“But don‘t tell him I told you,” my father asked of me. “He doesn’t want anyone to know.”
“It’s just like him to want to keep his good deeds a secret.”
“He’s an incredible human being,” my father asserted. “Very, very incredible.”
Chapter 28: Valentina
Days before my seventeenth birthday, I had such a dark foreboding, I couldn’t keep my head straight. What would happen on that day? So much was happening in my country that I couldn’t help but expect explosions from all around me.
Change was finally here. There were insurrections all throughout with the poor tired of the abuse. This was good that we were turning the power structure upside down but still, I worried that something horrible was around the corner. It was my birthday after all, and it always brought abrupt shifts in my life. As soon as I saw Lucio’s serious face at the river where we agreed to meet, I knew my dark feelings hadn’t come from my imagination.
“What’s wrong?” I immediately asked.
He stared at the ground for a few seconds. “I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Tell me what?” I asked, concerned.
“My father wants the family to leave the country.”
“What?”
“With the political climate being what it is, it’s dangerous to stay here. My father will be staying for a while, but we’ll be leaving.”
“You’re leaving me?” I muttered.
“You don’t understand. I want you to come with me.”
“What?”
He took a white box from his trouser pocket and opened it. A shiny diamond ring sat inside, sparkling with bright prisms. The gold band around the translucent rock caught the golden rays of the sun. “Marry me.”
“You want me to marry you?” I asked, questioning whether I had heard correctly.
“Marry me,” he said, his lips shaping themselves into their quick smile.
Oxygen squeezed my throat as the shock pulled at me.
“Will you marry me?” he repeated.
“Yes,” I declared, the word slipping from my mouth like a bird out of a cage.
He showered my face with heated kisses, not leaving any skin untouched. “We’ll be leaving in about a week to the United States. I’m supposed to go ahead of my mother and sisters to take care of some things. We have to keep it a secret that you’ll be going with me. You can’t tell your parents until the last minute, or our plans may be ruined.”
For the next few days thoughts of Lucio and me occupied my overflowing mind as I tried very hard to put my disrupted concentration on the mundane tasks I was still responsible for. I barely noticed what was happening around me until Lucio's family abruptly woke me up.
“What’s wrong with you?” snapped Doña Clotilde as a servant styled her hair. “You can’t even do this right, you stupid girl.”
I boiled like an overheated soup as I stepped into Leonor’s bedroom to clean it. With deep relief, I noticed it was empty. As I started making the bed, loud noises started echoing in the room through the large open window. I realized that Leonor and Josefina were outside, enjoying the cloudy weather—a welcomed respite from the sweltering heat.
“When we’re in the United States, we have to get with the best families,” Leonor stated. “We’re not the only ones leaving Mexico.”
“I’m just relieved the Montenegros will be there.”
“At least we’ll know one family. Lucio can’t avoid Delfina over there.”
“What’s wrong with that boy?” asked Josefina, frustrated. “He acts as if he doesn’t know that it’s his duty to marry her.”
“He’s the only one who can continue the family name and the purity of our bloodline.”
Josefina let out a guffaw. “He’d better understand that.”
As soon as I arrived at the kitchen to help my mother, she eyed me with a curious expression.
“I don’t understand you, Valentina,” she declared. “First you’re happier than a cow in a new pasture and now you’re quiet and grumpy.”
“I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
“Do you want to talk to me about it?” she asked, concerned.
I shook my head.
“Don’t worry, mijita,” she said, putting her warm arms around me. “I’m sure everything will be okay.”
I started cutting bloody red meat into the tiny squares my mother needed for her specialty stew made with three kinds of green chile—poblano, serrano, and jalapeño. The dish was so rich and fiery that neither Leonor nor Juanita would eat it, but it was Don Clemencio’s favorite meal, so my mother had to make it once a week and cook another meal for the girls.
The knife I was using wasn’t very sharp but the tender meat cut easily. I finished fast so I could help my mother with the other main dish she was preparing—tamales. They took so much work with the pork filling in red chile sauce manipulated to perfection and then the corn gruel knocked into submission before being smoothed over onto corn leaves. Josefina didn’t like the red sauce, so my mother had to make her tamales with a chicken filling. It was no wonder my mother got home exhausted at night with having to tend to the Sevilla family’s every selfish whim.
I looked over to my mother who worked with the intensity and concentration of one who loved to cook. Why had I never noticed how she poured the salt into her hand before shaking it over what she was cooking, or how she tasted the food every few seconds to make sure the texture didn’t change? I thought about my father who said he couldn’t live a day without my mother’s flour tortillas and then he’d chuckle from the pit of his stomach at his assertion. My family. Not someone else’s. Mine.
The day before Lucio and I were supposed to leave and on my birthday, we met at the river for last minute arrangements. After wishing me a happy birthday and assuring me he was going to give me the best of gifts in the United States, he gave me the times, coordinating factors, and schedules of our escape.
