When Marcos spoke, his voice was so low that for a moment Alba thought she must have imagined it. “Did you think of me, when I was gone?” he asked. They had reached her house by then, and she had been about to reach for the latch on the wrought iron gate.
“I know I never wrote…” Alba began after a moment’s pause, her hand resting on the cold black iron. From the corner of her eye, she could see Marcos moving closer.
In a moment, he was so close she could hear him breathing.
“Did you miss me?” he asked softly.
She started to say something but the words lodged in her throat. So instead, she told him the truth. “Every single day,” she said, and turned to face him.
The light from the streetlamp caught his face and the naked longing in it made her breath catch. “I felt your absence like a physical pain,” he said. “I still wonder that I managed to live for so long without you. And yet, I’m glad you refused me because if you hadn’t, and if I hadn’t gone away, I would never have realized just how deeply I could love you.”
“Oh, Marcos,” Alba said softly. Too many times to count, she had lain in her rented rooms, alone in her narrow bed, and wondered what her life might have been like if she’d said yes that day, even though she knew she’d been right to refuse him. Cristina had just gotten married, and their father’s long illness was drawing heavily from their modest income. Alba, aware that Marcos had very little money of his own and two years until he finished his schooling, had thought she was doing him a favor. To support a wife was one thing, but to take on her ailing father and her tired, overworked mother seemed like more than she could ask from anyone, even Marcos. “I never meant to hurt you.”
But she had, and she’d hurt herself in the process.
“I could understand why you wouldn’t want to marry me—“ his lips twisted, “but I couldn’t understand why you wouldn’t accept my offer to help. Your parents were so good to me— the year my mother went back to Chile, your father was more of a father to me than mine was. If I made a dozen fortunes, I would’ve never been able to give him half as much as he’d given me.”
“I thought I was sparing you a lot of hardship,” she said in a low voice. She’d thought of it every time she’d paid off one of the debts her family had incurred during her father’s illness, or put a tidy little sum into the bank. She had enough laid by to see her mother comfortable now, and a little extra besides, but the first year had been a long and hard one. “And I— I wasn’t sure if you wanted to marry me for my own sake, or for— or if all you felt was some sense of duty to my father.”
He was silent. “I loved your father, and I owe him a great deal. But Alba—there were a million ways I could’ve helped him without asking you to marry me. I asked you because—well, because I loved you. And I returned to Arroyo Blanco because I still do.”
“Oh,” Alba said, aware of how inadequate the word was. Awkwardly, mindful of the parcels in her arms, she reached up to brush her lips over Marcos's.
He dropped his bundles and, after hesitating briefly, so did Alba. His hands, now free, trailed up her arms and over her shoulders, until he was cradling her face between them. “The only hardship I suffered was not having you.”
“You can have me now,” she said, “if you still want me.”
“I want you,” he said roughly, and even in the dim light cast by the street lamp, Alba could see he meant it. “I’ve always wanted you. The question is—do you want me?” His hands tightened around her face but, like the other day at the theater, it was she who closed the distance between them.
This time, she kept her eyes open.
Alba had kissed another man, once, and while the kiss had been nice enough, it hadn’t lit her up from inside the way kissing Marcos did. He buried his face in her neck, stifling a groan against her skin, then placed his lips on the spot where her neck met her shoulder. She let out a noise that was half a gasp and half a sigh, and pressed her body closer to his until his arms came around her waist and his lips returned to her mouth. Heat spread through her limbs, and Alba was aware of her pulse, pounding in her ears.
What little presence of mind she had left made her scrabble for the latch on the gate. Pushing it open and leaving it swinging, she led Marcos to the side of the house, where the hibiscus and the leaf-laden branches of an avocado tree shielded them from view.
She leaned back against the rough wood and reached up to sweep his hair off his forehead. It had a wave to it that couldn’t be tamed with brushing or pomades. She was suddenly, fiercely, overcome with affection for that rebellious curl. As she ran her fingers through it, he caught her hand in his and held it to his lips. There was a question in his eyes and she answered it the only way she knew how to—by pulling him closer, her hand at the back of his neck, and capturing his lips in a kiss deeper and more intense than the one they’d shared just minutes ago.
He grabbed a handful of her skirts and Alba spared a moment to be grateful that voluminous skirts had fallen out of fashion. The cotton of her walking suit molded quite closely to her legs; she could feel the length of his body against hers, almost as if she wasn’t wearing anything at all. The thought of his hands on her bare thighs made her cry out against his mouth.
“Alba, is that you?” a fretful voice called from an upstairs window. “Alba, I need a drink of water.”
Alba would have sworn out loud, if her mouth hadn’t been otherwise engaged. Instead, she tightened her grip on the back of his neck for a long moment, then stepped out of the warm circle of his arms.
“I suppose I had better go,” she said, smoothing down her skirt, which she knew was badly crumpled. “It must be time for her medicine.”
