When We Left Cuba(25)
“You make marriage sound like a prison.”
Our parents were hard on all of us, had high expectations for us to make excellent matches, but it was different with me. Whether deserved or not, I’ve always been the one who was touted as the beauty in the family, and while the moniker should have been a benediction, it always felt like a curse. Until now. Now it gives me an opportunity to use my reported beauty for something that actually matters.
“Maybe not a prison. But not something to aspire to, either.”
“Does Eduardo know you feel this way?”
“Eduardo?” I laugh. “I very much doubt Eduardo cares one way or another about my thoughts on marriage.”
“You’re always together.”
“We’re friends of a sort. As much as Eduardo is interested in having friends anyway.”
“He looks at you like there’s more there.”
There it is again, that note in her voice suggesting I’ve missed something important, lack the maturity she’s acquired somewhere along the way.
“He looks at you like he wants you,” Elisa adds, her voice low, a pink flush rising on her cheeks.
“Lots of men look at me like that. It doesn’t mean anything. If Eduardo occasionally glances my way with something akin to interest, it’s because he’s a man, not because he has some secret feelings for me. I doubt Eduardo is even capable of losing his heart to someone. Do you remember what he was like in Havana? The dancers at the Tropicana? The married women they whispered about?”
“If you say so.” Elisa’s eyes narrow. “So if it isn’t romance that’s brought you two together so often, what is it?”
“We’re friends.”
“That’s all it is?”
“That’s all.”
“Now why don’t I believe that? You aren’t ever going to give up on this, are you? Everything I just said to you? None of it resonates with you, does it?”
“I don’t want you to worry about me, too.”
“No matter what, you’re my sister. I’m always going to worry about you.”
I give her a wry grin. “It feels like I’m the younger sister these days.”
“I feel old sometimes,” she admits. “That’s what comes from spending your days chasing after a child, telling him not to put random objects in his mouth, picking strange bits of food out of his hair, always being responsible for someone else’s well-being, for keeping them safe.”
Yes, Elisa is definitely adopting a new mode of motherhood than the example we received.
I laugh. “You’re not exactly tempting me to embrace a life of domesticity.”
“It has its moments.”
“And you love him? Juan?” It seems a silly thing to ask, but I realize this is one thing I don’t know about my sister.
She smiles. “Don’t all wives love their husbands?”
“That would be nice if it were true.”
But we both know better.
“He seems like a good man,” I say cautiously.
“He is.” She scoops up a handful of sand, the granules passing between her fingers, her gaze cast out to sea. I think she’s somewhere else entirely, and then she blinks as if to break herself from her stupor, and she’s returned to me.
“I love him.” There’s both surprise and confidence in her voice, as though it’s a new concept she hasn’t quite gotten used to. And at the same time, I believe her. She looks happy. Happier than she’s been in a long time, as though her marriage and son have erased some of the darkness that has followed us for so long.
“Good. I’m pleased for you. You deserve to be happy. To be at peace.”
“So do you.”
“I fear I am not a peaceful person by nature.”
Elisa laughs. “True.” Her expression sobers. “But it is not good to always be at war, to always be fighting.”
“I will try to keep that in mind.”
“Please do. And Beatriz?” She grasps my hand. “Whatever you do, promise me you will be safe. I can’t lose another person I love to this madness.”
Her words so closely echo my father’s the night he caught me sneaking back into the house, that a lump clogs my throat, Fidel’s impact on each member in my family indelible.
“I promise.”
* * *
? ? ?
We walk back from the beach, Miguel chattering excitedly between us, his nanny in tow. At the intersection of our two homes, we part ways, Elisa heading back to her house, a few minutes away from ours. I will miss her desperately when she moves to Miami.
I turn right instead of left, walking past homes more modest than the ones that flanked our estate in Havana. We knew all of our neighbors in Miramar; Elisa’s best friend, Ana, lived next door to us. Here, we are all strangers. Some of the houses are inhabited by seasonal residents, others by people who barely acknowledge us when we walk past.
We’ve tried to varying degrees to fit in—admittedly, my efforts have likely been the most half-hearted—but the differences between us and the Americans around us aren’t the sort you can remove with a fashionable dress or the right conversation note. I’ve seen things these girls haven’t, lived through a revolution, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t mimic the carefree attitude they adopt with aplomb; I lack the innocence they lay claim to. Perhaps that’s why their mothers shield them, why we have become pariahs of sorts. They fear we will sully the pristine society they’ve created here, separated from the troubles of the outside world, unencumbered by poverty, fear, violence, and death.