“Katie, I have deep feelings for you. As long as we’re together, I’ll always be faithful to you and try to do right by you.”
He had kept his word. He had been faithful and kind, but he never wanted to get married. It was not long after that conversation that she had learned about what had happened with his ex-fiancée. Kate decided she loved him enough to stay with him, unlike other women before her, and see it through.
Much later that night, when they had made sweet love and he was sound asleep next to her, she decided she had to try harder at not crowding him with all the raging agony of the death of her best friend burning a gaping hole inside of her.
Chapter 55: Valentina
It was a day like any other. The sun didn’t shine brighter, the dirt didn’t crack more than usual, the air wasn’t any less sweltering, but Katalina would later say that she should’ve known something was about to hit that day because of the last words that popped out of Enrique’s mouth before going off to battle.
“I’m sorry,” he had said.
“Why?”
“I should’ve never taken you out of your comfortable home and brought you here.”
“What’s bringing this on?” Katalina asked, concerned. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Lately, I’ve been feeling very selfish when I see how hard you work.”
Katalina put her hand on his cheek. “I’m happy wherever you are.”
“I should’ve never married you and brought you so much hardship.”
“If I would’ve known about your snoring . . .,” she teased.
“You would’ve been much better off without me.”
“Maybe but who would put up with my cold toes at night?” she asked, still trying to make him laugh. His serious tone was unnerving her.
“You know how much I love you, don’t you?”
“You only love me because I cook those tacos you love so much.”
Enrique didn’t even crack a smile. “I love you.”
Those were his last words to her because soon after, he caught a bullet in his head and was gone just like that. It never ceased to surprise me how fragile life was—how much of a puff of wind it was. Katalina was struck speechless and for days wouldn’t eat, sleep, or speak. One minute she’d stumble around with an expectant look on her face as if waiting for Enrique to come home to her and the next she’d be doubled over, in a fetal position, and squeezing her bent legs to her chest. I tried taking care of her the best that I could. Finally, one day she snapped out of her stupor and spoke as she placed her hand on my huge womb.
“This life inside of you is the only thing that keeps me going,” she stated.
I hugged her.
“This war is such a waste,” she snapped bitterly. “Taking our loved ones.”
I knew I couldn’t say anything to comfort her, so I kept hugging her.
“I should’ve begged him not to get involved, not to fight.”
“He was a great man,” I said quietly.
She nodded her head forlornly. “Yes, but he’s gone now,” she mumbled bitterly. “I should be getting back to my family in Durango, but I promised you I’d deliver the baby, so I’m staying until your little one decides to come out.”
“Thank you, Katalina.”
It would happen very soon. I was already as huge as a train and barely managed to walk. In fact, the baby almost came rushing out on the day that Leonardo gave me one of the worst scares of my life. He came home early, nonchalant, from a battle. When I asked him why he was already back, he had shrugged his shoulders and ignored my question. Then I saw a crimson color coming out of the side of his shirt. It seemed to be spreading, and I rushed to him.
“What’s that?!” I yelled as I pointed at it.
“Calm down,” he ordered, his forehead filling with shiny beads of water. “I’m fine.”
“What do you mean you’re fine?! You’re bleeding!”
“I was shot, but I’ve already been bandaged.”
“You’re bleeding through the bandages!”
He frowned, his upper lip glistening with moisture. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you. You’re overreacting.”
“Listen, Mr. Macho,” I chided, “you’ve been shot, you’re bleeding, and it’s obvious you’re in awful pain. I’m getting Kati.”
I made him lay down over blankets on the ground while I fetched her.
Katalina, who had a little nurse training in her background due to her midwifery, immediately took over his medical care. Taking out the bullet with a sharp knife she sterilized by gliding it over a flame, she didn’t flinch at the blood. Leonardo bared it without making a noise, but he gushed perspiration. Katalina managed to stop the bleeding with herbs she picked off the ground.
“He’ll be okay, Valentina.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“I’m fine,” he insisted as if he didn’t know why so much fuss was made over him.
Later, when he slept, I took Katalina aside.
“I need a promise from you, Kati,” I said, my eyes full of sharp intention. “I know I’m asking for too much, but you’re the only one I can ask this of.”
“What do you want to ask of me?”
“Death is so present all the time.”
“Valentina, he didn’t die.”
“Any of us could die at any moment,” I declared.
“Valentina—”
“Our lives aren't guaranteed.”
“What are you getting at?”
“If anything happens to me—”
“Don’t talk like that,” Katalina said with an acute panic in her voice.
“I have to plan for the worst. I have to.”
“But—”
“Listen, Kati. If anything happens to me I need you to do two things.”
“Two things?”
“I need you to take my wedding ring off my finger. Please don’t let them bury me with it. Take the ring to my mother.”
“All right,” she said, rushing her words so the conversation would stop.
“The next thing I need you to do—the most important thing is that I need you to take care of Leonardo.”
“What?”
“Take care of him—he’s a good man.”
“I can’t believe you’re asking this of me!”
“You’re the only one I can depend on with this.”
