Page 43 of The Hacienda
The sensation of San Isidro’s earth beneath my feet after years away was intoxicating... until I grew close enough to sense the sickness and rage that putrefied its very air. When Doña Beatriz Solórzano begged me for help, I knew I would not turn her away. Any chance to remain at Hacienda San Isidro and protect Paloma from the poison that seeped through the house was one to be seized. But the desperation in Beatriz’s voice unlocked a compassion in me I thought my anger at the Solórzanos had buried for eternity.
She was alone. No one—not husband, friend, or family—stood by her side as she faced the jaws of that cavernous, sickened house.
Tending to lost souls is our vocation, Titi often said.
That was what I was doing when I covered Beatriz’s sleeping body with a blanket in the green parlor last night, my touch featherlight even as it lingered a breath too long. A lost soul sought aid, and I gave it. That was what I was doing. That was who I was, that was the responsibility I inherited from Titi and the Cross I chose to take upon my shoulders.
Then why hadn’t I yet sought penance for my moments of failure?
A breeze snaked through the maguey, carrying the voices of the few tlachiqueros who paced the rows of the fields while their fellows took siesta. I worried my lip distractedly as I walked. Last night, I had revealed my true nature to Beatriz. She swore she would tell no one, but the fact remained that outside of Titi’s people and the villagers of the haciendas, she was theonlyperson with whom I had spoken so frankly. Was it sleeplessness that loosened my tongue? Was it the way Beatriz listened, her head lilting gently to the side?
Or was it a graver failing? A very human failing, one that drew my eye to her more often than not?
A failing that left me following the bend of Beatriz’s waist as she set the tray of pozole on the table beside the capilla, tracing the line of her back up to her neck, to the curls that brushed against her skin, to the curve of her throat?
Look at me, she said.
Ah, but I had, and therein lay the sin.
I realized in a sharp flash, the white blow of sun in the desert, that as much as I loathed him, I envied what Rodolfo had.
I should have banished the thought immediately. Sought forgiveness and punishment for it in the same breath. I should have stepped away to collect myself, to regain the cool, controlled detachment I had fought so hard to earn. The hard-won aloofness from worldly desires that I solikedabout myself.
I coveted the patrón’s wife. The map my training gave me was clear on this matter:repent.
So why did I continue to turn the sin over in my mind, examining it like an old coin, instead of casting it as far from my heart as I could? Was it because there were graver matters at hand? Or was it because—God forbid—a stubborn part of me did not yetwantto be forgiven?
A shadow crossed my path. I lifted my chin sharply, tightening my grip on the mule’s reins.
Directly before me stood Juana Solórzano. Her feet were planted firmly in the dirt of the road; she looked at me with a bland, almost bored sort of aggression.
“Villalobos.” Her voice raked over my skin like a hair shirt. No one addressed me by my surname but her. It was a constant reminder that my father had once served hers, that my family still served her, and that no matter how tall I grew, how far I traveled, how much I studied, how high I rose, she would always look down her nose at me. “You’re not supposed to be on my property.”
Juana’s enforcement of Doña Catalina’s banishment even after herdeath surprised me. Angered me. Perhaps I should have overcome that. Perhaps I should have been able to forgive her with time.
Shouldis an oddly powerful word. Shame and anger have a way of flying to it like coins to lodestone. I had achieved detachment from so many worldly things, but this clung like burrs. It was a snake that sank its fangs so deep they touched bone, spreading its venom through my marrow.
“Buenas tardes, doña.” I reached up with my left hand and tipped my hat to her. Let her read every ounce of quiet insubordination I poured into the movement. Let her know that I could hold grudges just as long as she. “I came at the invitation of Doña Solórzano.”The living one, I added silently. “And I’ll return in a few days at her invitation as well.”
I clicked my tongue to the mule and led it forward and off the road slightly, so as to carve a path around where Juana stood.
She told me I was imagining it. Beatriz’s voice echoed in my mind as I remembered the hollowed-out, exhausted fear evident in the slump of her posture when we spoke in the sacristy storeroom.But shetoldme she was afraid of the house. She and Ana Luisa both.
I believed Beatriz’s conclusion was sound. I had known Juana—if from a distance—for most of my life, and I knew her to be sharp-eyed. Attentive. If she avoided the house as much as Beatriz said, then she knew something was wrong with it.
What else did she know?
Juana’s face was shaded by a sweat-stained hat, but it was still evident that she narrowed her eyes at me as I passed.
She would not help us.
I mounted the mule and bid Juana farewell without looking back. “Buenas tardes, doña.”
I received no reply. When I cast a glance over my shoulder, she was gone, vanished among the rows of maguey, silent as an apparition.
Was there a chance she would go to Padre Vicente about my presence here? Perhaps, but perhaps not—Padre Vicente disapproved of her way ofliving, how she refused to marry and rarely came to Mass. How her lack of simpering whenever she did cross paths with the priest set the man on edge. In a way, I respected how she grated on Vicente’s nerves. She did not give a damn what anyone thought of her, as dangerous as that was for a woman of her station.
But what if she mentioned my presence to Rodolfo? Would he be angry that Beatriz had disobeyed him and sought my help?
