A Greater Love (7 page)

“Convince me to what?” he said tightly. She didn’t answer, but he already knew where the conversation was heading. Hadn’t they rehashed this many times over the past months? “Please don’t go on with this, Cristina. I don’t want to know about Ana Paula or her child. And Manuel having a baby has nothing to do with us.”

“I think it has everything to do with us. At least it does if Manuel’s death has even a little part to do with why you’re so against having children.” She paused before adding, “I want a baby.” Her voice held a soulful longing that knifed into Daniel’s heart. “I want
us
to have a baby.”

 He clenched his jaw.
How can she do this?
“Bring a child into
this
world?” he sneered, forgetting both his love and respect for her. “I’ve told you before that no child of mine will have to endure this mess we call life. And I won’t add to the world’s problems by having any spoiled brats. I’m right about this. Why can’t you see that?”

“We’d raise them right,” Cristina pleaded. “They won’t be brats. We could even adopt a child. That way we’re certainly not adding to any problems. We’d be helping to solve them.”

“I’ll never agree to adopt someone else’s mistake! Cristina, don’t you see that we already have everything we need?”

She pushed the chair forward so hard it hit against the table and turned to face him. “We’ve got money! All we have is money, what with our oh-so-prestigious jobs and your inheritance from your father. But you can’t hold money to your chest and feel its love.”

He grasped at her hands. “I love you, Cristina. Isn’t that enough?”

She stared at him, as if fighting an internal battle. Sighing, her gaze dropped to the white tiled floor, her thick hair sliding forward in brown waves over her low, gently sloped forehead. Instinctively, he reached to touch the strands. She pulled away.

“I thought your love was enough,” she said. The slow words sounded full of remorse. “But it’s not. I don’t know why, but it’s not. I’m not complete—we’re not complete.”

“I feel complete,” he challenged.

She didn’t take the bait, but her eyes rose again to meet his. “When we married six years ago, you said someday we’d have children. Then it became maybe. Then never.”

“I learned better.”

“You changed the rules I agreed on! When we married, I didn’t want children right away, but I always wanted them. For a long time, my love for you blotted out any other desire.”

“What’s different now?” he asked, a bitter taste in his mouth.

She bit her lip. “I don’t know. Me, I guess. I feel time is running out. I’m thirty-four. That’s not a lot of time left to have a baby.”

“Even if you had a child, who’s to say it would be yours forever?” Daniel asked. “Look at my parents. Five children, three lifeless at birth and my little brother dead of a drug overdose. Where’s the beauty in that?”

“There’s you!” she cried. “And I love you!”

“Then let that be enough!”

She held her hand up to her mouth, stifling a sob. “I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t.” She turned and fled from the kitchen.

In the wake of her passing, a napkin from the table floated to the ground, reminding him of the sail on his boat. He slumped to his chair, waiting. When Cristina didn’t return, he began to eat the rice and overdone turkey, tasting nothing.

A short while later he thought he heard a click like one made by the door to their apartment. Springing from the chair, he crossed the kitchen in three strides. Three more brought him to the door. “Cristina?” He opened it, but no one was outside in the hall. The elevator was in use, but that didn’t necessarily mean Cristina was inside.

He shut the door. “Cristina, aren’t you going to eat?”

No answer.

In the bedroom he saw the huge free-standing wardrobe gaping open, with many of her clothes gone.

“Cristina!” The note of desperation rang out in the empty room.

He searched the two bathrooms, the television room, the dining room, and the spare bedroom—she wasn’t there. He rode the twelve floors down to the lobby and peered into the night, but there was no sign of his wife.

Daniel forced himself to return to his apartment and his meal. “She’s just upset and needs to take a walk or something,” he said aloud. “She’ll be back.” Cristina had to return. He loved her and wouldn’t let her go. She was his life.

Chapter Seven

With December, signs of Christmas had come to the Portuguese merchants—lights on the streets, pine boughs and glass balls in windows, figures of winged angels, and, of course, bacalhau, the salty, dry codfish that with the potatoes would make up the base of the Christmas midnight feast.

The unpleasant, pungent smell of the bacalhau permeated the street. Miguel saw it stacked in front of a store, wrapped in white butcher paper, as the merchants restocked their supplies inside. He watched for a moment, his foot kicking at a loose stone in the sidewalk.

