TRANSCRIPT:

{Shuffling, wheels, doors opening and closing}

[L] Germán! Walk, please.

{Indistict children's voices}

{Abelina laughing}

[L] Well? A “stroll” before we go inside—?

[A] Are you okay? [L] Am I okay?

[A] Lorraine, this is it. We’re home now. [L] I know that. [A] I’m sorry.

[L] May I be honest? [A] About how you’re feeling? Please.

[L] Leaving isn’t hard. The reason for it is …

[L] What I want to say that I will not be grieving anything else.

[L] We don’t have a life in Iona to mourn. Or, I don’t. If I can put an ocean between her and myself, why would I be upset about that?

[L] You can’t worry about me. Not on top of everything else. [A] {Sighs} [L] I mean it.

[A] She isn’t here, but there will be others. Different isn’t better. [L] I know. [A] Germán and Abelina? He isn’t ready. We made sure of that. They’ve been training Leonor since she was old enough to walk—or before, even. They won’t be kind or fair to them.

[L] It’s my responsibility now. In a sense, I was born for it. I can be myself and grow into the role I have now. We all can; we all will.

[L] All I’ve ever wanted is to be of service. If that’s what will be asked of me, then I’m home now.

Dreams had power in Uspana. Like caves, they possessed a thinness that allowed one to perceive, to touch, the underworld. Dreams took on a special power in death's aftermath. They carried messages. Relatives waited, mad with grief, to be visited in them by the lost. Some such dreams were fantastical journeys. Some were nightmares. Others meandered through ambiguity. Worse than any nightmare was no dream at all—to be abandoned, as it were. Leonor’s death dream came to her before her mother’s funeral. She could acknowledge it was a blessing to be contacted so soon, but the message was unclear. Through the haze that dreams became as they turned to memories, she recalled her mother’s indifference. It made her heart ache. Safya would have given her life for any of her children; they all believed that without reservation. Yet, had she not sat on the beach, massaging sunscreen into her skin, gazing out as her firstborn succumbed to a watery death?

Leonor squeezed her eyes shut as confusion burst into pain.

Mama had dreamed of drowning.

Mama had died in the water, struggling and spluttering and suffocating.

How would her mother, whose good faith was bottomless, have interpreted the dream? The better question was what she would have wanted to say. This was what Leonor contemplated as she held herself and shook with sobs. Although her dream self felt only abandonment and fear, she had gone to bed already caught in that undertow. The initial glimpse of her mother’s face gripped her heart, and in the dream she wanted to only watch her. Safya’s travel painting set was at her side. On her hand, she wore the first of several rings Rodrigo bought her. This one had been her favorite. Mateo played in the sand nearby, and Safya leapt to her feet periodically to slather him with her sunscreen. Gil was unborn, but he was there, too.

The details were like colors on a canvas, coming together as the portrait of a day Leonor remembered well. She recalled waving to her mother from the water. How adult she had felt, having been allowed to swim out so far by herself ! Safya usually denied the request. That day, she told her in no uncertain terms: “I trust you, but be safe.” Then Leonor was running, feet flying so fast that her heels barely sunk into the sand, arms out like a seagull's wings, laughing like mad, into the frothing surf.

“Mama. Mama. Mama!” she soon shouted with triumphant impatience.

Safya’s grin had been wide and toothy and anything but indifferent.

TRANSCRIPT:

[L] Mama?

[L] Mama! Please …

[L] Mama—!

[L] Mama!

Like Beatriz, it wasn’t in her nature to be a caregiver—that was why Safya raised her sons, as she would freely admit. Her reaction to the news had nonetheless been rushing to their mother’s side. It was a blessing that she and Ramon were still in Uspana, having just played a show by the ocean when the call came. While Blanca immediately felt alienated from everyone else, it was the deafening silence of their mother’s grief that spoke to her. She never reacted well to commands. She did this time. Beatriz chose to let her in, and Blanca tried to care for her. She folded her bathrobe. She ran her water and scented it with oils. She combed her long, wet hair. She lathered her skin with soap that smelled like rum, oranges, and thirty years of memories.

As she draped a towel over her shoulders, Beatriz stared up at her. No kind or grateful word left her lips. Blanca, nonetheless, saw something in her eyes. It was enough of an invitation that she could gather her into an embrace without worry. She comforted herself, knowing that her mother would have never permitted it had she not wanted it, too. 

