Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [111]
“I can’t reconcile your upbringing in Spain,” Elena ventured, “with your life here.”
“Yes, sometimes I have the same trouble.” Ana smiled. “But remember that I spent much of my childhood on Abuelo Cubillas’s farm, even if his only involvement was to look out the window and wonder whether or not it would rain.” She laughed. “Other people did the work.”
“You have people, too,” Elena said. “Nuestra gente.”
“Sí, they work hard. So does Severo Fuentes. We all do. Maybe it’s wrong that I’ve come to love a place so far from where I was born, but now it’s impossible for me to imagine myself anywhere else.”
“But Ana, you and I—”
“I’m not leaving Hacienda los Gemelos, Elena.”
“Let me stay with you, then.”
Ana took Elena’s hand and removed her right glove. “Look how soft your hand is, how clean and unblemished. Now look at mine.” It was tanned, wrinkled; the nails were sturdy and ragged. “You don’t belong here, mi cielo, and I don’t want to belong out there.” She replaced her glove, tugged the lace frills tight over Elena’s wrist, and fastened the tiny pearl button. “Take care of Miguel so that doña Leonor doesn’t turn him against me.”
“She won’t do that.”
“She’ll try. I haven’t been a very good mother. You’ve noticed, and so has she. I’m not a bad person, Elena, but doña Leonor hates me. Miguel needs to know that someone loves me.”
“Ana, you’re tearing my heart in two—”
“And mine.” She stepped back and looked at Elena as if she were about to sketch her. “This is how I will remember you, mi amor, in my garden, surrounded by flowers.”
“We will see each other again, Ana, please say we will.”
“We will, but until then, write often. Let me know how Miguel is doing. Someday Hacienda los Gemelos will be his. Don’t let him forget it, or me.”
The rickety coach was loaded in the Los Gemelos batey before dawn exactly one month from the day it arrived. Inés carried the half-asleep Miguel and nestled him among the pillows and blankets she’d arranged on the seat.
“Adiós, papito.” She kissed his forehead. “God bless you.”
Eugenio and Severo tugged on the ropes that tied the luggage to the roof, while Leonor and Elena counted parcels and checked that their valises didn’t go under the tarp. When everything was ready, Leonor kissed the air near Ana’s cheeks and climbed into the coach as if she couldn’t wait to leave. Elena hugged Ana.
“I’ll write, but don’t worry about responding. I now see how busy you always are.”
Eugenio also embraced her, then stepped back and held her shoulders. “You let me know if there’s anything you need,” he said, “or anything we can do for you. Will you promise?”
“Yes, don Eugenio, thank you,” she said humbly. The retinue moved out of the batey, led by Severo.
Ana waved until the coach was out of sight before she climbed to the house. She blew out the candles on the wall sconces and opened the wooden shutters to the dawn. She could still faintly hear the creaking wheels, the horses and snorting mules that were taking the Argosos away.
As she opened the door to the back stairs, she stumbled on a parcel on the top step. In the soft light it appeared to be a small bundle of laundry inside a dirty cloth. She picked it up by the knot and almost dropped it when it moved.
“It can’t be,” Ana said aloud, but her hunch was confirmed when she untied the cloth and found a tightly swaddled baby inside. “Flora!” she called, and the maid ran from the kitchen. “Look! Someone left it on the steps.”
“Ugly baby.”
“Get some clean rags; these are filthy. Bring warm water.”
Ana knelt just inside the threshold and undid the swaddling. It was a girl with a pinched and narrow face. Her legs were bowed, too short for a torso that was twisted into an unnatural curve because of the already obvious hump over her right shoulder. Scratches around her upper back, neck, and cheeks showed that whoever delivered her struggled with an umbilical cord tightly wound around her short neck.
“Is miracle she’s alive,” Flora said when she looked closer. “She dead by the last bell,” she predicted, shaking her head. “Maybe better that way,