Evenings for Angelina were the worst, especially when she sat at the table, the candle burning down to the saucer, the dirty dishes from dinner in front of her, Gloria hurrying to remove them, chiding Angelina like any mother for leaving food on her plate, for sitting in the dark as if she were awaiting a visitation from los espíritus. Why was she moping? She had no reason to mope when life was so much better for her than so many others como los hambrientos, wouldn’t she agree, Doña Angelina? So what if her husband was a mujeriego, always a different woman, that’s how Papá Dios made los hombres. They probably couldn’t help themselves, and anyway, lots of mujeres had problems like that; it wasn’t a curse, just la vida. Or so she thought, since she’d never been lucky or unlucky enough to have a husband herself, but from what she’d seen in her fifty years or so of living, she wasn’t sure how long, because her mother couldn’t remember quando nacieron los bebés, she had so many, and nobody bothered to write it down, claro, nadie podía escribir, what was she trying to say? That, from what she observed, it was better to keep your mouth shut and go about your cosas like la señora did, sí señora, calladita, not a word, la vida tranquila es más importante que los amores. (Gloria pointed to herself. She had a calm life.) So count your bendiciones, señora, starting with your health, and then this house, and your sons. Are you finished with that cigar?
Angelina handed her the stub; Gloria drew it to her lips and smoked it.
One morning, Angelina was drinking coffee when a peón came to the door to ask for Don Raúl.
“Don Raúl ordered me to go to la casita.” El peón pointed up la montaña. “Did el don have special instructions?”
“My husband has a house up the mountain?” Angelina’s gaze followed his finger.
The jíbaro looked at the straw hat in his hands. Que metida de pata he would tell his wife that night. The trouble he’d caused to Don Raúl and maybe to himself with his big mouth!
Angelina stared at the bohío. This was where Raúl had his assignations? No, no podía ser. After all the years of Raúl’s pocas vergüenzas, his many affairs that she had heard about from Gloria, who heard all about it from la lavandera or one of the peones or fulano or fulana, and thought it her duty to tell her. Angelina didn’t care, but she couldn’t help but be curious to see where Raúl conducted his assignations. Bejuco vines secured the palm frond roof to a frame of poles. Because it was day, the hut’s door had been removed and propped against a wall; at night, it would be set in place and fastened with vines or rope. El peón waited outside en el batey, while Angelina entered como la ama de casa, as if it were her own house, because, in a way, it was. She was careful where she stepped on the uneven wood plank floor, not the usual dirt floor of a bohío. Light came from the doorway; there was no window. A bird with a long beak flew inside and took a turn around the hut.
El fogón sat on top of the crude wood table. There was a bench instead of chairs. Two cups, a coffeepot, and a cracked blue pitcher stood empty. A tin gallon with Aceite de Italia embossed on the label was filled with water. Angelina lifted it by the wood handle nailed to the top and poured a cup. Kitchen and eating utensils hung from the ceiling on long strips of emajagua vines. Sacks of coffee beans leaned against the straw walls. Angelina carried her water to the second room, which held a cot and a small clothes trunk. More sacks of coffee beans. She shook her head. Ay, Raúl, still so practical, even in your love nest. She had her hand on the trunk when a young blonde entered, her arms full of flowers. The blooms splashed red and pink and yellow on the faded blue of her dress.
“You must be Doña Angelina,” the woman said.
“Mujer de Raúl Vega.” Angelina came into the front room. “And you are?”
“I’m Inés Quiñónes.” She set the flowers on the table. “It won’t take me long to finish here.”
Angelina heard the lisp in the woman’s Spanish like that of a Spaniard.
“Doña, con permiso, but Don Raúl’s orders?” the peón called out from the doorway.
“Don Raúl wanted you to help me with my trunk.” Inés arranged the flowers in the pitcher.
“¿Por qué te vas?” Angelina looked at the pretty woman over the rim of the cup.
“Your husband told me to leave.”
“Another woman?” Angelina drank water.
Inés shrugged.
“Have you family?” Angelina noted the woman’s worn dress.
“I’m that most tragic of women. Una viuda,” Inés said. “No children.”
“You’re a widow?” Angelina frowned. “And your mother, your father?”
“No mother, no father,” Inés said.
“Where will you go? A woman alone.” Angelina set the cup on the table.
“Maybe someone in town—”
El peón cleared his throat. “Doña Angelina, the day is passing and Don Raúl—”
The bird flew out.
Angelina beckoned. “Take the trunk to my house.”
“Your house!” El peón’s hat slipped from his fingers. “Don Raúl’s orders—”
“Your house!” Flowers slipped from Inés’s fingers onto the table. “Doña, perhaps you should think it over.”
“Don’t worry about Raúl,” Angelina said.
“Él se enojará. His temper—”
The women exchanged glances.
“You haven’t anywhere to stay,” Angelina said.
“Perhaps I should apologize about your husband and—” Inés fumbled with the flowers.
“No te preocupes,” Angelina said. “My heart isn’t broken.”
Sometime later, she would confess to Inés that on that day, she’d thanked God for her husband’s pocas vergüenzas.
CHAPTER FIVE
ONCE UPON A TIME
Only through the grace of God, and only because the groom was making a toast, had Valentina’s absence gone unnoticed by her father. Mamá, of course, scolded her again the next day. Valentina, are you paying attention, señorita? She should fall to her knees and thank Papá Dios that no one noticed that she went off with a man! A stranger! Some fulano de tal! For shame! Yes, the stranger was guapo, but what was a good-looking man without money? A woman soon tired of a man without money. She had heard that he was only a farmer and lived on a mountain. Somebody had said there was something funny about the father—or was it the mother? It didn’t matter. Who wanted to live on a little farm anyway, especially up on a mountain, when they could live in Ponce? ¡Ponce es Ponce! If the mother of Juan Moscoso—Valentina, how could you!
Never in his life did Valentina’s father imagine speaking to his daughter on a subject of such delicacy—especially in the girl’s bedroom.
“Papá, the bread man is here.” Valentina looked out the window.
Together, they watched Valentina’s mother select a loaf from the enormous straw basket balanced on the bread man’s head.