The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (37)

Orquídea Divina looked at him. She bit down and froze, like the words she really wanted to speak were caged by her teeth. Instead she said, “I tried to do the best I could. I failed. I knew the price.”

Enrique barked a laugh, his eyes incandescent with anger and jealousy. “The price of what? Why can’t you ever just say what you mean? Where is the paperwork?”

“Upstairs. Second drawer on my nightstand.”

He got up. The chair smacked to the floor. He took only his drink with him. But before Enrique could leave, Marimar appeared at the threshold. Her hair was windswept, tears carved away a pattern on her dirty cheeks. At first, he didn’t understand what she was carrying in her arms. A white pumpkin? He wouldn’t put it past her to have found an albino fox, but the thing didn’t move. In her arms was a baby carved entirely of moonstone, and gathered behind her were the ephemeral outlines of six ghosts.





11

THE FEEDING OF FIFTEEN LIVING HOUSEGUESTS AND SIX GHOSTS




No one moved. No one spoke. Rey was positive no one even breathed for several moments.

“Dad,” Enrique said breathlessly.

That word was said over and over. Dad. Daddy. Papá. All four of Orquídea’s dead husbands moved into the room. They were not the way Rey had thought ghosts would look like. He’d always imagined see-through white figures, outlines of what they used to be. But these people—these phantasms—did have touches of color. His grandfather Luis’s brown skin gave him the impression of being alive. The only thing that marked him as dead was the way he flickered as he walked through the table and across the room to embrace Orquídea. For the first time in his entire life, he saw a tear run down her face. It shimmered, like tree sap.

Rey looked for her and there she was. His heartbeat fluttered as his mother appeared in front of him. Parcha was faded except for her rose red lipstick, the one she always wore because she said that roses were the most beautiful flower and everyone else was out of their goddamn mind to think otherwise. He trembled all over as she kissed his whole face. It felt like the first snowflakes that signal a blizzard.

Tía Pena glided like the wild breeze she was, like she was still underwater. She traced her daughter’s face and tried to talk. But when she opened her mouth no sound came out. Pena drifted across the room to her mother, holding her delicate throat.

“Pena, mi Pena.” Orquídea wept glittering tears. Caleb Sr. and Héctor and Martin followed suit, kissing her cheeks, her forehead, then joining the others around her, waiting like reapers.

Orquídea extended her arms, which were sprouting branches of their own. Green nubs edged their way out as they started to become leaves. “Marimar, sit here, bring me Pedrito.”

Marimar took the seat left open for her beside Rey. She handed over the baby like he was made of tender flesh and blood. “What happened to him?”

Orquídea held the moonstone baby in her arms, right against her heart, like she could make him a part of her if she tried hard enough. “He was my first son. There was a terrible accident that also took my first husband back in Ecuador. I couldn’t save Pedrito. It was all my fault.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Félix asked.

“There is so much I can’t say. I can’t. Long ago, I made a bargain. Everything I have, everything I’ve ever given to you came at a cost. Even this house.” Orquídea, surrounded by the living and the dead, smiled as the clock rang the ninth hour. “Please, let’s eat. I’m running out of time.”

“That’s it?” Enrique asked harshly. “That’s all you’re going to say?”

“Why are you doing this?” Marimar asked. “What can’t you say?”

“For you. For all of you. We become what we need to in order to survive and I need to make sure that you are all protected.”

A knot formed in Rey’s throat.

“It’s not what you all want to hear, or what I want to say. But it is what I can manage.” Orquídea shut her eyes. Her thumb, which was now twisted at the tip like two vines intertwining, brushed the back of Pedrito’s head.

“You never give a straight answer,” Enrique said.

“You never ask the right questions.”

Enrique stormed out of the room, stopping for a moment in front of his father. It was like looking into a mirror that revealed your future self. But not even Caleb Soledad could staunch Enrique’s rage, and he barreled through his father’s ghost.

“He’ll get over it,” Félix said.

“He won’t, but you heard what Ma said. Eat.” Tía Silvia, whose tears ran down her face in glittering rivers, piled food on plates. Goblets brimmed with the deepest red wine. The spirits ate and ate. The living hurried to tell their stories, their accomplishments, their wins, their progeny. Martin vanished for a moment, then returned and the sounds of Orquídea’s favorite songs filled the house, which had been empty and silent for too long.

Gabo’s cry cut through the music, the chatter of voices from the living and dead. Orquídea looked out the window at the moon, perfectly aligned to her needs. She was running out of time. She had wasted so much time.

Marimar turned to her grandmother. “You can’t leave yet.”