The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina (88)

Bolívar stepped out from behind the bath screen. He was naked. Her hearts gave a flutter in reminder of how much she’d loved and wanted him once. He followed her eyes to his lower extremities as he dried his torso. She remembered the times when they bathed together, emptying the tub with their passion. Then she remembered Safi, the prostitutes in Amsterdam, the acrobat twins, the actress in Monaco, the duchess in London. Most of all she remembered standing in the parlor of that ship and watching a Russian girl swallow his erection whole. She wished the girl had bit it off.

“Are you happy to be home?” Bolívar asked, drying his ear.

He walked up behind her, kissed her while staring at them in the mirror. She accepted his kisses because she had a traitorous heart. They were together now. She, Pedrito, and Bolívar. He raked his hand over her leg, over her breasts. She remembered the key tucked there. Even if she wanted him one last time. Even if…

“You’re in a good mood,” she said, and distracted him by slapping one of his muscular thighs. It was like he suspected something was wrong. Is that why, after months, he’d changed his predictable schedule? “And you’re wet.”

He cocked a brow and let his stare rake over her. “I thought that’s how you preferred me.”

She laughed and stood, using their son as a pretense. She rocked him so that the baby was the only one she had room for in her arms.

“I was thinking,” he said, tugging on a simple button-down. A flush of heat spread across her skin as she remembered how much she’d loved watching him dress in front of her. “We should take a walk around the park tomorrow. See the city. The river. I know you’ve longed for it. Let’s see how the pearl of the Pacific has changed since you left it.”

“You know me so well.” She tried to sound sweet but her nerves seized her vocal cords.

He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her cheek, caressed the baby’s head. “That’s because you’re mine. You both are.”

Why had he chosen that day, of all days, to remind her of the moments when things were beautiful? She knew that Bolívar Londo?o was not going to change. She should have listened to Agustina long ago and protected her heart better. But she’d been na?ve. She’d been desperate to cling to something good. The biggest trick, the greatest illusion in the whole circus was Bolívar’s love.

“Why? Is Safi busy or did you already fuck her enough today?”

Bolívar looked like she’d slapped him. He bit his bottom lip and pulled on his trousers. “You spurn my advances and then you push me to another woman. Is that how little you love me now?”

“You stopped loving me long ago,” she said softly, and she wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince. She tucked Pedrito back in his bassinette and sat in front of her mirror. Tried to summon all the strength she had, steel her heart.

“I have never stopped loving you,” he said, turning Orquídea in her seat to face him. He caged her with his arms. “You know who I am, and you chose me, too.”

That was the last time Orquídea Divina would see Bolívar Londo?o. Sometimes, during the time periods between husbands in Four Rivers, Orquídea wondered how things would be now if she had only relented, slipped the key back into his hat when he fell asleep. Pedrito might still be alive. She’d still be the foolish ringmaster’s wife who allowed his trysts and infidelities. How was she supposed to know which life had been the right one? She allowed herself that moment of weakness every few years and then she put Bolívar where she put her other memories, locked away where no one could find them.

Instead, she kissed her husband. She let him trace the familiar lines along her thighs and hated herself for still wanting him just a little. He was on his knees, ripping the seams of her sheer stockings. Orquídea’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. She turned her head and watched him through the mirror, the bright lights that showed every detail, even the lines across his back made by someone else.

She reached on her vanity for one of her powders. There were so many reasons she had asked Lázaro to wait until she was back in Ecuador to enact their plan. The most important one was because it was her home. She wanted Pedrito to grow up with eyes on the river. She wanted him to learn to love the land. Guayaquil was an old city, full of old people, rooted to the earth. The world changed around them. Hills covered in grass became paved streets. Houses made of cane and brick and tin became slabs of concrete. There would be new bridges and monuments and art. It would change, but the resilient heart of the people would always remain strong. She needed that strength.

The second reason was because Ecuador was home to thousands of species of flowers. Four thousand types of orchids, four hundred types of roses, and one strange, hallucinogenic lily. An angel’s-trumpet, shaped like a bell and used by shamans to divine the stars and expel inner demons. It had medicinal properties, but in the hands of men, it was used for cruelties. She’d acquired the powder and emptied the vial in one of her powdered perfumes.

It wasn’t how she’d timed it, but it could work. Would work.

Bolívar wrapped his hand around his cock and looked at her, dazed by her beauty as he’d been that first day. Orquídea grabbed a fist full of powder and blew it in his face.

He choked and sputtered. He cursed and grabbed for the bed, falling on his back. She’d only ever heard stories of the plant, and she didn’t know how long it would last. Her plan was three-fold. She had the key. She retrieved the bag from under the bed. Now, she yanked the signet ring from his finger and pocketed it.