The other old woman nodded in approval, and went back to the stove.
After a moment, though, she frowned. She looked out the window again, wiping her hands on her apron. At last she turned down the heat and left the kitchen, walking through the house.
Marco’s bed was empty, neatly made, because he was away at boot camp. Danny was still asleep on his side of the room, snoring. The other old woman shook her head at the sport jacket lying where it had been thrown, the cigarette butts on the floor, the guitar. She picked up his discarded socks and went on.
Margaret Mary was in her room, sound asleep under the sultry gaze of Elvis on her tacked-up posters, and the other old woman spared her no more than a glance in before moving on. She looked in on the twins by habit, and caught them awake and clandestinely eating Halloween candy. One basilisk stare was all it took and they scrambled back into bed, huddling there as she retrieved tiny underwear and socks from their hamper.
Celia woke when she opened the door, though John slept through it. The other old woman left without a word, and had the first laundry load going when Celia shuffled into the kitchen in her bathrobe.
The hammering was still going on. Tap tap tap, pause.
“The wind’s changed. It’s coming from inshore, can you feel it? Going to be hot today,” said Celia.
“Mm,” said her mother.
“Mama,” said Celia, clearing her throat, “you don’t have to fry up so much linguica in the morning. The kids want Corn Pops.”
“Danny likes it,” said her mother. “Did you tell Rosalie to get Jerry to fix Tia Adela’s roof?”
“No, Mama.” Celia yawned, and got a can of coffee down from the cupboard. “I told you, Danny’s going to do it. He promised me.”
“Well, somebody’s up there now,” said her mother, parting the curtain once again. Celia blinked, came and stared.
“Who’s
that
?”
“Not Danny,” said her mother.
“Huh,” said Celia, troubled. But she went to the breadbox, methodically laid out sandwiches for the school lunches: Peanut butter for the twins, tuna salad for Margaret Mary. Three brown paper bags, three oranges, three dimes for milk. Rituals for the living.
Not another word was said on the subject of Tia Adela’s roof, as the household was fed, as the children were sent to school, as John went to work at the boatyard, as Danny was coaxed out of bed, bullied into eating linguica and onions despite his hangover and sent on his way to the new job at the fish market, as the clean, wet clothes went out on the line to dry.
But when the house was quiet and well-ordered again, the other old woman looked meaningfully at her daughter and pulled on her shawl. Celia followed her out the door, fanning herself with a piece of newspaper.
“Mama, it’s hot,” she complained. “You don’t have to wear that thing.” But her mother ignored her, and they were silent the rest of the way up the hill to Tia Adela’s house.
The hammering was still going on. They could see the edge of the ladder poking up over the roofline, but they could not see the workman until they walked out to the edge of the street and turned.
The other old woman said nothing, but she made the sign of the cross involuntarily. Celia shaded her eyes against the sun with her newspaper. “I’m sweating to death, Mama,” she muttered, studying the workman. Nobody she knew, though he was certainly good-looking: long lean back bronzed by the sun, a mermaid tattooed on his right arm. His hair was a little long; his wool trousers were a little tight.
“Hello?” she called. “Mister?”
He did not reply. He did not even turn his head; just reached over and took the last tarpaper shingle from its box, and tacked it in place.
“Hey!” Celia called, when he paused to wipe his forehead. He did not appear to notice her. His lips were moving as though he were singing to himself, though he was not making a sound. He dropped his hammer, climbed briskly down the ladder and walked out of sight behind the house.
“I wonder if he’s deaf?” said Celia. “I’ll bet that’s what it is, Mama. She’s hired one of those handicapped guys from St. Vincent de Paul’s, huh? Danny would have gotten around to it,” she added plaintively. “Gee, now I feel bad.”
Her mother did not reply.
“Mama, maybe we should knock on the door, see if Tia Adela’s okay,” said Celia. “Some of those guys are a little crazy, you know?”
“No,” said her mother. “We’re going home.”
She said it in such a way Celia knew there was no point arguing. They walked back down the hill.
Once or twice, at night, the hot wind brought the lowing of cattle from the big ranch far up the canyon. By day, the twins and Margaret Mary sweated in their blue woolen school uniforms. Rosalie, miserable in the heat, fled her tiny apartment and walked up the street to sit on the porch swing with her mother. The radio blared from the house behind them.
