Valentina closed the door to the children’s room. “Why did you come when you knew Vicente wasn’t home?”
“Can’t I visit my grandchildren?”
“You never did before.”
“There’s always a first time.”
He was standing so close to her, she walked around him to the kitchen.
The table stood between them.
“I like the way you look at the table.” Raúl passed his hand over the tabletop. “Two beautiful things.”
“It is beautiful, I thank you for it.” Valentina put on her apron.
“May I sit?”
“You may.”
Raúl sat in the chair. “Won’t you offer your father-in-law a cafecito?”
“Yes, of course.”
Valentina’s hand shook as she filled the enamel coffeepot with water. She added ground coffee from Raúl’s own trees to the strainer basket. She went to the lean-to, carrying the coffeepot to el fogón; she flicked a match and lit the kindling before setting the coffeepot on top of the stones.
“You’re really a jíbara now.” Raúl leaned back in the chair.
Valentina busied herself with the preparation of sofrito. Vicente had made her a wood cutting board; she minced cilantro and recao and added them to the pilón. Aji pepper.
“You probably never even knew what a fogón was until Vicente brought you to el campo.”
Two cloves. Valentina smashed the knife’s blade against the garlic.
“If it bothers you so much, you could buy me a stove like the one Gloria has.”
“That could be arranged,” he said.
She didn’t look up. She minced the onion using the wrist-and-hand movement Gloria had taught her.
Raúl took a handkerchief out of his pocket and held it to his nose. The fragrance of fresh herbs and coffee filled the silence between them.
“There isn’t any milk.” She added the onions to the pilón.
“Not even for the children?”
She didn’t answer but went to get the coffeepot and then she prepared his coffee, adding two teaspoons of precious sugar. She served the coffee. She thought, as she always did, that Vicente would look like his father in another twenty years, with a little silver at the temples.
“I don’t think Vicente would like you visiting me when he’s not home.” Valentina pounded the pestle in the pilón. “And what if someone saw you and started talking bochinche?”
“I like the way that sounds,” Raúl said, sipping his coffee.
“What? People spreading gossip?” She paused, the pestle in her hand.
“Me visiting you.”
She looked into his eyes, so much like her husband’s. “Don Raúl, you’ve been very kind to us, but please drink your coffee and then go. You don’t want to regret anything.”
“I don’t think I would regret it.”
“Don’t.”
The pestle still in her hand, she went to the window and stared at her favorite flamboyán tree. It had recently blossomed with flowers so deep a red that the tree appeared to have burst into flames. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Orchids grew in wild and glorious profusion where she dumped the dirty dishwater. The birds sang and the rooster crowed en el batey as it stalked the hens. When she heard the chair scrape on the wood floor again, she turned around, the pestle raised.
“Are you going to beat me to death?” Raúl Vega stood by his chair.
She felt herself blush. He hadn’t moved any closer. He respected her position as his son’s wife. Finally.
“Come, we’re family.” Raúl Vega held out his hand.
She was ashamed that her hand trembled; he gripped it for too long. She breathed in the scent of his tobacco, the smell of his horse; she felt his heat, the physical power of a laboring man.
If only she trusted him.
“I’ll just finish the coffee.” He sat back down in the chair, his legs sprawled as if he were in his own house.
They heard Javier call out, and she turned toward her son’s voice, sighing with relief.
Valentina left the kitchen and went to the children’s room.
“Is Don Raúl here?” Javier was standing up in bed.
“You mean your abuelo.”
“Is Abuelo here?”
“Yes, but not for long.” Valentina untied the ribbon from Javier’s ankle. “Is your sister awake, too?”
“Evita’s gone,” the little boy said.
“Gone?” She peered into the empty coy, then flipped it upside down, as if the girl had done a magic trick. Valentina picked up her son and ran to the kitchen.
“Evita is gone!”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Raúl Vega took the boy from her.
“Gone! She’s not in her bed!”
“Tranquila, Valentina.” Raúl put a steadying hand on her arm. “Have you checked the other rooms?”
She dashed to the other rooms, calling out the child’s name. She looked under her bed and inside the large trunk that Elena had sent with her things and where she now kept the family’s clothes. She checked the small balcón in the front of the house. No little girl.
Raúl and Javier had followed her outside. “No te pongas histérica, Valentina. We will find her. Maybe some neighbor took her as a joke.”
“A joke! Kidnapping a child is a joke?”
“It’s not kidnapping, only a practical joke. It’s an old country custom for neighbors to take a little child like Evita—”
Valentina grabbed her father-in-law’s shirt. “Find my baby!”
Raúl Vega told them to stay in the house while he searched for the child, but Valentina ran out with her son in her arms. They—even Javiercito, who thought it a game—called out “Evita” again and again.
Much later, Raúl Vega returned to the house carrying the little girl, the yellow ribbon dangling from her wrist. He’d found Evita facedown in the stream.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
MARIPOSA
The silence was what broke her—not hearing Evita calling out mariposa for the chair, mariposa for the table, mariposa for her brother, everything mariposa; it was the loss of the little girl just learning to say “Mamita, Mamita”; it was not hearing all the words Evita would never learn. The first days, Valentina kept to her bed. Gloria came to care for her while Angelina and Inés took Javiercito home with them. That first night, Vicente cried with her, promising that they would have other baby girls. Then came the days of shadow. Morning when the rooster crowed and the birds performed their concerts, she knew it was a new day, but what had happened to the day before? What had happened to the night?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
EL TIEMPO MALO
Utuado
October 14, 1893
Dear Elena,
I write with terrible news that our sweet baby girl Evita was drowned. A tu hermana le dio un ataque de nervios pero casi está bien. Las damas have helped us during Valentina’s nervous breakdown. Mamá takes care of Javiercito, and Gloria takes care of Valentina. You don’t need to worry. Please give your parents the sad news.