“Don’t bother. I can get there on my own,” I said. I wasn’t used to all these servants at my beck and call. Cristóbal and I had lived in a minuscule apartment in Sevilla with barely enough room for the two of us and our plants. I’d done all the cooking myself and Do?a Candelaria, our landlady, sent her maid once a week to wash our clothes and tidy up the place.
Nodding, Julia collected the used cotton balls and placed them inside the basket.
“Julia?”
She lifted her eyes to meet mine.
“Have you worked here long?”
“It’ll be four years in December,” she said.
So, she’d met my father. And probably the burned man, too.
“Don Martin showed me a house today destroyed by a fire. Do you know who lived there?”
“The foreman and his family, but I vaguely remember them. I’m always at the house.”
“You don’t know their names?”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I was touched by what happened to them. Maybe something can be done for those poor people.”
“They left after the fire.”
She collected her things. I had to get more information from her before she left, like who else lived in this house.
“One last thing, Julia. Is Do?a Catalina married?”
“No.”
“But she’s so pretty. She must have a lot of admirers.”
“If she has any, I’ve never met them.” She examined me in silence as if to determine if I was trustworthy or not. “You’d best stay away from her. La Ni?a Catalina is considered a saint around here.”
I smiled, but Julia’s frown left no doubt that she wasn’t joking. I didn’t know if I was more amused by the fact that she thought I had a romantic interest in my sister or by the saint comment.
“A saint? Why?”
“She saw the Virgin when she was a child.”
I wasn’t sure if I perceived contempt or admiration in her tone.
“Where did she see her?” I asked, swallowing the word “allegedly.”
“She appeared in her room. She sent a message through her to all the villagers.”
“What message?”
Julia finished collecting her things. “You’ll have to ask her personally.”
Without another word, she left the room. I’d only heard of Virgin apparitions in books and legends, never in real life. I wondered what my father thought of this saintly daughter of his. Did he, like Julia, believe this to be true? Or had he been a skeptic, like me?
CHAPTER 9
Catalina
Three months earlier
Angélica hadn’t spoken to me in two days. This was not uncommon; she had one of those terrible tempers, just like our father—though she would never admit to it. This time, though, I didn’t blame her for her anger. It must have been an abysmal blow to her ego to know that our father had left the majority of his assets to a sister we’d never met.
What I wasn’t expecting was to see her poking her head inside my bedroom with that charming smile of hers. Angélica hadn’t been to my room since we were little girls. Even then, I was always the one who followed her around the house.
“What is it?” I asked, ignoring my good manners.
She opened the door wider and stepped inside with Ramona on her shoulder. I was surprised not to see Laurent trailing behind Angélica like a shadow. His vocation in this world, it seemed, was to please my sister in every one of her whims.
“What? I can’t stop by to say hello?” She slithered toward my bed and sat next to me. “What are you reading?”
I flipped my copy of Fortunata y Jacinta so she couldn’t see the cover. Benito Pérez Galdós was on the Vatican’s list of forbidden authors, but I was infatuated with this story. I’d waited years to get the book. What an odyssey it had been.
“Is there anything I can do for you, hermana?” I said.
“Actually, yes.” Her delicate fingers traced the outline of my book, my favorite one, though Angélica had no idea. She didn’t know a thing about me even though we’d spent every day of our lives under the same roof.
“Well, how do you feel about our father’s will?”
I shrugged. I’d never had any expectations of inheriting. I supposed that was why I hadn’t been too surprised with my father’s last wishes.
“I know you’re not an ambitious woman and you’re more content with . . . spiritual matters. But don’t you see that a big injustice has been committed on our behalf?”
“The world is not just. Look at what happened to our Lord, Jesus Christ.”
“I agree.” She stretched her arm in my direction with feline grace and rested her hand on mine. “But I worry about you, Catalina. What’s going to happen to you when I’m gone? You know that as the oldest, I’ll probably die before you. What are you going to do without the protection of a husband? We both know that our brother can’t be of service to you. Who knows how much longer he’ll stay in this parish. At any moment, they could send him away.”
I didn’t want to hear anything about husbands. The subject was one that hurt and embarrassed me—I was the only woman my age who hadn’t married in all of París Chiquito.
“But things don’t have to be that way,” she said.
My patience was growing thin, but I couldn’t bring myself to be rude to Angélica. It was a remnant of my childhood to always strive for her approval. To have my beloved, older sister in my room, paying me attention, had been my biggest desire as a child. She’d always been so sophisticated, so confident, the most popular girl in Vinces. At seventeen, there had not been a day when she didn’t receive an admirer or at the very least, a gift. It had been maddening.
“And I think I have the solution,” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Hermana, can’t you see? With Purificación’s part of the inheritance, we could have a meaningful dowry for you. You could finally get married!”
“At my age?”
Who would want to marry a twenty-three-year-old spinster?
Angélica let out a laugh, which reminded me of so many of those childhood years when she would beat me at cards.
“Catalina, dear, you’re at your prime! You’ve never been more beautiful. The only reason men don’t approach you is that they don’t want to be damned for eternity. It can be intimidating for a man to be with a woman like you, the woman our Holy Mother has chosen as her messenger.”
Heavens, I was so tired of hearing how saintly and pure I was!