Early the next morning, Paula Rouco was falling asleep when she heard Severo Laris ask her what she wanted for breakfast.
Then there was the sound of Severo Laris’ rustling and the lightening of his wake.
When Paula Rouco awoke, it was ten o’clock in the morning and the early autumn sun was shining brightly outside.
Paula Rouco washed up and headed for the kitchen, where Severo Laris was heating milk for her.
The carton of milk was freshly opened and must have been purchased by Severo Laris just after going to the town supermarket in the morning.
It took more than ten minutes to hitchhike from town last night, and he went to town in the morning just to buy milk for her?
“Am I giving you trouble?”
Severo Laris handed her a cup of milk that had been heated and said, “On the table there are fritters you just bought, go eat them.”
“Oh.”
After breakfast, Paula Rouco noticed that Modeste was not at home and asked, “Where is Auntie?”
“To the vegetable garden.”
Paula Rouco looked out the window at the bright sunshine and blue sky and said with a whim, “Severo, let’s go help Aunt in the orchard and take a walk in the country.”
Severo Laris laughed lightly, “I see you want to go through the fields and help with the work in the meantime.”
“…” was poked mercilessly.
Severo Laris places a straw hat on Paula Rouco’s head before leaving the house.
Paula Rouco took it off several times, “I don’t wear it, I’m not afraid of the sun.”
“The city is very sunny and it tends to make your face hurt.”
It was so delicate that a gentle pinch would leave red marks that wouldn’t go away for a long time.
Eighteen years old and as young as a child, Severo Laris put the hat on her head several times and took it off as many times.
“You don’t look good in a hat.”
“Who’s looking at you, nobody knows you here.”
“You know me, you’ll look at me.” He stubbornly took off his hat again.
The two men went back and forth, tugging at a hat several times.
Some of the neighbors knew Severo Laris, and when they saw them, the old man standing in front of his house, smoking, smiled kindly and asked Severo Laris, “Severo, you’ve brought your girlfriend home, your mother must be delighted!”
Severo Laris smiles slightly and waves with a snap.
The old man mentions a few more words, “Your mother asked my old lady to introduce you to someone some time ago.
By the time she passed, Paula Rouco had both her little hands behind her back and hummed softly, “You seem to have been seeing a lot of girls back home, have you been seeing any?”
“At my age, in a small town, it’s time to get married and have kids, and my partner next door, who’s my age, has a two-year-old.”
Paula Rouco shot him an oblique look, “You look like you’d like to get married and have children now.”
Severo Laris, looking at her jealous little face, curved his thin lips and asked deliberately, “Shouldn’t I have thought of that?”
“I shouldn’t, because I’m your bride now and I’m not of marriageable age, who are you going to marry?”
The mocking smile in Severo Laris’ eyes was accentuated as he put it so flatly, “You want to marry me that badly?”
“… I didn’t.” Someone blushed.
Severo Laris took her small hand between his, “It’s okay to be young, you’ll be fine for two more years.”
Paula Rouco smiled, her watery eyes narrowed like two crescent moons, and said with a deliberate grimace, “When I grow up, I may not like you anymore.”
Severo Laris merely smiled faintly, that muted smile without the slightest hint of panicked alarm.
Paula Rouco nudged him in the little mouth, “And you’re not worried about it?”
He had that look, like he was eating her, and it seemed unfair.
Severo Laris drew her to him, with a frown on his face, his face serious and concentrated, he looked at her and said, “When you grow up, then I’ll be better, so good that you won’t be able to leave me, you won’t dislike me, you’ll just like me more.”
A calm, strong, self-confident and proud woman even when poor.
This is the Severo Laris she loves, how could she not.
“Then you’ll have to wait until I grow up and don’t go off with another woman, or I really won’t like you.”
etc.
He will wait for his girl, who is slowly growing up and making her nest, to mature and become his wife.
…
Severo Laris and Paula Rouco helped Modeste put out a basket of radishes and picked and peeled many beans.
On the way home, the three of them carried small baskets in their hands.
Paula Rouco’s face was red from the sun and when she returned to help peel the beans, her dirty hands scratched her face a few times and within moments she had a small rash all over her face.
Modeste asked in anguish, “Is it an allergy? Oops, Severo, come take a look.”
Shortly after Severo Laris returned, he received a call from his client and went to his room for more than half an hour to take care of his work.
When he heard Modeste call him and left the room, he saw Paula Rouco’s otherwise white little face, covered with a small red rash, flushed with an obvious allergy.
Severo Laris frowned and approached him, lecturing, “You didn’t put on your straw hat when I told you to, and now you’re comfortable with your face like that?”
Modeste couldn’t help but say, “Paulita is already like this, don’t be pedantic, take Paulita to wash her hands and face, she must have sunburned and peeled my beans, go get my green vine cream and apply it to Paulita, it’s good for this allergic rash, otherwise, after dinner, you can take Paulita to the village community hospital. take Paulita to the village community hospital.”
Once at the sink, Paula Rouco washed her face and hands, the burning skin finally felt a touch of comforting coolness, but it didn’t take long for the itching to return and for her hands to reach out to try to scratch.
Severo Laris squeezed his wrist and the man’s handsome face sank, “No grabbing.”
“But I’m really itchy.”
Severo Laris pulled out the ointment, which was a green, clear paste that was refreshing to put on.
Modeste is sitting in the doorway shelling beans and looks at the two of them sitting on the little bench not far away, Paula Rouco’s red little face on her back, Severo Laris patiently and carefully dipping a cotton swab in the ointment and dabbing it on the little rash on her face, a surprisingly harmonious scene.
Modeste smiled and made no noise.
After applying that green ointment, Paula Rouco looked at her little green and red face in the mirror and frowned at her ugly face.
Severo Laris stood next to her, bent down, looked at her ugly little face in the mirror and couldn’t help but smile, “Little green-faced monster friend.”
“I’m not a green-faced monster!”
The little girl turns around, clenching her little fists and pouting in Severo Laris’ arms.
Modeste watched them play and asked, “Paulita, what do you want to eat? Auntie will fix it for you.”
Paula Rouco then remembered that Modeste was still picking out the vegetables at the door and hurriedly stopped, turning her head and saying, rather politely, “I’ll eat whatever Auntie makes, I’m not picky.”
Modeste laughed, “It’s good not to be picky about food.”
But the next moment, Severo Laris breaks it off: “Mom, don’t listen to her nonsense, the onion, the parsley, the garlic, she doesn’t eat them”.
Paula Rouco froze, how did she know?
Modeste looked at her son with a deeper meaning, “I can’t believe our Severo is still so concerned about other people’s tastes, do you know if your mother eats onion and garlic?”
Severo Laris clenched his fist and covered his thin lips with a slight cough.
He hadn’t realized this.
Modeste laughed even more, “Paulita look, Severo doesn’t even know if I eat onion and garlic.”
Paula Rouco looked at Severo Laris with a beaming smile on her little face and a wide grin.