The Spanish Daughter(3)

“Are you all right, Mr. Balboa?”

Great. The lawyer was going to think I’d contracted influenza as well.

“Yes.”

I returned my attention to my plate. It was odd but impersonating a man was giving me a freedom I’d never had before. As a woman and the owner of the only chocolate shop in my hometown, I’d always been a tireless hostess. It had always been my job to make my guests feel at ease, to be the peacemaker if there was a disagreement. I often anticipated everyone’s wishes (More wine? Another piece of chocolate?) and avoided uncomfortable silences. But today, I was free to enjoy my food without looking over my shoulder to make sure everyone’s plates were full.

“Just wait until you try Mayra’s dulce de higos,” he said. “She picks them from the backyard tree.”

Mayra set a bowl in front of me. My mouth watered at the sight of fig preserves swimming in syrup. A slice of white cheese rested on the saucer.

“What is this syrup?” I asked, savoring the spicy, cinnamon-tasting juice.

“Panela,” Mayra said.

If I could find a way to mix this with chocolate, I’d have a winner.

After devouring the dessert, Aquilino guided me toward the parlor, pointed at a stiff velvet couch, and sat across from me. He picked up the cigar box and offered me one. I hesitated. I’d always been curious about this mysterious male habit, but I wasn’t sure I could deliver a proper exhalation. Cristóbal sometimes produced immaculate, blue circles, a source of ultimate pride for him.

At my hesitation, Aquilino’s bushy eyebrows arched. Smoking was a sign of a true man, and I must pass the test. I glanced at the Great Dane by the entrance—even he seemed to be waiting for my reaction. I took a thick cigar between my fingers, mimicking Aquilino’s resolve as he tightened his lips around it, and lit it.

The first inhalation hit my chest like a flame. Aquilino gave me the sort of look one might reserve for a curious insect as I coughed incessantly and hit my chest with my hand a few times, attempting to free the inferno from my body.

“You don’t smoke, Mr. Balboa?”

“Only pipe,” I gasped. “In my country, the tobacco is more pure.” Whatever that meant. I’d heard men speak about the quality of tobacco and its purity, but to me, all of them stank in the same way.

Aquilino lit his own cigar. He had no problems inhaling or exhaling.

“I must ask you, sir,” he said, his voice carrying the same solemn tone of a priest. “What are your plans now that your wife, que en paz descanse, is no longer with us?”

I had to tread carefully. I couldn’t come across as a threat to anyone.

“I will probably return to Spain. I have no interest in either the country or the cacao business. To be quite honest, this was my wife’s dream—not mine.” The burn in my throat had given my voice a natural coarseness that I decided to use to my advantage. “I must ask you, Se?or Aquilino, are there any other heirs?”

“Just two. Don Armand had two daughters in Vinces: Angélica and Catalina de Lafont.”

Two sisters.

The news hit like a slap in the face. It was one thing to suspect something, to consider a possibility. It was something else to receive confirmation that there were, indeed, real blood relatives. My father had betrayed me and my mother. He’d raised two daughters, whom he probably loved more than me, while I’d waited for him to return to Spain for over two decades. But he was never planning to come back, I now realized. He’d made a new life without us, discarding us like an old newspaper. What an idiot I’d been—religiously writing all those letters to him, sitting for hours by the window, drawing his portrait. In my childhood innocence, I’d always expected him to walk through the front door, his arms filled with presents, and then take me on one of his adventures.

“Angélica is the eldest,” he said. “Well, in reality, there is a brother, too. But he renounced his inheritance.”

A brother as well. And he renounced the fortune?

“He’s a priest.” Aquilino stared at his cigar with appreciation. “He took the vow of poverty.”

A priest, of all things. My father hadn’t been a religious man, not according to my mother’s recollections. Then how did he produce a priest? I, myself, was filled with doubts. Although I would never voice them out loud. But if it was true that this brother had renounced my father’s money, had it been a voluntary vow or a forced one?

“What about their mother? Is she also an heir?”

“No, Do?a Gloria Alvarez passed away a few years ago. But we’ll get into all the details tomorrow.”

My father had hidden so many things from us. It stung worse than his death. Good thing my mother hadn’t lived to see so much deceit. Another woman, another family. Did he think he could make amends by leaving me a portion of his estate? What good would that do when I never had him? I would never know what his voice sounded like, what cologne he used, or feel the warmth of his hugs.

A thump against the window startled us both. We moved toward the pane in time to see a speckled bird wrecked on the pebbles outside the house.

“A sparrow-hawk,” Aquilino said.

I remained silent, unable to keep my eyes from the dying bird.

“The poor creature must not have seen the glass,” he went on. “It didn’t know what it was getting itself into when it came here.”