The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (15)

Along the strip of houses near the river where Orquídea lived, there was nothing to develop. At least, that’s what Wilhelm Buenasuerte decided upon cursory inspection. As he trekked the unnamed road all the way to the shore, he tucked his gold pendant under his shirt, rolled up his pants to the ankles to avoid the mud, and kept his hands in his pockets.

When he retrieved his handkerchief to mop sweat off his stern brow, his wallet fell, and Orquídea Montoya happened to be walking home at that moment with her basket of fish to fry for dinner. She gathered his wallet and shouted after him. Though her clothes were clean—except for the usual splatter of river water—and though she showered every day, Wilhelm took a step away from her, startled by the child that came up to his hip.

She offered his wallet back. “You dropped this.”

Wilhelm Buenasuerte was born to a German mother and an Ecuadorian father. That is to say, his father was half Spaniard and half Indigenous, part of the mestizaje of the country. But he considered himself Ecuadorian to the bone. His eyes were not quite brown and not quite green. His nose was not quite crooked and not quite straight. His hair was not quite blond and not quite brown. His skin was not quite white but whiter than most. He was proud of everything that made up his whole. That was why, after being educated in Germany, he returned to his father’s land—his birthplace—to make it better, to make it more.

“Thank you, child,” he said. He took out a five sucre note and placed it in her hand.

By then, Orquídea had hated when men shoved money in her fist. Her father—the man who’d fathered her—had done so. The men who bought fish from her did it, too. Once, a man tried to give her ten sucres so she’d follow him home. She was only ten and she’d thrown dirt in his eyes and run all the way home and barricaded herself in. She did not think this man was that way, but who was she to say?

That was when her mother came bounding down the dusty street yelling her daughter’s name. Isabela Montoya’s porcelain white cheeks were flushed, and her black hair had come undone from the sensible bun she always wore it in.

When she got a good look at the classy, distinguished man in front of her, Isabela relaxed. “I hope my daughter is not bothering you, sir.”

Wilhelm Buenasuerte was too stunned to speak. Something inside his chest gave a terrible squeeze. For a moment he considered whether or not he was having a heart attack. He was too young for that, but his father had died from one, hadn’t he? No, it had to be something else. The woman before him was dressed for an office, with a beauty that was so delicate, he felt the incomprehensible urge to do everything he could to protect it. She wore no wedding band, but she had a child that was perhaps twelve. An early mishap of her youth. His father had always told him women were easily led astray and they needed good men to keep them in the ways of family and God. Wilhelm Buenasuerte considered himself a good man.

“No bother at all, Mrs.—?” he held out his hand and paused to allow her an introduction.

“Miss Isabela Montoya,” she emphasized her availability.

He gave the dirt road another once over. The wide río Guayas held a quiet promise. Suddenly, Wilhelm could see a highway that would cut through here one day. A boardwalk would stretch all the way to the cerro Santa Ana. First, these shacks and dinky fishing canoes needed to go. Perhaps he’d been in too much of a hurry to dismiss this spot of land. Wilhelm Buenasuerte found a reason to stay.



* * *



Orquídea never spent the money Wilhelm Buenasuerte had given her. But on the day of her death, she would return it.





6

THE FIRST DEATH OF ORQUíDEA DIVINA




Marimar knew they were almost home when she licked her lips and could taste a hint of salt.

They’d spent the night in Lawrence, Kansas, at a cheap hotel in the downtown college area. They were both too wired to sleep, and spent the night drinking at a bar covered in neon lights with a country metal band caterwauling their way through pop covers. Everything closed at midnight, so she smoked Rey’s cigarettes and gave money to a howling busker while Rey got his palm read by an undergrad covered in piercings and tattoos. They woke up before sunrise, showered, and got back on the road.

“What did the fortune-teller say to you?” Marimar asked.

“She said I’d save someone’s life one day,” Rey said.

“Cryptic.”

“And that I’d take a trip and meet a handsome stranger.” The last bit he said with a coquettish emphasis.

“Fancy. Maybe he has a brother and we can double date.”

“Maybe he’ll have an evil twin and we can live out one of my mom’s favorite telenovelas.”

“Don’t they all have evil twins?”

“We should have brought her with us to tell the family’s fortunes.”

They went on and on for the rest of the drive, talking about anything and everything that wasn’t their family. But when the air thickened with the pungent smell of unturned earth and wildflowers, of salty air when they were so far from the sea, they fell quiet.

At first, she thought that nothing had changed in these lands—not the unyielding sun, not the hungry wild earth, and not the tire-eating road that led all the way home. But then she breathed deeper and found a new scent—something that hadn’t been there when she’d left six years before. It was the same thing she couldn’t identify on the invitation—decay.