The Spanish Daughter(69)

“Did she ever talk about us? Was she happy to come?” Her eyelashes were thick, her eyes of an unusual transparency.

“She didn’t know about you,” I said honestly. “Your father never told her he had a new family.”

She smoothed the creases on her peach charmeuse skirt. “I thought she knew. My father never hid her from us.” She kept her gaze on her lap. “Perhaps because she was his only legitimate daughter.” Her last words were spoken in a whisper.

Was that jealousy I was perceiving or just sorrow? In spite of her legitimacy or lack thereof, I’d been the one who grew up without him.

“Puri was excited to come,” I said. “She’d dreamt about visiting this land all her life.”

Angélica set her glass on the coffee table. “How sad that she died so young. I’d like to have met her very much.”

There it was again—the stab of guilt. In an odd way, I wanted her to be the culprit; it would ease the remorse of my imposture. But I had no way of knowing if she was being truthful or not. All I knew was that at that moment, I had a strong desire to tell her the truth—she was bound to find out anyway. Martin could tell her who I was at any given moment.

“There’s something I must tell you,” I said.

“What?”

There was something about her reaction: the slight crease between her brows, the sharpness of her tone, the sudden shift of her knees away from me—something that made me reconsider what I was about to say. If I told her the truth, then what? I recalled the feel of Franco’s rope against my throat, the knife threatening Cristóbal, the snake in my bed. No, I couldn’t confess while I was living under this roof. Not when things were so unclear to me.

“Yesterday, I received word from Panamanian authorities that there have been some complications with Puri’s death certificate and it will take a little bit longer for the documents to arrive.”

She didn’t move a muscle.

“I wouldn’t want to impose or take advantage of your kindness any further so if it’s more convenient, I can find accommodations in Vinces.”

“Of course not,” she said. “You’re no bother, Don Cristóbal. Why, we barely see you around here.”

I thanked her and added, as a truce, “I would like to reciprocate your kindness with a small token of my appreciation, something that I’m certain my Puri would’ve liked very much.”

*

I spent the rest of the afternoon preparing chocolate drinks and truffles for Laurent and my sisters. Just like Martin and Bachita, my sisters were in awe as the beans transformed in the mill. Laurent, not so much. He said he’d tasted better in his native country (“It must be the ingredients. They are purer in France.”). But my sisters didn’t care about those details and they didn’t even bother waiting for the truffles to cool down completely. They were captivated and ate chocolate until their stomachs ached. I forgot I was supposed to be on guard around them and laughed as they licked their fingers—all etiquette gone—and their mouths were filled with chocolate. If only my father would’ve brought me here when I was younger, I would’ve grown up with these women. How lonely I’d been in my mother’s quiet apartment, always surrounded by adults.

When my sisters were done indulging, they went to bed, satisfied, and Laurent went to town to play Corazones, his “favorite card game and far superior to Cuarenta,” with his friends.

With all the eating and drinking, I was certain I wouldn’t see my sisters until the morning. It was my one chance to see what was inside that infamous drawer in my father’s study.

When the house was quiet, I descended the staircase, candle in hand, and snuck inside the room. I checked the drawer, but it was still locked. I felt under the desk, checked floorboards and bookshelves, but there was no sign of the key.

I sat in my father’s leather chair, deflated. The only thing left to do was convince Martin to leave the mystery aside and tell me what was inside the drawer. I crossed my hands behind my head and stretched my back. I was so tired of wearing this damned corset around my breasts.

In front of me was an oil painting of three windmills sitting on top of a hill. In the foreground was a field of wheat and behind it, rows of olive trees. It was La Mancha—the land of Don Quijote—a region I’d passed by on my way to Toledo many times. Funny, my mother had a similar painting. It looked like it had been painted by the same artist. My father must have brought it from Spain.

And then, I remembered.

I sprang from my chair.

My mother used to hide the key to her trunk behind the frame of that very same painting. She would hang it on the hook that held the picture up.

I lifted the painting from the hook.

And there it was.

An inexplainable lump came to my throat. My parents had more in common than I’d thought. How often had they thought of each other, I wondered, how much had they missed each other’s company, and how many habits and idiosyncrasies had they shared? I grabbed the key and tried it in the drawer’s lock. It worked! But nothing would’ve prepared me for what I found there.

A chess set?

I removed the wooden box to check underneath. There was nothing. But this couldn’t be it.

Why on earth would anyone hide a game? And what did this chess set have to do with my father’s plantation?