The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (87)

But there she was. Isabela Buenasuerte looked the same as always in her expensive dress, her elegant features turned up in distaste at the candy-coated popcorn and wood shavings on the ground.

Orquídea remembered the helplessness and anger she’d endured at the Buenasuerte home. All at once, it felt like trying to surface during an onslaught of waves. But if Orquídea was honest, her anger toward Isabela went further than that. Standing in front of her mother, Orquídea felt like that unlucky runt of a girl again. A stain in her mother’s perfect life. The bastard child left behind by a man who’d used her. Seeing her mother was like pressing on a bruise that had never healed. It had festered, rotted. It seeped down to the bone. She’d only learned to live with the pain.

“What do you want?” Orquídea asked, not letting her mother speak. She pulled Pedrito protectively against her chest.

Isabela Buenasuerte ignored the dagger that had become Orquídea’s tongue. She tugged off her white gloves and smiled hopefully. “Who is this beautiful child?”

“This is my son,” Orquídea said tightly.

“Tell me his name, mijita.”

Orquídea didn’t want to, but the part of her that still wanted her mother’s love relented. “Pedrito.”

She should have stopped there. She was a spool of thread coming undone and there would be no one to put her back together. She should have turned and walked away like she had two years ago. Instead, she pointed at the large poster of Bolívar Londo?o III with his smile, sharp as diamonds, welcoming one and all to his creation. She held up her glittering sapphire. “And that is my husband. And this is my circus. And I don’t want you here.”

“Orquídea—”

“Leave.”

When Orquídea recalled that memory from time to time, she admired the hands of destiny that orchestrated the longest minute of her life. From somewhere, fireworks sparked. Bells rang announcing the opening of the fairground portion of the night. Fortunes, games, prizes, a perfect storm of cruel fate! And there was Bolívar strutting across the grounds, so beautiful in his signature blue velvet that it was impossible not to notice him. Only instead of his wife and child, it was Safi, the belly dancer, draped on his arm. He’d skipped the card game and had gone straight to her. As he kissed her, he didn’t even try to hide his indiscretion. On any other day, Orquídea might have picked a fight. But on that night, of all the nights her mother had chosen to return to her life, she’d been witness to Orquídea’s shame.

Bolívar was unaware of his wife’s life shattering in front of his mother-in-law. Orquídea couldn’t bear it. Something inside her split. It was a tear in her whole being. A fracture that would never be able to be put back together.

“I said leave,” Orquídea repeated as Pedrito began to wail in her arms.

“Orquídea, please.”

“No. You chose your life and I chose mine. I don’t want to see you again.”

“At least let me hold my grandson—”

“You have six other children. One day you will have plenty of grandchildren to hold.” They were ugly words, but she had an ugly, cruel pain in her heart. “Tell me. Did you always know that someone would come into your life and make it better?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we had a life before Wilhelm Buenasuerte. A life where you could have loved me. What we had could have been enough if we had worked together.”

Isabela Buenasuerte shook her head. “You don’t know what it was like being left alone. I was alone.”

“You had me.” Orquídea tapped the naked skin over her heart, like if she punched through it she’d find it hollowed out. “We didn’t need Buenasuerte or my father. He came to the house one day and I never told you. I never told you anything because you made it clear, from the moment I could walk, that I had ruined your life. It’s like you were waiting for someone to give you the world you deserved before I came along.”

When Isabela had nothing to say, no words to defend herself, Orquídea laughed. “I thought so.”

Hurt, Isabela did as she was told. She left but, of course, didn’t go far.

Orquídea returned to her schemes but she’d changed. Some people change over time, water wearing stones smooth. Others require the violent clap of lightning that turns sand into glass. Her heart felt like it had split into tiny little hearts, each pounding at the hollows of her body, her throat, her fingers, her toes. Pedrito could feel it, and he fussed and cried all the way back to their tent.

She set Pedrito down in his basinet and ran over to the room she shared with her husband. Bolívar’s hat was in the same spot on the bed where he threw it every night before he went out. She didn’t think he’d be back, but she seized the boon. She turned it over. She’d never truly held it in her hands. It felt like an extension of him, in a way. She reached inside and ran her hand along the lining. The latch of a false bottom. She opened it.

“Orquídea?” he asked. “Is that you?”

Who else would it be? She wanted to ask but didn’t.

Then she felt it. The cold metal of the key made of celestial light. She quickly pocketed it in her brassiere and sat at her vanity. Her dark eyes were glossy, but she hid her distress well. She opened one of her powder boxes and dipped the velvet cushion in, then dabbed it between her breasts. The delicate scent helped her relax.