Angel Falls
The kitchen lights were off, but Liam could see two blue spots of flame on the stove. The mouth-watering aroma of Rosa’s arroz con pollo wafted up from the pots. In the dining room, the table was set for dinner. A vase of fern fronds and pine boughs made a graceful centerpiece.
In the great room, there were candles on every windowsill and tabletop. The candelabra on the grand piano was a blaze of flickering golden light.
He heard the soft, even patter of Rosa’s slippered feet on the stairs.
“Buenos noches, Rosa,” he said.
She reached the bottom of the stairs and turned toward him. “Buenos noches, Dr. Liam. ”
“What’s with all the candles, Rosa?”
“It does not bother you, I hope? I know it is not my place …”
“Mi casa es su casa,” he answered. “I just wondered why … all of a sudden …”
She ducked into the great room, moving hurriedly toward the grand piano. The ebony surface captured her reflection, dotted it with candlelight.
He followed, came to a stand behind her. “Is this all for Mike?”
She shook her head. The tip of her white braid brushed against her hip. Slowly she turned around and looked up at him.
He could see the worry carved into her face. “It is for you also that I light these candles, Dr. Liam. For you and the children. I spoke to Carol today. She told me that Julian True called you. It is quite the fiery gossip in town. ”
“Hot,” he said distractedly. “Hot gossip. And Julian will be here tomorrow. ”
Her mouth puckered with disapproval, but she didn’t say anything.
“You think I shouldn’t have called him. ”
“It does not matter what one old woman thinks. ”
He said, “Follow me,” and led her to the sofa.
She sat stiffly, her knees and ankles clamped together, her gaze riveted on her lap.
He sat beside her, leaning forward in the hopes that it would make her look at him. “I’m afraid of him, too, Rosa. More afraid than I’ve ever been in my life. But I love her. I can’t let her go without trying everything possible. ”
Rosa sighed heavily. “You cannot understand bad love. My poor Mikita, she grew up watching this kind of love … and I think I—what is the word?—infected her with my sorrow. ”
“Julian True married her, Rosa. He must have loved her. ”
“There is love … and love. The good love, like what you have for my Mikaela, it does not let a young girl run off alone with a tiny baby. It does not stay hidden for years and years. It does not leave you cold in the winter in bed all by yourself. ”
Liam looked away. Candlelight reflected all around the room, a thousand tiny golden drops hovering against the night-tarnished windowpanes. “When I asked Mike to marry me,” he said quietly without looking at Rosa, “she told me she’d been married before … and that she was afraid she could never love anyone that way again. ”
“Of course she was afraid. Love for a woman like her is a terrifying thing. She knew only one kind of love then—the fiery kind that burns everything around it. And she had seen me, alone for so long, waiting for a man who would never come. How could my Mikita be anything but afraid when you said you loved her? But I remember when she first told me about you. ‘A doctor, Mama,’ she said. ‘And he loves me something awful. ’ I tell her, ‘You be smart, you love him back. ’ And she said to me that a broken heart doesn’t love so good. I will always remember this, because it made me want to cry. ” She touched his face gently with her work-calloused hand. “I talked to her many, many times as the years went by. When Bret was born … I have never seen my Mikita so full of joy. I think she stopped thinking about the things that were gone. She loves you, Dr. Liam. I know this in my mother’s heart. ”
“Enough?” he asked.
Rosa’s gaze slid away from his. She made a soft, sighing sound, something like air leaking from an old, worn tire. “You have heard many of the words of Mikaela’s story, but maybe they do not create the right picture. She was a young girl when she met Julian—only a few years older than Jacey. But she was nothing like Jacey. She had a mother who was weak and poor, and a father who would never speak to her in public. She lived in a bad part of town, in a house no one was supposed to see. One day she saw a god. She fell in love with him, in the way that only young girls can fall in love. They married … but he was not a god. He was just a young, selfish man who wanted nothing from life but to have fun. He wanted everything to be given to him, but love, it is not an easy road, sí? And the very heart that he once filled with love, he broke. ” She leaned over and touched Liam’s hands. “When he comes here, you cannot tell Jacey who he is. This is muy importante. We cannot let him hurt our precious girl. ”
Liam knew it was the easy road, not telling Jacey the truth, but he told himself that Mikaela should be the one to reveal her secrets to Jacey. “You’re right, Rosa. We won’t say anything yet. ”
Yet even as he said the words, he knew it was the wrong thing to do.
Liam walked slowly up the stairs. He knew he shouldn’t talk to Jacey right now. He figured his chance of saying the right thing to her was about equal to his chances of climbing Mt. Everest in a Speedo. But he had to sit with her, hold her hand, and look into her eyes. It was guilt, of course, but there was so much more. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of losing his daughter’s love.
He paused at her bedroom door, then quietly knocked.