Amaia hadn’t always been completely estranged. She’d written to him often in the early years of her exile, her childish letters full of scribbled hearts and declarations of love. Engrasi showed them to Juan but kept custody of them so as to make absolutely sure Rosario never got her hands on the letters. Later, in her teenage years, the letters had become less frequent, and after Amaia went to college, they’d ceased entirely. Amaia had returned to Spain from the United States two years earlier and joined the Pamplona police force. She’d lived in Pamplona since then but had never returned to Baztán or contacted her father. Those had been difficult years. Bedridden at home and then later in the hospital, her brother had moaned, “Amaia isn’t coming back, is she?”
Engrasi had been so grieved to see him that hollowed out by his illness. She’d been tempted to lie and spin out some pious falsehood. But she’d made it a point of pride never to lie to Juan. She’d always told him the truth, even though sometimes it caused her anguish. He needed to hear it from her, because good-natured persons like him frequently deceive themselves. They console themselves with pious crap to help them endure an otherwise unbearable existence.
Engrasi wasn’t in the world to serve as his fairy godmother. Even when they were children, she’d worked to keep her brother’s feet on the ground, and she wasn’t about to change just because the end was in sight.
“Amaia won’t be coming,” she confirmed.
He’d pursed his lips unhappily. “Does she know . . . ?”
“Yes, she knows.”
“Will you give her a message from me?”
She didn’t like that. “Juan . . .”
“Tell her I’ve always loved her, and I beg her to forgive me.”
“Juan, the fact that a father loves his daughter is not the kind of message you should be sending from beyond the grave.”
“But you will tell her?”
“I will, but not for you. For her. And I won’t push her too hard to forgive you. Amaia has been trying to forgive you all her life. Her heart has been set on it, and for a while, I thought she’d managed it. But forgiving, like forgetting, isn’t an act of will, Juan. A person can’t just decide. Your girl’s a survivor, and the incredible strength that’s kept her alive won’t—can’t—compromise with the truth.”
She’d sat with him for hours, recalling their childhood together, singing old songs and recounting family stories, right up until he drifted off. After that, in his final hours, Rosario had refused to leave his side and hadn’t allowed anyone else to accompany him.
The phone rang. Engrasi left her place on the stairs to answer it.
It was Ignacio. “Engrasi, were you at the funeral home? A neighbor said she saw you arrive but you weren’t there for long.”
“That’s right. Rosario left me off the list of family members in the obituary. She excluded Amaia as well.”
“That was wicked.”
“Yes, well, that’s nothing new. I decided it was better to leave than give her the satisfaction of heaping one misery on top of another. Losing my brother was more than enough to deal with. I’ll go back later. The undertaker agreed to call me as soon as they leave.”
“Well, you weren’t there very long, so I guess you didn’t have time to see the people who attended.”
“Well, no.”
“There were some women, not from the town, who kept close to Rosario. At first I thought they might have been her sisters from San Sebastián . . .”
“Her sisters cut her off completely years ago.”
“Right, you told me that, and that’s why I took a closer look. And . . .”
“Yes?”
“Engrasi, I saw the woman who tried to snatch Amaia thirteen years ago. The she-wolf.”
Engrasi held her tongue long enough to choose her words, because asking Ignacio if he was sure of something could be taken as a grave insult. A man of few words, he never wasted his breath, and his every utterance was decisive. Even knowing that, Engrasi took the risk. “Ignacio, are you sure?”
“As sure as I know God exists.”
“It was a long time ago.”
“Thirteen years, but that makes no difference, Engrasi. And when I say she was the same, I don’t just mean that she has aged well. You’d swear she’s the same age now as she was that day.”
Engrasi lapsed into silence as she tried to grasp what he was saying. “Ignacio, I believe you,” she said at last. “But there has to be some explanation, don’t you think? Maybe she’s that woman’s daughter.”
“That’s what I thought at first. But I went up to express my condolences to Rosario, just to get a closer look. The woman recognized me, just as I recognized her.”
“Did she say anything?”
“No, but she smiled at me. Engrasi, the sight of those teeth was burned forever into my memory. Little baby teeth, like rat’s teeth.”
The funeral director telephoned at ten o’clock to tell her everyone had left. She waited until half past, using the time to fix herself a thermos of coffee. She wasn’t intending to sleep. Salazar family tradition dictated that the dead mustn’t be left alone on their first night. The custom was ancient, its origins lost in the mists of time. Engrasi considered herself a modern woman, but her mind was large enough to encompass traditions, including the conviction that the soul does not immediately depart from the mortal remains. She viewed dying as a process. At first, the vital force ebbs away and the guiding spirit begins to disengage, proof that death is approaching. After that come hours of bewilderment, difficult and gloom ridden, until the soul at last sheds its receptacle like a butterfly leaving its cocoon.
Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. It’s telling that in all religious traditions there exists a prayer or ritual appealing for protection during the process. One isn’t born in an instant, nor does one die in an instant. Arrival and departure are both processes that must be respected. Like the multitudes of women who preceded her, Engrasi would watch over her beloved dead.
“You just have to do what you have to,” she told herself, gathering courage before she left the house.
Juan dead was hardly Juan at all. Dressed in a suit she’d never seen him wear, he looked pensive and terribly serious, not like himself at all. Only in his lips did she catch a hint of that charming, sincere, and childlike smile she’d always loved.
She heard a whishing sound behind her. Like a gathering wind.
Rosario.
Engrasi turned very slowly and there she was. Dressed in deep mourning from head to foot, Rosario was the embodiment of elegance. She’d stopped just inside the swinging doors that were still slightly stirring. Beyond the moving doors, Engrasi caught sight of the dark silhouettes of Rosario’s escorts.
Rosario’s smile, practically a leer, was inappropriate considering they were in a funeral home and her dead husband was lying there in his coffin.
“All right, then,” Rosario said. “Where is she?”
Engrasi took a deep breath of air heavy with the smell of funeral home flowers. “Where’s who?”
Rosario refused to be provoked. “You know who.”
Engrasi forced herself to rise to the occasion. She smiled. “Did you seriously expect to find Amaia here?”