Forever Hearts

by Mia Rodriguez

  “He said a horse was more valuable than his flesh and blood?” asked my mother. “Now I know he’s evil.”

  “After I got in the way of the whip, Leonardo took it away from him.”

  “I’ve always said that despite having such an uncle, that boy is honorable. He's strange but with good intentions.”

  “With his parents dying like that, I guess he’s been a bit lost in this world,” my mother proclaimed. “Like a baby chick without its mother.”

  “His uncle disowned him,” I informed them, getting ready for my plea.

  “What?” asked my father.

  “Mr. Velasquez said that Leonardo wasn’t welcomed in his house anymore. He’d have to fend for himself.”

  “What is that boy going to do?” asked my father. “No one will take him in. Everyone is afraid of his uncle.”

  “We can take him in,” I said wistfully.

  “What did you say, hijita?” asked my father.

  “He should live here with us,” I declared.

  “What kind of an idea is that?” my father asked roughly.

  “He has nowhere to go,” I pleaded. “Please, Papa.”

  “He did save our daughter’s life,” announced my mother.

  “I know but . . .”

  “But what?” asked my mother. “How important is it to reward the person who saved our daughter from drowning? Honestly, Epimenio! Sometimes you have as much sense as a goat.”

  “But, Ofelia—“

  “This is something we have to do, Epimenio. God is watching.”

  “It’s my birthday today, Papa. Without Leonardo I wouldn’t be here.”

  “I guess he's a good kid,” stated my father, “even if his uncle is the devil himself.”

  “We couldn’t have any more children. He’ll be like a son to us.”

  My father started laughing suddenly. “I may not be able to give ese fregado Velasquez his due, but taking his nephew in will upset him.”

  Being as young as I was, I wasn’t aware of the full extent of the sacrifice I had asked of my parents. Mr. Velasquez was more than upset and was about to throw us out of the hacienda when the priest dressed him down. The fear of God prevented him from further action against us, but he still grumbled when anyone from my family was near him. My father seemed to be enjoying the annoyance the situation caused the capataz. Papa told my mother and me that Mr. Velasquez and those like him would soon be getting their due. He declared the time of tomorrow was close to arriving at our doorstep. The winds of change were coming. These winds would change all of us profoundly.

  Chapter 23

  When Valeria had woken up from hypnoses, recalling a few childhood memories Dr. O’Leary had suggested she remember, she was baffled over why she felt so exhausted.

  “I don’t know why I feel so tired after our sessions,” Valeria commented.

  “Going through the psyche can really take it out of you,” Dr. O’Leary rushed to say.

  “I didn’t feel as wrung out when I went to other therapists.”

  “We’re getting more work done.”

  “Yes,” Valeria said, smiling. “A lot more.” Valeria shifted her legs, causing the side slit from her blue skirt to open.

  “What’s that?” Dr. O’Leary asked in shock as she pointed to a long skinny mark on Valeria’s leg.

  “Oh, it’s nothing,” Valeria announced nonchalantly.

  “Is that a scar?” Dr. O’Leary asked with much interest.

  “No, it’s a birthmark.”

  “A birthmark?”

  Valeria smiled. “Yes, can you believe that some people think it’s a scar from a whip? Who would whip me?”

  “Who would do that?” asked Dr. O’Leary with a tight, dry voice.

  “Besides, up close it’s obviously a birthmark—all brown and everything. I’ve had this thing since I was born.”

  Dr. O’Leary pensively nodded. “Since birth,” she mumbled to herself.

  “Dr. O’Leary, I want to tell you how much I appreciate what you’re doing for me,” Valeria blurted with feeling.

  “No appreciation is necessary,” Dr. O’Leary stated nervously. “This is my job.”

  “But you’ve helped me so much.”

  “I have?”

  “I feel so much better since I’ve been coming here.”

  “You do?” Dr. O’Leary asked with curiosity.

  “I feel lighter, as if I was carrying a whole load on top of me and now it’s lifting.”

  Dr. O'Leary cleared her throat. “I’m glad you feel like that.”

  “It’s like a miracle.”

  “It is?”

  “Yes, absolutely.”

  Chapter 24: Valentina

  “The last you had told me, Valentina, was that the winds of change were coming,” said Dr. O’Leary.

  They were definitely in the air, dancing chaotically around. People of my class were frustrated and angry. All of us campesinos could feel the huge earthquake coming and bringing down everything to the ground where a new start would be possible. In the meantime, Leonardo settled in with my family. There was no room for him inside my tiny home since the whole house had just two rooms—my parents’ room and the kitchen which was combined with where I slept on a tiny cot. Leonardo had to sleep outside in our vegetable shack where we put whatever food we could grow on the miniscule piece of arid land that Don Clemencio rented to us.

  At first I wondered how Leonardo was taking this new life of such poverty. After all, he had lived in the second best house on the hacienda, but I soon confirmed that things weren’t what they seemed. One day when he took off his shirt so I could wash it, I gasped at what I saw. With nauseating horror, I stared at all the painful lash marks on his back. They were angry wounds, some still a vibrant crimson from a more recent occurrence, and others a deep brown from age. Noticing my astonished gaze, he quickly turned his back away from me.

