Page 56 of Consequence of One Reckless Night

“Take me away from here,” she whispered suddenly, surprising Alexandre, who started the car with a grim nod.

She didn’t see anything on the drive back—neither the sun setting in the horizon, nor the dark clouds which suddenly rolled in, nor the droplets of rain which peppered the car as they drove along the narrow, serpentine roads of Pérola. When they finally stopped, Raquel roused from her thoughts to look out of the window. They’d stopped at an unfamiliar house.

“Where are we?”

“Our home on the island,” he informed her, stepping out of the car just as the rain began to gather strength. “The rain’s picking up. Let’s get inside.” Opening her door, he helped her out of the car before leading her inside.

He led her to the living room, where he deposited her on a sofa before going in search of a towel. Raquel stared out of the huge glass wall, at the fury of the rain outside as thunder crashed above them and lightning tore the skies apart while rain fell in sheets, making visibility near zero. It was a good thing they had stopped when they did, for driving through such bad weather would have been dangerous.

“Here.” A towel appeared in front of her, and she grabbed it, automatically wiping away the water droplets dotting her face and arms. Next, she quickly dried her long hair before leaving the towel draped across the back of the sofa.

A few more minutes passed before Alexandre joined her—this time with a cup of steaming hot chocolate. Whispering her thanks, she took the cup, wrapped her hands around the hot ceramic, letting the warmth chase away the stinging cold that pervaded her body.

“Drink,” he ordered.

She obediently raised the cup to her lips, wincing when the hot liquid scalded her mouth. Blowing on the steam, she slowly drank the delicious hot chocolate, grateful for the warmth which seeped into her body as the liquid travelled down her food pipe. When she finished her drink, Alexandre took the cup from her hands and sat back, one arm thrown behind her, across the back of the sofa.

“Want to tell me what happened back at the house?”

She blinked as memories, both good and bad, rushed into her mind. “I just wanted to see the house I grew up in, but I’d forgotten how miserable my childhood was.”

“Tell me.”

She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.

“My parents didn’t have a happy marriage. My mother came from a poor family, and she married my father hoping he would give her a better life. But she soon realized that he was a miserable drunk who refused to work and provide for his family.

“Mother took up many jobs to keep us all alive and fed, while my father squandered away everything the family owned. Then she found a job as a nanny to a doctor who needed someone to look after his children. When he moved to America, she went with his family, leaving us behind with our father.”

“She left her own children to look after someone else’s?” Alexandre couldn’t keep the incredulous tone out of his voice.

He knew of many women who went abroad for work, leaving behind their own children. Their jobs brought much needed financial security to their families, but their children often grew up insecure and hungry for love.

“Financially, it was a good move, but I think for my mother, it was an escape from a man who grew progressively worse with each passing day.” Raquel was ashamed to admit that she’d never liked her father. “I have no memories of my mother from my childhood because she left Pérola when I was three. But I remember the arguments between my father and my brother who faced the brunt of his anger.

“Our father was angry and upset that Sylvia didn’t want him. He hated being dependent on her for his needs, but what infuriated him most was that people saw him as less of a man for living off his wife. I think all this only exacerbated his awful habit which ended up killing him in the end.”

“Who looked after you while your mother was away?”

“My brother, mostly. And my mother’s sisters.”

Alexandre sat stunned—unable to believe that Sylvia had left her young daughters with her teenage son, and a drunken husband. Whatever were her reasons for leaving, it surely didn’t justify leaving small children in the care of an unstable man!

“Mother didn’t visit when Father died, although I wished she had.” Her voice quivered as Raquel once again became that five-year-old who had pined for her absentee mother. “She eventually came back when Arcanjo begged her to, but I didn’t get the mother I’d always longed for.”

Pain pinched her face when she remembered the first time she saw her mother, and how Sylvia had recoiled from her.

“For some reason, my mother didn’t like me. At first, I thought it was my imagination, and my sisters told me I was simply being paranoid. Mother never looked at me and avoided me to the point that it became obvious to others around me.

“One day, I overheard one of my aunts ask her why she treated me differently from my sisters and she said...” The words dried up on her lips as tears swelled in her eyes.

“What did she say?” Alexandre could barely hold back his anger—anger at Sylvia for treating this wonderful woman so horribly.

“That... that she hated me because I looked like him... my father,” her lips trembled as she fought hard not to cry. “She said I had inherited not just his looks, but his timidity, too, and that I constantly reminded her of the man who’d made her life a miserable hell.”

Beside her, Alexandre sat shell-shocked at Sylvia’s cruelty. To hate her own child just because she looked like her unwanted husband—what fault was it of Raquel’s? And wasn’t a mother supposed to love her child unconditionally, no matter who she looked like?

“I was shattered by her confession, but I couldn’t tell anyone what I’d heard,” Raquel continued, her voice dropping to a hollow whisper. “I was so hurt by her words that I couldn’t think straight for days, but I believed I could make her love me. Sadly, I couldn’t hold my mother’s attention long enough or please her, no matter what I did, and eventually I gave up trying... till one night when I walked in on Ana arguing with my mother.”

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