Thirty
The mill was spared. The fire had started from lightning just south of the mill, and it was blown away from the mill by a north wind that carried the flames farther south, blackening and destroying everything before it, including Will and Santana’s homes, Noel’s home, all the outbuildings. Several prize Palominos were lost, Will’s ranch hands unable to take the time to get them out of the barn. The fire had simply come too fast to save anything at all, and the only thing that had rescued Hernando’s house and the other buildings at the main ranch was freshly plowed grape vineyards and vegetable fields between the fire and the ranch. The wide expanse of dirt acted as a breaker, cutting off the flames.
The facts that Noel and James and Ester’s husband were fine, the mill intact, their other five children unharmed except for a few superficial burns, were all that buffered the pain in Will and Santana’s hearts. Little Valioso’s body had been found amid the ashes of their home, and from his position when Will and Glenn found him, it appeared he had taken his puppy into a playroom, where he had hidden in a closet because of the thunder and lightning, perhaps before the fire ever reached the house. Why he hadn’t responded when Will had called for him, no one would ever know. Always wanting to please, it was possible he’d been afraid he had done something wrong by hiding in the closet. His puppy was found dead not far from his body.
Such sorrow was hard enough for any woman, but the guilt Santana felt over not having wanted Valioso in the beginning made her own grief more unbearable. She had loved him so, had tried these five and a half years to make up for hating the unborn fetus, yet now that did not seem to count. She could not help feeling she was being punished for her sin. Besides that, she suffered even more guilt for the horrible grief Will was bearing. Not only did he feel Valioso’s retarded condition was his fault, now he felt responsible for the boy’s death. He had collapsed to his knees at the child’s grave, sobbing that he should have found him, should have saved him.
Since the funeral, they had again grown apart, this time because of Will. Santana needed her husband’s strength more than ever, but the strength to carry on had to come from inside herself. Will withdrew into a quiet shell, hardly speaking to her or the children. While Bernice and her two children had moved into Hernando’s guest house, Will and Santana and their five children stayed at Hernando’s, bunching up to share rooms with Hernando and Teresa’s children. Santana slept in a room with Ruth and sixteen-year-old Inez. Julia shared her old bedroom with Rosa Maria. Will and Glen stayed with twenty-year-old Rico, and Dominic and Juan stayed with eleven-year-old Eduardo.
Santana suspected Will was glad for the sleeping arrangements. It gave him an excuse not to sleep with his wife, which meant there was no chance to be alone with her. She knew it was because he thought she surely blamed him for Valioso’s death, just as he had once thought she blamed him for the boy’s condition. Her own grief was all but unendurable, but she knew Will suffered a different kind of grief. It had been even worse for him because he had seen the boy’s body. He had not allowed Santana to see the child or the dog, but they had been buried together in the same coffin.
The children were also grief-stricken, and it was their need of her that kept Santana going through the black days that followed the fire. Will was away most of the time, throwing himself into helping clean up, making plans to rebuild, visiting the mill, doing everything he could to stay busy and not think about the loss. Santana suffered alone, and so did Will.
For eight weeks they drifted apart, each lost in a grief much greater than just losing a child, a grief made worse by guilt. Both lost weight, both found it difficult to sleep. Santana was plagued with dreams, a recurrence of nightmares about Hugo, flashes of memories about Valioso, his smile, his hugs. He had become so much a part of her everyday life, she hardly knew what to do without him. Everywhere she turned she saw him, for he had followed her around like a shadow for five years. It seemed unreal that he could be gone, and constantly she expected him suddenly to appear and run to her, throw back his head and laugh with that innocent joy that was always in his eyes.
One night she awoke again with a start. It had become a regular experience for her, to sleep a couple of hours and then jump awake, taking a moment to sort dream from reality, to realize what had happened was all too true. Valioso was dead. Her little boy was gone, and her only consolation was that he’d had his puppy with him, and that in life he had been a happy child, oblivious to his own shortcomings.
