Abigail’s gaze followed a pair of wet legs to the childish shape of a prepubescent girl with a nose full of freckles and a yellow cap. Oh, great. It was the little brat. She’d seen her before; she was always the loudest and most obnoxious of all the kids in the pool.
Squinting against the sun’s rays, Abigail shielded her eyes with her hand. “That’s none of your business.”
“How come you always sit by the edge with that stupid floater? How come you never swim?”
Abigail stared at her own pale legs—they were never exposed to the sun long enough to get a tan. It was humiliating that this girl, younger than she was by at least four years, could swim. That was perhaps the worst of all her problems with this place—this irrational fear she had of the water.
“You’re a chicken,” the girl said.
“That’s enough,” Abigail said. “Get out of my sight, niñita majadera!”
She turned her back on the girl and glanced at the people in the pool. But before she realized it, she was among them—in the water; face down, wet, light against the thick water; her body loose, unsafe without her floater. She kicked randomly with legs and arms, realizing—perhaps too late—that the insufferable girl had pushed her and she couldn’t reach the pool wall with her hand. She tried to yell, but a gush of water broke violently into her mouth and down her throat. She coughed, but instead of sounds, she produced an assortment of bubbles, which now blinded her view of the pool’s surface. Her body sped downward, toward the bottom, until she could only hear the noises inside her own head, the painful pressure in her sinuses, her ears ready to explode. She couldn’t breathe, she’d lost all control of her body; she’d lost her long battle with death, the battle that had started as a little girl with painful injections and hospital rooms. She shut her eyes, now certain this was the end of her life, thinking how unfair this all seemed. But then a force that she recognized as a hand, or maybe two, gripped her arm, her waist, her now loose hair. She felt a bare shoulder, an Adam’s apple, an arm, and she held on to a neck with one hand as her body ascended as quickly as it had descended.
Her emergence to the surface was an attack to the senses: a bright light shone in her eyes, yells hurt her ears, the tastes of salt and sulfur scorched her tongue. A pair of hands—the hands that saved her—pulled her slippery arms onto the hard edge of the pool; fresh air filtered through her nose. Oxygen. She was breathing again. She shut her burning eyes, lightheaded from the heat of the water, from the movement around her. She was still alive. Or was she not? Someone lifted her up. She was floating. But bodies didn’t float; only souls did. She tried to open her eyes, to assess whether or not she was truly being elevated from the pool, but she didn’t have any strength left, not even in her eyelids.
In a matter of seconds—or had it been hours?—she was lying on a rough but warm surface. She opened her eyes to see a blurry face leaning toward hers. It was an angel, an apparition of some sort. Only an angel would have eyes that blue, skin so light, a voice so soothing. As her vision sharpened she discerned that it was a man, a young one, perhaps sixteen or seventeen, and he was saying something, except that she couldn’t understand him. There were too many other voices mingling with his. He leaned over. Was he going to kiss her? Of course, it was the only way. It had happened to Sleeping Beauty and Snow White. Their princes brought them back to life with a kiss. She shut her eyes, for there was nothing else to do but receive that imminent first kiss of love.
She stiffened as his lips touched hers, but instead of a gentle encounter like the ones Amanda had talked about, he blew air inside her mouth and squeezed her nose with his fingers. No, this kiss, or whatever it was, couldn’t be considered a kiss of love by any stretch of the imagination. She brought her hands to his bare chest and pushed him away.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you couldn’t breathe.”
Oh, but he was an angel, for sure. Never before had she seen such a perfect creature. He was lean and his straight nose was sunburned. His mouth was bright red and still moist. Running his hand across his dripping hair, he asked if she was fine, and the sound of his voice was music.
She focused on his Adam’s apple, the one she’d felt under the water, and nodded. Resting her hands on the concrete floor, she attempted to push herself up, but her arms were still weak. Gently, he placed his hand behind her back and pushed her to a sitting position. This close, she could get lost in the brightness of his blue eyes. She wanted to thank him, to ask his name, but Pepe, the pool supervisor, pushed him aside and leaned toward her.
