Her four-year-old son said, “You will go far away?”
“Not far away.”
“You will go with Victor?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like Victor.”
“I know.”
“Maria, she is scared.”
“I know she is scared.”
“And I’m scared, too.”
“I will not go far away, and I will return often.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
They stood in the center of the living room. The place looked better than it had in months. Victor had given her money to fix the place up. There was a new yellow spread for the couch, and two of the windows were fixed with new panes of glass. Where there had been a picture of the Virgin there was now a photograph of Victor. He had asked for it to be this way. Teresa had brooded about this for several days. Something about the Virgin made Victor uncomfortable. When she’d asked him what, he’d said, “It makes you look like a cheap Mexican. All these religious things on the walls.” But of course Victor made her uncomfortable about many things. He had struck her several times with exceeding force, and sometimes when his teeth nibbled on her during lovemaking he seemed to take undue pleasure from the pain he inflicted.
Now her mother appeared in the doorway.
Her son ran to the older woman and hugged his grandma’s thigh. He began sobbing immediately. “She is going to go, Grandma. She is going to go.”
“You be a good boy and go play outside,” the grandmother said softly. She knelt down to wipe away the boy’s tears. She kissed him tenderly on the cheek and then patted him on the bottom and sent him on his way outside.
In the doorway the boy looked back at his mother.
Teresa raised her hand and waved good-bye.
The boy stood staring at her as if it would be the last time he ever saw her.
“Go play,” his grandmother said.
The boy vanished.
The grandmother was scarcely five feet tall. She had skin the color of coffee and eyes the color of a midnight sky. She wore a loose-fitting white dress and sandals. She came over and sat on the couch, careful not to wrinkle the new yellow spread when she sat down.
“I do not want you to go,” she said.
“I have already told him I will.”
“It does not matter, Teresa, what you told him.”
“He is expecting me.”
“Your children are expecting you.”
“They love you. They will be happy you are around them.”
“Can you imagine what the priest will say?”
“He will say nothing to me.”
“Oh?”
“Victor does not believe in priests. He does not want me to see the priest.”
“It’s terrible what you do.”
“It’s not. I will lose my looks in a few years. Then I will have only regrets.”
“I have had three daughters.”
“Yes.”
“And I should be thankful.”
“Thankful, yes. For our good health.”
“And for one other thing, too.”
“What?”
There was craft and malice in the old woman’s gaze. “Only one of them turned out to be a whore.”
Teresa flushed. “You do not understand.”
“You think I was not young once, Teresa, as you are young—and beautiful, as you are beautiful?”
“It is different in the modem world, Mama.”
“He made you take down the picture of the Virgin?” “Yes.”
“And he does not want you to see a priest?”
“No, he does not want me to see a priest.”
“And he wants you to leave your children?”
Teresa said nothing. She did not want to be called a whore again.
“Does this not tell you about the man, Teresa? About what is in this man’s heart?”
“He’s a good man.”
“In bed he may be good. No other place.”
“We will be back often.”
“You don’t really believe that. I can see the lie in your face, Teresa.” She wrung her brown hands. “You are so stupid.”
“He loves me.”
The old woman scoffed. “He puts gaudy dresses on your back. He makes you promises. He puts his seed in you. These things are not love.”
“He said we will live in a fine house in St. Louis.”
“You are forgetting your cousin Donna.”
At mention of the name, Teresa lowered her head. “He is not like the man Donna was with.”
“Oh, no? And what makes him different, Teresa? What makes him different?”
“Victor is a man of honor.”
“So was her man until he got tired of her. And do you remember what he did then?”
“Please. You know how I hate to talk about it.”
“He threw fire in her face so that she would be in agony and no other man would ever want her. He could not even give her the rest of her life, a chance to live well without him. He would not even do this much for her. So he burned her.”
“Please.”
“Do you know how she lives today?”
“I know.”
“She lives in the cellar of her parents’ basement because she looks so horrible that no one can stand to set eyes on her.”
“He is not like this.”
“Oh, no. He is a most honorable man. He makes you take down the picture of the Virgin, and he persuades you to leave your children.”
She got up and walked across the room to where Teresa sat in a chair. She slapped her very hard across the side of the face.
Teresa began sobbing.
“Because he puts his seed in you does not mean he loves you, Teresa.”
The old woman shook her head sadly, then went out the door and down the steps to play with her grandchildren in the sunlight.