She sat up. Yes, that was something Will must understand. Why should he blame himself for Valioso’s condition when the boy had suffered not at all from it? Valioso had been a very happy child. Perhaps God had taken him home so that he would not suffer more as a grown man. Then again, perhaps the boy had just been a gift to help her bear those first few years. Now the gift was gone. Was that a sign that she should take the final step and tell Will the truth? With Valioso dead, there was no reason to keep the secret any longer. She had thought she could bear it, had suffered with it only because of the boy. Now she was not so sure she could carry it to her grave, nor could she let Will keep suffering. She had wrestled with her conscience for so many years, and it was finally wearing her down. Valioso’s death had loosed all of the despair and guilt, and she could no longer fight to keep something inside that desperately needed to be released.
She rose from the bed, achingly weary from so many nights of lost sleep. She pulled on her robe and walked out into the hallway. She needed to think. Perhaps fresh air would clear her head. She walked to the end of the hall and out into a garden. A soft breeze drifted from the north, and even after all these weeks, it still carried the smell of smoke and burned brush and pine. She shivered at the memory of that awful night, the memory of the look in Will’s eyes when he stumbled to the pond, covered with burns. Crickets sang, and an owl hooted somewhere nearby…and her ears caught another sound, a strange choking sound. She frowned, making her way by moonlight toward the sound, realizing as she drew closer that it was someone crying.
Her heart felt shattered; it could be no one else but Will. She walked around a cluster of rosebushes and saw him kneeling at a bench as though praying. He was still dressed in denim pants and a calico shirt. Had he been awake all night? She knew that many nights he did not sleep at all. She hesitated, wanting to go to him, yet afraid of embarrassing him in what must be a very private moment for him. She could not leave him there alone, however. He tried to be so strong, a proud man who felt he had failed his son. She stepped closer. “Will?”
He sniffled and looked up at her, then quickly rose, wiping at his eyes with his shirtsleeve. “Go away, Santana.”
“No. We are each grieving alone, when we should be sharing our grief, and we each carry a guilt over Valioso’s death, except that you have no reason to suffer any kind of guilt at all.”
He breathed deeply to regain his control, then ran a hand through his hair and turned away. “What do you mean? What do you have to feel guilty about? I’m the one who was sick and caused his condition. I’m the one who failed to save him from the fire.”
Santana closed her eyes and clasped her hands, praying for courage, praying that what she must tell him would not mean losing him forever. “Will, Valioso was a happy boy. He was not aware there was anything wrong with him. There is no reason to feel guilty for his condition. I think he was happier than most normal children. And maybe it is best that God took him while he was still young and oblivious to the hurt others could cause him.”
Will sat down on the bench. “Maybe. That doesn’t help how I feel about it.” He looked up at her. “What did you mean about suffering your own guilt? You were a wonderful mother to him.”
Santana studied his face, wondering if soon she would see nothing but hatred in his eyes. “I did not want him. Before he was born I hated the life that I carried. After he was born, I realized that no matter how he was conceived, he was an innocent baby who needed our love. I loved him as much or more than our other
children, and I have spent the last five and a half years trying to make up for how I felt about him before he was born.”
Will frowned. “What the hell are you talking about? Did you hate me that much right after the war, that you’d hate the child I gave you?”
Santana closed her eyes, tingling all over with dread. She could not let this continue. “Valioso…” She paused. “Valioso was not your child.”
She opened her eyes, watching him. There it was, the look she’d dreaded. He stared at her in disbelief, shock, doubt, the horror of the truth sinking in. “What?”
She swallowed. “Valioso’s father was Hugo Bolivar. Now that Valioso is dead, I cannot allow you to spend the rest of your life feeling guilty.”
Will just stared at her, slowly rising, his gaze moving over her as though he did not know her. “What the devil are you talking about?”