“Come here.” He tugged her close, but instead of kissing her, like she’d expected, he reached up to fasten the top button of her shirtwaist, which she didn’t realize had come undone. Then he brushed her hair away from her face and tucked it neatly behind her ears, in a gesture more intimate than the kisses they’d just shared. When he was done, he touched his fingers to her cheek. “I’ll see you on Sunday,” he said, and later that night, after Alba had seen to her mother and crawled into bed, warm under a knitted blanket, she found herself counting the days until the weekend.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUNDAY ARRIVED BEFORE long. In the time leading up to it, Marcos had contrived to see Alba almost every day, in the few hours when Cristina relieved her from her mother’s bedside. He and Miss Bustamante had set up a temporary office in one of the back rooms of his cousin’s tailoring shop, and while Leonor met with local cotton planters to ascertain the quality of their product, he and Alba pored over the operating budgets he had drawn up. He’d never had much of a head for numbers and it was especially difficult to concentrate when she was sitting right beside him, gravely explaining the finer points of arithmetic while he breathed in the scent of ylang-ylang and thought about how easily he could grow used to spending his days beside her, even if they did involve doing sums.
She hadn’t heard back from the department store and though he privately thought that whoever was in charge of hiring new employees was demented or dull-witted—or both— for not realizing just how brilliant she was, Marcos meant to take advantage of every moment he had with Alba until they came to their senses.
Now that she had admitted she wanted him as much as he wanted her, all he could think of was making her his, in more ways than one. It had been a near thing, the other day. Only the sound of her mother’s voice had brought him back to himself. She hadn’t hesitated when he’d taken her into his arms and it had felt so natural to hold her and kiss her and touch her that he hadn’t realized until much later how big a liberty he’d taken and how much she seemed to like it.
That she would marry him this time was almost certain. They had yet to work out the details—he had yet to ask her properly, in fact—but Marcos knew nothing would be settled until he made it clear that he meant to help her take care of her mother. He wou
ldn’t let her shoulder the burden alone, not this time.
A loud burst of laughter brought Marcos attention back to the scene unfolding in Maria Teresa’s terrace, where the group had gathered for the second gift exchange. Alejandro had just opened another ridiculously large box only to find a pouch filled with inexpensive marbles. He was challenging Carlos to a game when Maria Teresa, still laughing, handed Marcos his present.
He ripped away the paper, revealing a handsome wooden case, lined with inky blue felt. Inside nestled a brand-new folding camera, smaller and sleeker than most he had seen. The bellows were bright red, which contrasted nicely against the black case and brass fittings, and in a separate pouch were half a dozen film cartridges. A small rectangular card peeked out from the bottom. This time, there had been no attempt to disguise the handwriting. The even, careful hand was very familiar to Marcos, though he hadn’t seen it in several years.
Careful not to look Alba’s way, he lifted the camera from the case and held it up for everyone to see. “A camera,” he announced, hiding the note among the wrapping.
“Quite a handsome one, too,” said Leonor, looking pleased. He’d shown her some of the photographs he’d taken of Alba and she’d tried—unsuccessfully—to persuade him to take up his old hobby again.
One of the boxes, a middling-sized one wrapped in green with suspicious holes on the side, began to move. Rosa let out a startled shriek, and Maria Teresa hastened to read the label attached to the string holding it together. “This one’s for Leonor,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Miguel.
He attempted to look innocent but couldn’t help giving Leonor an anxious look as she lifted a large white rabbit from the box and promptly sneezed. When everyone’s attention had turned to Leonor and the rabbit, Marcos looked down at the note. For making new memories, it said.
As long as those memories involved her, he was sure he wouldn’t need photographs to help him remember them. Every moment he had spent with her was burned into his mind’s eye, as vivid as if they had happened only minutes ago.
They were sitting across the room from each other. If he’d thought it possible to convey the sentiment with his gaze, he would have tried it. Instead, he slid the note into the breast pocket of his jacket and smiled at Alba.
Her turn came next. He watched her open his present, trying to look politely curious and thoroughly failing.
This week, he hadn’t bothered to go to La Gran Via. He’d known exactly what he wanted to get her: everything she ever wanted.
Amparo Robles was cuddling Leonor’s rabbit. She scratched it between the ears and glanced at Alba. “What did you get? Another note?”
“It’s a wish,” Alba whispered. The card, he knew, was exactly the same as the one he’d given her the previous week, only this one had a different message: To Miss Reyes, her angel will grant one wish, to be collected before Christmas Eve.
“Better wish for an angel who shops at La Gran Via,” Miguel said, and everyone laughed, looking expectantly at Maria Teresa as she extracted another present from the basket.
Only Alba and Marcos remained looking at each other, unspoken words traveling in the silence between them.
CHAPTER SIX
THE DAYS PASSED more quickly than Alba thought possible. Before long, it was December twenty-third and Alba's stomach was in knots as she helped Maria Teresa decorate for the Christmas Eve dance.
