“Let’s wait for my sister, a few more minutes,” Joan insisted.
The bells over the door to the ship chimed, and Joan swung her head around hoping to see her sister. But it that customer leaving the shop with his purchases.
Joan was about to give in and ask Senora de Cortez to look after Hunter while she went searching for her sister, or better yet get out her phone snap a picture of the outfit before taking Hunter to mount a search, when the door bells chimed again. This time it was Lissa.
She hoisted Hunter into the air, turning him around, “Just in time, Lissa. Isn’t this outfit precious?” Joan watched her sister, waiting for her face to light up at the sight of her well-clad son, but Lissa wasn’t even looking her way. She stood in the doorway as if locked in place, her eyes fixed straight ahead, seeing nothing. Her face seemed drained of color. “Lissa?” Joan said, her voice thick with concern.
Just then Philip de Cortez came out of nowhere, effusive as ever as he called out to Lissa. “Ah, Señora Torres, at last. Come in, por favor, come in.” He stopped short of kissing her on both cheeks, apparently surprised at her lack of response, but then he tried another tact. He waved both arms in Joan and Hunter’s direction, proudly displaying his accomplishment like a game show hostess revealing what was behind door number two. “You like? Is he not the most handsome baby in all of Barcelona?” He asked with obvious pride.
Lissa’s gaze flickered, then moved slowly towards where de Cortez was pointing. Her eyes fell on Hunter and for a split-second, Joan caught a wisp of a smile. But, then it disappeared. As Joan watched, her sister’s face crumpled into terrible sadness. Her hands flew to her face, and then her knees buckled, and Lissa collapsed to the ground.
“Lissa!” Joan shoved Hunter into Señor de Cortez’s arms and bolted to her sister’s side. Lissa had fallen to her knees, one hand gripping the doorframe for support. She was moaning and swaying. “Lissa, what’s wrong? Are you sick? Should I call a doctor?” Joan pressed as she and Señora de Cortez guided Lissa to the closest chair.
“No, no,” Lissa said, weakly, but she was shaking, uncontrollably.
“I’m calling 9-1-1, no that can’t be right, what’s the emergency number?” Joan said as she scrambled to take out her phone. Lissa stopped her, “No, please don’t. I’m not sick. I’ll be fine.”
“Get her some water,” Lissa said to Señora de Cortez, who hurried to the back of the shop.
Joan stared into her sister’s face. She wasn’t fine at all. She looked miserable. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. She was trembling, and tears slid down her cheeks. “Oh, Lissa, what’s happened?” Joan asked again, her heart breaking at the sight of her sister’s distress.
Lissa pulled her sister close, as Señor de Cortez who was still holding Hunter, hovered close with concern. “I don’t want to talk about it in here,” she said in a low voice, followed by a hiccup.
“Okay,” Joan promised.
Señora de Cortez came back with a glass of water, handing it to Lissa, then she took a new box of cotton handkerchiefs from a shelf, ripped it open and pulled one out for Lissa to wipe her eyes and blow her nose. Lissa was already coming around, the tears stopping as she sat up and tried to regain her composure.
Señor de Cortez still held Hunter, but the boy wanted his mother and he was starting to squirm and fuss. “You don’t a like the outfit?” Señor de Cortez asked.
Joan shot him a dirty look. Couldn’t he see that this wasn’t about him? But Lissa was too kind a soul to allow Señor de Cortez the think that he was the cause of her pain. “No, no, of course not Phillipe, the clothing is wonderful. I’m better now. I just need to go home and rest.”
Hunter was done being held by the little man. He wanted his mommy. He started to cry, then twisted and jerked in the small man’s arms, kicking as his cries got louder.
“Help,” Señor de Cortez pleaded. Joan leaped up to get Hunter, but wasn’t quick enough. With his little legs flailing he stabbed himself with one of the pins and let out a howl of pain, then he started to bawl.
“Poor baby!” Joan said as she scooped him away from Señor de Cortez., and took him back to the high table so she could get him out of the dangerous clothes. The shop owners wife assisted and within seconds Hunter was out of the outfit and no longer in danger of being stabbed. Joan searched his body quickly for the source of his crying fit but found only a tiny red mark, which thankfully hadn’t drawn blood. She kissed it better, then walked him around the shop, speaking soothing words and rocking him in her arms.