“Did you throw up every damn morning like this?” she asked querulously, raising her voice to be heard over Perry Como.
“Only with you and Marco,” Celia replied. “All I could eat for a month was green grapes and crackers. It’ll get better, sweetie.”
“I sure hope so,” sighed Rosalie. “Were you bothered by smells too? I opened a can of sardines, and I swear I nearly died.”
“Good thing Jerry’s not in port right now, then,” joked her mother, but Rosalie did not smile.
“I miss him already,” she said, staring out at the sea in resentment. “I had bad dreams last night. It’s too late in the year to go out so far, don’t you think?”
“It’s still summer,” said Celia, waving at the electric fan. “Summer in November, for God’s sake. And they have to make money while they can, you know.”
“It’s not fair,” said Rosalie. Her mother looked at her sidelong.
“
You
married him,” she said. “I told you, didn’t I? Marry a Souza, an Avila or a Machado, and half the year he’ll be out there on a trawler. And the other half of the year your house will stink like fish.”
“Maybe he can get a job at the boatyard with Daddy,” said Rosalie. Celia made a noncommittal noise. Rosalie lifted her head to watch a leaf floating down the wind. Her gaze fell on the house against the skyline.
“Don’t tell me you got Danny to paint Tia Adela’s house!” she said.
Celia looked unhappy.
“No. She has some boy from St. Vincent de Paul’s up there, or maybe the Salvation Army.”
“It’s looking really nice,” Rosalie observed, standing to see better. “See, all those hedges have been cut back. Somebody took down that big dead tree! Jerry was going to do that for her, when he got around to it,” she added, a little uncomfortably.
Celia shrugged. Rosalie’s face brightened.
“Gee, do you think she’s getting it fixed up to sell? Like, maybe she’s going to move into a home? Maybe you could talk to her about giving it to Jerry and me instead. We really need the room.”
“I don’t talk much to Tia Adela,” said Celia. “Anyway, sweetie, it’s her house.”
“But we’re
young
,” Rosalie groaned. “What does she need with a whole house?”
That night the wind changed again.
The temperature dropped. A long swell rolled in from the sea, and by midnight the surf was booming on the mole. Mist rolled in, too, white under the stars. It brought the smell of salt, of sea wrack and low tide.
Tia Adela, dozing in her chair, started awake. The young man was sitting up in bed, staring at the window. Without even looking back at the girl, he slipped out of bed and drew on the clothes she had laid out for him, the wool and linen that was yellowed but none the worse for having spent a half-century packed in a trunk. He opened the window and drew in a deep breath of sea air.
Turning, he walked out of the bedroom. Tia Adela followed him as far as the front door. He gave her an apologetic grin as he slipped out, ran lightly down the steps. A pink quarter-moon hung low in the west, sending a faint track across the water. He paced down the walk as far as her front gate. But, extending his hand to open it, he faltered; drew back. Two or three tries he made, and couldn’t seem to reach it.
He looked down at the trail of white stuff that crossed his path. He began to walk along it, seeking a way through, and followed its unbroken line all around the house, dodging through her garden, stumbling around behind the woodshed and the blackberry hedge, before he arrived at the front walk again.
He turned to look up, pleading silently with Tia Adela. She shook her head. Shoulders sagging, he came back up the walk and climbed the steps. He collapsed into a chair. She brought the wine and poured out a glass for him. He drank it down. It seemed to make him feel better.
In the morning he went out and spaded up her vegetable garden, whistling to himself in silence. She watched him from the window. Now and again she raised her head to look at the sky, where far to the north a thin silver wall of cloud was advancing. The sea was growing rough; it had turned a milky and ominous green, mottled here and there with purple weed.
“The glass is falling,” stated the other old woman. Nobody paid any attention to her except Margaret Mary, who came to look at the barometer. Margaret Mary wore glasses, braces, had frizzy hair and freckles. She was the sort of girl who would be genuinely interested in barometer readings.
“Somebody ought to go,” Rosalie was insisting. “She could be lying dead up there, for all anybody knows. Maybe she’s had a stroke or something, and the man is some hobo who’s just moved in. Maybe he’s stealing from her.”