He recalled vividly both the fishy smell and the salty taste from long ago. He had helped his mother soak the hard cod overnight, rinsing occasionally with fresh water to take out the salt. Then she would make a food so delicious that it was what he imagined the angels in heaven must eat.

He swallowed the odd lump in his throat. “Naw,” he said to himself. “Sara and I don’t know how to cook it. And Octávia …”

The thought reminded him that his aunt was waiting. He hefted the bag of empty glass bottles he had collected from the trash. She’d broken some of her refillable wine bottles and didn’t want to waste money replacing them when there were so many available for the looking.
My lookin’
, he thought.

When he arrived at the shack, Sara was singing. She jumped guiltily as he entered. The red scarf was tied around her head, and her cheeks were bright red as though she’d been dancing. “Oh, it’s you.” She sighed with obvious relief. “Do I look pretty?” She twirled for him, and the black skirt lifted high enough for him to see her bare ankles in his old shoes.

“Sure do.” He set the bottles down with a clang. “But you gotta remember to lock the door. Where’s Octávia? I hate it when she leaves ya alone.”

Sara laughed. “I’m a big girl, Miguel. Octávia says pretty soon I’ll be able to go beggin’ on my own. Ain’t that gonna be neat? But I won’t sit in the subway pretendin’ to be lame. No way. I’m goin’ to sing and dance. I’m practicin’ already. Wanna see?”

Miguel didn’t like the idea of Sara being alone in the subway at all. What if some stuffy do-gooder picked her up? He’d have to talk to Octávia about it. Generally, she listened to reason—if she wasn’t too drunk.

He watched Sara’s routine. “You’re really good.”

“Think so?” She giggled. “I feel like I was born dancin’.” She whirled again with a flourish. “Do ya think Mamãe was a dancer?”

“She was. I think I remember that. For sure she sang a lot. She musta danced, too.”

Sara pulled him to his feet and made him dance with her. Miguel felt awkward, but he went along with it for Sara. A knock at the door stopped him in mid-stride. Thinking it was Octávia, he motioned for Sara to hide her scarf while he opened the door. “What do ya want?” Miguel asked when he saw Paulo.

His friend shot a meaningful glance at Sara. “Gotta talk to ya, man to man, if ya know what I mean.”

Miguel didn’t, but the words sounded good. “Yeah,” he grunted.

Sara laughed, eying Paulo’s thin frame up and down. “You ain’t no man, Paulo. Be serious. What’s wrong? Did your brother go and break his arm again?”

“Naw, it ain’t that. Come on, Miguel.”

Miguel turned to Sara. “I’ll only be a little while. You got the key to the padlock, don’t ya? Good. Lock the door. Don’t open it ’less it’s Octávia or me.” Paulo choked when Miguel mentioned Octávia’s name. Or was it his imagination?

Miguel let some space grow between them and the shack. Then, “Come on, out with it,” he ordered. “What’s up?”

“She’s in the woods,” Paulo said. “Octávia is. Or at least I think it might be her.”

“What you sayin’?”

“Some of my little brothers was playin’ there. They saw a woman drinkin’. Then she fell down like she was dead. Stone dead.”

“Liar!”

“Honest. They’re pesterin’ my mom right now to go to the phone booth and call the police. Better go see. Before the police come.”

Miguel started walking, knowing Paulo was right. If it was Octávia, he needed to get her inside before the police became involved. “Ain’t you comin’?” he asked Paulo over his shoulder.

“Heck no. I’m scared of them woods in the dark. ’Specially with a dead woman around. That’s creepy!”

“She ain’t dead, I tell ya! Oh, forget it. I’ll go myself. Where is she?”

“Straight ahead, on the path. Can’t miss it.”

Miguel left his friend without another word. He hadn’t been afraid until Paulo had pointed out the need for it. The small woods were as familiar to him as any part of this neighborhood. Many times in the summer he and Sara camped there under the protective canopy of trees.

“Chicken, lily-livered, no-good liar,” Miguel mumbled to himself. He added a few more phrases he’d learned from the men who spent their evenings in the pub, without really knowing what the words meant. But they sounded mean like he was feeling inside.

