His billfold. Where was his billfold?
He’d paid Blackmun—that idiot—and then he’d set it—
Felipe swept his arm across the top of the dresser, clothing and belts hitting the floor.
There. There it was. He’d need it if he was going to pay the other doctors—
“I packed a bag.” Catarina held it up, then twisted the handle between her fists. “I truly thought the tea would help.” Guilt fractured the words.
It hadn’t, but that wasn’t Catarina’s fault.
Only drastic action would save his wife.
A moan came from the bed. The first noise Franny had made in almost an hour.
He and Catarina turned toward the bed. He searched the lump of covers for his wife, the lamp barely cutting through the dark of midnight.
“Franny,” he called. Please answer. “Franny.”
Another moan. At least she was still alive.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he called. “I’m here.” His fingers found the ridge of her shoulder under the blankets.
“It hurts.” The keen edge of her voice cut at him. “My shoulder. It hurts.”
The exhaustion fled as his insides went to cold, hard stone. “Your shoulder?” he repeated dumbly.
“Yes.” So small, so frightened, so unlike his Franny.
No, no, no.
She’d promised.
It couldn’t be. The madness pressed in on him, the whirling storm he’d sworn to keep at bay until after.
If she died, he didn’t know how he would survive it.
He wouldn’t survive it.
If she died, he would leave, just as Juan had. He’d travel through Mexico, all along South America—farther and farther, until he reached the crumbling edge of the world. He would peer into the oblivion beyond.
And then he would step off.
But not yet—she was still here. And he would do his damnedest to keep her here.
“I’ll go pack some food for you,” Catarina said from the doorway. He hardly noticed her leave.
How long would this suffering take? How long until…?
No. She was still here, in his arms. He buried his face in her hair, the silk of it catching on his stubble almost painfully.
He wasn’t giving up on her yet. “Franny.” She made a little noise—half exhaustion, half pain. Her head turned a fraction, seeking his voice. “Franny, I’m taking you to the sanatorium,” he said. “If they can’t help you there, I’ll take you to the valley. And if those doctors can’t help, then we go to Los Angeles.”
He’d take her to every doctor in the state if it meant saving her.
“One of them will be able to help you. I promise.” His voice splintered at the thought of what would happen if he couldn’t keep that promise.
I did this to her. And I don’t know how to undo it.
She raised her hand and laid it on his forearm, the physical weight of it no more than that of a feather. But the weight against his soul was crushing.
He picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. Carefully setting her hand back, he tried to arrange her as comfortably as possible, although comfort was a long way from where she was right now.
“Franny,” he said softly, “I have to go hitch up. I’ll be right back.” There was no answer, save for the rasp of her breathing. He squeezed her hand one last time, then left.
Hold on, my love.
Selfish, selfish man, to ask her to keep holding on to this suffering. But he couldn’t have asked anything else of her.
She’d promised.
He marched into the front room, past the kitchen where Catarina was throwing things into a satchel, and pulled open the door.
Someone stood on the threshold.
A strange brew of apprehension and relief stirred within him when he saw who was there.
For on his doorstep was the Señora. If anyone could look death in the eye and send it slinking off, tail between its legs, it was Señora Maria Dolores Alvarado Jaramillo de Moreno.
“Felipe Ortega.” She raised one eyebrow. “When were you going to tell me that my daughter was sick unto death?” She was as cold, as contained, as ever.
And furious.
She was furious, her lips pressed tight, the lines of her neck stark with emotion.
“I…” He could say nothing that would quiet her anger. And he couldn’t force himself to admit that her daughter was dying.
The other eyebrow rose to join its neighbor. “I won’t bother to ask if it’s true,” she said. “Your ruinous state proves clearly that it is.” She pushed past him into the front room. “Where is my other daughter? The one who also couldn’t open her mouth?”
Catarina poked her head out from the kitchen, swallowing hard. “Mama.” Thin and high, as if she were a girl once more.
“How did you find out?” Felipe asked.
The Señora’s mouth twisted. “I went to visit my grandchildren and their mother was not there. Señor Merrill told all.”
No doubt with his tail between his legs. Jace had always been oddly hesitant around the Señora.
Suddenly, the stupidity of what he’d attempted broke over Felipe’s head, shame dripping in its wake. You couldn’t keep anything from the Señora; she saw all and knew all.
“Is Blackmun correct in his assessment of her condition?” A calmly demanding question—if the Señora was terrified for her daughter, she wasn’t showing it.
