20
ARGENTINA, 1939
Valentina felt as if she were living in a nightmare; a nightmare that she woke up to in the morning and lived through until she went to bed each night. Most days she could barely keep the tears from falling from her lashes, which only irritated her new husband all the more. She would always collapse back into bed when he left for the day, only to find out that his maid was telling him about her behaviour in his absence.
It was also the reason for her very first bruise, inflicted by a man she should have been able to trust, that left a blue-green welt so dark that no amount of powder or cream would conceal it.
‘Look at me!’ he’d roared to Valentina at the dinner table, as she’d whimpered at the other end, her eyes downcast and her napkin furrowed between her fingers.
Valentina had lifted her gaze, bravely meeting his angry stare.
‘You look at me like you’re scared of me, you spend all day miserable in bed, and you haven’t even the decency to greet me properly when I arrive home from work. What is wrong with you?’
‘I’m sorry,’ Valentina had murmured. ‘This marriage, being here with you, it’s all a shock. I wasn’t prepared for any of it.’
‘Come here.’
Valentina froze. She did not want to go to him. She knew what happened when she went to him, what he expected from her, what hetookfrom her. Her body began to tremble.
‘I told you to come here!’ he repeated, but louder now, angry as he stood and marched around the table to her, grabbing her long hair in one fist as he raised the other in an open palm, slapping her so hard across the cheek that she would have fallen had he not been gripping her hair so tightly.
‘Your mother warned me that you were a princess, but I want to make this very clear,’ he said, his face inches from her own. ‘You are my wife now. You are no longer the daughter of Basilio Santiago, you’remywife.’
I’m only seventeen. This isn’t the life I was supposed to have. I cannot belong to you!
But instead of speaking her mind, Valentina merely nodded, accepting of her fate. The time for defiance had been before she was betrothed to him—now she was resigned to the fact that she had no say in her own life. It would have broken her father to know what had happened to her and the fortune he’d worked so hard to create; her father, who’d treated her with so much love and kindness.
‘Now,’ her husband said calmly as he hooked his finger beneath her chin and turned her face slowly, inspecting her cheek, ‘shall we get back to dinner? It would be a shame to let our food go cold because of your bad behaviour.’
Valentina nodded, swallowing and forcing a small smile even though it made her cheek hurt all the more. But she wouldn’t touch it, wouldn’t lift her fingers and acknowledge the pain in front of him. She could at least control how he saw her react; she could cry about it later, when she was alone.
‘How was your day?’ she asked, mimicking the question her mother had always asked her father when he’d arrived home. ‘Would you like me to prepare a drink when you arrive home each evening?’
His smile made her feel sick to the stomach. ‘See? You already have the hang of it.’ He took a mouthful of his food and she forced herself to pick up her fork and taste a little, even though the last thing she wanted was to eat. ‘Fernet and cola, and make sure to give it a good stir.’
Valentina nodded, squeezing her eyes tightly shut for a moment when her husband turned his attention back to his food and trying desperately hard not to cry. She found herself imagining what it would have been like to sit across the table from Felipe when he returned from work each day. They wouldn’t have had a meal prepared by a cook or formal silverware, but his smile would have melted her. His eyes meeting hers would have made her want to run into his arms. She could have dealt with being penniless, so long as she had Felipe.
When she opened her eyes, something shifted inside of Valentina. The past two months, she’d been resigned to what had happened to her, told that she had no say in the matter due to her young age, bullied by her mother and now her husband. But there had to be a way to leave, to find her way back to Felipe, who’d promised to wait for her forever if he had to. There had to be a way to escape this horror of a marriage, but she couldn’t conceive of a way to return to Felipe without ruining his family in the process.
A few weeks later, Valentina gripped the porcelain edge of the toilet seat as she vomited up the last of whatever had been left in her stomach from the previous night. Her knees ached on the cold tiles below, but every time she tried to rise, her stomach would lurch again and she’d find herself bent over the toilet.
It wasn’t until she’d finally risen, splashing cold water on her face before staring at her reflection in the mirror, that she realised why she was so unwell. Valentina gasped, lifting her cotton nightdress off her body and standing in her undergarments. She stared at her stomach in the mirror, running her palm across it, and then looking at her breasts and touching them gently to see if they were sensitive. She’d always been slender, and her stomach was still small, but her breasts were bigger. And she knew. There was no denying what was wrong with her, and it certainly wasn’t thebife de chorizothey’d had last night that had caused her nausea.
I’m pregnant.
Tears began to slide down Valentina’s cheeks then as she reached for her nightgown, not bothering to slip it back on and instead walking half-naked back into her bedroom. The house was empty save for a maid or two; her husband had already left early for work, and she was too shocked to care about her state of undress.
The baby is his. I’m having a child with a man who isn’t Felipe.
The thought continued to circle her mind as she got back into bed, pulling the covers high up to her chin, her fingers gripping tightly to the sheet as she stifled a cry. If she was pregnant, that meant she couldn’t ever return to Felipe. What man would want a baby that wasn’t his? And how would she ever leave now, anyway? Her husband was unkind and unsympathetic at the best of times—there was no way he’d ever agree to her leaving if he knew she was carrying his child. Valentina was under noillusion that he cared for her—he’d agreed to marry her quickly in exchange for money, and the longer they were together, the more money he would receive. If they had a child together?
I’ll be stuck with him for the rest of my life.
Valentina closed her eyes and tried to picture her father, desperately wishing she had him to turn to. But if she’d had him, then she would never have been in this predicament in the first place.
Treat the people who work for you with kindness and generosity, and they’ll be there for you when you truly need them,mi chica.
Valentina sat bolt upright. With her father’s words ringing in her mind, she knew what she had to do.
