As soon as I walked into the foyer, Ramona flew toward me and landed on my shoulder. She seemed to have taken a liking to me. Interestingly, she never approached Laurent. She repeated something I couldn’t understand, something that sounded like the word “lobo.” From the parlor, Angélica greeted me and invited me to have a drink with her.
I sat down, clutching a glass of whiskey. What could she want to talk to me about? She’d never showed much interest in me. She had at most offered me food and drink and asked if my accommodations were to my liking. But that was about it. We’d never had a regular conversation, an exchange of ideas.
“Where is Do?a Catalina?” I asked by means of breaking our cumbersome silence.
“Sewing. She has to finish our dresses for next week.”
“The town’s festivities?”
“Yes.”
She took a sip of wine.
“Don Cristóbal, I’d like to thank you for your help during that . . . unpleasant episode with Don Fernando today.” Somewhat flustered, she explained that he’d been her fiancé for a brief time, but after the breakup, relations with the family had turned sour. She mentioned the fencing issues, the lawsuits, and the problem with the German client.
After her long explanation, she leaned forward. “It was touching to see the way you attempted to defend us, but why did you do it?”
Us? The last person on my mind had been Angélica. I just couldn’t stand to see him beating Martin.
“It’s what my wife would’ve wanted,” I said. “She had a strong sense of justice.”
In a way, I was not lying.
Angélica’s face lit up. “Tell me about her, about my sister.”
It was so rare to hear her call me “sister.” She always referred to me as María Purificación, that very formal name I despised especially when pronounced in that sanctimonious tone. It reminded me of the times my school teachers had scolded me for being bad (“Ni?a María Purificación, stop distracting your classmates.”). But today, Angélica had used her sweetest tone to call me “sister.” With that angelic expression on her face, it was hard to believe she would ever plot to hurt anyone, especially her own flesh and blood.
What was happening to me? At times like this, it was hard to sustain my anger. What if none of my siblings had ordered Franco to kill me? What if it had been someone else, someone I didn’t even know about? But no, I shouldn’t continue with that line of thought. I didn’t want to face the possibility of what that meant about me, about my actions.
“What would you like to know?” I tasted the whiskey which, oddly, was growing on me.
“Did she ever talk about us? Was she happy to come?” Her eyelashes were thick, her eyes of an unusual transparency.
“She didn’t know about you,” I said honestly. “Your father never told her he had a new family.”
She smoothed the creases on her peach charmeuse skirt. “I thought she knew. My father never hid her from us.” She kept her gaze on her lap. “Perhaps because she was his only legitimate daughter.” Her last words were spoken in a whisper.
Was that jealousy I was perceiving or just sorrow? In spite of her legitimacy or lack thereof, I’d been the one who grew up without him.
“Puri was excited to come,” I said. “She’d dreamt about visiting this land all her life.”
Angélica set her glass on the coffee table. “How sad that she died so young. I’d like to have met her very much.”
There it was again—the stab of guilt. In an odd way, I wanted her to be the culprit; it would ease the remorse of my imposture. But I had no way of knowing if she was being truthful or not. All I knew was that at that moment, I had a strong desire to tell her the truth—she was bound to find out anyway. Martin could tell her who I was at any given moment.
“There’s something I must tell you,” I said.
“What?”
There was something about her reaction: the slight crease between her brows, the sharpness of her tone, the sudden shift of her knees away from me—something that made me reconsider what I was about to say. If I told her the truth, then what? I recalled the feel of Franco’s rope against my throat, the knife threatening Cristóbal, the snake in my bed. No, I couldn’t confess while I was living under this roof. Not when things were so unclear to me.
“Yesterday, I received word from Panamanian authorities that there have been some complications with Puri’s death certificate and it will take a little bit longer for the documents to arrive.”
She didn’t move a muscle.
“I wouldn’t want to impose or take advantage of your kindness any further so if it’s more convenient, I can find accommodations in Vinces.”
“Of course not,” she said. “You’re no bother, Don Cristóbal. Why, we barely see you around here.”
I thanked her and added, as a truce, “I would like to reciprocate your kindness with a small token of my appreciation, something that I’m certain my Puri would’ve liked very much.”
*
I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing chocolate drinks and truffles for Laurent and my sisters. Just like Martin and Bachita, my sisters were in awe as the beans transformed in the mill. Laurent, not so much. He said he’d tasted better in his native country (“It must be the ingredients. They are purer in France.”). But my sisters didn’t care about those details and they didn’t even bother waiting for the truffles to cool down completely. They were captivated and ate chocolate until their stomachs ached. I forgot I was supposed to be on guard around them and laughed as they licked their fingers—all etiquette gone—and their mouths were filled with chocolate. If only my father would’ve brought me here when I was younger, I would’ve grown up with these women. How lonely I’d been in my mother’s quiet apartment, always surrounded by adults.
When my sisters were done indulging, they went to bed, satisfied, and Laurent went to town to play Corazones, his “favorite card game and far superior to Cuarenta,” with his friends.