by Uceda, Mayte
“Yes, I have Rory, but lately my job’s put me in such a crappy mood. And to make matters worse, Rory’s always pestering me about having a baby. It makes me cringe just thinking about it.”
They all stopped at once. Lola shrugged when they looked at her.
“But it’s normal to want a baby,” Rebecca said.
“Why? Why is it normal to get married and have babies? So . . . what? The ones who don’t have this urge are abnormal? I can’t think about having kids now. Besides, I already told Rory my maternal instinct was so green, a sheep ate it.”
They laughed at Lola’s off-the-wall humor. It wasn’t so much what she said but how she said it, hamming it up, imitating a sheep.
“And what did he say? Berta asked.
“That if my maternal instinct had been eaten by a sheep, it certainly wasn’t a Scottish one.”
They burst out laughing again. “Well, from now until you’re forty-five,” Berta said, “there’s plenty of time for you to have ten kids.”
“Perish the thought,” Lola said and rolled her eyes.
MATT
Barcelona
March 21, 2013
Rebecca shuffled papers on her desk at school. She’d spent the past hour preparing for tomorrow’s class. Shunning the traditional approach, she preferred creating a collaborative space for promoting community among her students. Drawing from the required curriculum, she presented a theme, and then her students were encouraged to develop it through group work. So far the results had been positive. And in view of the motivation and performance of her students, her methods received high praise from the headmaster. She took pride in her professional life.
The radio was on. Rebecca was listening to a report about a referendum on independence from the United Kingdom that the Scottish prime minister, Alex Salmond, had announced Scotland would hold in September of 2014. Rebecca was pleased the citizens would have a chance to decide the issue for themselves. She thought about Kenzie and how he’d be pleased too. Would Scotland opt for independence? They’d have to wait a year and a half to find out.
Rebecca checked the time; Sofi’s swim lesson was about to begin. Rebecca walked to the outdoor pavilion where after-school activities were held. On the way she ran into Matt, one of the English teachers. Matt had arrived in Barcelona a year ago looking for a teaching job, and it wasn’t hard for him to find a position. He was from London and had several master’s degrees, and women generally found him irresistible. Rebecca knew he liked her company because they could speak in English. But she suspected his interest went a little further than that, so she wasn’t overly surprised when he asked if she would join him for dinner the following evening.
Seated at a table at Sant Pau’s, Rebecca was enjoying conversation with Matt. It was her first date since her divorce, and the evening was going well. Rebecca had been in no hurry to have male company. But Matt—pleasant and handsome, his longish brown hair a bit unkempt—gave off just the right touch of unself-consciousness for Rebecca’s taste. Unexpectedly, he was a bit clumsy—endearingly so—and he made up for his lack of coordination with a great sense of humor. He had just finished an amusing joke when he smiled at Rebecca and told her how beautiful he found her eyes.
“Thank you,” she said, a shadow crossing her face for an instant at the memory of another man who had said the same thing upon meeting her.
“I should’ve asked you out months ago, but I thought you’d say no.”
“Months ago I might have.”
“What changed?”
“Me.”
“Well, here’s to change.” Matt raised his wineglass, and Rebecca followed suit, marking what turned out to be the start of a new beginning.
They went out frequently after that evening, enjoying each other’s company: long walks, good conversations, meals out, movies. They had fun together. One night he invited her up to his apartment. And she accepted. She liked Matt, and it had been so long since she’d felt anything. Her desire for a man to touch her, to make love to her, had intensified lately. It had been a year since her divorce but three since she’d been with a man. Before she left Mario, she had discovered he was having an affair. She had kept it to herself; it hadn’t bothered her. On the contrary, it had meant he never forced an intimacy she didn’t want.
Her body was set free again in Matt’s arms, and during the months following that first encounter, she felt strangely happy, wondering if perhaps she loved him.
Until one night.
Matt considered himself an excellent cook and had promised to prepare the most amazing dinner of all time for her. When Rebecca rang the bell to his apartment, he greeted her with a big smile. The smell of sautéed onions hung in the air. Matt was wearing a black apron over his casual clothes, his hair characteristically disheveled.
She watched him as he readied their roast chicken dinner for the oven. He stuffed the bird with a chestnut-and-sage dressing. As he coated it with butter, Rebecca looked on in resignation, sighing at his selection of butter over olive oil.
With the chicken roasting in the oven, Matt went to shower and change. She poured herself a glass of red wine, a Chapoutier. She preferred a Spanish Ribera del Duero or a good red from Toro, but with her first sip she savored the decent French he had chosen. She wandered around the room and tuned in to a radio station. She felt comfortable and relaxed. Matt had turned off the bright overhead lights and created a warm ambiance with lamps and candles. She poked through the books on the shelves and found that he was a fan of Conan Doyle and Wilkie Collins. She took out a book by the latter and flipped through it. It was a well-preserved 1964 edition of The Woman in White. She read the summary of the story, which turned out to be a mix of impossible love, wild ambition, deceit, and betrayal.
