She had her eyes closed when the other woman approached.
“Hello.”
Tess opened her eyes and shaded them from the sun with her hand. “Hello.”
“Are you Tess, are you my cousin Tess from California? I’m Jesusa, and I live here with the nuns.”
Tess looked into the woman’s warm, open face. She was . . . different, that much Tess knew. She wore a simple shift dress and sandals that were too narrow for her splayed feet. Her eyes
were enormous and, Tess realized with a quiet gasp, one was blue and one was green. No doubt the woman was right: they were related. Both descendants of Angelica. Why had she never heard of Jesusa
before?
“Yes, I’m Tess. Would you like to sit down and talk for awhile?”
Jesusa accepted the invitation, bending over first to give Tess a quick kiss on the cheek. “I jus
