For Renata
B. Robert Sharry
Copyright © 2014 B. Robert Sharry
All rights reserved
License Notes: This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover design by Dianna Little
Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com
[email protected]
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
Fates are sealed
Prologue
Gloucester, Massachusetts
October, 1945
DOZENS OF LAUGHING GULLS circled and hovered about the trawler as Inacio Raposo walked the metal gangplank to the wooden dock below. The dark green water of Gloucester's inner harbor shimmered in the hazy Indian Summer sun and lapped at the ship’s hull.
Raymundo, a crewmate who had played the most practical jokes on the boy, threw his arm around him and pulled him in close. “You know, when I first saw you, I thought the Captain had brought you along as bait,” he teased. “Not bad for your first time out, kid.”
Inacio had suffered some hazing at the hands of his new crewmates, but it had been good-natured, partly out of the crew’s respect for his father’s and brothers’ memories, and partly because his uncle, Pio Alpande, was on board. Inacio's father and two older brothers had been claimed by the sea during a Nor’easter two years before.
Uncle Pio patted Inacio’s back. “You did well, Inacio. Your papai would be proud.”
“Obrigado, Tio Pio” Thank you, Uncle Pio.
While Raymundo, Pio and the rest of the crew lounged patiently, chatted and smoked cigarettes, Inacio paced the dock, seeking his land legs. He strode back and forth edgily while the Pincesa’s five-thousand pound fish hold was unloaded and weighed. When, at last, the captain was paid for his haul and, in turn, had paid his men in cash, the fourteen-year-old told Uncle Pio that he was meeting friends to play baseball when school let out at three o’clock.
Pio nodded his head. “Go on, you’ve earned it. Just don’t be late for supper. You know how your mother gets.”
“Do I ever,” Inacio smiled. He trotted in the direction of a nearby park. As soon as he was out of sight of the wharf, he changed direction and hustled determinedly toward his true destination.
Ten minutes later he was there. Inacio's skin was clammy, his pubescent heart pounded, and he trembled like the shaky wooden stairway he climbed to the second-story apartment.
Jody opened the door wearing a pink floral housecoat. Sad, cornflower blue eyes peered out from behind strings of orange hair. She was overweight, but not grossly so, as legend had it. She was quite pretty but looked much older than her 19 years.
“Yeah?” she said.
Inacio deepened his voice. “You Jody?”
Jody folded her arms and gave him a once-over. “Depends. What do you want?”
“If you’re Jody, you know what I want.”
He looked around impatiently while Jody scrutinized him. He wanted to get inside quickly so as not to be seen by people who would recognize him, especially his new crewmates, who might already be on their way to the bar on the first floor.
Jody unfolded her arms and put her hands on her hips. “How old are you?” she demanded.
The boy scowled and answered defiantly. “Old enough to screw you, and young enough to do it about ten times.”
Jody chuckled and shook her head. “Really." She turned sideways and swept an arm open. "Well, c'mon in, then."
Jody the Irish whore lived above The Sou’wester, a fishermen’s tavern. The story around town was that she had dated a fisherman who had knocked her up, then sailed off to the Second World War, and never returned. The punch-line, often told in a drunken wheeze, was that the young man had jumped overboard from a Navy destroyer rather than return to marry the fat sow. Jody’s devout Irish Catholic parents had disowned her and would long suffer the shame of her promiscuity.
Inacio stepped inside and saw Jody’s toddler sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling at what aroma told him was cinnamon toast.
Jody said, “Stella, you stay right there. Mommy’s going in the bedroom for a little while, okay?”
Stella nodded her head.
Inacio followed Jody down the short hallway and into the bedroom. She closed the door gently. The young woman sighed as she turned around to face the boy, and robotically unbuttoned her housecoat. She held out her hand. "Five dollars. Up-front."
Inacio dug the cash from his dungarees and paid her. Jody tucked the bill into the pocket of her housecoat. She removed the robe, hung it on a brass hook attached to the door, and kicked off her slippers.
Jody watched Inacio’s face while his eyes surveyed her pear-shaped body. Then she turned her head and stared at the violet-patterned wallpaper. Self-consciousness mixed with shame gave a rosy hue to her delicate face.
Stretched, pendulous breasts hung almost to her narrow waist. Shallow, ruddy stretch marks showed harshly against the pale, wilting pleats of her belly. A wispy triangle of orange hair was flanked by heavy inner thighs that pressed together and flattened each other.
Inacio rushed forward and began to knead her breasts.
“Steady there, Slick,” she said, “You got a pro?”
Inacio’s look of fascination changed to confusion.
