Chapter 15
Maria das Dores startles when she sees me in the kitchen.
“Do you need something, Sinhá Madalena?” she asks tentatively.
I regard the moldy mass that once was a cake. In the dim kitchen lighting, I cannot see the critters moving within it, and it almost seems innocent. I imagine when it was first baked, it was fresh and still gave off the aroma of molasses and citrus.
“Sinhá Madalena…?” Maria das Dores ventures.
And then, just as expected, Leandro appears in the doorway. His face is a mask of alarm.
“What are you doing?” he says.
Finally, the sullen man speaks. And this time, there is no pretense. It’s the real Leandro. I see it in his face, the mask has come off. I feel so close to having the real Leandro finally talk to me. I’m on the edge of a breakthrough.
“This is connected to her somehow,” I say, looking between Leandro and the moldy cake. “It is why you cannot dispose of it. Perhaps it was the last thing she ate before she died. Maybe you two shared it as a last meal. It is some kind of remnant, a symbol…”
My own voice sounds like it’s coming from someone else. I realize as I speak that of all the terrible suspicions plaguing my mind, the one that bothers me the most is simply that Leandro loves someone else. That Mother was right, and he never really cared for me at all.
Maria das Dores takes a step back. Doctor Lobo appears behind Leandro, looking so large in comparison with the other two. They’re all thinking I am hysterical.
“What’s the matter?” Doctor Lobo asks.
Don’t make a scene, says a voice in the back of my mind. Just go home quietly and like a lady. Swallow your reservations, repress your emotions, never step out of line.
“Is that why you’re so distraught here?” I say to Leandro. “You’re haunted by her?”
“By who?” Doctor Lobo says.
“Who was down in the senzala?” I press, ignoring Doctor Lobo.
Leandro doesn’t respond. His gaze floats to my hand. I see the intensity in his eyes, in the way he looks at the cake. I can almost see his pupils enlarge.
“No one’s haunted, Madalena,” Doctor Lobo says. “Just come back to the table.”
His placating tone infuriates me. I’m not a child and I’m not a patient in his asylum.
How can he speak for Leandro anyway?
“I would believe it,” I say, “if only it were Leandro saying it.”
Leandro doesn’t take the cue I’ve offered. He just continues his campaign of tortured silence. How easy it would be for Leandro to say, No, you’re wrong, there is no woman from my past. Yet he won’t say it.
“And you’ve decided that based on what…” Doctor Lobo says, “a moldy cake?”
I suck in a breath. Now that he says it like that, it makes me look like a lunatic. I know that’s what they’re all thinking, Madalena the deranged woman, touched by the moon, and I almost pull my hand away from the dome.
Almost. Because Leandro hasn’t denied it. And his gaze is still fixated on the cake, which makes me certain I’m right.
“Let’s just go back to dinner,” Doctor Lobo says. “Come now.”
But I cannot. As long as Leandro doesn’t speak, he wins, and I have nothing. I will pry him open, tear him apart, break him if I must.
“If I’m wrong,” I say, “then surely it’s fine if I discard this cake right now?”
“I…” Leandro starts. “I simply forgot about the cake. It slipped my mind. I’ll take care of it later.”
His voice is breathy, halting. But the simplicity of the explanation sears me. Doctor Lobo and Maria das Dores are thinking the same: Leandro has admitted his mistake, and I am making a huge fuss over nothing. I don’t know how I can go back to the table. I feel so humiliated.
Maybe I’m wrong about everything, after all.
“What of…what of the renovations?” My voice trembles. “Who slept in the room upstairs? Who slept down in the senzala?”
His eyes widen at the mention of the senzala. But still, he doesn’t speak.
“Madalena…” Doctor Lobo says softly. With pity. They all pity me. Doctor Lobo clears his throat, then starts toward me.
“You’re just going to stand there silent?” I say to Leandro. “Letting him speak on your behalf? Coward. You were full of sweet words the day we saw the circus together, when you led me to the cliff and put a child in me!”
“What?”
“I am with child!”
“It’s not mine!”
My brain buzzes inside my skull. He emphasizes not mine like he wants nothing to do with the baby. Like it’s not his problem. Next thing I know my palm is stinging from how hard I’ve just slapped him.
The room has stilled. Leandro doesn’t stir, doesn’t touch his red cheek. But his jaw is set and his breathing is rapid and shallow. I pick up the entire cake stand, carry it to the wood-burning stove, lift the dome, and hurl the cake into the flames.