Read Online Saving the World by Julia Álvarez - Free Book Online Page B

the last, however, instead of attaching the crucifix, I took the strung beads and tied them around my neck. For the first time since my illness, I wished I had a mirror so I could see how the rectoress of a foundling house might look to a surgeon from the royal court, director of a noble expedition. Later in the dark, I went over and over our interview, touching the beads as if they were memory aids, recollecting what he had said, what I had replied, the fever in his eyes, the softness around his mouth. All night, I tossed and turned as if I were already on board that ship bound for a new life.

2
    Alma is surprised when she hears the pickup coming down the driveway. She glances at the clock. She has been at it for two hours, reading and writing notes in her journal, notes that end up as full-fledged scenes and conversations leading her further into Balmis’s story.
    As the garage door rumbles open, the floor shakes under her feet—Richard is home! Quite the metaphor, she thinks. Quickly, she puts her journal away, glancing around as if to remember this moment in case it proves to be memorable: the moment before everything changed for the worse.
Please,
she pleads to all the things in her room: posters of some of her book covers; maps of the island; the homeland flag draped over her computer; her collection of virgencitas—as if these objects could guarantee her safety in the world. She closes the door and hurries down the stairs.
    â€œWow!” Richard’s face lights up as he steps through the garage door and finds her waiting for him on the other side. “A personal greeting!”
    Alma feels a pang. Has it been that long? Usually, she calls down, “I’ll be right there.” But by the time she turns off the computer, puts her work away, and makes her way downstairs, ten, fifteen minutes have elapsed, and the zing is gone from her greeting.
    â€œHey,” she says, pressing herself into him, not wanting, for the moment, to be a separate person, a person he could betray or discard.
    He folds his arms around her, laughing into her hair, but after a moment, when Alma doesn’t pull away, he grows still. “What’s the matter?” he finally asks. Sometimes he surprises her. Alma will think that Richard has checked out, gone to that fantasyland where—if the talk shows and those old misogynist Thurber cartoons are to be believed—husbands in long-term marriages go, but let Alma change one little thing in Richard’s routines, put his running shoes somewhere else, use a different cup for his coffee, and he notices. “Something happen today?”
    Alma had planned to tell him everything right off, but she finds herself delaying the moment. First, let him be reminded of what a good life they have together: a drink before supper, maybe supper out, maybe sex. It’s as if this new savvy self has splintered off, the smart wife who plays her cards right, uses magazine-article ploys to keep her man happy.
(Dress up in something sexy; invite him for a date in bed.)
“I’m fine,” Alma murmurs into his chest. “Why not? I have a wonderful husband.” She pulls back to look him in the eye. Maybe saying it will be like holding a crucifix up to Dracula in the old movies. If Richard is not truly a wonderful husband, he will turn into a puff of smoke in her arms. “Right?”
    He is looking at her quizzically, not totally convinced by this new lite version of his moody wife, then nods. How hard the last few years have been for Richard: losing both parents, sinking into depression (even if he refuses to call it that); then, finally, in the last few months beginning to rally, only to have his wife lag behind, a gloomy reminder. She takes his hand and leads him up the short flight of stairs to the main room, invites him to sit while she fixes his drink—wishing she didn’t always forget what goes into a martini—then pours her own pedestrian