“Valentina,” Katalina said sternly. “If you died, he’d never be able to get over it. Besides, I could never take your man. You’re my friend.”
“Because we’re such close friends, I’m asking this of you.”
Katalina flung her hands up in frustration. “Stop! I don’t want to talk about this anymore! Haven’t we seen enough death? Haven’t I suffered enough with what happened to my best friend and my loving husband? I don’t want to talk about it.”
“I’ll stop talking about it if you promise me you’ll do as I ask.”
“I can’t.”
“Promise me!”
“I—”
“I’m not going to stop until you promise me to care for my husband and child if I’m no longer here.”
“But—”
“Promise me,” I pleaded.
“Valentina,” Katalina said sternly. “I don’t appreciate you cornering me like this.”
“Promise me,” I insisted.
“Will you shut up if I do?”
“Yes.”
“All right,” she said, giving up. “I promise to take care of your family but don’t die, okay?”
“I’ll try my best.”
Chapter 56
“You call Katalina, Kati?” asked a pensive Dr. O’Leary.
“It’s a good nickname, don’t you think?”
“Kati is almost like Kate or Katie,” blurted Dr. O’Leary, a strange tone in her voice.
“I guess so.”
“Her husband’s name was Enrique, right?”
&nbs
p; “Yes.”
Dr. O’Leary sighed. The name Enrique sounded like Enzo. “Strange, very strange.”
Chapter 57: Valentina
The morning of the day you die, you wake up as if it’s a regular day, as if you still have eternity going for you in a body you were loaned. That day was a peaceful day—not even a day of battle.
It was five a.m. and the baby kept moving around, not letting me go back to sleep, so I woke up. Leonardo rested next to me while I stood up, unable to stay in our place of slumber. The dawn was so glorious—I had never seen one like it with an orange so bright that it shimmered as if the sky was on fire and I kept thinking, Wouldn’t it be wonderful for my child to be born on such a day?
“Don’t get near the railroad tracks,” stated Fulgencio, looking a little out of place in his uniform and without his guitar. “They’ll be exploding soon.” He stepped away swiftly to finish whatever business he had.
Destroying the pathways was one of General Villa’s tactics. I started going back to Leonardo, not liking the sound of the explosions—such chaos! But when I turned around, something caught my eye. As I focused my eyesight, I saw a little girl about five years old with hair as black as mine. And she was next to the tracks! Without hesitating, I rushed over to her as fast as my heavy body would take me. Giving her a push so she would start running, I scared her so much that she sprinted with her little legs becoming a blur in front of me. Because of my late pregnancy, I could barely move. The explosion flung me to the ground.
I stood up, shaky and disoriented. Then I realized that there was a dead body lying next to me. When I looked to see who it was, I felt sorry for the unfortunate woman. Her complete stillness unnerved me. I had the tremendous urge to shake her, to see if I could wake her up. I stepped closer to her but then abruptly jumped back.
That the poor woman was me!
I hadn’t recognized my body without me in it.
Chaos ensued and Leonardo rushed to my lifeless shell screaming with such a horrible cry that the whole camp was in despair as to how to help him. Katalina stared at my motionless body, disbelief in her eyes, and frozen in her shock. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to them, I stood nearby, witnessing everything but unable to get myself seen.
Katalina finally climbed out of her stupor and checked my pulse. “Leonardo,” she murmured, sobbing, “she’s gone.”
“No! No, she’s not!” he yelled hugging me tightly to him.
She pulled out a knife from her skirt pocket that had belonged to Enrique. She constantly carried it. In a war, it was necessary to always be armed.
“We’ve got to try to save the baby,” a sobbing Katalina explained with delicacy but with urgency.
“What?” Leonardo blurted, a half crazed look in his eyes as he tightened his hold on me.
“We’ve got to save the baby.”
“Get away from her!”
“I’ve got to get the baby out,” she insisted with an anguished voice as she gripped the knife in her hands.
“No!”
“We have to open her up,” she pleaded.
“You’ll hurt her,” Leonardo snapped, his tear-stained face in a fury.
“I have to do it now,” Katalina persisted. “There may be a chance of saving the baby.”
“No!”
“We have to try.”
“No!”
“It’s what she would want,” Katalina announced with mounting despair as she knelt down next to me. “We have to do this!”
It took five men to get him off of my body and hold him down. Bravely, Katalina took a knife, burned the sharp point, and opened my womb. My baby girl was born—Ofelia, the name Leonardo had already chosen to honor my mother. Ofelia’s fierce cry convinced me she was healthy, and I was so grateful to Katalina for taking the right steps instead of allowing grief to drown her like my own dear husband had.
I know I should’ve left when I saw a white, incandescent light arrive next to me, but I couldn’t go yet. I had to stay and make sure my husband and my child would be fine. I couldn’t leave them under such desperate and volatile circumstances. I stayed and watched. I stayed and tried not to feel the anguish of not being in the flesh with them anymore.
