Her father-in-law congratulated Vicente on his bride and gave her a chaste kiss at dinner como nada, as if nothing had ever happened.
Gloria served the chicken and rice that Valentina had helped her make.
“¿Arroz con pollo, Gloria? It’s not Sunday,” Raúl Vega said.
“La doña ordered it specially.” Gloria looked at Angelina.
“It must be to celebrate the newlyweds.” Inés ate a forkful.
“Thank you, Mamá,” Vicente said. “Valentina, wasn’t that thoughtful of my mother?”
“Muy amable,” Valentina said to the arroz con pollo.
The meal was eaten in silence. Valentina kept her eyes on her plate, afraid to look up and see everyone staring at her. Afterward, Doña Angelina called Vicente to her side as soon as they entered the sala. Valentina sat next to Inés as she worked her mundillo lace, straining to hear Vicente and his mother over the tapping of the wood handles. Why was her mother-in-law whispering? Perhaps she knew that her husband had seen Valentina? Maybe Gloria had seen her father-in-law enter her room. When Valentina heard Vicente return from the finca, she’d hurried to remove the chair and put on her dress. She had greeted him como nada, but what if she had said, Vicente, this is nothing to get upset about. It could have happened to any woman—to Inés, even to Gloria. And perhaps Vicente might have laughed it off and told her these things happen in a family house. But what if Vicente said, What do you mean my father came into the room? Why were you taking a sponge bath? Why were you naked? Why did you leave the door open? No? You’re sure that you didn’t leave the door wide open? She could have tried to explain, He must have been looking for you, yes, I’m sure he was looking for you. But what if Vicente said, My father has never looked for me! I go to him! ¡Coño carajo! ¡Que falta de respeto! I will kill him! So, what good would it have done to tell Vicente? Or Doña Angelina? Or even Inés? It would have caused a big revolú within the family. No one would have thanked her. It was certain that Doña Angelina wouldn’t like her any better. Once something like that is revealed, something must be done about it. And what would that be? Vicente would fight with his father? His father would banish them from his house? Throw away Vicente’s chance at his own coffee farm?
So she didn’t tell him.
That evening, Vicente and his father smoked outside on el balcón. Bats flew over their heads and around them, whizzing by in the blink of an eye; the sweet smells of the night flowers like la dama de noche lingered in the air. The moon was crescent-shaped, and Vicente thought that he would ask Valentina to come out and see it with him.
“Explain yourself,” Raúl Vega said over the incessant chant of the coquís.
“Papá, there’s not really much to say. I met Valentina and I couldn’t stop thinking about her so I had to marry her.”
Raúl Vega took a drag on his cigarette, flicked ashes over the banister. “You had to marry her? ¿Ella está encinta?”
“Of course not!” How dare his father!
“¿Entonces . . . ?”
Vicente looked at his father. “Papá, if you could give me a bit of land, just a few cuerdas, I could build Valentina a house and start my own coffee farm.”
“Hombre, I’m not a rich hacendado like my father was. Once, half this mountain belonged to Don Luis Manuel. He paid five dollars a cuerda. Maybe less.” Raúl Vega stubbed out his cigarette against the balcón’s railing.
“I don’t need a lot, just a few cuerdas, five or six—”
“And what will you do for money to build this little house of sueños? How will you buy the coffee bushes? Or even the coffee seeds?”
“But you helped my brother.” Vicente squashed the cigarette butt with his shoe.
“When Luisito married, las cosas no estaban tan malas como hoy,” his father said.
“When do you think things will get better?” He studied his father in the moonlight.
“¿Quién sabe?” His father shrugged.
Vicente hurried past the sala and didn’t stop when his mother called out to him. Valentina followed him to their room.
“What is it, Vicente?”
“Give me water,” he said.
Her hand shook as she poured water from the pitcher on the bureau. “Before you start thinking crazy, remember that there is an explanation for everything.”
“What are you talking about?” Vicente took the glass and drank a few swallows.
“What are you talking about?” Valentina drank the rest of the water.
“We’ll stay here,” Vicente said. “Maybe in a year or two we can build our house.”
“A year or two? Your father won’t help us?”
“I don’t know if he can,” Vicente said.
“Live in this house with your parents.” Valentina sank down on the bed.
She stared at the empty glass in her hand.
“I’m no better than a peón.” Vicente sat next to her. “You’ll probably regret marrying me.”
When Vicente couldn’t sleep, he got up from their bed as quietly as he could, so as not to disturb Valentina. As upset as he was, he couldn’t help smiling at the loud chant of the coquís; that first night Valentina had asked him to check under the bed, sure that there was a coquí family in residence. When he’d reminded her that there had been coquís in Ponce, she’d said not like this, not an invasion of coquís.
He let himself out of the house and stepped into the night fog. He couldn’t see the stars or even the moon but if he followed a certain trail up the mountain, he would come upon a familiar bohío.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BROTHER
Years ago, Angelina had known that her sons would hear talk around the mountain, so she told them herself: their father had another son from a young girl descended from la familia Cortés, the people who had once owned half the mountain. Vicente, still a boy, went up the mountain to find them.
A black girl only a few years older than Vicente stood in the opening where the door made of plant fiber had been removed. His mother would say that she was very pretty for a black girl. Vicente thought her beautiful, but he saw that she was missing all her front teeth; he didn’t know that due to poor nutrition, many jíbaros lost their teeth before they reached adulthood.
A small child pulled at his sleeve.
“I’m Raulito,” the boy said.
Little Raúl.
Vicente looked at his father’s namesake. He was black like Eusemia, not a mixture of black and white—pardo—as he had expected. But the boy had his father’s hazel eyes—his, Vicente’s, eyes. The boy laughed at Vicente, merry bubbles escaping from his open mouth. This child, this happy child, was his father’s child with this girl.
Vicente took off his hat. His father was such a bastard.
“A la orden,” he said, polite as any caballero. “Mi nombre es Vicente Vega.”
“I know who you are,” the girl said. “You look just like him.”
Vicente looked down at his hat.