The house was filled with the smell of Christmas cookery. Alba and Maria Teresa had gone over the menu the week before and they had come up with a spectacular array. There would be none of the usual kind of fare, other than the traditional roast pig. Instead of the black beans and rice, she would have new potatoes drenched in butter and herbs and yucca au gratin. The day before, they had just about emptied La Gran Via’s store of imported canned goods and ordered a sizable assortment of sweets from Mr. Zapata’s shop. Now, the heady scent of figs being stewed in plenty of sugar and liqueur filtered out of the kitchen, making Alba’s mouth water.
She had Maria Teresa were making large bows out of lengths of red ribbon, which they would later fasten to the boughs of freshly-cut pine Mrs. Herrera’s oldest boy was nailing around the doorways of Maria Teresa’s parlor.
The sharp, resinous smell of pine mingled nicely with the figs’ sweet aroma and lent the house a festive air. Alba was feeling quite festive herself as she deftly folded the ribbon into shape and kept an eye on the boy’s alarmingly wobbly ladder, ready to leap up at a moment’s notice if it should topple. Across the table from her, Maria Teresa was chattering excitedly about her plans for Julian’s first Christmas. Having heard them all before, Alba allowed her mind to wander.
As it was wont to these days, her mind wandered directly to the two people who loomed largest in her life: Marcos and her mother.
Her mother was growing more and more unmanageable but in the evenings, when Alba helped her out to the rocking chair on the porch and Marcos stopped by like he used to when they were children, a glimmer of her old self would surface. She would become particularly docile when Marcos read out loud and Alba, working her way through Cristina’s mending, imagined she could feel his voice drawing out the tension that accumulated between her shoulder blades after another difficult day.
As much as she was enjoying their foray into the quiet domesticity she longed for, Alba was all too aware that she was in a similar situation to the one she’d been in six years ago. Her family might not be drowning in debt this time, but the task of caring for an ailing parent was as consuming and dispiriting as it had been before.
There was only one difference: Marcos.
He was by her side this time, every step of the way, and Alba found her load unmeasurably lightened by the mere thought of him. He read to her mother, kept them both well supplied in gossip, and Alba had even found him repairing little things at the house that had gone untended since her father’s death.
And in turn, she found ways to help him. His operating budgets were less of a shambles since she had begun to work on them, and he was even talking about making her a permanent addition to the new company, something that made her glow with warmth.
Maria Teresa put down the bow she had been tying and stretched with a stifled yawn, then surveyed the room with a satisfied smile. “It looks lovely, doesn’t it?”
“It’s perfect. All we need is a little snow,” said Alba. She had never seen snow outside of pictures but Marcos had, and glaciers too. He’d told her about the trips he’d taken to the southmost tip of the Patagonia, on a ship that had sailed around glistening mountains of ice. Snow, to Alba, had always seemed almost impossible, like the fairy stories Cristina liked to read growing up—pretty stories but not something that really happened.
“Maybe your angel will produce some for the last gift.”
Alba smiled. “It almost seems as if he could.”
“Angels are capable of all sorts of Christmas miracles,” Maria Teresa said and Alba, thinking about the wish she still hadn’t claimed, thought silently that she might have already received hers.
*
Every room of Carlos and Maria Teresa’s house was alight with a profusion of candles. There were clusters of them on tables, in silver candlesticks, on sconces in the wall, and even on the staircase. They cast a warm light on the greenery that adorned the doorways and gilded the profiles of everyone who had gathered in Maria Teresa’s sitting room.
The furniture had been pushed aside to make room for dancing and the dining table fairly groaned under the feast spread on it. Miguel and Alejandro were swarming around the food like flies and Maria Teresa had already driven them off three times, promising violence. She marched past Marcos, looking harried, and rejoined the rest of the guests as Miguel and Alejandro snuck polvorones out of a big glass jar.
Alba was the last one to arrive. Marcos had been watching out for her so he was the only one to see her when she came in from the foyer, luminous in a beaded dress that caught the candlelight and
made her appear to shimmer. Someone had handed Marcos a snifter of brandy earlier, and the warmth it had spread through his body was nothing next to the heat that scorched him from the inside out when he saw her in the doorway.
Her brown skin was smooth and dark against the ivory fabric of her dress. Her eyes were bright. He thought it might be the candlelight reflected in them, but as their gaze met he realized her entire face had lit up when she’d seen him. Marcos was about to go up to her when Amparo Robles noticed her from across the room and gestured for Alba to join her, and the stillness that had fallen between them was broken.
He followed her progress into the room. Pausing here and there to greet or be greeted, she advanced into crowded room until she was standing beside Amparo and was immediately surrounded by a crowd of young men.
Marcos had only two dances with Alba and though he also danced with half a dozen other girls, he remained intensely aware of her presence as the night wore on. More than once he caught himself searching her out among the crowd. Her pale, shimmering dress was easy to spot among the darker colors in which the other guests had dressed; she could have been a flame, flickering among logs. Not even Leonor could hold his attention long enough for a proper conversation and after considerable effort, she left him and went to dance with Alejandro.
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