Valentina looked up from the newspaper and found everyone staring at her.
Utuado
December 1, 1900
Dear Elena,
Prepare yourself for terrible news—we are leaving Puerto Rico for the Hawaiian sugarcane fields. No queremos, pero Vicente no tiene otra opción. Ay bendito, Elena, to think that I’ve fallen so low. I can’t help feeling ashamed. I wish—oh, I don’t know what I wish! Yes, I do know—I wish for a miracle.
Raulito and Gloria have chosen to come with us. We leave from the port of Ponce on December 26th. I was last in Ponce so many years ago, I’m sure I wouldn’t know it. I would like to take a last look at our hometown, walk by our old house, and show our children where their mother came from, but we are to be picked up by oxcart and taken directly to the harbor. Elena, how I wish that I might embrace you and our parents one last time, that I might kiss your children that they might know their Titi Valentina, and for you to kiss ours so they might know their Titi Elena.
Siempre,
Valentina
PART THREE
HAWAII
CHAPTER FORTY
¡ADIÓS, PUERTO RICO!
The oxcart driver slept on the floor of la sala because traveling at night was dangerous. Before dawn, the oxcart was loaded with the family’s possessions. The children carried their bundles laughing and chattering, they were so excited about their new adventure. At the last moment, Gloria refused to climb into the cart.
The old woman threw herself on Valentina. “Ay Valentina, no puedo, hija, I can’t.”
The children jumped down from the cart; they wrapped their little arms around the old woman, everybody crying.
Valentina patted Gloria’s back, making soothing sounds even as she wanted to beg her to keep her promise. How could she leave her behind, Gloria who had been like a second mother to her, who had taught her how to be a good country wife, who had cared for her like a daughter when Evita died, holding her hand in silence on days so unbearable that if Gloria hadn’t anchored her to the earth, she might have drowned herself in the river.
“I will write to you, Gloria, and tell you how we are so you won’t worry.” Valentina hugged her tighter, feeling the woman’s frail bones through the thin fabric of her dress, Gloria who had been plump and round once upon a time.
Gloria raised her tear-streaked face. “Hija, you know I can’t read.”
“Raúl will read my letters to you. Won’t you, Raúl?” Valentina called out to Raúl.
Raúl came over to the women, a package in his hand.
“Don’t worry, Gloria, I’ll read all of Valentina’s letters.” He handed Valentina the package. “I had Gloria pack up things that Inés made.”
Valentina pressed the package to her breast. “Raúl, thank you!”
Raúl took her hand; she let him hold it for a moment.
“Que te vaya bien, querida.” He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. With a little bow, he went into the house.
Vicente came and put his arm around Gloria’s shoulders. “I’ll miss you.”
Gloria cried some more.
“I wrote to Luisito. He’ll come to see you and el viejo.” Vicente kissed the old woman.
“Ay Vicente . . . Vicente . . .” Gloria pressed her face into his chest.
The children gave the old woman a final hug and ran back to the oxcart.
Raúl Vega came back carrying a machete.
“Raulito, come here,” he said.
Raulito had been helping load the oxcart; he obeyed, standing next to his brother.
“This is for you.” Raúl held out his machete.
Everyone looked at the machete that no one but Raúl Vega had ever used.
Raulito took it. “Gracias, Don Raúl.”
Raúl nodded.
The oxcart driver called out that it was time to leave. In a flurry of kisses and goodbyes, Raúl Vega embraced his grandchildren and then Vicente and, of course, Valentina. At the last moment, he shook Raulito’s hand.
Vicente sat next to the oxcart driver while Raulito sat with the children on top of their bundles. Valentina perched on her trunk, which Vicente said was too large to take on the ship; she turned back to look at the house that had been her home on and off for the ten years of her married life. She waved and waved to Gloria and Raúl, blowing kiss after kiss, sending pieces of her heart back to her old life. When the oxcart took a curve on the road and the house and its occupants were no longer visible, Vicente reached for her hand, giving it a quick squeeze.
The mist lifted on the horizon, revealing an orb of orange fire, its tentative rays spreading across the sky as blue as any sea. The road was still in terrible condition even more than a year after the hurricane, and Valentina felt every bump. She recalled that other journey, when she was a young bride holding onto her new husband, riding with him on his horse, when everything had been green and golden. When Evita died, she’d thought there could be nothing in the world that could hurt her so much. She still knew that to be true even now, but still . . .
The children wanted to see the big town of Ponce and the house where Valentina had been raised. And hadn’t she told them about a big red-and-black firehouse, and that Ponce had the prettiest plaza on the entire island? That Ponce is Ponce! When she didn’t answer the children’s questions, Vicente turned around to look at her and told the children to let their mother rest. When the oxcart climbed the steep slopes, the children screamed in terror and delight. Vicente pointed up the mountainsides and told them how before Hurricane San Ciriaco, people had built everywhere, some had even perched their bohíos at the very edges of the cliffs, the way some birds build their nests.
When they reached the town of Utuado, peddlers were just coming to market; the children waved to mounted police on their way to rout the homeless families sleeping en la plaza. They drove by the yellow stucco Parroquia San Miguel Arcángel. The children recalled the day they’d had a picnic. What day was that, Papi? Vicente didn’t say that was the day utuadaños went mad over the rumor that Spain had bombed New York and was winning the war with the Americans. Instead he said, Wasn’t that a fun picnic? We’ll stop for lunch and have another, would you like that, niños? Of course the children said yes.
The oxcart driver didn’t want to stop to see the view of Adjuntas from the mountain road, but Vicente spoke to him in a voice the children had never heard before, a voice that reminded everyone of Raúl Vega. They climbed down from the oxcart; Vicente lifted Valentina by the waist. Clouds wafted like waves in the sky above the mountain range; golden dry splotches scattered along the green valley below.
Vicente pointed over the valley. “There were groves of giant shade trees and every other kind of tree. Remember, Valentina? Flamboyanes and palmas and—”
“I’m cold,” Javier said.
“I’m cold, too,” Lourdes said.
“Wrap yourselves in the bedding.” Valentina linked her arm through her husband’s.
Raulito took the children back. Valentina and Vicente stood there for another minute looking out into the valley; in the distance they imagined the sea.
When they passed the trail to Lares, the oxcart driver said he was born there. He shook his head when Vicente asked him if his family had fought in el Grito de Lares.