“What could you solve?” asks Darío as he stands next to me in the garden.
I hold the cell phone against my chest. It hurts my soul to know that my sister feels so lonely, heartbroken, and sad. It is true. I am not there with her. I don’t know what she is going through. I don’t know the loneliness she feels in her heart. She was abused by a person who was in my house for a long time. It was my partner, the man with whom I thought I would have my children. Besides, I thought we would live to old age together.
Those wounds are the hardest to heal because you don’t see the abuse coming, you don’t notice the looks, you don’t determine what is in front of your eyes because it is a person you consider your friend, your brother, your partner, your father… someone you carry in your heart and for whom you could easily give your life. I feel like the worst person in the world. I am distraught, not as much as my sister, as I don’t know what pierces her heart. I feel rage and hatred for Lucian for causing this to her, for doing this to me.
What kind of sick person is he? What kind of person does that to a helpless girl? I can thank God since he didn’t hurt her physically and didn’t get to do it because I intervened. I unknowingly prevented him from taking advantage of her in a way. However, the pain is everlasting.
The abuse was palpable: he touched her without her consent. Now my sister must live with the dreams that come recurring every night, just as she told me: his hands on her skin, whispering lurid phrases in her ear. I can’t believe she is in this situation. I always saw on the news and in the papers how girls came out to express that they were abused by people they never thought they were capable of. Today, they must live with the memory of that event.
There Teresa stands.
“Nothing.” I let out a sigh and hand him his cell phone. “Anyway, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“How come you’re calm? Aren’t you worried about your brother and his decision to get married? Aren’t you curious about who he’ll marry?”
“It looks like your sister.” I don’t like his tone, so I face him and fold my arms.
I’m wearing a butterfly dress, short-sleeved and half-sheer in the skirt. It’s a cotton-type fabric.
“And that’s good enough for you?”
“He’s not a boy. He’s twenty-seven. Who he decides to marry is not even a problem. He stays out of my business, and I stay out of his.” He raises his shoulders in a nonchalant movement, a symbol of his null importance.
To me, it has all the importance in the world.
“They’re getting married! In a month, my sister is marrying a man who happens to be your brother. But, unfortunately, they’re getting together for the wrong reasons.”
“Come on, let’s take a walk.” He turns and starts walking across the garden. “Come on!”
I drop a heel on the ground. I intend to throw the shoe at him to get him to react and see this as I see it: this is crazy! However, I control myself and confirm by just kicking once, twice, three times to release the desperation.
“Where are we going?” I inquire when I catch up with him.
“We’ll walk a bit to make you forget this issue.”
“You think I’m going to forget something like that? She’s my little sister! She’s your brother!”
“We’ve already made it clear who’s related to whom. So I don’t think you need to repeat it every two minutes.” His sarcasm could almost be embraced.
“Is this funny to you? Do you think this is a joke? Something to laugh at?” I exhale an unladylike sound. A bray, I suppose. “You’re unbelievable. Sure, I get it. You married yourself that way to me. You wanted a wife, and that’s what you got. You didn’t think about what I wanted, you didn’t know me, and you didn’t deign to ask me if I wanted this.”
I march past him in silence. My hands sweat and tremble. It is the first time I let out that which was gripping my chest, that dagger embedded in my heart and prevented me from breathing well. I left prudence and patience at my parents’ house when they decided to pair me with Darío, The Shady One. I understand why they call him that.
He does not see the circumstances as others do. To him, everything seems unimportant. A shadow of a man, a sample of what an empty vase is. Nothing upsets him or causes him uneasiness, except the thing on the balcony.
“You don’t know if it’s my brother.”
“Is that why you’re acting like this? Why do you think he’s not your Dawson? Call him, for the love of the apple! Call him and ask him!” I cross my arms over my chest. He follows the movement of my breasts as they rise and fall from the rage I feel now.
I don’t know how to think of him as the Shady One anymore. His eyes are pure fire, sensual, almost demonic desire. That uncontrollable longing I see in his pupils as he looks at me on certain occasions is out of character for me.
What the hell is wrong with this man?
“I’m not going to call him, don’t count on it. I imagine there must be thousands of Dawsons in this world.”
“That’s your excuse?” I walk up to him; we’re standing on the damp green grass.
It must be barely ten or eleven in the morning. The sun is beginning to warm up, but not enough to bring down the cold.
“You must learn to let everyone make their own decisions.”
“It’s ironic that you think so.”
“It was different with you.” He reads the path of my thoughts.
“It wasn’t any different. You want me to let my sister and Dawson make their own decisions, but me, Tatiana, you didn’t let her decide. You bought me.”