Paulo hadn’t been lying. When Miguel finally reached the border to the woods, he saw a small crowd of people clustered on the edge, staring at a blanket-covered mound some distance away. Whoever the woman was, she was obviously dead. The desolate feeling in Miguel’s heart told him the mound was Octávia, but he had to know for sure.

“Doesn’t she have any identification at all?” an important-looking man was saying. Miguel craned his neck, but he didn’t recognize the man. In fact, no one in the group was familiar.

“Nothing, not even an identity card,” a balding man said. “But she was wearing this necklace. A nice one at that.”

The first man held out his hand and fingered the gold before giving it back. “Stolen, I bet. It won’t tell you anything about her. We’d better keep it for the police.”

The balding man repocketed the necklace. “We’ve questioned everyone here, and nobody recognizes her.”

“They’ll probably match her up with her records eventually, if they ever get around to it.”

“Yeah, I know. She’ll be at the bottom of the list—unless someone misses her and identifies the body.”

Miguel had crept closer to the men during the conversation, glad for the cover of night. He stared at the mound on the forest floor. Was it really his aunt there? Did he dare peek under the blanket? Would the men let him?

“It’s these woods that are the problem,” someone behind Miguel complained. “They attract
these
kinds of people.” Murmurs of assent rippled through the crowd.

What kind of people?
Miguel thought.
Dead ones?

The arrival of the police quenched his curiosity. It wouldn’t do to be available for questioning. If Octávia was under that blanket, he had to distance himself as much as possible. He angled away from the two men toward the edge of the crowd, waiting for an opportunity to slide away unnoticed.

“She’s dead, there’s no doubt,” he heard the important-looking man say to the officers. “This man here took off her necklace so that no one would steal it. It was the only thing on her.”

“It’s right here,” the balding man said. “Hey, where’d it go? I swear it was right here in my pocket! Help me search the ground. Maybe I dropped it. Question the people. Excuse me, have you seen a gold necklace?”

Miguel faded into the night, smiling grimly. Once out of sight, he ran, slowing only when he arrived at the cluster of shacks. A cloud moved across the sky, causing the night shadows to sway. Was that the dead person’s soul? His shoulders recoiled, but he forced himself to keep moving. He paused only when he reached Senhora Monteiro’s house. The family had put in a real glass window and the light from inside was bright enough for him to examine the necklace in his hands.

He jiggled the heavy gold, testing the weight. It was thick and so long that its wearer had worn doubled and fastened with a gold clip. Hanging from the links were three gold charms. Two were thin octagonal pieces the size of Miguel’s fingernail, one of which was engraved with the figure of a bull, complete with pointed horns, the other with the sinewy shape of a lion. While the animals were interesting, he had no idea what they represented and dismissed them after a quick study. But the third charm captured his attention. It was a shiny gold ship, half as long as his smallest finger and intricately detailed.

A flash of memory came—of him holding this same charm in his hand long ago. He saw his mother’s laughing face. This necklace had belonged to her! When Mamãe died, Octávia must have taken it. But why hadn’t she sold it as she did all the other gold things he stole for her? Did it remind her of his mother? Miguel knew enough about money to know that the chain was worth more than he would make during several years of begging on the ferry.

A ghastly fear came over him, running through his spine until his entire body trembled with it. If this necklace had belonged to his mother, then Octávia really was dead! He sank to the hard-packed dirt, letting his back rest against the rough wood of the Monteiro’s shack. For a long moment he sat there, his eyes clamped tight, his body unmoving. He didn’t even breathe.

 The awfulness of being alone engulfed him. His trembling increased as he remembered all the good things Octávia had done for him. Even at her worst she had been a constant in his life, and he loved her. The finalness of her death vividly reminded him of his mother and how he longed for her touch. He rubbed the gold chain between his fingers. He wished now that he’d taken Senhor Fitas’s suggestion and asked Octávia about the necklace he hadn’t believed existed. Now he would never know why she kept it or what it meant.

 Miguel slipped the chain around his neck, tucking it inside his sweater and T-shirt. The necklace had obviously been special to both his mother and his aunt. He would never part with it, except to share it with Sara, of course.