Still, with a heavy sigh, Beatriz drew away first to ask, “Is Arnaut here?”

Her voice was so small and low. Blanca closed her eyes as she heard it, but Beatriz expected a steady gaze and an immediate answer.

“No mama,” she replied, “But Leonor is waiting downstairs for you.”

It was Beatriz who possessed the steady gaze, although she said nothing in response. Blanca had offered that information in hopes it would console her. Yet, she knew that every minute Arnaut was absent carried more injury. Beatriz’s attitude toward him was inexplicable and always had been. She hounded him for years, then all but banished him from Uspana. She also treated him at times with more tenderness than she did anyone save Safya. They were her “twins,” which everyone knew, even—especially—her lesser children. What Blanca did understand came from her own experience with Beatriz’s love. It was deep as the ocean, but it was just as unknowable, just as perilous.

Gathering her mother wished to be alone, Blanca turned to leave. She imagined she would find Ramon somewhere in the palace and sob into his shoulder. He always accompanied her home without complaint, knowing that she was tethered in ways beyond his comprehension. Yet, she could see the quiet confidence and unshakeable assurance drain from him once they passed any gilded threshold. She would find him later in the kitchen chatting with the cooks or borrowing cigarettes from staffers unloading deliveries by the back porte-cochère. Locating him had never been difficult for her. Even in the early days, she knew he sought refuge in the same places she once had. That didn’t inspire warmth, though. When she interrupted, the unfamiliar staff who knew her only as “my princess” would fall silent, avert their eyes, hurriedly resume tasks even if they were on a break. Ramon was one of them, but she only pretended to be.

She was grateful that he had seen through her all those years ago and never looked away.

Craving Ramon’s attention and care reminded her of another shame. Despite her best efforts, she hoped Damian and Julian would not seek her out for the same comfort. It wasn’t that she didn’t miss them. Invariably, when the music quieted and the distractions ended, she longed for them. Safya had always kept photographs for her in fat manila envelopes; the pictures documented her boys’ lives, but they also showed how integrated into their aunt’s life they had become. Looking at them was bittersweet. ‘Hold onto them for me,’ Blanca would say. ‘I don’t have anywhere to keep them safe right now.’ Who would keep them—the photographs, the two little boys who smiled and laughed in them—now that Safya was gone?

Her thoughts gave way to wordless hurt, but her mother’s voice halted the spiral she had plunged into. Blanca turned back and waited.

“Get rid of that polish on your hands,” Beatriz commanded. No longer small and low, her firm words were harsh. “It’s disrespectful.”

Once the bathroom door closed behind her, Blanca broke into a run through her mother’s chambers. She stopped only when she heard her name again—this time as a pleading chant from a concerned Ramon, waiting for her in one of the concealed servant’s corridors Blanca preferred to take.

TRANSCRIPT

{Gentle water splashes}

{Beatriz sighs}

[BE] Is Arnaut here yet?

[BL] No, mama, but Leonor is waiting downstairs for you.

[BE] Blanca?

The causes for arguments varied, but Leonor suspected an underlying flaw: they were meant to be apart but couldn’t escape each other. Her mother had ritualized throwing away her ring. She would rip it from her finger and send it clattering. A new fight began, invariably, because she made a show of it. Still, it would come back. ‘ It’s a piece of you, ’ Rodrigo would say, somehow earnest in his self-satisfaction. ‘ It has a piece of your spirit. It will return to you like your animal. ’ Safya had not been a true believer all of the time, but that resonated with her as it did with Leonor, ever an eavesdropper. Marriage was sacred and, anyway, they shared blood. Safya’s spirit was in the ring she wore, and it would—like any animistic entity, a dog or a monkey or a vulture—find her wherever she went. And, even if the ring lost its power, their children never would.

Her father accepted desultory ​​exiles away from the estate when the ring went away and yet, within a fortnight, with the children who bore their blood as witnesses, it returned. They reconciled. Her mother had her own saying during those reunions: ' I loved you once. I'll love you again. I'll always love you. '

On the night Safya died, Rodrigo called his daughter on a police telephone. He wept as he spoke. Leonor would have demanded to come to the marina, but he asked it of her first. It was his devastation that greeted her upon arrival. Standing in the doorway of the car, he shielded her from the flashbulbs. They walked with arms interlocked toward the silent crowd at the harbor’s edge. At the time, Leonor had been in a daze as she heard his voice in her ear. It occurred to her later that he had been murmuring, broken and desperate, ‘ I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Nora. I’m sorry. I’m sorry— ’

TRANSCRIPT:

[L] There you are.

