Slowly, I became aware of the curious stares and of one enraged bystander in particular. Aunt Isabel’s face was pinched so tightly she looked like she’d implode. Narrowed eyes flicked between her husband and the niece she despised. She was in black from head to toe, red-eyed and grieving but not too stricken to cover her suspicious jealousy. She took Manuel’s arm and they headed to wherever they were going.
When I sat down next to Tarzan my knees were weak and I was shaking. He put his arm around my shoulders and hugged me close.
“Ghost from the past?” he said.
“More like a ghoul.”
I couldn’t concentrate during the service. I felt like a fraud, attending a mass for two strangers. Caroline was sobbing on her husband’s shoulder. Well, at least one of us could. My childhood had seen me cry for the lack of my parents’ love, my adolescence for the lack of their protection. My well had long since evaporated and all that was left was a sculpture in salt.
After the funeral, the church emptied of mourners. It became silent in the way that draughty old churches have of making even the air feel hushed. I looked around. It was just Jesus, the Virgin Mary and me.
Pain and sorrow and silence.
I walked up the aisle. When I reached the altar I stopped and stared at the caskets. Black and shiny, and one of them bigger than the other. Side by side. Each one was engraved with a gold crucifix in straight Romanic lines, rough underneath my fingertips. I pressed my palms to the glossy wood.
John and María, María and John, my mind sang sadly.
I swirled their initials with one of my tears.
Chapter Eighteen
The Scale of Reason
I didn’t want to attend the burial and neither, it seemed, did Caroline. I found her sitting on a bench behind the church, twisting a daisy chain and watching two children play by my old tree. I hesitated, then sat down and checked out the kids. The boy was dark haired and thin. I couldn’t see the girl’s face but she had long blond hair.
“Yours?” I asked.
“They’re adopted. My husband can’t have children.”
I waited for Caroline to gloat that I had lost Ryan or taunt me about my addictions and rage about her wedding. But all she did was glance at her children, shoving me off balance with her eerie silence.
Maybe Kahlu was right. In her country they say that weddings bring out the worst in people and funerals the best. I could put a tick to my name on the wedding bit, of course. But could Caroline do the same for funerals? I didn’t think I could stomach any more confrontations.
I stood up. “Goodbye, Caroline.”
“I hated you before you were even born,” she said flatly.
I sat my arse back down.
Caroline’s face was stony. “From the afternoon Mum announced she was pregnant and Dad hugged her. The whole family was rejoicing because of you. Even our grandparents were happy. They didn’t want a divorce and they’d involved Father Martin. He’d urged another baby, saying it would heal their relationship. You were the golden child, the proof John and María Benton could start their marriage over the right way, as they put it.”#p#分页标题#e#
She flicked away an imperfect daisy and plucked another one from the grass. “You have no idea what it was like, being the reason they were forced to marry. I was four when I first understood why they hated each other. At five and six I’d lie in bed at night and listen to their rows. Dad would shout that he’d married Mum so I wouldn’t be a bastard and she’d shout that she hated him. Then he’d hit her. She’d sob, screaming that she wanted rid of me, that she wished I had died in childbirth—herself too.”
Caroline’s voice shook. “I’d sit drawing and Aunt Isabel would bemoan how I’d ruined Mum’s life, right in front of me. Our grandparents barely looked at me when they visited. I drew better pictures, made sure I excelled at school and was generous to other children but they never noticed. Nobody wanted me. But you? Mum and Dad awaited your arrival eagerly. “This baby will be our pride and joy,” they’d say, shaking their heads at me because I was to blame for their unhappiness. And when they brought you home, chubby and perfect, I hated you even more.”