Typical, she thought. She sipped her wine and allowed herself to be carried away by the soft guitar music on the sound system. A framed photo of her and Matt, in a prominent spot on the bookcase, caught her attention. Rebecca remembered him taking it with his phone. She smiled. Next to it was another photo showing an adventurous Matt posing in front of a pagoda somewhere in Asia.
She turned away from the bookcase and toward the beautifully set table, listening to the song playing in the background. So romantic, she thought, swaying with the melody. Made for a night with your lover. Then Rebecca recognized the lyrics and was transported back to the enchanted evening in the forest and her promise to her beloved. For you, Kenzie MacLeod, I would forget the entire universe, she whispered.
The wineglass almost slipped from her hand. Matt entered the room, and Rebecca turned to him, shaken. She didn’t notice how attractive he looked in his white shirt and good black pants.
He could see something was wrong. “What is it?”
She put a finger to her lips. The song filled the silence in the apartment.
“You like it?” asked Matt. She nodded, but he saw her tremendous sadness. “Does it have a special meaning for you?”
“Yes, but it was a long time ago.”
“Snow Patrol,” Matt said. “It’s a group from Northern Ireland. This song, ‘Chasing Cars,’ was a hit for them a few years ago.”
It wasn’t his fault, nor was it hers. Rebecca simply couldn’t keep moving forward. For a time, Matt tried hard to make their relationship work. He knew something in Rebecca’s past was tormenting her and asked her more than once to tell him about it. But she always refused, saying it was something she had to work out for herself.
In the end, Matt gave up, recognizing the futility of trying any longer to fight whatever was haunting her. One afternoon he let her know he’d met someone. Rebecca wasn’t hurt. She thanked him for his friendship and wished him luck, and they parted ways.
What grieved her most was thinking she would never fall in love again. Matt was attentive, affectionate, and kind. But a few simple song lyrics had been enough to change everything.
How
long would she be a slave to her memories?
December was a strange month. Mario asked to see her regarding something about Sofi. She had him come to her house. Feeling a little apprehensive, she’d asked Enric and Pablo to be there so she wouldn’t be alone with him, especially in case he brought up any legal issues that could affect her daughter.
Mario looked tense when he came to her door, but Sofi greeted him with her characteristic cheer, and he relaxed. Enric and Pablo’s presence, however, put him on edge again, and he asked to speak to her alone. He claimed that what they needed to discuss didn’t require the assistance of legal experts. She acquiesced but asked them not to leave; she didn’t trust Mario and wanted them nearby. Sofi was thrilled to have her two uncles to herself, and they went with her to her bedroom to wait.
Rebecca invited Mario into the living room. She sat across from him, keeping a distance, prepared to listen.
It was even more distressing than she’d anticipated. Her ex-husband had accepted a job with a law firm in Brussels. He was moving to the Belgian capital, which meant Sofi would have to travel there to spend her planned Christmas vacation with him.
The news unsettled Rebecca. Mario had visitation rights, but it saddened her that her daughter would be so far away now when she went to be with her father. She sighed. There was no point in complaining. The two of them worked out a new schedule for visits, and then they both relaxed a little.
Before leaving, Mario informed her he wouldn’t be going to Brussels alone. “I’ve been seeing someone for a while now,” he said.
Rebecca was surprised, but she didn’t let her face show it. “Is she the one you were seeing while we were married?” Mario looked at her uncomfortably. “Please, don’t tell me you thought I didn’t know.”
Automatically, he made some practiced gestures with his elegant hands—movements intended to add emphasis to his arguments. But he didn’t answer her question. Instead he said, “I just want you to explain to Sofi. Julia will be living with me.”
“Fine,” she responded curtly.
“I . . . I plan to marry her.”
Rebecca shrugged. “It’s your life. You don’t have to explain anything to me.”
“Yes, well . . . Julia wants a Catholic wedding.”
“You can’t get married in the Church again!” exclaimed Rebecca.
“I’m going to the ecclesiastical court to request an annulment of our marriage.”
This time she couldn’t hide her shock. “And what are you going to claim? That I forced you to marry me? Come on, Mario.”
“I’ll say whatever I have to. Canon law has a variety of reasons for annulment. And don’t worry; I won’t involve your family. I’ll take full responsibility.”
She smiled at this irony. “You must be very much in love.”
“I am.”
“And how does it feel, Mario?”
“What do you mean?”
“This love you feel for her.”
Even though he maintained his reserve, he managed a wan smile. “It’s special.”
“It’s taken you a long time to fall in love. I fell in love once too, remember?”
Mario’s face turned dark. “Don’t start. You know we made the right decision.”
“Right for whom?”
“For both of us.”
“I know it doesn’t matter anymore, but I want you to know something. I never thought I would love anyone the way I loved him. And I never imagined I would lose him. All the years you and I were married, I never stopped thinking about him. Even when we made love, I imagined his hands touching me, his mouth kissing me. It was the only way I could stand it.”
“Be quiet! Out of respect for our daughter, if nothing else.”
Rebecca exhaled in frustration, and her eyes filled with tears. “It’s precisely out of respect for her that you should think long and hard about what you’re planning to do.”
“I’ve made my decision. I didn’t come here to ask your permission.”
