Raquel's Abel (10 page)

I bent down to see if Abel was all right. His skin had turned red where Owen had smacked him, but it looked like only his pride was wounded.

“Let me hit him again. Just tell me where he is, Raquel.” Owen was holding his fist out. “I’ll teach him to mess with ol’ Owen.”

Abel pushed himself to his feet and squared his shoulders.

“No, Abel, no more of this.” I turned to Owen. “Stop that this instant.”

Abel straightened out the sleeves of my father’s robe. “He isn’t so bad after all. I thought the little effeminate thing was made out of glass.” Abel looked at me. “Tell him I’d like to shake hands with him.”

Owen looked at me. “Did he say something?” He looked around the room. “I thought I heard a hissing sound.”

“Yes,” I responded. “He said he wants to shake hands with you.”

Owen stopped his silly hopping around and stood still. “Really?” He wiggled his shoulders. “I guess he respects me now.”

Abel was smiling at Owen.

“Hold your hand out, and he’ll shake your hand.”

Owen spread his legs wide as if bracing himself for another onslaught, then he held his hand out.

Abel took his palm and gave it a swift strong shake.

Owen smiled. “Nice to meet you, Mr. Abel Rollins.”

“Good to meet you, too, buddy.”

Maria Elena appeared in the doorway. “Señor, Owen, what you doing?” She charged in. “Señorita Raquel no should be standing.”

Owen opened his mouth, but stammered.

“Maria Elena, I’m all right.”

“Señor Owen, I see Señorita Raquel very tired, she need to eat and sleep.”

“No, Maria Elena, he was just…”

Owen held his finger over his mouth as a signal to be quiet. “That’s all right, Raquel, I really need to go any way. I’ve got the lunch shift today.” He leaned over to kiss me goodbye.

Abel was standing there silently as Owen headed out the door. “Not a bad chap, really. Still, he needs to spend a few months on the battlefield. That would teach him a thing or two.”

“I bringing your food here. You no moving.” Maria Elena disappeared.

From the chair, I glared at Abel.

His face looked angelically innocent. “Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d swear you were mad at me.”

“If you had let me have my operation, I probably wouldn’t have fallen and broken my ankle.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but no sound came.

“I need this operation. You don’t realize it, but my weight is threatening my life.”

He hung his head and I watched him absent-mindedly fiddle with the edges of the robe. “It’s just that I am very… very scared for you.” He raised his head and peered at me. “I will leave you to consume your victuals in peace.”

“Oh, but I…”

He was gone, just vanished.

“Why do you just take off like that? Just when we’re about to…”

Maria Elena appeared with a tray of scrambled eggs and bacon. “
Hay
, Señorita, the ghost, you talking to the ghost?”

I looked at her guiltily.

“You grandmother say he very handsome.” She slid a tray over and set the food in front of me.

I took a bite of a slice of bacon. “He’s absolutely dreamy.”

“Ah, a handsome man.” She sat down on the settee across from me. Today she was dressed in a pair of long yellow shorts and a white button-down blouse.

“Maria Elena, have you ever been married or…?” It just occurred to me that I’d never asked about her. When she applied for the job I just wanted information on references and to see how she interacted with Grandmother.

Her face grew dark and her eyes drew down.

“I’m sorry.”

She continued to have that sad look on her face.

“Who was he?”

“Oooooooh, he a boy I like very much.” A smile grew across her face and her dark eyes twinkled.

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

“Yes, he was good.” She looked up at me, then down to her hands that were busy playing with the material of her shorts. “But I got pregnant and my parents got very mad at me.”

I suddenly remembered back to my mother who had died when I was ten. What would she have done if I’d gotten pregnant without being married? “But they forgave you, though?” She’d never mentioned that she had a child.

She looked at the window.

I tried to think of a way to ask about the child as I poked at the scrambled eggs. Hopefully she’d calm down and I could find out about her child.

She jumped up. “Señorita Raquel, I sorry leave you, but I check on you grandmother.” She ran out before I could protest.

I wanted to know more about her. Why was she so upset about something that must have happened years ago? She’d been in this country for at least fifteen years.

Chapter Six

A few days later, my ankle felt better, but it would be a while before it healed. Grandmother and I sat at one end of the dining room table, long enough to accommodate thirty people. The far end of the table hadn’t been cleaned in so long time the wood appeared to be light gray.