“I guess we ought to be sure she’s okay,” Celia said, glancing uneasily at her own mother.
“Don’t you think somebody needs to check on her, Nana Amelia?” Rosalie demanded. “And if she’s okay, well, that gives you an opportunity to talk about leaving the house to Jerry and me.”
Nana Amelia gave her a dark look. “It’s not a lucky house,” she said.
“Why don’t we all go?” suggested Celia. “That way, if he’s trouble, we can send Margaret Mary for the cops.”
“Okay!” said Margaret Mary.
Nana Amelia sighed, but she drew on her shawl.
They set off up the street. The three women walked in close formation, arms crossed tightly under their breasts. Margaret Mary followed behind, hands thrust into the pockets of her school sweater, staring up at the clouds and therefore stumbling occasionally.
“Those are cumulonimbuses,” she said. “And, uh, stratocumuluses. I think we’re going to get a heck of a storm.”
Nana Amelia nodded grimly.
They came to the front gate and looked up. The house was tidy, trim as a ship, with its new coat of paint. The doorknob and the brass lamp had been polished until they gleamed. The weeds had been cleared from either side of the walkway and the chrysanthemums staked up, watered, all swelling buds and yellow stars.
The women stared. As they stood there, Tia Adela came around the side of the house, carrying a basketful of apples. She halted when she saw them; but the young man who followed her did not seem to see. He simply stepped around her, and proceeded up the steps. He was carrying a dusty box full of mason jars and lids. He went into the house.
“What do you want?” said Tia Adela.
“We came up to see if you were all right,” said Celia reproachfully. “Tia Adela, who’s that boy?”
Tia Adela looked at her sister.
“You really shouldn’t have strangers up here, Tia Adela,” said Rosalie. “We were thinking, maybe you shouldn’t live all alone nowadays, you know what I mean?”
“Yes,” said Tia Adela. “I thought so too.”
“And I was looking in the phone book, and there’s this nice place called Wyndham Manor in San Luis, where they’d take—”
“You have offended God!” shouted Nana Amelia hoarsely. She was trembling.
Celia and Rosalie turned to gape at her.
“I don’t care,” said Tia Adela. “And He has said nothing. But
she’s
angry, oh, yes.” And she nodded out at the sea, wild and sullen under slaty cloud.
“Mama, what’s going on?” said Celia.
Nana Amelia pointed up at the window. The young man was standing behind it, gazing out at the dark sea with an expression of heartbreaking longing.
“That is her husband,” she said.
There was a moment’s stunned silence, and then Celia said, very gently: “Mama, Tio Benedito has been dead since before I was born. Remember? I think we’d better go home now, okay?”
Her mother gave her such a look of outrage that she drew back involuntarily.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Nana Amelia. She stormed forward and up the steps, and Celia and Rosalie ran after her, protesting. Tia Adela shrugged and followed slowly. Margaret Mary came with her.
The young man at the window didn’t seem to notice the women bursting into the room. Nana Amelia went straight to the wedding photograph on the wall, grabbed it down and thrust it in Celia’s face.
“There! Her Bento. See? Dead as a stone. He went out past Cortes Shoals after rockfish, too late in the year. A lot of fools went out. The
Adelita
, the
Meiga
, the
Luisa
all went down in the gale, even the big
Dunbarton
! So many dead washed up on the beach, they loaded them on a mule wagon. Bento, they didn’t find. The sea kept him. And
she
never forgave God!” Nana Amelia turned in wrath to her sister, who had come in now and set her basket of apples on the table.
Celia, who had taken up the photograph, looked from it to the young man by the window. Rosalie peered over her shoulder.
“Mama, this is crazy,” said Celia. “Things like this don’t happen.”
“So… he’s a ghost?” said Margaret Mary, peering at Bento. “And he’s come back to her? Just like he was? Wow! Only…” She looked sadly at her great-aunt. “Only, you’re
old
, Tia Adela.”
Tia Adela folded her arms defiantly. “I know,” she said. “But I have him back. She can call him, she can beat herself white on the rocks, but she can’t climb up here. He and I will stay safe in my house, let her gale blow hard as it will.”
“Who is this other lady she’s talking about?” Rosalie murmured to her mother.
“Adela, don’t be stupid!” said Nana Amelia. “You know what will happen.”