  “Leonardo—“

  “They don’t hurt,” he insisted roughly as if trying to put an end to a conversation about them.

  “But—“

  “I’ve got things to do,” he announced, leaving.

  I spent the day trying to get those lash marks out of my head, to leave matters alone, but I couldn’t. Every time I thought about them my stomach churned in a violent rage. How was it possible that his own flesh and blood had hurt him like that? How? I had to talk to somebody.

  “Have you seen the scars on Leonardo’s back?” I asked Lucio when we were alone, feeding the pigs. The Montenegro family had moved to their own hacienda so without Delfina always following him, we had more time together.

  “Yes,” he said uncomfortably. “I’ve seen them.”

  “You have?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, I hadn’t expected him to know about them.

  “Yes,” he repeated.

  “They’re awful,” I blurted furiously, my throat constricting.

  “I know,” he stated quietly. “I told my father about them a long time ago . . . I begged him to do something about Mr. Velasquez but . . .”

  “Your father didn’t care, did he?” I retorted as each pig devoured the slop, trying to swallow all the food before another got to it.

  “No,” Lucio muttered, ashamed. “I don’t understand my family sometimes.”

  “We’re nothing to them,” I snapped.

  He took my hands, holding them tightly but gently. “I’m not like them. You know that.”

  I nodded with the sour taste in my mouth still pouring acid. “I know.”

  He sighed deeply. “I tried to do what I could for Leonardo, always trying to keep him with me and away from his uncle.”

  I smiled at Lucio. “You’re a very good person.”

  He smiled back. “Not always.”

  “Yes, always.”

  A mischievous grin replaced his smile. “No, not always. I’m stealing a kiss without caring what you think.”

  “I
’ll think about letting you near me.” But his lips were already on mine, robbing my breath and sense of balance.

  He chuckled when we disengaged. “I told you I’d steal a kiss.”

  “You didn’t steal it,” I asserted. “I gave it to you.”

  “As long as you don’t give them to anyone else,” he stated.

  “Why would I do that?”

  His face turned pensive. “Just make sure no one takes any kisses from you,” he said, frowning. “I’m the only one for you.”

  “What?”

  “I worry about Leonardo living at your house.”

  “Why?”

  “I think he has feelings for you.”

  “Feelings for me?!” I asked in disbelief.

  “He’s in love with you.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I stated, very annoyed that he would say such a thing.

  “How did you learn about his scars anyway?” asked Lucio with jealous suspicion. “Why were you looking at his naked back?”

  I rolled my eyes. “He took off his shirt, so I could wash it.”

  “You shouldn’t be in the same house with him,” he blurted. “I’m going to talk to my father about—“

  “Just leave things alone.”

  “But—“

  “Just calm down.”

  He took a deep breath. “I couldn’t stand it if you fell in love with someone else.”

  “Why would you think that I could love someone else?” I snapped.

  “Everything we do, we have to do in secret. Maybe you’re tired of it,” he explained, letting out a sharp breath.

  “Lucio, what is this silliness coming out of your mouth?”

  “It would be easier to be with Leonardo,” he stated bitterly.

  “I don’t want to be with him or anyone else. Don’t you know that by now?”

  He gently took my hands and kissed them. “I’m sorry for doubting you.”

  “You’d better be.”

  “I am, and I’ll make it up to you,” he said, his mouth finding me and plowing me with tiny, heated pecks.

  As the days moved forward, I tried to stay away from Leonardo as much as I could with us living under the same roof. I still didn’t actually believe what Lucio had told me about Leonardo’s supposed feelings for me, but I kept away nonetheless. It just seemed better for everyone involved that there be distance between Leonardo and me, and it helped that he didn’t like to speak very much. My mother was annoyed at having to pull conversations out of him, but my father appreciated that he was a person of few words.

  “Too many people talk nonsense,” he’d assert. “Only few have something important to say.”

  But my mother would still doggedly try to get him to converse with her.

  “How was your day, Leonardo?”

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “Yes.”

  Father Mateo had forced Mr. Velasquez to allow Leonardo to keep working at the hacienda, but it couldn’t have been easy to put up with his uncle’s mistreatments.

  “Did anything interesting happen to you today?” my mother asked.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “Talk to me about anything, Leonardo,” my mother implored.

  “About what?”

  “Anything.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and stayed silent.

  “Did you notice how big the baby calves are getting?”

  He shook his head.

  “How about the newborn pigs?—aren’t they cute?”

  He shrugged.

  My mother threw her hands up in despair and stepped outside to tend to her spice garden. I chuckled.

  “You really frustrate her,” I informed him.

  “I don’t mean to,” he answered solemnly.

  “Why don’t you like to speak?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I think actions are better than words.”

  I nodded at the wisdom of what he had said. “That’s true.”

  With no further conversation, he stepped out of the house. The one thing about Leonardo was that he couldn’t sit still. He was always doing something and work for him never stopped. When I looked out the window, I saw that he was helping my mother take care of her beloved herb garden. I smiled. Whether my mother accepted it or not, he spoke the only way he could. Luckily for me, it allowed us to live in the same home without dealing with one another too much.

