was a serious child. He’d been that way as an infant, when Emília had discovered him. He’d been skinny and covered in dust. “A foundling,” the maids called him. “A child of the backlands.” He was born there during the infamous drought of 1932. It was impossible that he would remember his real mother, or those first hard months of his life, but sometimes, when Expedito stared at Emília with his dark, deep-set eyes, he had the stern and knowing look of an old man. Since the funeral he’d often looked at Emília in this way, as if reminding her that they should not linger in the Coelho house. They should travel back to the countryside, for his sake as well as hers. They should deliver a warning. They should fulfill their promise.
Emília felt a pinch in her chest. All week she’d felt as if there was a rope within her, stretched from her feet to her head and knotted at her heart. The longer she remained in the Coelho house, the more the knot tightened.
She left the room and zipped up her dress. The fabric gave off a sharp, metallic smell. It had been soaked in a vat of black dye and then dipped in vinegar, to set the new color. The dress had been light blue. It was cut in a modern style with soft, fluttering sleeves and a slim skirt. Emília had been a trendsetter. Now all of her solid-colored dresses were dyed black and her patterned ones packed away until her year of mourning was officially over. Emília had hidden three dresses and three bolero jackets in a suitcase under her bed. The jackets were heavy; each had a thick wad of bills sewn into its satin lining. Emília had also packed a tiny valise with Expedito’s clothing, shoes, and toys. When they escaped from the Coelho house, she’d have to carry the bags herself. Knowing this, she’d packed only necessities. Before her marriage, Emília had placed too much stock in luxuries. She’d believed that fine possessions had the power to transform; that owning a stylish dress, a gas stove, a tiled kitchen, or an automobile would erase her origins. Such possessions, Emília had thought, would make people look past the calluses on her hands or her rough country manners, and see a lady. After her marriage and her arrival in Recife, Emília discovered this wasn’t true.
Halfway downstairs, she smelled funeral wreaths. The round floral arrangements cluttered the foyer and front hallway. Some were as small as plates, others so large they sat on wooden easels. All were tightly packed with white and purple flowers—gardenias, violets, lilies, roses—and had dark ribbons pinned across their empty centers. Scrawled across the ribbons, painted in gold ink, were the senders’ names and consoling phrases: “Our Deepest Sympathies,” “Our Prayers Are with You.” The older wreaths were limp, their gardenias yellowed, their lilies shriveled. They gave off a tangy, putrid smell. The air was thick with it.
Emília held the staircase banister. Four weeks ago her husband, Degas, had sat with her on those marble steps. He’d tried to warn her, but she hadn’t listened; Degas had tricked her too many times before. Since his death, Emília spent her days and nights wondering if Degas’ warning hadn’t been a trick at all, but a final attempt at redemption.
Emília walked into the front hall. There was a new wreath, its lilies rigid and thick, their stamens heavy with orange pollen. Emília pitied those lilies. They had no roots, no soil, no way of sustaining themselves, and yet they bloomed. They acted as if they were still fecund and strong when really they were already dead—they just didn’t know it. Emília felt the knot in her chest tighten. Her instincts said Degas had been right, his warning a valid one. And she was like those condolence wreaths, giving him the recognition he so desperately wanted in life but only received in death.
The funeral wreath was a rite unique to Recife. In the countryside it was often too dry to grow flowers. People who died during the rainy months were both blessed and cursed: their bodies decayed faster, and mourners had to pinch their noses during wakes, but there were dahlias, rooster’s crest, and Beneditas bunched into thick bouquets and placed inside the deceased’s funeral hammock before it was carried to town. Emília had attended many funerals. Among them was her mother’s, which she could barely remember. Her father’s funeral occurred later, when Emília
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