“Soy Eusemia,” she said.
A hammock dangled from the ceiling. The door was against the wall. In the back room he saw a crude bed, the mattress stuffed with corn husks instead of feathers. There was a wood box that held clothes or whatever else they possessed. A few articles of clothing hung on hooks—a dress with a torn hem, a little boy’s shirt.
Vicente took a seat next to Raulito on the wood bench. The boy was eating beans and boiled green banana with a wooden spoon.
“I live here.” Raulito’s mouth was full of guineo. “Where do you live?”
“Down the mountain.” Vicente waved his hand.
Eusemia poured water from a gallon with Aceite de Italia embossed on the label into a cup made from a coconut shell.
The little boy pointed his spoon at his mother. “That’s my mamita. Do you have a mamita?”
“Yes.”
“A papá?”
“Yes.” Vicente wished that he could deny his father.
“Your papá lives with you?”
“Yes.”
“My papá comes and goes.”
“Hush.” The boy’s mother set a plate of beans and green banana in front of Vicente.
The little boy tapped his spoon on the table. “A spoon for Vicente! A spoon for Vicente!”
Eusemia took the spoon from her son and handed it to Vicente.
Vicente was ashamed to take it. He would get her another spoon—two—from his mother’s kitchen when Gloria wasn’t looking.
“Gracias,” Vicente said.
“¡Gracias! ¡Gracias! ¡Gracias!” Raulito sang.
“Aren’t you going to eat, Eusemia?” Vicente ate some beans.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
Only later would Vicente realize that Eusemia had given him her meal.
Neither his father nor his mother would have approved, but Vicente was drawn again and again to that little shack up the mountain where the soil was too rocky to plant coffee. He was careful that his visits did not coincide with his father’s.
Whenever Vicente visited, Raulito would rush his legs and knock him down. The brothers would laugh as they rolled together in the dirt. Sometimes he would bring small gifts. A favorite was a toy boat with a cloth sail that had once belonged to his older brother. Raulito set the boat on the water in the rain barrel.
“Raulito should learn to read and write. A maestro ambulante taught us to read and write when we were his age.” Vicente recalled the traveling teacher in his threadbare clothing, whom his father had hired for a few cents plus room and board.
“Hijo, I can’t read or write,” Eusemia said. “No one in my family ever learned.”
It annoyed him that she called him “son.” Shame came next. It had never occurred to him that Eusemia might not know how to read or write. On his next visit he brought paper and pen and began to teach both mother and son the alphabet.
Vicente realized that he’d been standing in the batey for some time. Tomorrow he would take Valentina to meet Raulito and Eusemia. He would work very hard to please his father so that soon he and Valentina would have a little house where they would live together happily ever after.
CHAPTER NINE
BROTHER, SISTER
Vicente sat with the damas at the table while Gloria served them their morning café con leche. When he informed them that he was waiting for Valentina to finish dressing so he could take her up the mountain to meet Eusemia and Raulito, he didn’t expect their response.
“¡Dios libre!” his mother said.
“Raulito’s mother? That’s not a good idea,” Inés said.
“Not good.” Gloria brought the pan in which she had mixed together black coffee, milk, and sugar.
“I promised Valentina I would take her.”
“Óyeme, it’s not that you can’t take your wife to meet Eusemia.” Angelina passed Gloria the porcelain cups.
“No?” Vicente reached for a piece of bread.
She served her son his coffee.
“I know that shack, it must be falling apart.” Inés passed him a jar of Gloria’s homemade lechosa preserves.
“And you’re going to shame Raulito’s mother by bringing your young bride there?” Angelina reached for Vicente’s bread and spread the jam on it for him.
Vicente munched on the bread, talking with his mouth full. “I don’t see what all the fuss is about.”
“That’s because you’re a man and you don’t understand women.”
“Eusemia might be embarrassed and you wouldn’t want that,” Inés said.
“I don’t know about Eusemia pero yo me abochornaba.” Gloria brought a pitcher of fresh-squeezed jugo do toronja. “I thank God that I don’t live in a bohío.”
Vicente looked at the trio of women and they stared back at him, willing him to acknowledge that they knew better.
“Bueno, I’ll think of some other way for Valentina to meet Raulito.”
“I’m glad to learn that sometimes you follow your mother’s advice.” Angelina spread jam on another piece of bread for him.
Valentina couldn’t understand why Vicente had changed his mind about taking her up the mountain to meet Raulito and his mother. What did las damas have to do with it? Why was it their business? She had been so looking forward to the outing. But then he promised her a picnic by the river. He’d be back in a while, don’t go away, he’d said, as if there were anywhere else she could go.
As Raulito waited for his brother under a mamey tree, he reached up and plucked a white flower from among the dark green leaves. Already it had been a good day because Vicente had come up the mountain to get him and given him a ride on his horse. He’d left him under the mamey tree, promising to return with a wonderful surprise. Maybe Vicente was bringing pasteles. Last year during las Navidades, his brother had brought them pasteles—la masa made from a mixture of yuca, calabaza, and guineos and filled with a savory mixture of pork and olives and raisins—and his mother had cried when she’d eaten it. He rushed over, scared: she’d never cried before. Eusemia told him that the pasteles had tasted like something dropped from heaven, and that it had made her wish that her mother Ysabel were still alive.
Vicente rode up on his horse with a lady sitting behind him, her arms around his waist.
The lady waved.
He waved back.
“This is your surprise, Raulito.” Vicente dismounted and helped the lady down.
“The horse?”
Vicente and the lady laughed.
“Mi mujer,” his brother said.
Raulito looked down at his feet.
“Hay que lindo,” the lady said.
“This is Valentina, mi mujer, your new sister.”
His brother’s smiling wife embraced him. Raulito didn’t know what to do with his hands. No woman had ever embraced him, not even his mother.
“I always wanted a brother,” she said.
“Mi hermana.” Raulito never knew he wanted a sister until now.
Valentina’s laugh reminded Raulito of water cascading over the rocks in a certain part of the river.
“Bring the goodies,” his new sister told Vicente.