“What happened to you? I told you not to remove your floater!”
It was an unpleasant change of scenery to have this man’s sweaty face and his foul breath in front of her. His loud voice hurt her ears.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Pepe yanked her up by the arm and asked if she needed help getting home. Abigail searched for her savior among dozens of wet heads, but he’d disappeared through the crowd as quickly and as unexpectedly as he’d appeared under the water.
Abigail asked the curious bystanders if they knew him, but nobody had seen him before, or had any idea of where he went.
She returned the next day, and the day after, and continued going for the next three months, but there was no sign of him. She could no longer follow conversations or do simple school work. Not even the prospect of Ana’s wedding or her new dress excited her. Her mind was occupied with a single goal: to find him.
At the pool, she asked about the young man, talking to anyone who would listen, describing every detail, every nuance of his serene face until the point where she couldn’t be certain anymore if her mind had fabricated his features. Did he really have that deep shade of blue in his eyes? Had his wet torso really brushed again her chest? Had his mouth been on hers for a split second? She questioned if he’d been real. Had she even fallen in the pool? Pepe never mentioned the unfortunate event again. No one else did. Not even the little brat who pushed her into the pool and never spoke to her again.
No, he had been real. And she would find him. Eventually. It was not a choice; she had to see him again.
Chapter 15
Sebastian stared at the breakfast sitting in front of him: a piece of stale bread, a hard-boiled egg, and a watered-down coffee, no milk. Blowing on the coffee was unnecessary; he hadn’t warmed it long enough. It was flat-out cold. He bit a corner of the bread, but it was about as appealing as chewing on a shoe sole. The egg wasn’t any better; the yolk had turned green from overcooking it. His stomach growled in protest.
“Where is Juanita? I need a strong coffee,” his mother said as she walked into the dining room—her hand resting on her forehead, no makeup on, and still wearing her golden robe.
“You fired her.”
She tied the robe’s belt around her waist. “I did?”
“Last night, remember? She couldn’t find your shoes for the party.”
His mother sat down. “Of course I remember. She was so incompetent.” She sighed. “I guess I’m going to have to find another maid.”
Sebastian ditched the bread. “No, you’re not.”
“What?” Her eyes widened. “Am I supposed to cut down on that, too? You already took my chauffeur and sold your father’s car!”
“What do you expect me to do? Papá left me nothing but debt. Besides, a chauffer in San Isidro is unnecessary. One car for the both of us is enough. I can drive you around. Or teach you, if you’d like.”
She picked up Sebastian’s cup with a bitter laugh. “You expect me, Ofelia Vásconez de Rivas, to drive? I suppose you want me to cook and clean, too?”
“I told you, it would only be for a short time, until I pay off our debt.”
She took a sip from Sebastian’s coffee and grimaced. “Fire someone from the paper!”
“I already did!”
“I’m not cooking or cleaning. I don’t even know how.”
He straightened out his collar. “Fine. I’ll cook and clean.”
Sebastian rubbed his temple. What was he going to do with this woman?
“Sebas, mi amor, think about it. This is a big house. There is no way I can keep it without help.” She flashed her red nails.
He sighed. “Fine, let me think about it. But I’m making you a budget.”
“Fine,” she said, though they both knew she wasn’t going to follow a budget. “But let’s change the subject. I hate talking about money. What did you think about last night?”
He had nothing to say about last night, at least not to her.
“I thought Claudia looked lovely,” she said. “What a difference with that … Liliana, Lili, whatever her name is. I can’t believe María Teresa raised a daughter like that. Did you see the dress she was wearing? That cleavage, my God!”
Cleavage? Of course, Sebastian hadn’t been able to look at anything else the entire evening. He tried to picture what his fiancée had been wearing, but couldn’t remember.
“That girl is a walking catastrophe! She tripped twice with her heels.”
