Conquistadora - Esmeralda Santiago [135]
He often thought that he was a man whose every dream had come true. He’d dared to strive and rise above his class, to marry a lady, to make a fortune. He now rode a fine gray Andalusian horse named Penumbra and dressed like the well-established country gentleman he was. He also knew the price he’d paid for his dreams. His neighbors considered themselves his betters because one or two generations separated them from the manual labor that his parents endured. They resented his acumen in business. Many faltered and came to him for loans that they failed to pay for the same reasons they needed them in the first place. He’d expanded his holdings from their insolvency. Arrogance, purity of blood, and noble descent didn’t guarantee an ability to manage men and a business.
He was thirty-two years old and had fulfilled his responsibilities as a son, and a year after his marriage, he was ready for the next phase in his life. He was a good husband and friend to Ana, he’d settle her in the luxury she deserved, and he expected that she’d deliver sons to carry their names. His internal voice had told him there would be a son, so he’d given her a year to get to know him, and to learn to love him, although he was sure she didn’t know it—yet. Severo Fuentes was a patient man.
This Sunday morning he decided to take a look at the new house, neglected since the hurricane. As he expected, the path was overgrown, trees toppled across it, so he dismounted several times to move trunks, chop branches with his machete, and lead Penumbra up the muddy slope. When he finally reached the top, he was pleased that, while there was much debris over the grounds, the sturdy walls of the house held.
A flock of dead birds lay on their side on the porch, their bodies decomposing. As he walked around the unfinished rooms, he found more birds smashed against walls, three snakes, centipedes, and a goat. He fashioned a stiff broom from branches tied with bejuco and swept the dead creatures, the leaves and twigs that the wind blew into the corners, and the piles of rubble over the side of the hill.
Since Ana had last seen the house, the walls were within a row of where they’d eventually stop. The crossbeams were stacked behind the property. The tejas for the roof couldn’t be made on-site, but he’d ordered them from Sevilla, and expected to receive word any day that the ship carrying them as ballast was docked in Guares. The walls were formed from Puerto Rican clay; the azulejo floor and the roof tiles were being fired in the city where Ana was born. It was the kind of detail he hoped she’d appreciate. She was an educated woman; she would understand the poetry of his choices.
Sweeping, cleaning, Severo thought about the conversation of the previous night, but no matter how many times he went over her words, he always reached the same conclusion. It pained him that Ana, even as she reached for him in their bed, would refuse a gift he’d been working seven years to give her.
The house was cleared now, and Severo began the journey to the valley. Instead of heading for the batey, however, he led Penumbra toward the familiar path leading to the line of palms along the sea. Consuelo’s cottage still stood near the beach, the hammock still tied to the porch rafters. Parts of her garden were damaged, but the rest was intact. He brought Penumbra around the back, tied him up, and entered the gate.
“Consuelo, mi consuelo,” he called, and she emerged from the cottage, as unsurprised as if she were expecting him, even though it was over a year since he’d last visited.
“Adelante, mi amor.” Her throaty voice was honey, and as soon as he climbed the porch steps he felt at home.
After Severo left, Consuelo rolled up the hammock and picked up around the cottage. She knew that Severo would come back to her, just as the pirate Cofresí always returned to her mother. Severo married la gran dama de España, as the jíbaras called her, but men were men. No matter how grand their ladies, they always sought consuelo.
Over the months