Page 71 of In a Far-Off Land
The room tilted. My stomach lurched. I stood up, swaying, and stumbled for the back door, barely getting out before I retched up what little I had eaten. The trees and grass spun around me. The rain wet my face.
I’m sorry, Max. I’m so sorry. I wish I could explain it to you. How desperate and alone I was before I met you. How I felt like I didn’t have anywhere to turn. But now, you’ll think it didn’t meananything but business to me—at the beach house—and you’ll hate me for that. You have every right to hate me, Max. I wiped the rain from my eyes. At least now—after all I’ve done—at least now, you’ll finally give up on me.
When I dragged myself back inside, Lupita was silent, blooms of scarlet on her cheeks. How could I ever have thought we could be like sisters? She was good and kind and pure, and I was... not. Sanchia skewered me with a dagger gaze. I was exactly what she’d said from the start. She spit out a torrent of words.
Lupita translated, “She asks if this is true.”
I nodded. The gist of it anyway. What did it matter if it was three times or thirty?
Sanchia’s lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, looking me over from head to toe. She bit out another question. Lupita gasped and shook her head. Sanchia repeated her words very slowly to Lupita and jerked her head at me.
Lupita turned to me, her cheeks flushing pink again. She swallowed. “She is asking you...” She faltered as if she couldn’t find the right words. “She is asking who is the father... of the child you carry.”
My stomach sank even lower. Down to my shoes, if you want to know the truth. I hadn’t even admitted it to myself yet, not really. But Sanchia knew straight out.
I looked at her hard black eyes—pitiless, unforgiving. Sanchia would never—could never— know who the father was. Not after everything. And so I said what I had to say. The only thing I could say to protect him. “I don’t know.”
Lupita didn’t translate. Her mouth dropped open.
Sanchia stiffened, then slapped me hard across the face and said one harsh word.
I hung my head, my cheek stinging.
“Oh!” Lupita put her hand to her own cheek. “She said—”
“I know what she said,” I choked out. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t called myself.
Sanchia pointed to the door. “Go,” she spat out in English. “You. Go.”
It’s your own fault, Minnie, Alex had said. And it was.
You get what you deserve, Penny would say. And I had.
Of course, I would go. What else could I do? But I had one request first. Not a request—a demand, a plea. “Please.” I raised my head and looked her in the eye, not caring if she hit me again. “Please, Señora. Please don’t tell...” My hand moved over my middle, my voice cracked. “Lupita, tell her she’ll never see me again—I promise—if she swears not to tell anyone about this.”
Lupita translated slowly, her voice shaking. She really was obedient.
Sanchia pulled her rosary from her pocket and said a few words, the crucifix clutched in her fist, crossed herself, then pointed to the door.
Lupita took my hand and held me back. “But Mina, you can’t—”
I pulled away. The truth was, I didn’t care if the police picked me up, if Adams and his goons found me. Lupita had treated me like a friend, a sister. Oscar had risked his family. Even Sanchia had fed me. I didn’t deserve any of it. “You won’t tell, will you? Please, Lupita?”
Lupita shook her head, tears in her eyes. “But what will you do? You must think of your baby.”
Your baby.My baby. I’d been trying for weeks not to think those words.
Sanchia opened the back door and the clamor of the rain drowned her words. Lupita threw her arms around me. “Please stay. I will talk to her, she will—”
Sanchia pushed Lupita backwards and me through the door. Fat raindrops darkened my borrowed blouse. Lupita disappeared for a moment, then was back, throwing her scarf over my head and shoulders, rain and tears on her cheeks. Sanchia jerked Lupita away again and slammed the door between us.
I stepped out into the pouring rain. Where could I go?
Away. Just away. I stumbled toward the road, now a wide river of mud. Away from my dreams and plans. Away from the pain I’d caused good people. I’d told Sanchia I didn’t know who the father of the baby was, but that had been another one of my big lies.
I knew. Of course I knew. It was Max who could never know.
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