Page 64 of An Immaculate Deception

He laughs. “She can’t stay awake forever. She must sleep.”

In the kitchen, Maria das Dores prepares a cafezinho for the doctor. Doctor Lobo reassures me repeatedly that Mother is merely resting and will wake up before dinner, that he examined her fully. He said it will take a few days for her to feel better, and she may have bouts of unease in the meantime. But he assures me she will not fall back into that terrible deep slumber, and that the pains and ailments she’s experiencing will subside eventually.

I look around the kitchen. Joaquina is nowhere to be seen. The door of the servants’ quarters is ajar. “So Joaquina’s been dismissed?”

He regards me flatly. “Who?”

I blink. Then I remember what he told me last night. I must not acknowledge her, I must not think about her. The mere thought can attract the evil spirits.

I shake my head. “Never mind.” I suppose this means she’s gone. Doctor Lobo did as promised.

What a relief. He solved all of my problems at the same time. The terrible noises I heard…They must have been him purging the dark spirits.

“So you see,” he says, “there is nothing in life a game of truco can’t fix.”

“I don’t have much money, but whatever I have, it will be yours—”

“I did not ask for money. Now”—he pats his vest and puts on his graphite bowler hat—“let’s go for a walk. There is something important we must discuss.”

We stroll in the yard amid the guava trees. Most are overgrown and cast a blanket of shade over our heads. We pass the stable on the right, the log warehouse with its slanted shingled roof, and the carpenter’s shed. Lobo starts speaking only when we reach a safe distance from the house, where there is no risk of anyone overhearing us.

“The night we first met, in the gambling parlor,” he says. “You told me your father passed away. That you’ve never met him.”

This sudden mention of my father catches me by surprise. “Yes, a long time ago.”

“Did he die when your mother was pregnant with you?”

“Yes…”

“In a carriage accident?”

I round to stare at him. I am quite sure I never told him about the carriage accident that killed my father.

“How do you know—”

“Your mother survived,” he repeats, as if reviewing the events in his head. “As did you, a babe in the womb. But your father died that night.”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“Without him she no longer had a father for her son, or a family who would claim her. Isn’t it so? How did her family take it?”

“Not well. Her family cut ties with her when she decided to keep me against their wishes. They wanted her to give me away, but she refused.”

“So then, without a father to provide support, and now a single mother without her own family or support structure, her life slips into poverty and social isolation.”

He finishes his cigar, lets it drop to the grass, and stomps on it. “Your mother slept for a long time. It is quite a shock to wake up from such a state. It is not uncommon for people to wake up disoriented, confused. Or even…”

“What?”

“With memory loss.”

“Memory loss?”

“It happens not infrequently.”

I think of how her demeanor was different. All the questions she didn’t ask me.

“It seems the carriage accident,” he says, “and subsequent loss of your father caused a rift in your mother’s life, a great trauma that changed the course of her life forever.” He pauses. “It appears she has forgotten all the years since the carriage accident.”