She announced this as if she were the host and not I, as if the house were hers and not mine. I bit back the retort that sprang to my lips.
The animosity between my husband and his sister, the fact that Juana was such a curiosity to Do?a María José and the other hacendados’ wives, the rumors about the departed María Catalina . . . there was so much I didn’t know about Hacienda San Isidro.
So much that Juana did.
If she warmed to me, if she saw me as unthreatening to her way of life here, perhaps she would confide in me.
I would find my place as lady of the house. I would make it my own. But I could not risk alienating Juana, not yet.
I followed as she strode into the house.
“How do you like it?” she wondered, her chin tilted up, gaze skipping over the high ceiling of the entryway. It was an idle question, perfectly innocent on the surface, but something uncertain lurked beneath it.
“It’s . . .” I let the word trail off. Juana turned and faced me, the evening light from the open doorway illuminating her face, dancing off the flyaway bronze hairs that had come loose from their knot at her nape. Her wide, pale eyes met mine so frankly I couldn’t help but respond in kind. To say exactly what I was thinking as I untied my hat and took it off my sweaty hair. “I want to blast the roof off. It seems like the only way to let in the amount of fresh air I want.”
A peal of surprised laughter burst forth from Juana. It swept up to the high ceiling, tangling in the cobwebs. “I thought Rodolfo said you were a general’s daughter, not of an artillery man.” A warm curl of pleasure had unfurled in my chest at making Juana laugh, but it cooled quickly. Rodolfo had told her about me—why hadn’t he told me a single thing about her? What other secrets was he keeping from me about San Isidro? About his first wife?
“What other violent plans do you have to clear the air?”
What I wanted to do was take a tlachiquero’s machete to the walls to carve more windows.
“Color,” I replied curtly.
“What if the house doesn’t like color?” Juana teased. Was she toying with me or trying to be friendly? In the capital, women played chess with their words, moving coyly around china and silk to check one another, to protect their territory, to take one another off the board. I had never been close with anyone but Mamá—even my cousins and friends from before Papá’s death were sharp clawed and evasive, keeping me at bay with barbs and sideways looks.
“The house will like what I tell it to like,” I said, folding my arms across my chest. Because it is my house, I added silently. “We will start with blue.”
Juana’s thin lips vanished as she grinned. “I like you,” she said bluntly. “What shades of blue do you have in mind, General Beatriz?”
My folded arms loosened. My experiences since my father’s death had laid stone after stone in my chest, building walls so impenetrable that Mamá commented on how hard it had become to reach my heart. But still, I liked being told I was liked.
I waved to Juana to follow me to the stairs. “I brought silks from the capital,” I said. “Blues the likes of which you’ve never seen.”
A moment of hesitation, then Juana’s boots followed me down the hall.
She did not speak, so I filled the silence by lecturing her about what I would do with each room as we passed. I would model the dining room after ours in the capital, where Papá and Mamá once hosted generals; the parlors I would decorate in colors that would please Mamá, like soft yellows and pinks.
“I lied about the house being drafty,” Juana said in a small voice as we took the stairs. I cast her a look over my shoulder. Her face was drawn; she followed right at my heels, but her attention slinked down the wrought-iron banister to the northern wing. “The truth is . . . I am overwhelmed by it all. There is so much to do,” she said. She continued, her voice brightening and picking up speed. “There used to be so many people here, in the old days,” she said. “I remember it before the war more than Rodolfo does. It was always full of people when our parents threw parties. The kitchens were teeming with servants, and the house was always spotless.”
“Where are all the servants now?” I opened the door and led her into my bedroom parlor, listening carefully as she continued.
“I dismissed them,” Juana said curtly. “We couldn’t afford any of that during the war. When our father died and Rodolfo joined the insurgents, I was the only one left. None of the hacendados would help me after what Rodolfo did—imagine, a Solórzano joining the insurgents. He may as well have joined the Indios ransacking the haciendas. Our father was well respected in the district, but after that?” She shook her head and made a dismissive sound.
Her voice raked over the words Indio and insurgents derisively. I clicked my tongue softly in disapproval. For a moment, I weighed pointing out that those same people were the forces that all the conservative hacendados and monarchy-supporters had joined in the end of the war, that those insurgents were now the men who ruled the Republic. Those same people were the ones who made peace possible, thus allowing Hacienda San Isidro to continue to profit from the sale of pulque. They made Juana’s life possible. I glanced over my shoulder to see her features had settled into a stony, determined expression; I thought it better to bite my tongue.
“It was up to me to keep the hacienda running. Ana Luisa was my only help,” she continued, oblivious to my silence. “I had to manage the money carefully. It was that or sell the land.”
I understood the decrepit state of the house more now. It wasn’t that Juana cared more for maguey than for the garden. She neglected the house that had been in her family for generations because she would do anything to keep the land. An hacienda like this was freedom. I, too, had sacrificed to have autonomy like hers in my grasp.
Perhaps she and I had more in common than I initially thought. Perhaps we would not have to battle over the property—perhaps we could be allies. Even friends, despite our differences.
I knelt before the chest that held my silks. I had a deep blue skirt, one of the few things Mamá purchased for me before I announced my engagement to Rodolfo. I had been angry at her for spending our precious savings on something so frivolous as a birthday gift, but now I wanted to use its color all over the house in her honor: chair covers, china, glass. A click of the lock; I opened the chest.
“Jesus Christ!” Juana cried, her boots scraping against the floor as she leaped backward.
Dark liquid soaked the silks in the chest. I could not move; a metallic tang filled my nose. Sent my head spinning. My silks. Gifts from my mother, artifacts from a life I no longer had, that I clung to, that I treasured.
They were . . . wet. How was that possible? It had rained on the carriage as we drove through the mountains two weeks ago, but the chests had been covered.
I reached—
“Don’t touch it!” Juana shrieked.
My fingertips met sticky warmth. I drew them back sharply.