Chapter 18

Anmoore, West Virginia

March 1944

The decades of smelter fumes and tobacco finally caught up with Antonio. The dry cough that began around Thanksgiving would not go away. By mid-January, Mercedes’ entreaties to see the doctor were more aggravating than the cough, and Antonio went for an examination.

The lung cancer was advanced and aggressive, the doctor said. But for another month, Antonio continued to go to his job every day with the state roads department. He told only the foreman about his cancer and arranged to do the lightest work possible. Still, he took frequent breaks to lie down and rest in the back of one of the trucks.

In March, Antonio died in the bed where his five children and two grandchildren were born. His three sons were off in the war. Mercedes, Pilar and Julia were with him at the end, as they had been around the clock for his terrible final two weeks.

“I’m going to Maryland, to work in the shipyard,” Julia announced without fanfare to Mercedes and Pilar at the dinner table three days after Antonio was buried in the Clarksburg cemetery.

Mercedes looked at her, shook her head, and went back to eating her stew. After they returned to Anmoore from the funeral, Mercedes had taken a long walk alone through the woods to the top of Pinnick Kinnick Hill. She stood for nearly an hour looking down at the grungy little town, the air tinted brown with the smoke from the carbon plant.

The valley was about the same size as that at home. If she were standing in San Adriano, at the top of the hill, Mercedes thought to herself, Las Cepas would be down there, a couple hundred yards below to the left, just before the valley floor. Naveces would be straight across on the opposite hillside. And off there to the right, at the valley’s end, would be the sea. Oh, how Mercedes missed the sea. She had not seen it for thirty years, since she arrived at Ellis Island. From Pinnick Kinnick Hill, where the sea should be, was only Clarksburg.

In her mind, Mercedes looked down the hill to Las Cepas. She recalled that first Christmas Eve with Antonio on the steps of the granary. His face illuminated for half a second in the flame burst of the match. She gazed across the valley to Naveces, white-walled and red tile-roofed San Román Church glowing in a late-afternoon sun. She wished she could have buried her husband in the González family tomb in the cemetery behind the rectory.

Mercedes remembered reading the inscription on an adjacent tomb once, when the whole family had made one of their candle-lit All Saints Day vigils in the cemetery: Tu nos dijiste que la muerte no es el final del camino. You told us that death is not the end of the way. “Buen camino, Antonio,” Mercedes whispered.

* * *

“You’re doing what?” Pilar asked after Julia said she was moving away.

“Have you gone deaf, Pilar?” Julia said nastily. “I said I’m going to Maryland to work in the shipyard. With so many of the men gone, they’re hiring women to help build the ships.”

“But why?” Pilar asked. “We’ve just buried papa.”

“Exactly. We’ve just buried papa. There’s no good reason for me to stay around here. And, honestly, we need to replace his pay. I’ll make three or four times what I do at the laundry.”

“What about your son?” Mercedes asked. “Or have you not thought of him, as usual?” She was still astounded by her daughter’s utter lack of maternal instinct. A casual observer of Julia’s interaction with her son would have thought Richard was an orphan they took in or a boy from down the street just stopping by the house. When Richard was with Pilar, it appeared that she was his mother, but Julia did not even demonstrate the level of affection one would expect from an aunt.

“Richard’s fine, mother,” Julia said. “He’s stayed out of trouble for a year now. And he only wants to be with you and Pilar all the time anyway.”

“Maybe that’s because we pay attention to him,” Mercedes said. “You know, children can sense how people feel about them.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, let’s not start this again,” Julia said with a groan.

“And he’s not fine,” Mercedes said. “If you actually spent any time with him, you’d see that. The boy is filled from head to toe with rage. He reminds me of my father, from the little bit I knew him, and my brother José. One day, he’ll explode.”

“Oh, stop being dramatic, mother,” Julia said. “Richard’s just like any other boy his age.”

Although she was always reluctant to challenge her sister about anything, most of all Richard, Pilar said: “I’m not so sure, Julia. It’s not normal the way he keeps to himself all the time.”

“Not you now too,” Julia said. “For Christ’s sake, you’re both as bad as that principal at the school. Richard keeps to himself because those other asshole little boys mistreat him, and he doesn’t want to get into fights and be sent off to Pruntytown.”

“You always have an answer,” Mercedes said.

“Well, at least I’m not sitting around here depressed out of my mind all the time like you,” Julia snapped. She shoved her chair away from the table and slammed her plate into the sink. “I’m going to Maryland. I’ll take the bus on Friday.”

* * *

Mercedes, Pilar and Richard stood on the porch and watched Julia walk off down the street with her leather duffle bag toward the bus stop. She turned and waved before she rounded the corner. Only Pilar waved back.

“Can I go play now?” Richard asked.

“Of course you can,” Mercedes said. “Just make sure you’re home before dark.” He ran down the steps and disappeared around the side of the house.

“Maybe you ought to go to Maryland, too,” Mercedes said to Pilar after a minute.

“What?” Pilar said. “I won’t go off and leave you and Richard, mama.”

“We can manage,” Mercedes said. “You need to get out of this town, Pilar. You’ve never been anywhere or seen anything. And somebody needs to try and keep Julia out of trouble.”

“That’s certainly true, about Julia,” Pilar said, sighing. “But I’m happy being here in Anmoore and at home with you. I’m just a homebody. I always have been.”

Mercedes reached over and squeezed her daughter’s hand. “I know. You’re as gentle and sweet as your Aunt Pilar. I wish you could have known her.”

“I do, too, mama.” When they were young, Mercedes told the children many stories about her life during those thirteen years at Las Cepas with her brother and his family. Pilar’s favourites were the tales about her mother’s visit to Avilés to see the processions of the penitents during the Semana Santa.

“And all of them over there,” Mercedes said. “My brother Antonio and María, and all our family. There are so many of them, and they’re such good people.”

“Like Uncle Ramón,” Pilar said.

“Yes, like your Uncle Ramón, and all his kids. It’s good we at least have him over here, even if he is all the way over in St. Louis. But it’s a shame you don’t know the rest of them. Maybe someday, after this war is over, you can go visit them in Asturias.”

“Oh, mama,” Pilar said, giggling. “I’d love to meet them, you know that. But I can’t go all the way to Spain. I don’t even want to leave Anmoore!”

Mercedes knew that was the truth. If Pilar married the richest man in town and had all the time in the world, she still would never venture so far as Asturias. “Well, as I said, you ought to at least go to Maryland and get yourself a job like Julia, and keep an eye on her.”

“If you think so, then I will,” Pilar said. “But don’t run me off just yet!” She hugged her mother. “You need to eat more, mama. You’re as skinny as a bean pole.”

“I’m fine,” Mercedes said. “Just fine.” She looked up at the sooty, brown sky. “But I’d be better if I could breathe the fresh air blowing in off the Cantabrian Sea, and smell the eucalyptus trees, just one more time.”

Pilar patted her on the back and went inside the house to begin preparing their dinner.