“Yes.” It was the hardest word he’d ever had to say. “The pain is terrible and only getting worse. And now it’s in her shoulder. Blackmun said that would come… at the end.” He ground his teeth hard together as penance for what he’d just said. “But—but there is no fever.” His jaw relaxed a fraction as he realized. “Blackmun said there would be a fever, but there isn’t.” How could he have forgotten that hopeful bit of news?
It might be foolish to nurse hope from that small sign, but he was a fool when it came to Franny.
Her mother folded her hands before her, almost as if in prayer. “Catarina.” Her daughter’s head snapped up. “Did you try the pennyroyal?”
“Yes.” Catarina hadn’t even a fraction of her mother’s calm, sobs cracking through her words. “Yesterday. It didn’t help.”
“Hmm.” The Señora shook her head. “It didn’t help Deborah either.”
Nothing had helped Deborah. But there was no sense rehashing what hadn’t helped.
“I’m taking her to the sanatorium,” Felipe cut in. “Blackmun can’t help her, but perhaps they can.”
The Señora nodded approvingly. “Yes, perhaps they can. I will come with you, to help. Catarina, you go home to your family.” Catarina gave a nod, apparently unable to speak.
“Well?” Señora Moreno asked sharply. “What are you waiting for? Time is of the essence.” And there was that look, the one that would have death cowering.
For the first time in his life, Felipe had the urge to embrace this woman who had fed, clothed, and housed him all these years. She would help him.
Together they would save her daughter.
But he refrained. The Señora didn’t even embrace her own children.
“If they can’t help her at the sanatorium,” he warned her, “I intend to take her to the doctors in the valley. Or even on to Los Angeles.”
“Of course,” she said. “We shall do everything possible to save her. I expected nothing less of you, Felipe.” She smiled then, the truest smile he might have ever seen from her. “I knew my daughter chose well in you. Now go and bring the wagon.”
Spring had come on hard this year, fed by heavy rains, such that even at midnight, the air was thick with the scent of flowers.
Felipe sagged on the wagon bench, balancing himself against the reins, though he shouldn’t—it was bad for the horses’ mouths. But he was too tired to stop himself.
The Señora murmured to Franny in the wagon bed behind him. He didn’t bother to look back.
Eurydice had been silent on her journey. And Orpheus only had to not look back.
How stupid to turn back like that.
Felipe wasn’t stupid. Oh, his thoughts were muzzy just now, thick and stumbling with exhaustion, but he wasn’t stupid.
He wouldn’t look back. And Franny would be saved. It was as simple as that.
He didn’t know who exactly he was bargaining with—himself? Nature? God?—he only knew that he wouldn’t turn to her.
The urge to do so was strong, but he ignored it. Instead he gazed at the moon—a half-crescent providing weak illumination in addition to the lamp hanging from the wagon. It was waning, the sliver of it growing thinner and thinner each night. Soon enough it would be entirely gone.
And then the night would be entirely black.
He could sense her behind him, the hair on his nape rising as he thought of her curled in the wagon bed.
He could take a quick peek…
No, the only job he had was not to look back. He’d show that Orpheus fellow how it was done, how easy it was not to, when your beloved’s life hung in the balance.
Some small part of his mind insisted that this was madness, that behaving as if he were in some kind of story wouldn’t save her. But he couldn’t be mad—she was still alive. He’d sworn to keep the madness at bay until after.
There wouldn’t be an after—he just had to not look back.
So he kept his back firmly to her, even when she moaned with pain and every muscle within him clenched at the sound.
He would think of his memories of her. That was almost as good as watching her. He had so many—an entire lifetime’s worth already—but the ones that came first were his most recent ones.
Franny as she laughed back at him as they scrambled across the boulders on that lion hunt.
Her hand in his as the stars gleamed overhead.
The defiant lift of her chin as she suggested that they marry.
The sweep of her hand along the back of the rocker he’d made for her.
Franny as she’d told him that she’d cared for the graves all these years.
Her, up in that tree, the arc of her leg as she swung it through the air.
Her under him as he moved within her.
If those doctors were at the sanatorium and managed to save her—and he didn’t look behind him on this trip, not even once—he wouldn’t ever be doing that again. He couldn’t endanger her.
And if the doctors weren’t there?
On to Los Angeles. He rubbed at his tired eyes, his body trying to close them as his will forced them to remain open.
If Orpheus could go all the way to Hell and back, then he could go to Los Angeles.