Sebastian stood up. Hunger was preferable to listening to his mother. He hated the spiteful tone in her voice, the innate harshness women had toward each other. She didn’t even know this girl and was already criticizing her.
He headed for the foyer, nearly tripping over his mother’s latest purchase: a metal sculpture of a life-sized angel so ugly that initially Sebastian had thought it was the Devil himself—until he realized it was missing the horns and the tail. His mother had bought it the day after his father’s funeral. Sebastian didn’t understand how she could’ve thought about her art collection the day after she buried her husband of nearly thirty years.
In the courtyard, he walked by the concrete fountain and absently wet his fingers with the cold water, the way he did every morning.
He’d finally been able to place that girl: she was the one who entered the cheap hotel with Javier. Seeing her with Claudia’s brother last night reminded him of where he’d seen her first. And it only meant one thing: Javier and Liliana were lovers. It was just a matter of watching how possessively he held her arm, the way he pulled the chair out for her, and how he constantly paid her attention. But it must be a secret. Rafael and Ana would never consent to having Javier’s girlfriend under their same roof. The only logical conclusion was that the family didn’t know about their relationship, which was probably why the two of them met at hotels. But why wouldn’t Javier just propose? Why would he take a family friend to a hotel, and such a nasty one at that? The other detail that didn’t fit into the equation was Claudia’s explanation for Lili’s visit. She’d said her family had sent her to San Isidro to keep her away from her married lover, yet Javier was single. Or did she mean another lover?
Sebastian lit a cigarette, contemplating the circles of smoke as they dissolved with the air. He’d known Javier since their high school days. Back then, his future brother-in-law had had the reputation of being a womanizer. Sebastian could understand that; he could understand certain biological urges, too. But this was different. Liliana was the daughter of Ana Platas’s best friend, and yet he was treating her like an easy woman.
What a pity—such a sweet girl. Sebastian had been touched by the way she cared for Mamá Blanca last night—rubbing the lady’s arm during dinner, covering her with a wool poncho when she fell asleep in the living room, talking to her in a soothing voice. He’d never known a woman to be so gentle. Not even Claudia.
Sebastian stopped in front of the Iglesia de Santo Domingo as soon as he spotted Claudia’s unmistakable gait outside the church’s double doors. Sometimes, like today, he had to look at her feet to make sure she was stepping on the ground and not floating. The grace of her movements had always fascinated him. But not today. He didn’t want to approach her, especially because that girl, Liliana, was walking beside her.
He waited by the light post until the girls got lost among the crowd, in the direction of the Platas home.
Chapter 16
Malena wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. She would not get caught sneaking into the courtyard again. She would wait until Javier returned home before leaving Claudia’s room. But the wait was excruciating. It was already midnight and he wasn’t back yet. Her exhausted body relaxed under the covers and her eyelids closed every few seconds, comforted by the sound of Claudia’s soft snores. Did Javier have to go out every night? Couldn’t he ever spend an evening at home? If only he had a more predictable schedule, she could have been to the courtyard and back already.
As she drifted into sleep, something woke her. Was that the front door? She stiffened under the covers, listening to the noises in the hall: someone whistling and juggling keys, the floor squeaking under heavy steps, and finally, a door shutting.
Once the house was silent, Malena stepped out of Claudia’s room with only a candle in her hand. She tiptoed down the stairs and into the dining room, the piece of paper in her brassiere brushing against her skin. That little piece of paper, so close to her heart, was the answer to a question that had been pounding in her head for the past few days.
She stopped in the kitchen to pick up a large wooden spoon from a drawer, then slipped outside. It was cold and the pavement felt rough under her bare feet. She knelt by the lemon tree. The soil was harder than she remembered; digging with the spoon wasn’t easy. She set the candle on the ground so she could use both hands and dug deeper, looking around the patio every so often to make sure nobody was around, not that it did much good—as dark as it was. She had no idea what she would say if someone found her out here. The sleepwalking trick probably wouldn’t work this time. Worse yet, the black plastic bag was nowhere to be seen. What if someone had found the accounting notebooks and thrown them away?
