their food and it appeared normalcy would return.
“So,” I asked, “what did she say?” I glanced at Martha Carolina and added, “Aside from the witch part.”
“She said you have gold and silver in your . . . umm . . . Mama, what was that word?” Martha asked.
Ximena didn’t look up from helping Claudia Elena with her food. “Aura. It’s like a light some people have around them.”
“Like a halo? Like a saint?” Martha asked.
“Sort of . . .”
Martha looked at me again, grinning. “You have a halo! You must be very good!”
Solis made a quiet snort.
Now, here was a pickle: I’m not much of a kid person, so I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, but it felt incumbent upon me to do or say something. . . .
“Umm . . . no, I don’t think it’s a halo,” I started.
“Ms. Blaine hasn’t got that kind of goodness,” Solis said.
“Is she bad, then?” Martha asked, frowning.
“No. But not everyone who is good is a saint. That takes a holy kind of goodness all the time.”
“And I’m only good some of the time,” I added, hearing the obvious cue in his voice.
“Oh,” said Martha. Then she brightened and declared, “I’m good all the time!”
Ximena laughed and turned to her older daughter to smile and tap her lightly on the nose. “You only wish that were true, Martita. Now stop pestering our guest and eat your dinner.”
The boys giggled and elbowed each other until Solis frowned at them. They stopped immediately and the rest of the meal was civilly quiet.
As we rose afterward, Ximena sidled up to me, chivvying the three older children into the kitchen to bus their dishes, and whispered, “I’m sorry about my mother. Sometimes she . . . sees things. . . .”
“That’s all right. Sometimes I do, too,” I replied. Then I noticed Solis motioning for me to go with him.
Ximena gave me a trembling smile. “You do?”
I nodded and she nodded back, her smile strengthening. Then she said, “Go on. You and Rey have work to do. The kids will help me clean up.”
Feeling a little guilty, I went with Solis, heading back up the stairs to the office in the attic. On the final steps I asked, “What was that about with your mother-in-law?”
“I apologize. She’s very rude when she gets like this.”
“Like what?”
“She is taken with strange ideas, with visions. And as an artist she refuses to constrain her mind, and, to our frustration, her mouth as well.”
He paused to unlock the office door.
“That’s not quite what I meant. She may be a little nuts, but that wasn’t the crazy talking at dinner. She was trying to get a reaction out of you.”
“Her feelings about me are . . . unstable.” He opened the door and waved me inside, then shut the door behind us before he continued in a low, intense voice. “She knows how I love Ximena and our children, that I will do anything to keep them safe. Sometimes that means keeping them safe from her, which she doesn’t like. And sometimes she hates me for being blind to the world as she sees it—the world, perhaps, as you see it.”