Santana shivered at the look in his eyes, now changing from shock to anger. “The reason it was so hard for me to forgive you when you came back from the war was not just that you had left us. It was because you were not here to protect me. If you had not gone away, I would never have suffered the horror that I suffered. Hugo Bolivar raped me.”
There. It was said. Why had it suddenly been so easy to tell him? Perhaps because he deserved to know…and because she had to say it or go crazy. Will’s eyes widened in disbelief. “What in God’s name…When? Where?”
Why did she feel so calm? She actually felt stronger saying it. It was as though a great weight were being lifted from her shoulders. “The day of my father’s funeral,” she answered. “That is how evil and sick with vengeance Hugo Bolivar is. He knew that you were still away. He used the funeral as an excuse to come to the ranch. He even had his wife with him.” She folded her arms across her chest at the memory. “I was so upset over losing my father, and not hearing from you, thinking you, too, might be dead. I felt so weary. I went to my old room to lie down, and I fell asleep there.”
She turned away, unable to bear the way he was looking at her. Would he blame her? Hate her? “I awoke to Hugo Bolivar hovering over me. He knows our house well, saw me go to my room. He apparently snuck in through a patio door while I slept. He…put a handkerchief over my nose and mouth. It was wet with something that had a strange smell. He told me it was some kind of drug he’d learned about from the criminals in San Francisco. Whatever it was, it left me helpless. I could not move. I was paralyzed, yet conscious, and that was exactly what he wanted. He wanted me to know what he was doing to me.
“He laughed and said that I belonged to him at last. He said I dared not tell you, because you would hate me, divorce me. It would bring shame to me and my family. People would not believe it if I cried rape. He would only say I was willing, a woman who had been without her husband for too long, a woman hungry for a man. Because I was once engaged to him, he said people would believe I had turned to him out of need, and because of the way he raped me, there were no marks, no sign that I had been forced. He wanted me to suffer with the secret for the rest of my life. I could do nothing but lie there, staring at those…evil dark eyes of his…watching him smile while he…took me.”
Her voice choked on the last words, and she breathed deeply to stay in control. “Afterward…I could only lie there for nearly an hour before I was able to move again. I asked Louisa to fix me a bath so that I could wash away his filth. I hoped that the hot water, a lot of wine…would make it all go away. If it was not Hugo’s seed that made Valioso retarded, perhaps it was my own fault, for drinking too much wine that night, sitting in that hot water hoping that the combination would abort any life Hugo might have put into me.” She covered her face, gasping in a sob.
“My God, Santana!” Will exclaimed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She shook her head, taking a moment to gather her strength. “By the time you came home…I already knew I was with child. I was even thinking of having Dr. Enders abort it, in spite of what a sin that would have been. And then…you came home…and I realized that if we made love soon enough, I could say it was yours and spare the risk of dying from an abortion, and spare spending my afterlife in purgatory…spare my family the shame of it if it was discovered. I did not tell you because you had been through so much yourself in the war. How could I tell you such a thing when you first came home? You were not well, and the joy I saw in your eyes at being home again…I could not spoil that.
“Besides, I was afraid you would try to kill Hugo and end up in prison yourself. I was afraid of what I would see in your eyes. Hugo told me you would not believe me, that because you had been gone so long, you would think I had slept with other men, that all American men thought Spanish women were hungry for men. He even said he was going to spread the rumor that I had done just that.”
Will felt as if a knife had been plunged into his heart. So, that was how the rumors had started. Hugo Bolivar.
“As it turns out,” Santana went on, “you later suspected another man. My heart broke when you asked if there had been another.” She turned and faced him. “Oh, yes, there had been another! An evil, twisted man who left me with a secret that sometimes made me vomit! At the time it happened, I was afraid, vulnerable, lonely. My father had just died. I believed the things Hugo told me, and I was afraid of losing your love…except that I almost lost it anyway, because I could not help blaming you for all of it. Yet I loved you so, carino mio.
