Free Ripper by Isabel Allende Page B

consider a termination; next, to the school principal; and finally to confront the lothario responsible for her condition.
     
    The Martín house in the Mission district came as a surprise to Blake, who was expecting something more modest. Indiana had told him only that Bob’s mother had a business making tortillas, so Blake had naturally expected to find an immigrant family in straitened circumstances. When Bob heard that Indiana and her father were coming to visit, he disappeared, leaving his mother to defend him. Blake found himself face-to-face with a beautiful middle-aged woman dressed all in black save for her fingernails and her lips, which were painted flame red. She introduced herself as Encarnación, widow of the late Señor Martín. The house was warm and welcoming, with heavy furniture, threadbare carpets, toys strewn over the floor, family photographs, a cabinet filled with football trophies, and two plump cats lounging on the green plush sofa. Enthroned on a high-backed chair with carved lion’s-paw feet, Bob’s grandmother sat ramrod straight, dressed in black like her daughter, her gray hair pulled back into a bun so tight that from the front she looked almost bald. The old woman looked Blake and Indiana up and down without a word.
    “I am devastated by my son’s actions, Señor Jackson,” the widow began. “I have failed as a mother, failed to instill in Bob a sense of responsibility. What good are all these shiny trophies if the boy has no sense of decency?” she wondered rhetorically, gesturing to the cabinet.
    Blake accepted the small cup of strong coffee brought by a maid from the kitchen and sat down on the sofa, which was covered in cat hair. Indiana remained standing, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, her hands clasped over her blouse to hide her bump, while Doña Encarnación proceeded to give them a potted family history.
    “My mother here—God preserve her—was a schoolteacher in Mexico, and my father—God forgive him—was a bandido who abandoned her just after they got married to seek his fortune here in America. At first she got one or two letters, but then months went by with no news. Meanwhile, I was born—Encarnación, at your service—and my mother sold what little she had and, with me in her arms, set off to find my father. She traveled all over California, and we stayed with Mexican families who took pity on us. Finally we arrived in San Francisco, and my mother found out that her husband was in jail for killing a man in a brawl. She visited him only once, told him to take care, then rolled up her sleeves and got to work. In America, she had no future as a schoolteacher, but she knew how to cook.”
    Since her daughter spoke of her as though she were dead, or a character in some myth, Blake took it for granted that the grandmother seated on her ceremonial throne spoke no English. Doña Encarnación went on to explain that she had grown up tied to her mother’s apron strings and working from a very early age. Fifteen years later, when her father was released from prison, wizened, sickly, and covered in tattoos, he was duly deported. His wife did not go back with him to Mexico; by then her love for him had withered, and besides, she had a successful business selling tacos in the heart of the Mission district. Not long afterward, young Encarnación met José Manuel Martín, a second-generation Mexican who had a voice like a nightingale, a mariachi band, and American citizenship. They were married, and he joined his mother-in-law’s thriving business. By the time of Señor Martín’s untimely death, the Martíns had succeeded in amassing five children, three restaurants, and a tortilla factory.
    “When it came, death found José Manuel—may God enfold him in his holy breast—singing rancheras ,” said the widow. Her two daughters, she added, now ran the Martín family business, while her two eldest sons had respectable jobs in their professions; all of them were devout