Chapter 58: Valentina
Katalina lived up to her promise and took care of my family, and Ofelia grew healthier with each passing day. Unfortunately, I couldn’t say the same for Leonardo because as our baby grew stronger, he grew weaker. His insides twisted in deformity as he became more and more bitter about my death. With the only light in his world being Ofelia, the only twinkle left in his eyes, he tried to flow with the progression of time.
I wished I could appear in front of him and tell him to go on with his life. Our daughter needed him whole and not the half person he had become. But I was stuck in my dimension not being able to help the people I loved.
Poor Katalina—what a heavy burden I had placed on her. She seemed so lost. Her emotions overtook her. In trying her best to nurture my family, she started placing her shattered love, those emotions left desperate when her husband had died, on Leonardo. Both men had shared several traits. When Enrique was alive, people would often confuse them as brothers. It seemed to me that she was holding on to Enrique through Leonardo, but he wouldn’t respond.
“Katalina,” he said, “I appreciate you taking care of my child and me, but I have to tell you that I’ll always be married to Valentina. I will never be able to pull her out of my heart.”
“I know she’s the love of your life but she’s gone,” Katalina uttered quietly, thinking about how Enrique would always be the love of her life but he was dead too.
“What a disaster,” muttered Leonardo. “Look at my beautiful Ofelia—without a mother.”
“But I’m Ofelia’s mother now.”
“The mother she should’ve had died,” he said bitterly.
How Katalina suffered. No matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get Leonardo to respond to her so they could form the family viciously torn away from her when her husband had passed on. In fact, Leonardo became more distant and quiet. She carried a lot of rejection inside of her—first with her dear Enrique who took a while to warm up to the idea of marriage and then with my Leonardo. Katalina waited for the day her life would fall into a place that made sense, but that day never came. It wasn’t long after my death that Leonardo, not being as focused as he usually was, caught a stray bullet in the chest.
“I’m sorry for everything,” he told Katalina as he gathered his final breaths.
Katalina’s tears flooded her face. “Don’t die, Leonardo.”
“Promise me you’ll take Ofelia back to her grandparents.”
“But—“
“Promise me,” he asked, his voice barely audible. “They need to raise their granddaughter.”
“Yes.”
“I didn't treat you like I should've. I’m sorry. I wish I could make it up to you but I can’t.”
“Don’t die, please don’t die,” Katalina pleaded. “Too many people have left me.”
“Forgive me.”
“Leonardo—“
“Valentina?” he murmured as he started to be able to see me.
“Leonardo,” cried Katalina. “It’s me—Katalina. It’s me.”
“Valentina! You’re here!”
Katalina didn’t comprehend what was happening to him. “Leonardo, what—”
“You’re here! You’re here!” he kept repeating as he stared at me.
Katalina still didn't understand that I was with them. “Leonardo—”
“I’m going with you.”
“Don’t go! Don’t go!” Katalina begged like she had done when first seeing a lifeless Enrique.
Soon after Leonardo had passed from that life, The Ballad of Forever was written and sang by Fulgencio who with the help of his well-worn guitar created the most beautiful song. He always felt partially responsible for what had
happened to me since it had been his explosives that had killed me. Many musicians have played this piece, but no one sang it with such passion as Fulgencio who actually knew us.
The story of Valentina and Leonardo,
two hearts more in love
there couldn’t be.
Two hearts more
doomed to tragedy,
there couldn’t be.
If only they had been given another life,
A life that offered them
the gift of forever together.
His sweet song said it all. And as it became popular all throughout Mexico, lovers tucked it between their loving kisses knowing it all could be taken away much too easily. Meanwhile, Leonardo and I were together—for the moment . . .
That is my story.
Make of it what you wish.
Chapter 59
For once, Kate had arrived home before Enzo. After she had finished with Valeria/Valentina, Kate had had her administrative assistant cancel the few appointments she had left for the day. This was the second time she had done it in recent weeks, and she hated being irresponsible, but she was in no shape to listen to patients. The ending of Valentina’s astonishing story had affected her more than she thought it would, and thoughts fought each other in her mind.
What would Kate do now?
Would she tell Valeria what was really going on in the sessions? Would she play the audio recordings back to her?
What’ll I do?
But it was not only the problem of what to do with the information that made Kate’s head swim. Valentina’s story of love, loss, and an afterlife had deeply touched a nerve. Valentina had had two great loves and each had loved her back. The way she had saved her relationship with Leonardo was to put the cards on the table—to live an honest love. And there was the small matter of Katalina and Enrique. Could Kate have been in Valeria’s past life? It sounded so preposterous, but it would explain Enzo’s reluctance to marry her.
“You’re home early,” Enzo said, surprised as he stepped in the door.
“I think we need to have a heart to heart,” Kate blurted, before she had a chance to lose her nerve.
Enzo raised an eyebrow. “About what?”
“About us.”
He sat down next to her on the black leather sofa. “What about us?”
“I think we need to be more honest with each other.”
“More honest?” he asked, baffled.
“You’ve got a past that’s affecting our present, and you don’t want to face it.”
Forever Hearts Page 17