“I didn’t buy you, woman! Are you out of your mind? I don’t know what kind of things you say, but that’s absurd.”
He looks offended, and his face gradually lights up.
“I don’t see the point in arguing since it’s too late for that. We’re married, aren’t we? So it’s no use telling how things happened.” I don’t want to see him, so I turn my back on him and concentrate, or at least try to, on the beauty around me.
Many roses are surrounding the castle. Two huge apple trees offer shade to one side. A tall leafy tree with orange blossoms and green leaves covers us from the rising sun.
“It’s a Flamboyán. I brought it back from the Caribbean when I went there almost five years ago.”
I don’t know how he has the facility to answer questions I have yet to ask without even looking at me.
“Do you speak Spanish?”
“I am fluent in six languages, including Spanish.”
“I didn’t know.” Every topic he blurts out makes me realize how different we are.
I want to ask him about his late wife, but I contain myself.
I lean back against the Flamboyán trunk and enjoy a bit of the cool morning breeze.
“I must go.”
“How long will you be gone?”
Just the thought of being alone in the castle, with people I don’t know and the responsibility of taking care of Dante, scares me.
“A week at most.” I feel his warmth on my side. I flutter my eyes open. “You look so beautiful like this, carefree and simple, not looking at me like I’m the most horrible person in your world.”
“I don’t think you’re the most horrible person, Darío. I just think we came together abruptly.”
“Good relationships can come out of unexpected unions.”
“You don’t have the certainty. You don’t know me, and I don’t know you. You don’t know if you’re going to hate me in a month or a year.”
“I don’t think I’m capable of hating a person who has sacrificed for her family by marrying someone she’s never seen and who cares so much about her sister’s future.”
“I did see you a few months ago, maybe a year. I saw you at Lake Di Tenno.” I turn my head towards him and let my body lower slowly until my butt touches the greenish grass. “You looked at me like I was the creator of the atomic bomb like I was an outcast.”
“I don’t remember ever seeing you…”
“You see. Not everything is what it seems at first glance. I thought I noticed something that I now know never existed,” I confess sadly and without looking at him. My cheeks are flushed, and I drop my gaze. “I guess you didn’t have eyes for anyone but your late wife.”
“Don’t touch that subject.”
Suddenly, the bubble of calm we had, burst.
“At some point, you’ll have to. It’s okay always to love her. I’m not complaining…”
“Let it be, Tatiana. It’s not a subject I like to talk about.”
“You don’t have to like it to talk about it. But, some things need to be said to have definitive closure.”
“And who told you that I’m interested in forgetting her?”
His tone saddens me. Those words are like shrapnel from a bomb going off: it doesn’t matter if the bomb doesn’t explode on top of you. The little pieces that come off of it will eventually kill you one way or another. No matter how hard you run or how far you go, they will get to you in the end.
Darío loved his wife. Likely, he doesn’t love me to that extent.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to…” My voice catches, and I feel a lump in my throat that won’t let me say anything else.
“Don’t go,” he asks as I get up from the grass. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“That’s the problem, Darío. Sometimes we don’t want to hurt others, but we manage to do it masterfully.” I shake out the dress with as much dignity as I can without looking at him, so he doesn’t notice how distressed and hurt I am.
It comes to my head, his hands on my body, and his promises of unattainable stars. It kills me to think that he had his late wife in mind in those hours we made love.
“Tatiana…” he comes up and places one of his hands on my shoulder. He runs it slowly across my cheek, “look at me.” As if under a spell, I look up and scrutinize him about to burst into tears. I didn’t ask to feel this contradictory way.
I didn’t even imagine that my mystery lover was going to be my husband, the one I married out of obligation.
“I don’t want to cry,” I whisper slowly, “I don’t want to do it and have you see me like this. I know it’s not your fault to love her… I… I understand. I really do. However, I’m also not to blame for wanting something real with my husband, and that’s you.” I must look pathetic. He outweighs me in size, but it is not this that throws me off and infuriates me, but the ease with which his words can either lift me to heaven or sit me down in front of the devil as I watch him enjoy my anguish.
Without warning, Darío presses his lips against mine. My body reacts immediately, and I run my hands up his neck, pulling his hair to deepen the kiss.
How I’ve dreamed of this!
His tongue delves into my mouth. I taste as much as I can; he has a slight coffee taste, and it makes me moan. He has the ability and power to kiss me, as well as make me forget my world and my sins. Little by little, he pulls away from my lips. Then, without opening his eyes, he ends the kiss. I look at him, puzzled.
I don’t know what is happening.
His forehead is resting on mine. My lips cry out to be kissed again with that same impetus and need.
“Darío, what’s wrong?”
“See you in a week, dear dragonfly.”