“I know,” I breathed.
But I offered no apology for what I had said. It was what a deep, selfish part of me wanted: I wanted to steal him away and make him mine. I wanted to keep him always by my side; I wanted his hand clasped, warm and strong, over mine. I wanted him near with an ache that carved bone deep.
And I understood it was not possible.
As I took a step backward, he lifted his head. For a moment, I thought of his face last night, how its lines were softened by the dark. How his eyes had fluttered closed as our linked breathing drew us slowly toward sleep. How young he had looked. How at peace.
Now his eyes were bloodshot, his mouth set in a hard twist that betrayed how he fought to keep his composure.
If only I could speak. If only I could say something to alleviate his pain and mine, but I couldn’t. There was a tempest inside me, thoughts jostling one another back and forth, struggling to be set free: I could say how I would carry him with me always. How he had saved my life and I would be forever in his debt.
How I longed for him to choose me. How I was angry he would not leave everything behind for me.
How ardently I wished for him to never, ever change.
But for all that, I had no words.
In that moment, we were two people standing opposite each other on the road. We had walked it together, holding each other close in the dark, but now our paths forked. His led one way, back to the village, back to his family, back to San Isidro.
Mine led another way: to Cuernavaca. To Mamá. To a wealthy widow’s freedom, a freedom that was so frighteningly my own I barely knew how to hold its reins.
But I would learn how. I would learn to carve my future into whatever I wished it to be.
I had Andrés to thank for that. For believing me when I could not believe myself, for reaching into a nightmare and drawing me to a dawn.
But now the gray mists of dawn had burned away, and day was garish bright around us. He had given me a new chance at life. The only way to repay such an act was to live. I knew the only way for me to heal, to fully live again, was to leave San Isidro behind.
“I will always trust you,” I breathed. “Adios.”
Then I turned my back on Andrés, on Hacienda San Isidro, and stepped into the carriage.
35
ANDRéS
THE CARRIAGE WAS GONE. I knelt in the dust, staring at an empty horizon.
You will learn to feel it. Those were some of the last words Titi said before I left for the seminary in Guadalajara. When the time comes, you will know what is right.
Holding Beatriz in my arms felt right. Giving in, losing myself in her dark hair, in the warmth of her body, the brush of her lips over my skin—that, too, had felt right.
And yet . . . so did this.
All this time, I thought knowing what was right would bring me peace or contentment. Instead, sorrow draped leaden across my shoulders as I watched the empty horizon, every fiber of my being willing the carriage to turn back.
But it was right for Beatriz to leave.
Her need to heal was profound, and I knew it simply could not be accomplished beneath San Isidro’s roof. Yes, I had purged the house of its malice, cleansed its energy. But when I saw the fear that bloomed in her eyes when she looked up at the house, I knew there was nothing more I could do. She deserved a life free of such fear.
I had to let her go.
Beatriz leaving San Isidro would give the hacienda the space it needed to heal. I had sensed when I met her that she was not like the other Solórzanos, and I had been right—but not everyone who lived on this land knew and trusted her as I did. So long as she remained, she would be the symbol of the family that had carved so much damage into the land and its people. For too many generations, there had been a Solórzano to fear in the great house of this hacienda. Too many generations of pain. If the people who owned this land in deed never again lived on its soil, I could only envision peace coming of it for my family and the others who lived here.
But thickness welled in my throat at the thought of Beatriz never returning. Selfishly, I could not bear the idea. Her presence in my life the last few weeks turned my world on its head, pulled me out of my festering resentment for the Solórzanos and into action. It was her intercession that had ended my banishment and brought me back home. Without her, who knew how long San Isidro and my family would have suffered from haunting and hacendado alike.
Slowly, I rose. My limbs were stiff; my head ached from a night of little sleep. My eyes burned from tears shed and unshed, from the dust the carriage left in its wake.
It was right for Beatriz to leave. Just as it was right for me to stay here, on this land, with the people who needed me most.
That did not mean saying goodbye would be easy.
* * *
*
IN THE WEEKS THAT followed Beatriz’s departure, I often sought solace in the house. During the siesta hours, when I knew Paloma and Mendoza would not be frequenting their realm—a small drawing room off the kitchen in the main house repurposed for their bookkeeping and general use—I would walk the path through the front garden, up the low steps, and into the shadow of the threshold.
One day, six weeks after Beatriz’s farewell, I entered the house and felt a tug of awareness from the rafters. I closed the front door behind me, surveying the dim foyer with narrowed eyes.
The door of the green parlor swung open with a low creak. An invitation. A quiet beckoning.
The house wanted me to go into the room. With Do?a Catalina gone, it went through phases of deep sleep and sentience, the latter frank and guileless, if occasionally prone to mischief. I was not afraid as I walked straight to the green parlor and stepped through the open door.
A white envelope lay on the carpet in the center of the room, its intentional placement and the contrast of paper against dark green rug capturing my attention.
How odd. Paloma and Mendoza were not fond of this room, and therefore it was unlikely they had forgotten any of their bookkeeping notes here. Though weeks had passed since the night of my failed exorcism, the night the darkness unleashed its full fury on me, the walls of the room still hummed with my touch. Memories swirled through my mind as I drew near: Juana slouched in this chair ignoring the hacendados, Do?a Catalina resplendent as a demon in the firelight. Mariana flinching away from me. Beatriz sitting on the flagstones when the parlor was bare; her face, framed by dark wispy curls and illuminated by candlelight, open and unafraid.
You’re a witch.
I savored the memory of her voice. The way her whisper held a profane, exquisite power over me, how its brush could send an aching trill down my spine.
When I was near enough to make out the name written in a looping, thin hand, I froze mid-step.