Free Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa

will be okay, Candida.
Acalmar.
Shhhhh,” Georgina whispered as she dabbed a tissue across Candida’s upper lip and with her other hand caressed her back in large circles.
    “But I don’t want to go. I’ve made a life for myself here, far away from her hateful voice.”
    Her brothers sat on the crushed-velvet couch with their heads between their knees, staring at the carpet. Jose got up and left the room.
    “Manuel, please—you didn’t see the way she left me.” She clutched her older brother’s sleeve, twisted his cuffand the hair on his forearm. Manuel did not wince, just remained fixed, his expression betraying nothing. Georgina urged Manuel with her not-so-subtle facial expressions—to soothe, to console. Nothing.
    “You were here—you didn’t see.” Candida choked on her words, wiped her nose with her sleeve. Manuel dragged his fingers across his son’s jumble of blond hair. In silence, he offered the boy his hand and they left the women alone in the room.
    Manuel passed by his brother Jose, who sat at the kitchen dinette drinking a beer. Manuel moved to the sink and smiled as he helped Antonio to sit atop the counter. Manuel knew his son—the boy he had named after the father he himself barely knew—would need his guidance to grow into a proper man, the kind of man that would thrive in this land he had made his home.
    Manuel raised a bottle of Molson’s Export Ale to his lips. The blue ship with all those sails on the label always reminded him of the place his family came from, of the Portuguese with their proud tradition of shipbuilding and exploration. “Jose, what
exactly
—” Manuel stopped, not because he didn’t know what to ask but because he was afraid the question would lead him to a place he was quite content to leave alone. “What happened to Candida? You were there, you saw it.”
    “
Estupida.
She was so stupid, that girl, sometimes,” Jose said.
    Jose recounted the story, how Candida had found a used lipstick under a church pew, how she always had ideas of being a movie star, the kind that filled the smoky screens, always doing her hair in crimped waves whentheir mother just wanted her to get the house in order, to wash the dishes or sweep.
    “It happened shortly after you left; soon after we thought you were … dead, at sea.
Mãe
was distraught and …”
    Manuel looked over at his six-year-old son to see if the words his brother had spoken had entered the boy’s head. He thought for an instant that it might be best to ask his son to leave, but chose not to. It was important to know things; knowledge was a kind of protection. Parents had an obligation to teach, he thought. Antonio just sat on the counter, prodding the dead fish in the sink with a straw.
    “Candida was so caught up in her silly fantasy that, I guess, she lost track of all time, ran home, and forgot to wipe her lips clean. She sat at the dinner table and smiled, her lips as dark as black cherries.”
    Manuel scraped his knife quickly against the scales of the fish, sparkles flicking into the air. He smiled at Antonio’s joy as the boy picked some scales from Manuel’s stubble and hair. Antonio’s gentleness aroused a fervent love for his son. But, it also frightened Manuel; his son was too meek, too full of his mother’s milk to live out his promise. Manuel pointed the tip of the knife into the white belly of the fish, punctured it, and slit the fish up to the gills to clean its insides. Antonio grimaced, tucked his chin into his shoulder every time Manuel’s fingers dug in and tore out the innards.
    Jose continued his story—how Maria Theresa da Conceição Rebelo had stood behind her daughter Candida and stroked her hair, hummed a song she wasfond of singing to them when they were small, before their father died. But then the humming faded, her fingers curled and tangled themselves in Candida’s hair. She lifted her off the chair by her hair, and smeared the red lipstick across her chin and up to her