“In the tub?”
“Down the stairs. I found her. I couldn’t talk for a year after that. Not a peep.”
She finished stuffing the clothespins back in the coffee can and againbrushed the recalcitrant strand of hair away from her face. They looked at each other.
“It was a long time ago, but I still have nightmares about it,” she said, wiping a hand against the apron she was wearing, then stood up.
He sensed then a frailness, a delicacy, in Inés, which remained mostly hidden. In turn, he felt compelled to show her a kindness that he normally concealed under his swagger.
“What was she like?” he asked gently.
“She used to sing when she worked on the sewing machine. She’d sing and the machine would whir, and she’d let me stitch scraps of cloth together and sew buttons.”
“Is that why you know how to sew? Did she teach you?”
“A little. I was young when she died. But I suppose I got used to the idea of sewing and stitching and all that from her.”
She resumed pinning up the bedsheets and he grabbed the basket and walked behind her as she moved down the clothesline.
“What was your mother like?” she asked.
“She was sweet. She’d cook my favorite foods and sing me to sleep. She readThe Arabian Nightsto me and called me her prince. And when I told her we didn’t live like royalty, she said it was like in ‘Aladdin’ and one day I’d find a magic lamp and a genie would grant me three wishes.”
“You’d have to be a prince all along, because you’re pretty.”
“Pretty, eh? Pretty is for girls. I’m handsome.”
“No, you’re pretty. You’re pretty, perfumed, and pampered.”
A light breeze stirred the edges of the bedsheets, and he held his basket and looked down into her wide dark eyes. “What are you, then?”
“A bandit queen, of course.”
“No, you’re Scheherazade with her quick wit.”
She smiled at that, and there was an achingly lovely quality about her minuscule smile, as if maybe a part of her believed stories like that, tales of magic carpets and beggars who married princesses.
“Ah, yes, she tells her stories so exquisitely that the king spares herlife and makes her his queen. But I’d still rather be a bandit queen than a woman who faces the threat of the executioner each morning.”
“I’m sure he sends away the executioner after she’s crowned.”
“Does he? I think there would always be an axe hidden in that palace. You can’t trust a king who murdered all his previous wives.”
“Sure. Can’t trust a criminal, never ever. You can’t trust anyone, really. That’s why it’s best to face the world alone.”
“But you weren’t alone, were you? You still had your father after your mother died,” she pointed out.
“That’s not the same. We were bound by our blood; it makes all the difference.”
“Blood isn’t enough sometimes.”
They were straying into discussions that were distractions, and he had the annoying sensation that he could easily become distracted with her around.
She swung another sheet upon the line.
—
Perla collected her tithe. Politeness at all times, admiration heaped upon her each day, and sexual pleasure when she demanded it. He complied with a mechanical efficiency.