Free The Seamstress by Frances de Pontes Peebles

face had been smashed and he lay twisted and bloody near the donkey corral. A storekeeper put a lit banana frond in the farmer’s limp hands so that the light could guide his departing soul into heaven and guard against the darkness that surrounds death.
    “Let me get a candle,” Aunt Sofia wept. “Just in case.”
    Emília held her hands together so tightly her fingers tingled. She prayed to all of the saints she could remember; prayed to Jesus and the Holy Ghost and to the soul of her mother. Over and over she prayed, until the words of her prayers sounded foreign and meaningless, like the nonsense songs she and Luzia had sung when they were very small.
    Zefinha produced a thick white candle. She lit it with a piece of kindling from the cook fire. Aunt Sofia arranged Luzia’s limp right hand onto her chest and wrapped the candle in her small fingers. Then, their aunt moved the twisted left arm. Luzia’s eyes fluttered open. She scanned the room as if lost, then looked down at her arm. Her mouth twisted in pain.
    “Ave Maria!” Aunt Sofia cried. “Thank God!”
    Luzia sat up. The candle fell to floor. Zefinha quickly stamped it out.
    “It hurts,” Luzia croaked, her voice hoarse, the back of her hair matted with blood. She slid from the table. “It hurts,” she said, louder this time, glaring at Emília.
    Emília felt trapped by her sister’s stare. There was pain, confusion, a wild anger in Luzia’s eyes. Emília saw blame there, too. She looked at her clasped hands and pretended to pray. Luzia cried. She ran about the kitchen, finally dunking her broken arm into a water jug beside Zefinha’s stove.
    Her son returned minutes later. His horse’s velvety nostrils were large and circular, opening and closing with its deep breaths. The midwife was nowhere to be found, so he’d brought Padre Otto. The priest sat precariously behind Zefinha’s boy, his bald head shining with sweat, his black pants hiked up, revealing white ankles. He crossed himself when he saw Luzia, who stood with her arm in the water jug. Her face was dangerously pale. Zefinha’s son raced back to town to find the bonesetter.
    “What happened here?” Padre Otto asked.
    “She was almost gone,” Aunt Sofia whispered to the priest. “It’s a miracle, isn’t it, Father? She came back to us. A miracle.”
    Aunt Sofia explained the accident and Padre Otto nodded solemnly. He did not take his eyes from Luzia’s. When Aunt Sofia finished, the room grew quiet. Padre Otto took Luzia’s chin between his thick forefinger and thumb.
    “Miracles are rare, young lady,” he said. “They are gifts. Don’t fall from any more trees.”
    Emília knelt, forgotten in the corner of the whitewashed kitchen, like a stranger bearing witness to a private family event. She felt a cold certainty prick her, as steely and sharp as Aunt Sofia’s sewing needles: this was what her life would be like, living with a sister who had come back from the brink of death.
    7
     
    Emília knotted the scarf more tightly over her hair. The arid country below the mountain was hot and dusty. They crossed paths with a caravan of donkeys. The animals carried kerosene tins and crates of soaps, hair tonics, and other packaged goods from Limoeiro. Barefoot children ran beside the trail. They kicked up dust. Emília closed her eyes.
    Professor Célio had not written her a note. In the past, he’d scribbled a response on a slip of newspaper print torn from his Singer manual. After their lesson, Emília had lingered at her machine, straightening her chair and brushing away loose threads while Luzia waited impatiently by the door. Professor Célio stayed behind his desk, answering the other students’ questions. It was the scarf, Emília concluded. Before copying the Fon Fon models, she’d had curling black hair that she tied back with a ribbon. Now she looked like a farmer’s wife. Next time she would disobey her aunt. She’d set her curls with goma water to keep them from