My mother’s face goes blank. Like someone attached a line to her and drained away all signs of life. “José told me you got the money I left.”
“I did. Thank you.”
“It’s yours, Marlena. Just like you said yesterday.” She rests a cheek on her knees as she talks. “Today I set up a bank account for you. The paperwork is on the counter. There’s an ATM card with the code written next to it. There’s more money in it than you could ever need.”
“Okay—”
“—also,” my mother interrupts, voice monotone, “I alerted the necessary parties that your audiences are canceled until further notice. And Fatima moved all those things you piled into the gift room up to the attic.”
I inhale to protest, to inform her that some of those things, like the books, my paintings, I didn’t want to be inaccessible, but my mother is still not done.
She lifts her head and stares at me. “You wanted freedom, querida—well, now you have it.”
My insides go to war, debating what my mother is really up to with such lavish offerings, offerings that were just yesterday totally and utterly forbidden. One side of me thinks she has a larger plan, and that just when I think everything is all right she will swoop in and take everything back. The other side of me doesn’t know what to think, but I long to believe she is doing these things only because I asked for them, because she thinks that after all this time I deserve a little reward for how patient and obedient I’ve been during the entirety of my childhood.
“Are we going to talk at all?” I ask her now.
“About what?”
“About this.” I gesture between the two of us, and in doing so I guess I’m also pointing at our clothing, which has changed drastically between yesterday and today.
“I thought we said all that needed saying last night.”
“Oh. You do? Okay.”
I stare at my mother, study her, and finally see what I’ve been missing since I stepped out the screen door. It’s defeat. My mother is defeated. There are dark circles underneath her eyes, purple and bruised. The way she sits may make her look younger, more vulnerable, but the woman I see up close seems like she’s aged. It nearly makes me want to go to her, to give her a hug.
I don’t.
Maybe I could after she’s proven I can trust her. If I can have faith that somewhere inside her, Saint Teresa is waging a battle to release the mother that she is, the mother she used to be. Maybe Saint Teresa is fighting right now, this minute, to release her from the hidden place where she’s dwelled for so long. I hope Teresa is prepared, sword in hand, with a spare tucked away.
That night after I get into bed, I can’t sleep. I poke around in my body, my heart, my mind, for that familiar feeling of my gift. Sensing it there, waiting for me when I need it, has always been a strange kind of comfort. I do my best not to panic when I can’t find it anywhere. Not even a little trace or tug.
TWENTY-FOUR
If I’ve been an angel before, I am no longer. Every day I am shedding feathers, until my shoulders are so light I can finally stand up straight and tall. With each one gone I become more visible, more human, a thing of flesh and bone.
I smile at myself in the mirror. I like being a real, human girl.
Fatima takes me shopping for a bathing suit. She wears a simple white top and matching slim skirt that reaches her knees. Her black hair is pulled into a bun, frizzled wisps escaping around her face. She looks like the typical Portuguese lady, with her long face and smooth, dark features. Everything is on sale because it’s the end of the season, and she has me try on what seems like the entire store. She knows how big a deal it is for me to pick something out that will be all my own. That I’ve dreamed of wearing a bikini like other girls on the beach. In the dressing room I struggle with the ties and the hooks around my neck and back, but I refuse the help she offers.
“It’s okay, Marlena,” she says through the door. “I’m a lady, too.”
I know this, but I can’t let her help. I’ve been shamed about my body for too many years. After I try on the first bathing suit, I’m almost too embarrassed to look at myself in the mirror.
“Marlena, you’re going to wear this in public, but you’re afraid to show me now?” Fatima calls from the chair she’s been sitting in while she waits. “If I still had a body like yours I’d be prancing all over this store and around town in only a two-piece!”
“Fatima, you’re not helping,” I call back, but I’m laughing. Then, “Fine,” I say and slink outside.
She puts her hands to her cheeks. “¡Ai, querida! Look at you! You’re so skinny! I wish I had a behind like that.”
My cheeks burn. “Fatima!”
She stands up and starts barking orders. “Stop slouching and stand up straight. Now walk a few steps. Stop hunching over, Marlena! Now swivel your hips a bit.”
“I didn’t know there’d be catwalk lessons today,” I tell her.
Fatima waves her hands as she speaks. “You should be proud of what you look like. You have nothing to hide! Not anymore,” she adds, but under her breath. “Go change into the other ones. I want to see all of them.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
When I come out wearing a bathing suit with tiny flowers that ties around my neck, back, and hips, Fatima’s face lights up.
“That’s the one!” She smiles. “It has the same green as those flip-flops you’re always stomping around in. And it’s perfect with your coloring.”
“I love my flip-flops!”
She chuckles. “I know you do.” She plops back into her chair. “Go change into your clothes. We have a winner.”
I do as I’m told. With the chosen bikini in hand, Fatima makes me pick out a big fluffy beach towel, also green, and sunglasses. I decide on a pair with giant lenses, just like the ones that Helen let me borrow.
“Here comes the movie star,” Fatima says as she surveys my choice.
“Here comes the nobody,” I counter, remembering the bliss of anonymity.
We go up to the register with my purchases.
“You should call that nice girl, Helen, who loves you so much,” Fatima says while we wait in line. “You need some friends your age to spend time with and take you places. Not old fogies like José and me. You need to get out more.”
I nod. “I know I do.”
She eyes the colorful bathing suit in our basket. “Wait till that boy of yours sees you in that little thing.”
How could she know about Finn? He’s never been near the house. “What boy?”
“Oh, Marlena. I’ve been working for your mama for nearly a decade. I see you and I see your mother every day. I know things. More than you realize. And I don’t need to see the boy to know that he’s there.”
“But—”
“Querida.” She turns my chin with her hand so I am looking at her, touching me so easily. “Just like there is nothing wrong with that beautiful body of yours, there is also nothing wrong with you having a boyfriend. I know your mother taught you that you can’t like a boy because of your gift. But the only thing that is going to ruin your life is you never living it.”
I stare up into Fatima’s dark eyes, take in the gray streaks in her hair that reach toward her knot. I don’t know what to say in response to this simple offer of love. My answer is as wordless as I feel, but I hope it says to Fatima exactly what I want it to. I wrap my arms around her soft middle right there in the line at the store.
“Ai, querida,” she whispers, burying a kiss into the top of my head.