The Mortifications by Derek Palacio Read Free Book Online Page A

followed us between farms, and it tracked her down. Don’t exhale so quickly. Take smaller breaths, and let the smoke rise into your sinuses.
    What was she like? Ulises asked.
    She was not handsome—neither was my father—but she was sweet and firm, like a fisherman’s kid, and she could cook.
    Can you bring a darker one next time?
    All right, said Willems.
    Ulises took a small breath and let the smoke filter through his nose. Did she share your father’s fears?
    No, Willems said, but she respected them. Still, she told me not to be afraid. I think now she was much stronger than I often gave her credit for.
    She never thought your father was crazy?
    A little, Willems said. It would have been hard to deny his paranoia. But her caution manifested itself in smaller actions.
    Willems shook the ash from his cigar into a coffee mug on the kitchen table.
    For instance, he said, she never smoked my father’s cigarettes. In fact, she stole leaves openly from his fields and chewed them rather than rolling them. For his sake she wanted to spit souls back into the ground where they belonged.
    She loved your father very much, Ulises said.
    They were perfect together, Willems said, and then the Dutchman began to cry. He said, Your mother and I are not the same, though. I think I’m losing her already.
    She’s hurt by Isabel’s decision, is all, Ulises offered.
    I’m afraid your sister only intensifies a dark spot between us. I can’t seem to fill it.
    She loves you, Ulises said.
    Only a part of her does, Willems answered, wiping his face. The other part I’ve never had much of a hold on. Don’t you feel the same about your sister? She’s two people; one you know and possess, and the other, which is the greater part, pulls her away from you.
    I suppose you’re right.
    You should visit her, Willems said, snuffing out the rest of his cigar, adding, Sooner than later.
    It was true; Ulises had yet to visit Isabel at the convent, and that night, with the cigar’s nicotine buzzing through his skull as he slept, he dreamt of Willems in a field crawling away from Soledad, as if in retreat, a weak smile on his face. Ulises awoke thinking the dream a premonition. The Dutchman’s words the night before were not just sad but were also a warning, something to do with cowardice and negligence.
    Ulises decided he would visit Isabel.
    —
    The convent was cheerless and unnecessarily austere, like a museum, with a benchless cloister and brittle grass fading to brown. Ulises met Isabel in a small study, and she wore a sweater Soledad had knit, a dense wool top something like military attire.
    Where have you been? she asked him. Her voice was unusually soft; she was almost whispering.
    It’s been hard coming here, Ulises told her. The press was outside for the first few weeks, and then Henri put me in charge of some fields. I’m also in charge of a group of laborers now.
    You’ve grown.
    Ulises looked at his arms. Summer in Connecticut was muggy: Ulises wore a loose undershirt and some canvas shorts, and the gray cotton was tight across his chest. I’ve been outside, he said.
    I’ve been in here, Isabel told him.
    What you wanted. Your speech brought this on, and, considering what you told me last year, this seems to be more of the same. Couldn’t you have waited? Done this properly? You could have gotten in later just the same and kept Ma from hurting so badly.
    I wasn’t doing the right work, Isabel said. It was wasteful, and people were suffering when I could have helped.
    How do you help the dying? They are dying. They’re not going to get any better. They have families to sit by their beds.
    Some do, Isabel said. A lot of them don’t. But you’re right. They’re dying, which is why doctors or nurses can’t help. They need a person to help them pass.
    And that’s your calling?
    No, the calling was Ma that night in November when we couldn’t sleep and stood around in the kitchen listening to her and Henri.
    You don’t have to