“Do whatever you want.” She got up from her chair and indicated the way out.
“He’s right,” Enric was saying a while later, over soup for lunch. “As much as it pains me to admit.”
“OK, it was a farce of a marriage. But Sofi was born of it, and she’s real. She was conceived in holy matrimony, blessed by—”
“Oh, Sis, leave it alone. You were pressured to get married by our mother and forced by that imbecile’s blackmail. Now you can fix it and remove all of God’s responsibility for keeping you united for all eternity.”
“We’ll take care of it,” Pablo said. “You don’t have to worry about a thing. I know a good lawyer who specializes in canon law, with years of experience. If Mario initiates the process, maybe you should declare grounds. It can be a unilateral action—that is, you aren’t obligated to have a part in the proceedings. But it would be better if you did. Besides, everything is done confidentially, there’s no public hearing, and it’s usually resolved in a couple of years.”
“Do you think there’s a possibility they’ll grant the annulment?”
“Getting married under pressure, fear, or coercion are normal grounds for annulment for a Catholic marriage,” Enric said.
Rebecca breathed deeply. “OK, I’ll do it. I’ll make a statement if it’s necessary.”
The other unexpected occurrence that month had to do with Lola. Six months earlier, she’d landed a job with a Spanish-language newspaper in Boston and had moved to the States to fulfill her dream of being a journalist. Rebecca wasn’t surprised by her friend’s decision; it was foreseeable, given their holiday conversations. Nor was it surprising that Rory began traveling to Boston whenever he was able to get away for two or three days. The arrangement wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t impossible either.
At Christmastime, the day before leaving for Brussels to take Sofi to her father, Rebecca got a phone call from Berta. “Lola left Rory,” Berta informed her.
“What?”
“She called at three in the morning, forgetting about the time difference; you know how she is. She asked me to tell you. She didn’t want to burden you, since you have your own problems.”
“I don’t have any problems,” Rebecca protested.
“I feel so bad for him. He spent four months crossing the ocean to see her, and the idiot has an affair with her editor.”
Rebecca couldn’t believe it. “Seriously?”
“She says she’s fallen in love with the guy, some sketchy Argentinian. She didn’t use that word, but it’s obvious. He’s ten years older, has been married three times, and has four kids from his three wives.”
“Oh, God. Poor Rory.”
“As far as everything else goes, she’s thrilled with her new job. She gets to travel around the States, reporting news of interest to the Hispanic community.”
“I hope it’s all worth it.”
“Rory sure didn’t deserve it, but that’s life. It looks like the Scottish boys lose again.”
“Berta!”
“Oh, I’m sorry! It’s just that Lola’s call freaked me out. I know it was different with you.”
“Completely different!”
“I’m really sorry.”
“OK.”
“And how are things with you? We haven’t talked in ages.”
“Matt and I broke up, and Mario moved to Brussels for a new job, which means I have to take Sophie there this Christmas. And to top it all off, the idiot has requested an annulment.”
Berta got lost in the rapid update. “Wait, wait, wait. Start over. Wow, we really should talk more. Of course, I never have anything going on worth talking about . . .”
The next day, Rebecca took Sofi to Brussels. They would spend three days together doing tourist things before Rebecca returned to Barcelona. Three days just for them. The elegant city
had a decidedly Parisian air. The weather was cold and windy, but they didn’t let it slow them down. They made the rounds of the comic-strip museum, the chocolate museum, the toy museum, and more.
On the appointed day, Mario appeared, holding hands with a woman. Unexpectedly, Rebecca felt sorry for her, even though she hadn’t forgotten that the woman had been seeing Mario while he was still married. But Rebecca wasn’t bitter; her marital life had by then already become nonexistent. Julia looked about forty. She was a blonde, not so tall, and still quite slender. Her brown eyes looked happy, and her mouth wore a perpetual smile. If she was half as pleasant as she looked, Mario was a lucky man. Julia’s affectionate manner with her daughter was enough to lessen Rebecca’s anxiety when the time came to leave her with them.
UNEXPECTED NEWS
Barcelona
February 19, 2014
The most tedious aspect of Rebecca’s job was correcting exams. It was monotonous and repetitive, and she never felt it was an effective way to evaluate what a student had learned. She really couldn’t complain—she loved her job. But at that moment her eyes needed a rest. The sound of her phone ringing provided the perfect excuse.
Her father’s picture popped up on the screen.
“Hi, Daddy!”
“Sweetheart, where are you?”
“At home, grading exams. Why?”
“I need to see you. Can you come to the office?”
“Is something wrong?”
Her father didn’t answer immediately, and Rebecca was afraid they’d been cut off.
“Daddy, are you there?”
“Yes, yes, I’m here. Can you come?”
“I have to pick Sofi up in an hour. She’s at a friend’s house.”
“Fine, get her and then come here.”
“You’re not going to tell me what it’s about?”
“Don’t be so impatient.”
“OK, I’ll see you then.”
Sofi came out to meet her mother with her face decorated in bright colors and glitter. “Where are we going?” the little girl asked when she realized they weren’t taking the usual way home.
