When We Left Cuba(62)

Stubborn. Willful. Reckless.

I’ve heard it all, and it’s all true. But I can’t let this go. Can’t accept the words she says as truth, the lot in life she wishes to consign me to as enough.

“Why is happiness not enough?”

Why has there never been understanding between us? Why can you not accept me as I am rather than as you would make me?

“You’ve always been selfish,” she snaps, her gaze darkening, her words a lash across my skin, because God help me, I know what’s coming, could see it building a mile away. “Your father never should have indulged you as he did.”

Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites, but they are human, after all, subject to the same flaws and foibles as the rest of us. I have always been my father’s favorite, an unspoken understanding existing between us that I could push him further than the rest of my siblings, test the limits of his patience—much like my mother had her favorite.

The storm has been building for a long time, simmering in my family, the air crackling with it as we all dance around the one subject we cannot bear to speak of— “Alejandro might be alive—”

I know what’s coming, cannot guard myself from the blow and the immense wave of pain it brings.

“—if not for you,” she finishes.

There’s something special in the relationship between mothers and their sons, especially Cuban mothers.

“You filled him with ideas,” she accuses.

“Alejandro had ideas of his own.”

Ideas he was proud of, dreams and beliefs he was willing to die for. I have no problem accepting my responsibility in the matter, that I was a coconspirator in all of this, but it seems wrong to forget Alejandro’s own desires, to take away his agency.

“You pushed him. You could never leave well enough alone. Even when you were a child, you insisted on misbehaving, on getting into trouble. And now look what you’ve done.”

“I didn’t kill him.”

I can understand the grief, even understand the anger to a degree—after all, haven’t I felt it when looking at Fidel? But what I can’t understand is the anger in her gaze when she looks at me.

“Things would have been different if you hadn’t pushed him to go against his family. If you hadn’t encouraged that madness. He listened to you. He followed you. Those were your ideas you fed him. He was a good boy.”

I almost feel sorry for her. My mother is not the sort of person who understands those who are not like her, does not adjust well to change, cannot reconcile what Cuba has become with her world of parties and shopping. The truth is, she cares not for the struggle of the average Cuban, only seeks to protect the private enclave she inhabits.

“We are sending you to Europe,” she announces. “To live with my cousin in Spain.”

“Pardon me?”

“I discussed it with your father. With Isabel’s wedding coming up, your presence would only serve as a distraction. I won’t have you ruin this for your sister. This marriage is too important for her. For all of us.”

“I’m not trying to ruin this for Isabel.”

“And yet, you have. If her fiancé breaks off this engagement, there will be no more opportunities for her. She will end up alone and unmarried.”

“Like me? We aren’t all you. We don’t all aspire to marry a wealthy man because we’re incapable of making our own way in the world.”

Her hand reaches out, connecting with my cheek with a loud crack.

My skin burns from the feel of her palm.

“You think you can do anything, be anything, that you can defy your family with no repercussions. My parents wanted me to marry your father, and I did. I did it because I would never have threatened my family’s reputation as you have, would never have considered defying my parents’ wishes the way you constantly defy ours. You will go to stay with my cousin in Madrid.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you will walk out of this house with the clothes on your back and nothing more.”

“I don’t need your money.”

“So you’ve whored yourself out for that man.”

I don’t bother correcting her.

“Father would never let you throw me out.”

“You’ve gone too far this time. The Preston family is powerful. Senator Preston’s fiancée’s family is equally so. They can ruin everything your father has worked so hard to build. Ruin your sisters’ futures. You can go stay with my cousin, or you can leave.”

“Elisa would never cut me off.”

“Perhaps she wouldn’t. But Maria doesn’t have a choice. And Isabel is just as angry with you as I am. I won’t have you bring this family down. Not after everything we’ve already been through.”

I want to leave. I want to storm out of here, and find Nick, and take back everything I said, tell him I’ll be his mistress, want to wait for him to return to Palm Beach when he can sneak away from Washington—when he can sneak away from his wife.

It would be easier.

It would be easier, and it would be wrong.

I can’t be that woman.

I don’t know what I’ll do in Spain, but at the moment, I’m all out of plans for my future, and the urge to outrun my problems is irresistible.