She scooped with her hands, frantically, almost in a panic, until she felt the plastic bag with her fingers. She pulled it out, tore it open, and took one of the accounting notebooks out. She moved the candle closer to her leg and removed the piece of paper from her brassiere—her father’s goodbye note, the last memory of him—and compared the handwriting with the script in the book.
It was identical. The same left slant, the oversized capital letters, the same curly tail at the end of the s, the tilted line crossing his t’s.
On the bottom of the page was the accountant’s signature: Enrique Hidalgo. Again, the accountant’s signature matched her father’s writing. Was it possible that this man, this Enrique Hidalgo, was her father? She knew he’d been an accountant before becoming a math teacher. But why would he change his name?
She examined the date at the bottom of the page. November 10, 1941, the year prior to her birth. No, this couldn’t be a coincidence. The writing, the timing, the profession, it all coincided, and besides, nobody ever mentioned Hugo Sevilla. Trinidad hadn’t even heard the name before.
Enrique Hidalgo must be her father.
The paper trembled in her hands, her fingers numb. Her father had lied about this, too. She hadn’t even known his real name. She read his note, the last words he had written to her.
Dearest Malena,
I know I was never the father you deserved. I hope one day you’ll forgive me for that and for what I’m about to do. I just can’t run away anymore.
I’ve always loved you.
Papá
Nothing about his deceit, about his lies. She crumpled his note and would have dumped it in the trash if she had one nearby, or if she had the certainty that nobody would find it. Instead, she returned it to her brassiere, fighting her tears. Her entire life was a farce, from beginning to end. Worse yet, she wasn’t any better than him. Wasn’t she doing the same thing?
Mechanically, she removed another notebook from the bag and leafed through it. The same names and the same writing repeated throughout. Enrique Hidalgo had to be him. She tried to remember what her grandmother had called him when Malena was little, but “hijo” or “your father
” were the only terms she recalled.
She returned both notebooks to the plastic bag, and her fingers brushed against a soft fabric. Ana’s handkerchief. She pulled it out of the bag, remembering now Rafael’s accusations, remembering now the initial sewn on it. Yes, it was the letter E, as in Enrique, as in her father’s real name.
Before she could draw any conclusions, before she could grasp the full meaning of her discovery, she caught a glimpse of a dim light coming from one of the upstairs rooms. She couldn’t tell whose room it was, afraid as she was to turn her head toward the source of light. She froze, like a rabbit waiting for its predator to act first.
With her peripheral vision, she discerned a figure standing behind the curtain, probably watching her, discovering her. Her instinct told her to blow out the candle, to run back into the house, to hide, but her body was paralyzed. If she remained still, she hoped, maybe she would become invisible. Seconds passed until she could no longer hold her curiosity. Her need to know was a force stronger than her good sense. She turned her head toward the window, but the figure—if there had truly been one—was gone. The gauzy curtain stirred gently in the night breeze. A second or two later, the light went out and the house turned completely dark again.
Chapter 17
Ana, 1940
The basket was heavy and Ana could feel drops of sweat on her forehead. She squeezed Javier’s tiny hand and took longer steps. Only one more block to go. She could’ve handled the heat or the pain in her legs, but not Rafael’s anger. If lunch wasn’t ready by the time he got home, she would get the silent treatment—at the very least—and she couldn’t stand his indifference. She quickened her pace in spite of Javier’s complaints.
“Mami, I’m hungry!”
Ana ignored him. It was already twelve thirty and Rafael expected his food on the table at one. No delays. Javier freed his hand from her grasp and stopped. What now? She squatted to his level. Javier pouted, his eyes watery. Oh, no. Her son’s screams would echo all over the block at any second. She had to do something! As she grabbed a pear from her grocery basket, she felt a piece of paper underneath and pulled it out. Without taking her eyes from the paper, she handed Javier the piece of fruit.
The Sisters of Alameda Street Page 13