  Luckily.

  Chapter 25: Valentina

  As I went about my life, flowers started coming my way again. I was certain it was Lucio’s way of apologizing for having doubted my love for him. I was so pleased to see them again, their colorful faces brightening my days. It crossed my mind that I should finally get them out in the open with Lucio but quickly changed my mind. The deliciousness of their secrecy and thoughtfulness would be better left clandestine, but then I noticed a large footprint next to them. A horrible suspicion started growing inside of me.

  What if this time they didn’t come from Lucio? Leonardo was much taller and had much bigger feet than Lucio, and he had probably seen Lucio leave me flowers in the past.

  I had to uncover the mystery, and I couldn’t ask Lucio about it. He was already jealous that Leonardo lived in my home. But I had to know the truth.

  “Where are these coming from?” I asked Leonardo, the flowers in my hands as I went up to him. He was by himself, pulling the weeds from our small field of corn.

  “What?” he asked, sweat pouring from him as the sun shone relentlessly in the sky.

  “These flowers—who leaves them for me?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes!”

  “Don’t you like them?”

  “You leave them for me, don’t you?” I asked with a rushed, tight voice.

  “I’ve got work to do,” he announced, returning to his weeds.

  I tapped his arm. “Answer me,” I demanded.

  “You’re interrupting me,” he said firmly. “I’m busy.”

  “Please answer me,” I entreated. “I need to know.”

  “Yes,” he said simply.

  “Yes, you’ll answer me or yes, you’ve been leaving me flowers?”

  “Yes to both,” he stated as he strode to another row of corn, leaving me behind.

  I ran up to him. “Why are you leaving them for me?”

  “I thought you liked flowers.”

  “I do but you shouldn’t be doing that,” I insisted.

  “Why not?” he asked, his dark eyes going into mine.

  “What if Lucio found out?”

  He frowned. “I’m only showing my appreciation for what you did for me.”

  “You don’t have to do that. As far as I’m concerned, we’re even. You saved my life, and I saved yours. You can stop leaving me the flowers.”

  “If that’s what you want,” he grunted.

  “Thank you for your good intentions, but you shouldn’t have copied Lucio.”

  “Copied him?”

  “With the flowers,” I stated.

  He quickly shifted his eyes. “Okay,” he garbled, a strange tone to his voice and in that instant I knew. I knew the truth that had been eluding me all these years. My mind instantly went back to when I had picked up that broken stemmed sunflower so many years ago when I was just a child. Leonardo had been there.

  “Lucio never left me any flowers, did he?” I asked quietly, my throat itching with the powdery dryness of a lack of moisture in it.

  “I have to get back to work,” he stated, bending towards the weeds.

  “Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “What for?” he asked, starting to pull them out again with an old rag in his hands for protection.

  “You didn’t want me to know?” I asked, puzzled.

  “No.”

  “But—“

  “I knew you liked flowers, and they made you happy,” he stated,
continuing his work without even glancing at me. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “But—“

  “That’s all. I need to finish with these weeds today, if you don’t mind.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled, stepping away. I walked swiftly to where my legs wanted to take me, the whole disconcerting episode turning circles in my mind. I ended up at the river where I plopped down under Lucio’s and my favorite tree, listening to the rushing water. I covered my face with my hands wondering how everything I had so neat and organized in my head was coming apart. What I had believed in was a fairytale.

  Lucio hadn’t saved my life.

  He hadn’t showered me with flowers.

  Did it really matter? I asked myself. Of course not. Love shouldn’t be conditional. It couldn’t be so tiny that it could only fit in certain situations. It had to be about so much more than a few acts of kindness. Much, much more.

  I love Lucio.

  That’s all that matters.

  Chapter 26: Valentina

  Again, the flowers stopped coming and even though I was relieved, I missed the instant shot of joy they brought me when I’d find them. Leonardo and I acted as if we had never had the conversation about them, as if he had never admitted to shaking up my life. We went about our lives as if everything had stayed the same, and we rarely spoke to one another. But having dinner one night, we sat quietly across from each other when he changed the rules on me.

  “How was your day, Valentina?” he asked me, his face looking actually interested. Both my parents stared at him with surprise.

  “It was good,” I answered, flabbergasted.

  “How was your day, Leonardo,” my mother chimed in.

  “Don Clemencio bought some new horses. They’re beautiful,” he stated.

  My mother grinned. “You like horses, don’t you?”

  “They’re much more loyal than some human beings,” he asserted.

  “You’re right about that, my boy,” my father declared. “There are some human beings who fight against God’s goodness. Horses, on the other hand, are loyal to who treats them well.”

  “Even though my parents were killed by an accident with a horse, I know it wasn’t the horse’s fault.”

  It was the first time I had ever heard him mention his parents. He was only five years old when they had died, but I was certain he remembered them with perfect clarity. His dark eyes had sparked when he had brought them up.

  Later that evening, when my father had gone to bed and Leonardo went outside to the vegetable shack, I wondered what it would be like to be an orphan. I shuddered as I glanced at my mother next to me in the kitchen. We were doing our sewing.