Brain Child Page 0,129
it was a mystery to her. Somehow, though, the saints had touched him, and he had fulfilled his destiny, and she honored his memory as she honored the memory of Alejandro de Meléndez y Ruiz. She whispered a prayer for her son, then left the cemetery. For her, there was still work to be done.
She trudged slowly through the village, feeling the burden of her age with every step, pausing once more in the Square, partly to rest, but partly, too, to repeat one more prayer for Don Roberto. Then, when she was rested, she went on.
She turned up Hacienda Drive, and was glad that today, at least, she needn’t climb all the way up to the hacienda. It was empty again, and now she only went there once a week to wipe the dust away from its polished oaken floors and wrought-iron sconces. The furniture was gone, but she didn’t miss it. In her mind’s eye it was still as it had always been. Her ghosts were still there. Soon, she was sure, she would go to join them, and though her body would lie in the cemetery, her spirit would return to the hacienda which had always been her true home.
Today, though, she would not go to the hacienda. Today she would go to one of the other houses—the house where Alejandro had died—to speak to the new people.
They had only come to La Paloma last week, and she had heard that they needed a housekeeper.
She came to the last curve before the house would come into view, and paused to catch her breath. Then she walked on, and a moment later, saw the house.
It was as it should have been. Along the garden wall, neatly spaced between the tile insets, were small vines, well-trimmed and espaliered. From the outside, at least, the house looked as it had looked a century ago.
María stepped through the gate into the little patio, then knocked at the front door and waited. As she was about to knock again, the door opened, and a woman appeared.
A blond woman, with bright blue eyes and a smiling face.
A gringo woman.
“Mrs. Torres?” the woman asked, and María nodded. “I’m so glad to meet you,” the woman went on. “I’m Donna Ruiz.”
María felt her heart skip a beat, and her legs suddenly felt weak. She reached out and steadied herself on the door frame.
“Ruiz …” she whispered. “No es posible …”
The woman’s smile widened. “It’s all right,” she said. “I know I don’t look like a Ruiz. And of course I’m not. I was a Riley before I married Paul.” She took María’s arm and drew her into the house, closing the door behind her. A moment later they were in the living room. “Isn’t this wonderful? Paul says it’s exactly the kind of house he’s always wanted to live in, and that it’s really authentic. He says it must be over a hundred years old.”
“More,” María said softly, her eyes going to the hearth where Alejandro had died so short a time ago. “It was built for one of the overseers.”
Donna Ruiz looked puzzled. “Overseers?”
“From the hacienda, before the … before the americanos came.”
“How interesting,” Donna replied. “It sounds like you know the house well.”
“Sí,” María said. “I cleaned for Señora Lonsdale.”
Donna’s smile faded. “Oh, dear. I didn’t know … Perhaps you’d rather not work here.”
María shook her head. “It is all right. I worked here before. I will work here again. And someday, I will go back to the hacienda.”
The last of Donna Ruiz’s smile disappeared, and she shook her head sadly. “It must have been awful. Just awful. That poor boy.” She hesitated; then: “It almost seems like it would have been better if he’d died in the accident, doesn’t it? To go through all he went through, and end up …” Her voice trailed off; then she took a deep breath and stood up. “Well. Perhaps we should go through the house, and I can tell you what I want done.”
María heaved herself to her feet and silently followed Donna Ruiz through the rooms on the first floor, wondering why the gringo women always assumed that she couldn’t see what needed to be done in a house. Did they think she never cleaned her own house? Or did they just think she was stupid?
The rooms were all as they had been the last time she had been here, and Señora Ruiz wanted the same things done that Señora Lonsdale had wanted.
The cleaning