“We’re going to be so happy together,” he declared, a broad grin on his lips.
I looked at him solemnly as the past few days came jerking out of my memory. “Your family will never accept me, Lucio.”
“When they get to know you, really know you, they’ll love you like I love you.”
“Do you really think that?”
“Yes,” he announced.
“They won’t,” I argued, my voice firm and as forceful as a bull in a ring.
“Tina, we’ll be in another country,” he explained. “Things will change.”
“No, they won’t,” I retorted. “And I’m not so sure I’ll be able to accept your family either.”
“But you won’t be a servant anymore. You’ll be my wife.”
“I’ll always be a servant to them.”
“But—“
“Besides, that’s not the point. There’s nothing wrong with being a servant. There is something wrong with those who treat us as if we’re less than them, with no respect or consideration for other human beings.”
“Tina,” he said gently cradling my face in his hands. “I can’t break off with my family yet. What would we do in another country with no money?”
“Lucio, your father will probably disown you if you marry me.”
“I’m his only son. He’ll be very upset, but he won’t disown me. We’ll be fine.”
“I won’t be fine. I’ll be away from my family, in a foreign country, and with people who have always mistreated me while my own country is in the middle of change and needs me.”
“Valentina,” he said, pronouncing my full first name with frustration. “What are trying to tell me?”
“There’s too much going against us.”
“You’re not coming with me?”
“No,” I uttered.
“Don’t do this,” he pleaded. “You’ll separate us forever.”
“Lucio, I just can’t go with you.” Tears started welling in my eyes as
I handed him the diamond ring he had given me only a few days ago.
“Valentina,” he said my name angrily, refusing to take the ring. “Don’t do this. I have to leave Mexico. It’s not safe for my kind here.”
“I know,” I said quietly.
He grabbed my hands, the ring still in them, and put them over his heart as his own eyes grew wet. “You’re scared—that’s what it is. But you don’t have to be because our love can overcome anything.”
“I can’t go with you, Lucio.”
“Don’t do this to us. I’m begging you.”
“I have to.”
“But—“
“Lucio, it’s just not a good idea for me to go with you.”
He abruptly flung my hands away from his heart. “I thought you loved me.”
“I do,” I declared. “I—“
“You don’t love me enough,” he blurted, a spattering of tears falling from his eyes.
I tried to reach for him but he stepped back. “I do love—“
“Not enough,” he insisted. “If you did you’d go with me.”
“Lucio, you’re not listening to me,” I said with frustration. “I do love you, but we have too many things going against us right now. In the future, when the revolution is over and you don’t depend on you family, we’ll be able to be together.”
“I really don’t see why we can’t be together now,” he snapped. “You’re making excuses not to go with me.”
“Your family will never accept me and you know it. You know it!” I snapped, my incensed eyes on him.
“But—“
“Stop being in denial,” I fumed.
“You don’t love me like I love you,” he declared bitterly as he snatched the ring from my hand and flung it into the fast flowing water of the river. I stared at the sparkling diamond hitting the water and sinking into its violent movement. I’d never be able to get it back. It was forever lost.
Furiously, I turned to him. “Lucio—“
Refusing to hear me out, he stalked away. I stayed glued to where I was in a trance-like state.
He turned to me from a distance and the last words he ever spoke to me were, “I never want to see you again.”
Lucio didn’t wait until the next day to leave. He didn’t allow for an extra day to cushion his anger. Instead, he left right after our explosive dispute, taking with him the few bags that were already packed and not caring what he left behind.
Not thinking twice about who he left behind.
I didn’t see him when he left. I didn’t say even one more word to him.
I didn’t say good-bye.
He was gone.
Chapter 29: Valentina
My ability to distinguish sound was lost. Animal noises created a buzz-like chorus, human movement glided together, and voices blurred into each other. I kept asking people to repeat themselves because I couldn’t understand what they were saying. My parents would ask me what was wrong. My answer was always quick and curt, “Nothing.” They finally stopped questioning me and left me to my silence.
Even though my mother had a strong suspicion of where my mood was coming from, she didn’t say anything and nor did Leonardo. He quietly moved around the house barely making any noise. And this was very good within the new life that now belonged to me—a life that consisted of pure monotony. Tasks that I had to do took up the long seconds of my existence. Changes like that of new days, new months, and new seasons seemed nothing more than old cycles making circles around me.
“Do you need any help?” Leonardo asked when he saw me struggling with two buckets of slop.
“Huh?”
“Let me help,” he said kindly as he took the two buckets from my hands and walked with me to the troughs where he turned the buckets over. The pigs grunted blissfully.
From the three pigs there were now ten. Piglets fought each other for the food, and Leonardo chuckled.
“These animals are funny,” he stated.
“They’re greedy little monsters,” I said, a small smile on my lips. “But they’re so cute.”
