Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa Page B

that required more flexibility: wrists and collarbone. She then covered their handiwork with a black, knitted shawl.
    “Don’t worry,
Mãe
, we’re not about to let you miss mass,” Manuel said.
    Candida struggled with her mother’s shoes.
    “She’d die if she missed Sunday mass.”
    “Candida!”
    Manuel looked to the doorway where both his children stood. Terezinha seemed amused by what she had just witnessed.
    “She’s going to die,” she said.
    Antonio swatted his sister away like a fly.
    “And when she does … I’m going to dance on her grave.” Manuel moved toward his daughter, who ran down the hallway. “Everyone will dance. I know they will. I heard them—” she continued to yell.
    Manuel was intercepted by his cousins who came into the house, respectfully clean. They were dressed in suits that were far too large or uncomfortably snug. They greeted him, smiled at his panting daughter who stood behind her mother in the kitchen, then moved into the bedroom where each grabbed a leg of the chair. On Manuel’s count they hoisted his mother into the air. Terezinha giggled when she saw her grandmother’s headjerk and fall onto her right shoulder. Manuel saw his son trying hard not to laugh. He looked to his wife, who responded by giving both children a disapproving pinch. The men lowered themselves through the doorway and out into the already warm morning just as the bells began to peal. They turned themselves toward the church and like soldiers they began to march. Everyone took their places behind Maria Theresa da Conceição Rebelo, strapped into her chair, floating. They walked up the unpaved road. The neighbors, who stood on their front porches or were on their way to church themselves, bowed their heads. Even in her weakened state, Manuel’s mother, with eyelids barely open, was still respected and feared in town.
    “Your grandmother wants to see you,” Manuel said. He had untangled his mother and already placed her back in bed. He found his children in their bedroom changing out of their Sunday clothes.
    “I’ll tell her the story of Hansel and Gretel,” Terezinha offered.
    “Only Antonio.” It hurt Manuel to say it, to make his daughter feel that she wasn’t important, that she didn’t count. It was the same thing his mother had been fond of doing to his own siblings, always choosing him over the others. Manuel was reluctant at first to give in to his mother’s demand but then acquiesced, knowing she did not have much time.
    Terezinha ran out of the room and headed for the women who were in the backyard chasing the hens forSunday dinner. Manuel looked at his son. It was a difficult thing to ask of the boy, who twirled the ribbon of his balloon between his fingers. He didn’t look up to meet his father’s pleading face.
    “Would you like me to come in with you?” he offered.
    Antonio said nothing but moved into his father’s outstretched arms and blotted his tears on his father’s shoulder. Manuel rubbed his son’s back.
    He moved out into the hallway carrying Antonio in his arms. He could see Terezinha through the back door snuffing her face into her mother’s belly as she tried to wrap her mother’s apron over her head in shame. Georgina stroked her daughter’s head.
    “
Vamos, filho
,” he urged, “nothing is going to happen to you.” And as if to put his son’s mind at ease, “I’ll leave the door wide open. I’ll stay with you, okay? … Okay.”
    The shutters were closed. The only natural light burst from between the shutters’ slats like beams. A candle on her nightstand lit statues of saints and some black-and-white unframed pictures that leaned against an old clock. Manuel sat down on the wooden stool beside her bed and lifted Antonio to sit on his knee.
    “Can she see me,
Pai
?”
    As if in answer, her arm came out from under the covers and slowly shook through the air. Manuel saw how his son’s eyes followed her hand in fear until her yellow nail clicked