Eventually the crying stopped and she put him back into his regular clothes. Joan placed him back in his stroller and gave him his favorite toy - a bedraggled stuffed rabbit named Wabby. She looked at her charge. Hunter would be okay. She wasn’t as sure as sure about her sister.
Lissa hadn’t moved from the chair. Señor de Cortez hovered over her, wringing his hands, looking like a man who’d never seen so much misery in his life. A knot formed in the pit of Joan’s stomach. Lissa didn’t want to talk about it in the small shop. Was it because something bad had happened to her, after Joan abandoned her? Had she been mugged back in that empty alley?
Joan rolled Hunter’s stroller close to the chair and sat on the armrest, leaning close to her sister and giving her another reassuring hug.
Señora de Cortez appeared from the back again, this time holding a silver tray with four glasses of amber liquid. Lissa picked up a glass and downed the contents in one go. Philip followed suit, as did Señora de Cortez. When the tray with the last glass was placed in front of Joan, she reached for the glass, without thought. Her mouth salivated and her stomach relaxed with the anticipation of the soothing heat, and the freedom from pain that it would bring. The tips of her fingers grazed the glass.
A hand slapped at Joan’s wrist, and Lissa’s alarmed voice rang in her ears, pulling her back to her senses. “No. Stop! Joan.What are you doing?”
Joan jerked her hand away from the glass, as if from a hot flame.
“Excuse me,” Joan sputtered as she jumped off the edge of the chair and stumbled away from the alcoholic temptation. She was unable to breathe, her heart hammering in her chest. She leaned heavily over a credenza, hands outstretched to keep her upright. Her head was swimming, she felt dizzy, and a wave of nausea rose inside her at the realization of what she’d almost let happen.
Behind her, as she tried to get a grip, tried to slow her breathing, Lissa was whispering urgent words to Señora de Cortez. Joan glanced up as Señora de Cortez scurried out of the room, taking the tray of temptation with her. Joan’s face heated with embarrassment, but no one spoke of the incident as she came back and they wrapped up their business with the de Cortez Fine Clothing and Tailoring store. The clothing would be delivered to the Torres house no later than Thursday afternoon and the entire household would be heading out to the country first thing Friday morning to prepare for the Saturday wedding.
By the time, they finally left the shop, Joan saw that Lissa’s face was starting to lose color again. “Here, let’s sit over there,” Joan said as she walked her sister across the single car lane and into the wide pedestrian walkway ran the length of the famous street. She steered Lissa to an open bench under an acacia tree and parked Hunter’s stroller close by.
“You calling Javier?” Lissa asked, weakly.
“Not until you tell me what happened to you. What happened? Were you mugged or something?” Joan’s voice cracked. If her sister was mugged because she’d abandoned her in that secluded walkway, she’d never forgive herself.
“Mugged? Oh, no. Nothing like that. It was...” Lissa closed up again.
“Come on sis, tell me.”
“I saw mom. I mean, obviously, it wasn’t her, just someone who looked just like her, and I tried to follow her, but then she disappeared into the crowded market, and I got lost trying to find the woman so that I could get a better look and make sure it wasn’t her. But, I never saw her again.”
“Oh, I’m so
sorry... that had to be difficult.”
“But that wasn’t the reason I was upset,” Lissa continued. “I started to think about her, and....” Lissa got that look in her eyes again, the look of utter sadness.
Joan took her sister’s hand, her voice as steady, calm, reassuring as she could make it. “Lissa. It’s okay, just tell me.”
Silent tears ran down Lissa’s cheeks. “Seeing mother’s doppelganger made me realize something. Mom’s really dead, and I’m never going to see her again. And she’s never going to meet her grandbabies or my husband. She’s never going to know how happy I am.” On those last words, Lissa burst into a wail of grief. Joan wrapped her arms tightly around her sister, rocking her as, letting the pain flood out of her body in a river of tears.
When the crying jag finally ended, Joan wiped tears off her sister’s face and said sarcastically, “Yeah, mom’s sure missing out on how happy you are.” She was hoping to be funny, and it worked. Because Lissa snorted, a very un-Lissa like thing to do.
When they’d finished laughing, they agreed to stay in La Rambla for a short while longer and talk things through over coffees.
Chapter Two
“THAT ONE?” LISSA SUGGESTED as they came upon the first café. There were seats available in the patio, and somehow sitting outside on that beautiful Mediterranean morning seemed like preferably to being stuck inside some dark café.