Upon stepping inside your grandmother’s house, she forbade me to speak to you in Venetian or Romaic. To her, they were one language, which she referred to as “foreign.” English was the tongue that she insisted that we both learn. She assigned to us a girl of about fifteen, who looked like a colorless creature from the depths of the sea washed ashore after a storm, to be your nanny. Soon it became clear that she was there also to be my monitor, reporting back to your grandmother every time I uttered a word to you that she, the deep-sea dweller, could not understand. Your grandmother Hearn took your earrings, and she took our languages. I had been a mute in my father’s house. I would not be one again. So when Mrs. Brenane sent her carriage for us, I did not hesitate. I left with you and never returned.

Elesa, it was at Mrs. Brenane’s where I met your mother. She was waiting there for me, an Angel of flesh and bones. You must not cry, my dear. She is with God now. We cannot begrudge her for leaving us to be with Him.

Mrs. Brenane had made a great exception when she hired your mother. Patricio’s grandaunt insisted that everyone in her employ share her chosen faith. She wanted only Catholics, but she did not want the diseases that came with them, which went by two names in Ireland, “typhus” and “famine,” your mother would later tell me. The former was the reason for the cloths and the daily airing of the servants’ clothing, your mother explained. As she was not a live-in servant, she was exempted from wearing a mouth cloth. She would be the only one within that household whom typhus would take.

Your mother addressed me as “Sióra” when we met. She wore the scent of lavender water in her hair, dark and full of waves like my own. I wanted to kiss her for both. Instead, I sat next to her and held on to her hands, as a dear friend would or, perhaps, a sister. A woman on that grim island with whom I could speak Venetian, and I could not find one word to say to her. Instead, I wept, while Patricio napped, his head upon my lap. Your mother promised me that she would return the following morning, and she did.