“For those next months I hated the life that was growing inside of me, hated the man who had planted it there. But when Valioso was born, I knew I could not blame him for the sins of his father. He was an innocent child, and I did not want him to suffer. He deserved to be loved, to know the kind of love that I knew you were capable of giving him. I could not deny him that. I did not want you to hate him, or make me give him away to a hospital. I was afraid that if you knew the truth, you would not want him anywhere near you. And I was afraid you would try to kill Hugo. I kept the secret to protect both you and Valioso. Now that Valioso is…dead, it no longer is important to protect him, except to protect his memory and the love his brothers and sisters had for him. I would never want them to know. I only tell you because I can no longer bear to see you suffer over a child fathered by Hugo Bolivar.”
She waited, and for the next few minutes there was only the sound of crickets, and the vision of Will standing there, frozen in place, his eyes unreadable. Finally he turned away, shivering. “So,” he said quietly, “that explains the way you behaved, the reason you avoided me in bed, never came to me willingly. It explains so many things.”
“Si. It took me many years to want you as a woman again, even though I loved you as much as ever. When you first came home I allowed you your husbandly rights, but for me it was almost unbearable because of the memory Hugo left me with. Finally, the night of the governor’s ball, I—I opened my eyes, and I saw Hugo. That was why you saw a look on my face that told you I did not want you. I did not know how to explain it except to let you believe I had not forgiven you because of the war.
“Please know that I have always loved and wanted only you, carino mio. I would never, never willingly give myself to another man. I know now that Hugo never touched me at all, because in my heart, you are the only man who has touched my soul, the only man I have given myself to out of passion and love.”
An aching hurt showed in his eyes. “You should have told me. I’m not a man to blame a woman for something like that, or to blame a child for its parent’s faults. I could have helped you through all of it. I wouldn’t have hated Valioso.”
“Wouldn’t you? Just think about how much you hate Hugo. I could not let you think of that man every time you looked at Valioso. And I could not take the risk that you would lose that temper of yours and go and kill Hugo for what he did to me. I can only pray that now you will realize that would be a useless thing to do. Valioso is dead. I managed to overcome the terrible thing Hugo did to me. You and I found each other again, and I learned to be a whole woman. Hugo is a withering
old man who is losing his fortune. God is punishing him in his own way. We do not need to do it.”
“Don’t we?” Hatred fired in Will’s eyes, and she could feel his rage. His hands curled into fists, and his jaw flexed. “The day of your father’s funeral? His wife just out in the other room? You’re lying there worn out from worry and grief, and he comes in your room and visits something like that on you?” He turned away. “Sweet Jesus! He’s more of a monster than I thought. Why didn’t I kill him the day of the duel? Why didn’t I kill him!”
“Will, I need you now more than I ever have in my life. I can hardly bear this grief over Valioso. Please do not add to that grief by doing something foolish that could cost you prison or your life. These are not the old days. You cannot go and take your own revenge. There are laws—”
“There are laws against rape!”
She stepped closer. She was never sure how to reason with Will when he was this angry. “It has been over six years. It would be impossible to prove now, and it would only bring me and the children great shame. Please, Will, let it go. Let it go! I only told you because with Valioso dead, you had a right to know, and the secret was eating at my insides so that I could no longer bear to carry it.” Tears filled her eyes. “Please, Will, do not do something foolish.” He started to walk away. “Where are you going?”
“For a ride. I have to think.”
“It is still dark!”
“I’ll be all right. Hell, it’s almost morning anyway.”
“Will!”
He walked off into the darkness, and Santana could not be sure what he would do. She sat down on the bench and wept, her tears a mixture of fear and relief. She could only pray that she would not regret what she had done.
Santana moved through the morning in a daze, helping Teresa with getting the children their breakfast. Estella came to the house to give the children lessons. She had been teaching at the ranch the night of the fire, and because her home had been on the south side of the plowed fields, it had been spared.
The Forever Tree Page 41