“A prophylactic. Do you have a rubber?”
Inacio stared at her with his mouth agape.
“Never mind,” Jody said, “I have one.”
She walked to a scarred mahogany dresser. As she opened a top d
rawer, she smirked and added, “I don’t think I have ten, though.”
Jody slipped the prophylactic on him. She climbed on the bed and lay on her back with knees raised, feet flat, and thighs spread wide. Her breasts compressed and slumped to her sides.
With pants around his ankles, Inacio climbed on top of her. He grabbed her breasts, squeezed them hard, and alternately sucked them ravenously.
“Ooo, that feels so good,” she lied.
Moments later, Inacio had finished and crawled crablike off the side of the bed. He pulled his pants up, leaving the condom in place. Jody giggled and shook her head as she slowly eased herself to the edge of the mattress.
As she stood up Inacio’s right fist slammed into her jaw and sent her reeling back onto the bed. Dazed for a moment, she now grew red-faced and clawed toward him. “Why you little…”
Inacio extended the index finger from his fist and pointed it at her. “That’s for laughing at me,” he said, and then shook his fist and added the warning, “Don’t get up. I’ll just put you back down again.”
Inacio watched the young mother’s facial expression change from primal ferocity to uncertainty and fear, and a sneer came to his lips. “What’re you gonna do, call a cop?”
The boy backed up slowly, feeling behind him for the doorknob. He threw open the door and rushed down the hallway. Stella was sitting obediently in the same kitchen chair. He turned and gave the little girl a smile and a wave as he passed by. He flew down the outside stairs and headed for home, skipping a few times along the way.
Months later, through eavesdropping on his mother's gossip, Inacio Raposo would learn that Jody the Irish whore had met some unsuspecting accountant in Boston who knew nothing of her work, only that she was a war widow with a toddler. Once a whore, always a whore, Angelina Raposo half-whispered to a friend when she didn’t know Inacio was sitting in the next room.
Once a whore, always a whore.
Chapter 1
Rose Hip Point, Hollistown Harbor, Massachusetts
Present Day
BRANCA WAS GIVING advice about love and marriage to Renie, and it had Mamãe squirming in her seat.
"There are more tides than sailors," Branca said. "Take your mamãe, for instance. When she was a young girl, she was convinced that there was only one boy for her."
Branca shifted her gaze to Mamãe, hunched her shoulders, and teasingly made kissing noises. "His name was Mateus..."
"Enough, Branca," Mamãe said, "When your mouth is open, either a fly gets in or something silly gets out."
Branca was not deterred. She let her wrist fall limp and winked at Renie, but addressed Mamãe. "All I'm saying is that Mateus was obviously not the right man for you. Not to mention that, if your puppy love had not been interrupted, you would never have married Inacio and Renie would never have been born."
Mamãe looked for Renie's reaction and fretted about what might come out of Branca's mouth next. "The tourists will be here soon," she said, hoping to change the subject.
Memorial Day was approaching and soon throngs of pale-limbed tourists would descend upon Cape Ann—spreading themselves across the beaches by day, elbowing for space at lobster shacks in the evening. But for now the only sounds that could be heard inside the little cottage at Rose Hip Point were the loud calls of backyard chickadees mixed with the distant shrieks of gulls and the muffled explosions of ocean waves battering the cliff below.
The three women sat around the kitchen table with teacups nestled in their hands. These cups of tea were ritual—the pretext for an afternoon spent sharing, listening, and commiserating. For centuries this simple ceremony had conveyed a message: Sit down, dear, have a cup of tea, and tell me all about it.
The youngest of the women had unexpectedly appeared at her mother's door at 11:30 that morning. It was a two and a half hour drive from her home in the Berkshire Hills of Massachusetts. Mamãe could not remember Renie showing up without calling first since she was a college student with a laundry bag in tow, certainly not since her wedding fifteen years ago. And while Renie smiled amiably enough and made conversation, Mamãe detected strain behind the smile, indifference in the small talk. Her daughter's mind was far away and troubled.
Their conversation had been restricted to talk of gardening and recipes, even the weather. But when Renie's eyes welled up during a discussion of starting vegetable plants indoors from seeds, Mamãe could wait no longer.
"What is it, meu coração? What is the matter?" Mamãe asked in Portuguese-accented English.
Renie answered her mother but kept her gaze locked on her teacup. "Things at home are not...right. We've been fighting with each other for some time now."
"Fighting over what?"
"Oh, I don't know. Nothing, and everything."
"Will money solve your problem?"
"No, Mamãe, it's nothing like that, nothing so simple. I guess we've just grown apart."
