The Amado Women by Désirée Zamorano

Author:Désirée Zamorano
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
Publisher: Cinco Puntos Press
Published: 2014-06-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Mercy lay awake in bed, brooding over the quilt. The quilt was her mother, her childhood, Joey. Mercy lay in bed, trying to fall asleep, thinking she heard the wind again. It was the wind of Lompoc, she remembered, as it beat against the trees, rattled the windows, flew in through the cracks of their home. It was the wind that chilled her, even though she had been cold long before.

On a plate in front of her rested a homemade tortilla, fresh from the griddle on her mother’s stove, slightly charred. Her older sister Lydia, ten, already imperious and miserable, had cried at the wretchedness of the burned patches on her buttered tortilla. In frustration, she had stormed out of the kitchen and off to school, slamming the back door loudly behind her.

Mercy ate her sister’s breakfast. It was delicious, especially the crisp, charred bits. Her mother made sure the stove was off, put a wool hat on and wrapped herself in a shawl. She spoke to Mercy in Spanish, “I need to finish this dress for Mrs. Lansdown. You’re going to stay home this morning and take care of Joel. I’ll be back in an hour.” As her mother slammed the back door, the wind rattled against the kitchen windows, and Mercy stood, watching the wind beat against the oak trees. Her mother said the baby’s name more like “Ho-ell.”

Mercy and Lydia called him Joey. Mercy stared at the bright sun, the blue sky and the flailing tree branches for a minute, then walked back through the house. She walked through the front room, with its sofa, radio, rocking chair and sewing table. Often her mother was the fixture that accompanied the sewing machine, pumping the treadle, pins between her pursed lips, tugging, pulling, rearranging fabric on her machine, the fine lines of wrinkles on her face echoing the threads she worked with. A granny quilt, made from years of knitting and crocheting scraps, lay across the sofa.

Mercy went into her bedroom and pulled out her doll, Amalia. When she tilted this doll, as Mercy did now, she said, sweetly, plaintively, “Mama!”

Mercy hugged the doll close to her. She walked by her brother’s room. Joey was in there, but he was quiet, and Mercy wasn’t going to bother him. Mercy brought her doll into her mother’s room. Her mother slept in a huge four-poster bed. It was neatly made, covered with a patchwork quilt made of scraps. A small braided rug lay at the side of the bed. Mercy propped her doll against the pillows and pretended to serve her breakfast in bed.

Mercy’s favorite room, besides her mother’s, was the kitchen because it was slightly warmer than the rest of their house, and the aging wood under her bare feet felt smooth. The kitchen had a small breakfast table. Her mother extended the table with a panel only on extremely formal or important occasions, like the afternoon Mercy’s father was buried. Her mother had widened the table in

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