The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba - Chanel Cleeton Page 0,127
cracks, and she breaks off, her fingers drifting to the large pearl necklace around her neck.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen her so unsettled, not even when I told her I was leaving home to marry Mateo, and it occurs to me that I am not the only one whose world has been upended even if my losses have happened on a grander scale. The world my family has thrived in has changed, and now new alliances will be made, the Americans replacing the Spanish as the ones with whom they must now curry favor.
“I never—” My mother clears her throat. “When you have a child, you want what’s best for them. You imagine their future, you wish for their happiness, and you do everything you can to bring it about. There is no greater pain than watching your child suffer. When you told me you wanted to marry Mateo, I didn’t want your life to be harder than it had to be. To be a woman in these times is . . . difficult. We cannot do as we please, act as we’d wish, stand up for the things we might believe in. We are defined by the men we marry, by their treatment of us. I worried for you, and in doing so, I am sorry I failed you. Your father will never change his mind. Never accept the choice you have made.”
“I know. And I understand what it means to be a mother, to have to make difficult choices.”
Tears fill her eyes. “I know you do. You could come home. You and Isabella could live here. Mateo could be anywhere, he could—”
“Mateo is my husband,” I reply. “I do not know what has happened to him, but he will always be my husband. I cannot deny that. Not even to come home.”
She holds the bag out to me. “This is for you. It will give you the start you and Isabella need.”
I take the bag from her wordlessly, pulling the drawstring and staring at the contents.
She’s given me jewelry—pieces that have been in the family for longer than I’ve been alive, pieces I’ve seen her wear throughout my life.
“I wish I could do more, but your father—he won’t notice that these are missing. They should be yours anyway. They are your legacy.” She offers me a sad little smile. “We women collect these currencies, this power wherever we can.”
“It’s too much. I can’t accept it.”
“You can. You will. For Isabella and for yourself. You have always been strong, Marina. You will need that strength to guide you through this new part of your life. To help you start over. We all need to be strong now.”
“The food—was that you?” I ask, finally voicing the question that I’ve wondered about since Carmela first handed me the bundle.
“Of course it was me. You’re my daughter. I love you.”
Our relationship has never been an overly affectionate one, but I take a few steps forward, closing the distance between us and wrapping my arms around her.
“Some of the revolutionaries are coming back to the city,” my mother whispers in my ear as she embraces me. “There is to be a reception of sorts for them today. You should go look for Mateo.”
We break apart at the sound of another set of footsteps in the room, and then I see her, my daughter, and she runs toward me, throwing her arms around me.
* * *
—
We walk along the edge of the sea in silence. Isabella has spoken little since we left. I’ve agonized over whether this is the right thing to do, whether I should have left her with my mother and father where she would live in better conditions than I likely will be able to give her.
I don’t know if Isabella truly understands why I left her, or if she’s angry with me for having done so, but I hope that I will be able to make it up to her and that she will never have to make the same choices I’ve made, that she will not one day be called to fight as I have done, as her father and grandparents have done.
The Spanish are finally expelled from Cuba. Here is what we are left with:
Nearly all of the countryside has been destroyed, almost all livestock slaughtered, the crops we’ve relied on for sustenance, the very earth itself a barren char. No one knows exactly how many lives perished in Weyler’s reconcentration camps, but the estimates are nearly