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She had to remain here until she turned twenty-one.
The news had stunned her. Twenty-one? Surely eighteen was the age of majority in Brazil? Mother Elisabete had given her a stern look, no doubt because Catarina should not have possessed such worldly information. Her uncle had simply said yes, she was right, eighteen was the age of majority, but the will had been written when Brazilian law didn’t always protect women. The stipulation about her remaining in the convent school, in the event of their deaths, had been her parents’ attempt to safeguard her from unscrupulous suitors.
Catarina argued that the law had changed. It did offer women protection now.
“Perhaps,” her uncle said, “but what has that to do with the terms of the will?”
The terms, he told her, were unalterable.
The law might have changed, but the will—and Catarina’s life—had not.
Of course, she could always forfeit her inheritance.
Catarina knew better than to do that. Even at eighteen, cloistered in a place that might have seemed unchanged since colonial times, she understood that real freedom came with economic security, especially if you were female.
So she’d bitten back her disappointment, asked her uncle if he would look into the possibility of changing the will, even though he said it couldn’t be done, and settled in for three more years spent learning little that would be of value in the real world.
The time crept by. Then, a few months ago, Mother Elisabete had summoned Catarina to her office again.
“There has been a change in your situation, Mendes. I thought it best if you heard about it directly.”
Catarina’s pulse had quickened. Had her uncle finally found a way to set aside the terms of the will? She was fast approaching twenty-one, but even a few months off what she thought of as her sentence would have been a joy.
A white-haired man, not her uncle, was waiting for her with a solemn look on his face. His name, he said, was Javier Estes; he was her uncle’s attorney. Her uncle had died. He paused; Mother Elisabete glared at her and Catarina realized she was expected to express her sorrow at the death of an old man she’d seen twice in her life.
“I’m saddened to hear it,” she said, but her heart raced even faster. Did her uncle’s death negate the terms of the will?
It did not. Javier Estes told her she was now the ward of a man named Enrique Ramirez. Regrettably, Senhor Ramirez was too old and too ill to visit her personally.
Nothing new there, Catarina had thought, but she’d nodded politely.
Estes told her that Senhor Ramirez wished to assure her that she was not to worry. Nothing would change. She’d go on living in the convent school until she was twenty-one…
And then she’d have two months to find a Brazilian husband her guardian would find suitable.
After that, she could claim her fortune.
Catarina felt the blood drain from her head. “What?” she’d said. “What?”
“Didn’t your uncle mention this?”
“No. He didn’t. And I don’t believe it. It’s not possible!”
Estes had pulled the will from his briefcase. He put on a pair of glasses, cleared his throat and read her the salient passages. Midway through, deaf to Mother Elisabete’s hiss of outrage, Catarina snatched the document from the advogado’s hands and read it for herself.
It was true. Not only did she have to be twenty-one to gain her inheritance, she had to be married to a “Brazilian her guardian finds suitable.”
Catarina had lost all her composure. She’d argued. She’d raised her voice. She’d banged her fist on the desk. Estes shrugged and said there was nothing he could do about it; Mother Elisabete ordered her to her room.
“You cannot tell me what to do,” Catarina had shrieked—but, of course, Mother could. Catarina wasn’t alone in this: there were a handful of other girls at the convent school who’d stayed on well past their eighteenth birthdays. Some were happily studying all they could learn to become obedient wives; a couple of others were considering joining the Little Sisters.
Catarina wanted no part of either future. She wanted to live her own life.
She thought about running away, but she didn’t have a real to her name. Besides, if she ran, she’d give up her inheritance, and she knew it was her ticket to the independence and freedom that had been stolen from her.
Now, finally, she was only one night from her twenty-first birthday. She’d be leaving this place. So far, though, Javier Estes hadn’t contacted her.
Catarina caught her breath.