[A] I came as fast as I could.

[L] I want to talk, but I’m not sure what to say. [A] Nerves? We don’t have to talk.

[L] No, we do. Before the funeral. [A] Sure.

[L] I’m grateful for you. Really, I am. You’ve been so kind.

[A] You don’t have to thank me. I love you. [L] Don’t tell me that. [A] What? It’s true. I— [L] Can I continue?

[L] Last night, this morning, whenever it was, I was thinking about my parents—about what I would have changed in mama’s life.

[L] Please don’t.

[L] Thinking about them made me think about us. I decided that I don’t want there to be an “us” anymore. [A] I don’t understand. What does that mean?

[L] We have to break up. I need to be alone. [A] What? Why? [L] Please don’t make me repeat it. [A] Leonor, this doesn’t make any— [L] {tearfully} Please.

[A] Okay. [L] You’ll go? [A] I won’t argue with you. Certainly not today.

[A] And, I won’t attend. If you want to talk later— [L] I don’t think I will, but thank you. [A] I’ll pray for you. For her.

{Footsteps receding}

TRANSCRIPT:

{Door closing}

[M] Is she still awake?

[S] She said she wants to be alone.

{Footfall}

[M] This was not out earlier. [S] She finished it while everyone was at dinner.

[S] We lit the candles, too. [M] Yes, I recall she wanted to wait. [S] That’s what she was doing when I came upstairs. Or, trying.

[S] You know what happened to the stool? [M] I can guess. [S] She’s so small. I don’t know how she can throw that hard.

[M] Is there an attendant coming? For the candles? [S] I thought I might sit here for a while. You should try to sleep.

[M] Not until she does. Perhaps not even then. [S] You’ll both crash after tomorrow.

[M] I … have never been so exhausted. [S] Grief does that. So does carrying the entire family through it.

[S] You’ll have to rest for the entire period. [M] Eighty days. [S] And the nights, too.

[S] I’ll be here.

TRANSCRIPT:

{Quiet, overlapping conversations}

[O] Oh, good. I can ring them to— [L] Not hungry.

[M] Leonor?

[L] Where is everyone? Where’s Mother Beatriz? [M] You must have fallen asleep. They have all gone to bed.

[L] I wanted to wait for her. [M] Of course.

[L] She was never going to come, was she? MATIAS | Let me walk you upstairs.

[L] Tomorrow is going to be miserable. [M] Most likely.

TRANSCRIPT:

{Miscellaneous cooking noises}

[P] Have you tried the cookies?

[L] What? I, uh … No.

[P] I told Olalla they wouldn’t help—on the telephone, while she was baking—but she was in a frenzy. No stopping her.

[L] I can’t …It’s …They were mama’s—

[P] Her favorites, I know.

[P] Not a bittersweet reminder yet. Just bitter

[L] {Sighs.}

[L] I didn’t know you were here already.

[P] Birdie always pretends I’m not. I decided to let her this time.

[L] It doesn’t feel very good.

[P] What, is that how you feel? Ignored?

[L] I waited all morning for her. She walked right past me ... I just don’t know what to do with myself.

[P] Of course. It feels like the end of the world.

[P] You know, that isn’t fully a bad thing. The People wouldn’t exist if the world had not ended—and ended, and ended, and ended. We’re destroyed, and we become something new to survive. 

[P] The last time this happened ... Mama, I would think. That destroyed me. For Birdie, this is worse. This is like when papa died. 

[L] I just thought we would be together. Now, her and me. She hasn’t even looked at me since we saw mama at the marina. 

[P] You’re not getting any comfort from her, Nora. You know that. 

[P] You don’t need to beg her for it either. You have an entire family that will comfort you. I’m here. Your grandfather. The rest of them. Just let things run their course.

[L] I know that. It just ... doesn’t make it hurt any less.

[P] It rarely does.

[P] Now, how about some coffee? That’s what everyone comes in here for.

[L] Sal’s self-serve station. That is what I wanted, before …