"Grown apart?" said Branca in an accent identical to Mamãe's. "How does this happen? How does a woman let this happen?"
"Branca, please..." Mamãe said calmly.
"Auntie Branca, it's...more complicated than that," said Renie. She swept her black hair behind her ear, her eyes focusing on the rings on her left hand.
"This is not complicated," said Branca, a stubborn look on her face. "This is marriage. When I..."
Mamãe interrupted, "Has he hurt you, meu coração?"
"Not physically, although sometimes he gets so angry that it feels like he could easily lose control. No, somehow he has a way of making me feel small."
"Ah—" Mamãe nodded knowingly, "—he beats you with his words."
"I've tried, Mamãe. I've tried so hard, for so long. But now I'm tired of trying, and I'm tired of feeling like I'm not good enough. I just don't care anymore. I've decided to leave him."
Mamãe reached over and placed her hand on Renie's. "Then it is good that you have come home. You are safe here."
"Well, I am not surprised," said Branca, "You waited too long to marry. You were almost forty. When you wait so long, the good ones are all taken, and you're left with the ones no one wanted in the first place or the ones who have been grown apart by the first wife, just like your husband.
"And why are you always attracted to older men? You've been that way for as long as I can remember. Always the man is much older. No wonder you grow apart.
"When my Fabio was alive, he didn't grow anywhere, I saw to that."
Tears flowed down Renie's cheeks. "Oh, Mamãe," she cried as she leaned in toward her mother. Mamãe leaned in too, and they met in a sitting embrace.
"I know, I know," said Mamãe.
Watching her sister and niece hold each other, Branca's face softened, as did her words. "Well, the important thing is that you're home with your family now. And as your mamãe has said, you are safe with us."
"Thank you, Titia Branca," said Renie as she rose from the table and leaned down to hug her.
"Besides," Branca said, returning her hug, "he is not even Portuguese. What were you thinking?"
In response to an astonished look from Renie and an icy stare from Mamãe, Branca added, "Well?"
Mamãe stood. "Branca and I will go with you to collect the things that are yours. We will go when he is at work."
"What about my studio, my students?"
"Your students will find a new teacher, and you will start a new studio here on Cape Ann."
"Mamãe, I don't have to come here. I'm fifty-five years old. I shouldn't be running home to my mother."
"Do not talk this way, meu coração. This is your home too, and it always will be. You are welcome to stay for as long as you'd like. We have been through worse than this together, you and I, and together we will survive this too. This house belongs to all of us—me, you, and your sister. And someday, when I am gone, it will be yours and hers to do with as you please."
"My friend, Rinaldo, he is a real estate man," Branca said. "He says you sit on a fortune here. Things are di
fferent from fifty years ago when you first arrived. Rinaldo says rich people will pay big bucks to be on the water, even if they only come for a few weeks in summer. Imagine that. But I suppose it is the same back home now. The sea will always have its allure."
"Let the rich people have it then," said Mamãe. "Perhaps we should have sold it long ago, right after..."
Renie leaned over and squeezed her mother's hand. "Don't, Mamãe, don't think about that now."
But it was too late. Mamãe was already thinking about it. Indeed, she thought about it every day of her life whether she wanted to or not. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.
And Branca was mistaken: It had been more than fifty years since Mamãe's arrival in America. It was on August 12, 1957 when a frightened teen-aged girl came ashore at the Port of Boston.
Chapter 2
City of Horta, Island of Faial, Azores
August 7, 1956
THE GIRL RAN ALONG the dark, volcanic sands of Praia da Conceição with the uninhibited joy of a child and the grace and coordination of her fifteen years. A boy of equal age with an unruly mop of black curls followed close on her heels, but not too close—he'd learned the hard way about the sand the girl's feet kicked up as she ran.
Her swiftness raised a breeze that made her long, shiny hair float behind her like a bride's mantilla. The hem of her calf-length peasant dress hung heavy with saltwater from the times she had sprinted in and out of the surf.
God, she loved to run. And the longer she ran the more bliss she felt.
The setting sun caused her skin to glow the same copper color as the clear eyes that she now focused on the three beached dories that lay ahead. She knew the colorful boats and their owners, just as she knew everyone who worked and played on this beach.
Running faster now, she aligned her long legs and sand-coated feet to meet the first of the boats at its broadest point. Three meters away now, each stride bringing her a meter closer. At last, with a grand jeté, she leaped over the first dory's mid-section and landed gracefully on the sand on the opposite side. She repeated this twice more until she had cleared all three with nimble hurdles.
For Renata Page 1