“¡Besos! For shame!” Mamá said.
“¡Basta!” Papá raised his hand. “Valentina, do you realize this young man’s family might not approve because he is so young? It could put you in a very bad situation.”
“I’m sure his family approves,” Valentina said. “Otherwise he wouldn’t be here.”
“He’s so young,” Mamá said. “He still works for his father.”
“Papá works for his brother-in-law,” Elena said.
“That’s different,” Mamá said.
“I like that he’s young,” Valentina said. “I can help him.”
“You!” Mamá said.
“You!” Elena said.
“I’ll be a good wife,” Valentina said.
“I don’t know—” Papá shook his head.
Valentina took her father’s hand. “Vicente will work hard for me. I know he will.”
“How do you know that? You know nothing about him,” Mamá said.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” Valentina said. “I promise that we will have a good life.”
“I hope so, Valentina.” Papá looked into his younger daughter’s eyes and saw something in them he’d never seen before, was it determination? “Bueno, if you’re sure this is what you want, I will give you my blessing.”
Valentina embraced him. “Thank you, Papá!”
“¡Teodoro!” Mamá grasped her husband’s arm.
“From now on, she’ll be her husband’s responsibility,” Papá said.
“Que Dios te bendiga.” She made the sign of the cross on her daughter’s forehead.
Elena looked straight into her sister’s eyes. “I wish you all the luck in the world, Valentina. You’ll need it.”
•
It all happened so quickly—a whirlwind wedding because the young bridegroom had to attend to his coffee plantation, and his mother was on her deathbed—or so Valentina’s mother would say to anyone who asked. All that was necessary was to pay for the priest’s services and for the wedding license at the ayuntamiento. Elena helped with the wedding dinner, very small, only their close relatives—again, the mother on her deathbed—and she promised to send on Valentina’s things to the bridegroom’s home up the mountain in Utuado. And then there was the wedding night. No fancy house for la luna de miel, as Valentina’s friend Dalia had enjoyed. Instead, los novios retired to the bride’s childhood bedroom. Vicente stood in the doorway peering inside at the bed covered with the white bedspread, at the frilly touches in the girlish room. He was twenty-one years old and he’d never been with a woman before. His father had often laughed at his lack of romantic encounters; perhaps it was because his father had so many that Vicente had never been interested in fleeting dalliances.
“Aren’t you coming in?” His bride, wearing the gown she’d worn for Dalia’s wedding, stood by the bed.
He stepped into the room and closed the door.
“¿Vicente?”
He straightened his collar with a trembling hand.
“Don’t be scared.” Valentina took his hand.
“I’m not scared.”
“I am,” she said. “Un poquito.”
“So am I,” he said. “A little.”
She laughed. Vicente laughed because she was laughing, this strawberry girl who was now his wife.
He helped her undress, unbuttoning the buttons and untying ribbons, taking care that his farmer’s hands did not snag on the delicate gossamer of her gown. He took out the pins from her hair. She helped him with his shirt and pants.
“Bésame.” She inclined her face.
He kissed her.
They fumbled that first time they made love; he squeezed too hard here, her elbow poked his eye. Afterward, they lay on their stomachs without touching, cocooned in the bed sheathed in mosquito netting.
“It wasn’t anything like in books.” Valentina brushed her hair from her face.
“You read about this in books?” He twirled a lock of her hair around his finger.
“You didn’t?”
“I dreamed about it.”
“Me, too.”
“You did?” Vicente propped himself up on his elbow, taking a closer look at his bride.
“Don’t be so surprised!” She laughed at him.
“¿Y qué? It was better in the books?” La vergüenza if she said yes.
“¿La verdad?” She propped herself up on her elbow, taking a closer look at her new husband.
He took a few seconds to answer. Did he really want to know? He was discovering how much he cared about her, and it scared him a little.
“The truth. Even if it stings,” he said.
“Yes, better for the woman,” she said.
He looked in her dark eyes; he wanted to spend his life looking into them. “Show me, I want to learn.”
Valentina took his hand. “Touch me like this.”
He did.
Later, she asked, “When did you decide you would come for me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? That’s not very romantic.”
How could he explain what he didn’t understand? That he hadn’t known he needed her until he got Elena’s letter?
“We’re husband and wife now; that doesn’t matter.” He leaned against the headboard.
She lifted the mosquito netting and got up from the bed. She poured water into a glass from the pitcher on the dresser. After she drank it, she refilled the glass and brought it to him.
“Why did you wait so long to come for me?”
“I had little to offer you except for my strong arms.” He drank the water.
“I like your strong arms.” She touched them.
“You smelled like strawberries.” He set the glass on the bed table.
She grinned. “Mamá dusted my breasts with strawberry-scented powder.”
He bent to kiss them.
They listened to the roosters crowing morning.
“So this is the room you grew up in?” Vicente’s whisper tickled her ear.
“Elena and I shared it until she married,” Valentina said. “What will our home be like?”
“Querida, we’ll have to live at my parents’ for now, sleep in the room I once shared with my brother Luisito until he married.” He hoped that she wouldn’t be too disappointed, because the similarity ended with the mosquito netting over the bed.
“How long do you think that will be?” She sat up, and the bed covering fell to her waist.
“Bueno, that all depends.” He didn’t want to tell her about the complications, not on their first morning together.
“On what?”
“Querida, let’s not get up yet? We should rest a little before we start home to Utuado.” He drew her back into his arms.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LUNA DE MIEL
The newlyweds set out in the delightful early December weather. Elena tried to calm Mamá’s fears that she would never see her youngest daughter again, despite Valentina’s assurances that she would make the trip down to Ponce three or four times each year. Mamá handed Valentina a parasol, and Elena gave her sister riding gloves, because how would it look to her in-laws if Valentina arrived with the sunburnt hands of a laundress? Mamá’s parting warning was that Valentina wouldn’t want to arrive at her in-laws a brown girl and have them think that Vicente had married a parda.