The paintings of family members, some of them dating back to the tobacco plantation great-granddaddy’s family owned further up the James River, hadn’t been wiped off in so long the tops and bottoms of the frames looked like fancy dust holders. Spider webs ran across my ancestor’s faces, casting odd shadows and making them looked wrinkled. The house was way too big for me to take care of, but I couldn’t bear to leave the house all of my family members had been born in for over a hundred years.

We were eating a salad Maria Elena had prepared when she walked into the room with a plate covered with a cloth. “Bread fresh,” she said as she sat down next to Grandmother.

“Smells delicious, Tatiana,” Grandmother said. “Isn’t it amazing that my sister learned to cook, Raquel?”

“I was cooking in my country,” Maria Elena said as she put a napkin in her lap.

“You did no such thing, Tatiana. Mother always had Cook with us wherever we went.”

Maria Elena ignored her. She lifted up the cloth and began to break the warm bread with her hands. She laid a piece on Grandmother’s plate and then handed the plate to me.

“You know, after the operation, I won’t be able to eat bread any more,” I said.

“You will be so beautiful, Señorita Raquel.”

“My mother would never let a doctor touch her without Rasputin present.”

“Rasputin?” I couldn’t resist. “You knew Rasputin, Grandmother?”

“He was a priest, but I was always scared of him. Those eyes, you know.”

She never ceased to amaze me with her knowledge of the royal family. I knew about the Romanovs since I was once requested to do a biography on the last czar. I declined, though, since his shortsightedness had caused Russia to descend into chaos.

“Maria Elena, this is my last meal before my surgery, so don’t fix anything else for me.”

“Raquel,” Grandmother said in her gravelly voice. “You are having the royal physicians attend to you?”

I wanted to point out that there were no royal doctors here in the U.S., but it would do no good. “Of course.”

She let a breath out rapidly. “I am very thankful for that.”

I finished up my salad and pushed my chair out slowly.

“Your leg hurting?” Maria Elena asked.

I shook my head no. “I feel fine, but I have to wear the cast a few weeks more.” I stood up and limped to the door.

“I can’t wait for you being skinny, Señorita.” Her voice tinkled in enthusiasm for me.

Why hadn’t I seen what a nice person Maria Elena was before?

I lay down in bed. It felt good to prop my foot up. Even though it wasn’t painful, my ankle did swell in the summer heat. That I couldn’t afford to properly air-condition the house made it worse.

How would my life be after the surgery? Right now, I practically lived for Abel’s visits. And there was that nagging worry I’d find out that he was only my imagination at work. I’d miss his warm yet mocking smile.

“Good afternoon,” Abel’s deep voice breezed into the room.

I turned to see him standing by the bed. “It’s nice of you to visit.”

“I see that melancholy look upon your face.” Today he wore a black top hat and tails.

“What’s the occasion?” I asked.

“I have dressed to call upon a most lovely lady.” He laid his hat down on my hope chest then sat down on the bed.

I felt my lips turn up into a smile. He amused me with his mannerisms and his costumes.

“I’m glad that I have brightened your spirits. You looked terribly glum when I arrived.” He removed his white gloves and laid them on the bed.

“I’m having the surgery.”

“Not to worry. I will be there with you when you wake up.” I could see the angst in his face even though he appeared to be trying to conceal it.

“In the hospital?”

“Absolutely, but do know that I perished in a hospital, and they are not my favorite of places.”

Believing he’d be there relaxed me.

“I did much suffering in that hospital in Europe.”

“Yes, the mustard gas.” Even Hitler had been disgusted by the suffering he’d seen on World War I battlefields and had disallowed the use of mustard gas in World War II.

His cheeks hollowed. “It was a terrible way to go.” He twisted the white gloves up into a small roll. “First there was the blindness, and then it was like breathing fire until I could take no more. Suddenly the pain was gone and I was no longer flesh.”

“And what are you now?”

He laid the gloves down on the bed and turned to face me head on. “I am only of a corporeal nature when I’m with you.”

“Only with me?” I raised myself up against the headboard.

He squeezed his eyelids together sheepishly. “And that’s only for a short while, but…”