music in the courtyard grew louder, and Lilia heard Rosa tell someone to find some dominoes.
“Thank you for coming, Father,” Lilia said, her voice a whisper, though she’d not intended it to be so. As the priest took a seat beside Lilia, she imagined the hem of Crucita’s dress swinging as she danced with her long-dead husband, white lilies tucked behind both ears.
“Tell me, child, what is your fondest memory of your grandmother?”
He leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and legs as if preparing to listen for a while. Lilia had not spoken more than a few words all afternoon, and the question unsettled her.
She hesitated. “Crucita raised me. She became my mother the instant her daughter, my mother, died bearing me. I have many happy times to recall.”
The priest smiled. “Yes?” he said, raising his bushy eyebrows over eyes like golden marbles.
Rosa approached them in silence, eager to fulfill her duties as hostess. She handed the priest a cup of mezcal and tipped the bottle over Lilia’s cup, replenishing the half she’d drunk.
“My grandmother spoke her mind. That is not a specific memory but an openness I admired in her.” Lilia took a long sip so that she could stop speaking.
The priest did likewise and said, “Can you recall a time you particularly admired her straightforwardness?”
Lilia took another sip, hoping the mezcal would make this easier.
“My grandmother took great pride in her heritage. She made beautiful pottery. She put care into all she did, and she had little regard for those of a different mindset.”
The priest nodded, shifted himself in his chair. The tilt of his graying head and the slow way he blinked his amber eyes like an ancient tortoise comforted Lilia.
“My husband has gone to Estados Unidos de América, and Crucita could not understand that.” Lilia drained her cup and sucked in a deep breath.
“I see. Do you understand why?”
Lilia exhaled and ran her fingers behind her ears as if tucking away loose strands of hair.
“I love and respect my husband and understand his purpose, but I value Crucita’s experience, her wisdom. I admire her fierce pride. I cannot easily reject my past because my Crucita has instilled her values in me.”
“Go on,” he said when she paused and picked at a callus on her thumb.
“I suppose my favorite memories are more like images. I have a picture in my mind of Crucita making pottery, a look of contentment brightens her eyes and colors her cheeks. When I think of my Crucita, this is what I see. Her beautiful pottery.”
He nodded, examining the bottom of his empty cup. Turning to Crucita, he smiled.
“You have lived well, Crucita. Your child here is a vessel for your worldly experiences, your tribulations, your labor. She accepts all you have given her. You may rest in God’s house and rejoice in the peace you will find there.” He brought his fist to his lips to stifle a belch.
“Father,” Lilia said. “Do you think I will disrespect my grandmother by going to my husband, by leaving the place of my ancestors? “
He took Lilia’s hand in his thick, warm palm. “Let us pray a novena of mourning, child.”
Lilia found more comfort in his touch than she’d anticipated, and she held tight, concentrating on the words flowing fast and soft from the priest’s mouth.
“Heavenly Father, be with your servant Crucita on her journey. Keep her close to you so that she may be a source of guidance and strength to those she has left behind. Help her granddaughter Lilia to feel Crucita’s spirit guiding her choices, giving her self-reliance. Strengthen Lilia’s faith in herself and in this world and the afterworld, and fill Lilia with peacefulness and renewed strength.”
“Amen,” Lilia whispered.
The priest stood and pulled from his pocket rosary beads. He placed them in Lilia’s hand and said, “Say your rosario for nine days and always on the anniversary of Crucita’s death.” He squeezed Lilia’s fist in his and, blinking his eyes slowly, added, “You will be all right, child.”
She looked into his confident, yellow eyes, and said, “Maybe,” and the tears she thought she’d cried dry choked her again.
The priest lifted Lilia by her elbow so that she stood facing him. “Death will not weaken the bonds between you two.”
Lilia nodded.
“Family is eternal. Bones crumble to dust, but love overcomes the decay, child.”
Lilia smiled through her tears and welcomed his gentle embrace as he bid her farewell. She walked with him to the door where deep shadows in the courtyard announced the end of this day. How often she’d stood in this doorway as a child, waiting for Crucita to return from the market after a day of selling her pottery. Rosa hummed in the kitchen, washing a dish. Music and laughter filtered into the house from outside, somehow more ghostlike than silence.
“I am sorry Emanuel was not here.” Rosa said, drying her thick hands on a kitchen rag.
“Nonsense. He has no business coming to mourn Crucita,” Lilia said.
Rosa filled her cup and one for Lilia, sloshing mezcal in the sink as she did so. “Not to mourn Crucita, silly girl. But to comfort you.”
“You have comforted me. My friends have been here all day. I do not know Emanuel anymore. He is like a dream to me now, so distant is my friendship with him.”
Rosita entered the kitchen. “The baby is asleep now,” she said.
“You have been good help to me today, Rosita. Please go on home now and rest,” Lilia said, squeezing the girl’s hand.
“Yes,” Rosa said. “Run along home. I’ll be there in a while.”
The girl nodded to her mother and left, saying nothing more.
Rosa swallowed a gulp from her cup, shaking her head. “You need a man to comfort you, a reliable man. You do not have that. You have me, José, and our children. We are like your family, but we cannot be for you what Emanuel could be. What your Alejandra needs. José says Emanuel asked him about you. That boy has always had a fondness for you, Lilia. I know this talk bothers you, girl, but with Crucita’s passing you must consider your options. You should believe that Héctor is gone.”
José entered the kitchen from the courtyard, his face flush from drink.
“Oh, poor Lilia. Come join us. Listen to music and play cards with us. Oh, and here for you is a note from the shopkeeper Armando. He stopped by but could not stay. He asked I give you his condolences.” José pulled from his pocket a small scrap of paper, folded in half. He handed the message to Lilia.
“Thoughtful of him to stop by,” Lilia said, fingering the folded paper.
“Come play cards, Lilia,” José said.
“This