“You really like them, don’t you?”
“It’s no use getting attached to anything on the hacienda,” I declared, not being able to help the bitterness in my voice, “Don Clemencio is going to sell them.”
Leonardo nodded as he intently stared at me. “Everything in this life is like the wind blowing through.”
I eyed him with a startled expression. I wasn’t used to Leonardo being poetic. As soon as he noticed my reaction, he shifted his eyes, embarrassed. He made an excuse and left.
That evening, when I was helping my mother with dinner at the hacienda, I told her what Leonardo had said.
“He’s so right,” my mother commented.
“He sure is.”
“That boy has a lot more inside of him than what he lets us see,” my mother commented.
“I think so.”
Chapter 30: Valentina
I stared into the flowing water, not really looking at it but trying to intertwine myself with its movement. I admired its persistence in keeping its own rhythm.
“Hi,” a voice cut through the nature sounds. I immediately recognized it without having to look up to its owner.
“Hello,” I returned to Leonardo, my eyes anchored to the water.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice gentle.
I turned to him. “Yes,” I stated. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you walking towards the river,” he said uncomfortably, “and I thought I’d see if you were fine . . . I’ll go now.” He turned to leave, but I caught his arm.
“Stay,” I said.
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve been alone too much.”
He nodded absentmindedly. “Sometimes you need to be alone to mend.”
“I guess so.”
“It takes time.”
I wondered if he was thinking about the deaths of his parents. “The hacienda just won’t be the same without Lucio.”
“Why didn’t you go with him?” Leonardo asked quietly. “He must’ve asked you to.”
I nodded. “He asked me to marry him.”
“Why didn’t you marry him?”
“I just couldn’t.”
“Why not?” His voice was the most gentle I had ever heard it.
“He thought his family would accept me when we were married and across the border,” I retorted.
“He’s a fool if he thought that,” Leonardo stated.
“I couldn’t make him understand.“
“Lucio has never known what it’s like not to be accepted. Being born into money makes you look at the world differently,” he grunted.
“But Lucio wasn’t like the rest of his family,” I stated.
“But he was still part of them—born with all the privileges that make it almost impossible to understand what it’s like not to have them.”
“I guess you’re right,” I agreed. “So many people are jealous of the Sevillas. Except for Lucio, all I saw in them is ugliness. Nothing to envy.”
“No, nothing. There’s only one thing I’ve envied Lucio about,” he asserted, eyeing me carefully, “But nothing else. And I can guarantee you that it had nothing to do with his position or money.” He took a huge angry gulp. “Don Clemencio’s fortune came from our blood and not from an honest life—even the hacienda was stolen.”
It was well known among the campesinos that the lands of the Sevilla Hacienda had once belonged to Mauricio Rivas until the Sevillas had claimed it. Don Mauricio hadn’t been able to produce any paperwork but his family had been on the land for generations. He got dispossessed anyway and ended up dying of what many say was an inconsolable heart.
“I could never care about high society,” Leonardo continued. “Why should I care about being in a class that only cares about stupid things like who’s showing off to who?”
I stared at hi
m—my mouth wide open. I had never heard him talk so much or voice his opinions so freely.
“You don’t like what the elite class has done to our country any more than I do,” he declared, staring into the water.
“They’re dressed up hogs that trample on anyone getting in their greedy way.”
“Comparing them to hogs is insulting to the animal.”
I chuckled loudly. “I could never be part of that uppity class.”
“I admire you for staying. If my parents were still alive,” he said with spikes of sadness in his voice, “I wouldn’t leave them in the middle of so much upheaval. I couldn’t abandon my country when it needed me the most.”
He understood me better than I thought he did.
Chapter 31
Valeria had profusely thanked Dr. O’Leary when she left, creating a suffocating atmosphere of guilt in the office. For whatever reason, the sessions seemed to be helping her patient even when Valeria didn’t know what was actually happening in them. Dr. O’Leary was still having her go through childhood memories in order to keep her from wondering about her hypnotized state. Dr. O’Leary had smiled with the knowledge that Valeria had had an especially wonderful childhood with doting parents, trips to Disneyland, and fun times. Because of the nature of her work, Dr. O’Leary rarely encountered individuals with such functional backgrounds—mostly the dysfunctional visited her.
If she only knew what lies in her deep past, thought Dr. O’Leary.
Chapter 32: Valentina
The flowers started coming to me again in their entire colorful splendor, blissfully ignorant of the darkness that had taken over me. They stayed true to themselves, always arriving in my paths with the bright colors that illuminated the dark grays in my life. It was almost as if they were daring me to get out of the murky hole I was in.
Leonardo and I never talked about them. He knew that I knew where they were coming from and that was enough for both of us. Instead, we talked about other subjects like the best way to care for pigs. We started with light conversations, not going back to the heavy one we had at the river, but then our talks took a detour into his personal past by accident.
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