“Miss Petronila. Miss Mariana. How are you, Miss Quiroga?” Valentín asked, taking his hat off to salute them.
“I’m very well,” she said. Next to her, the Molina girls giggled.
“I thought you might like these,” Valentín said, handing her a bouquet of pink roses.
Alba clasped it with both hands. “Thank you.”
“May I ride next to you, Miss Quiroga?” he asked. His politeness, like his clothes, was awkward. Not that he was ever rude to her, but she realized he’d dressed and rehearsed his words hoping to impress her. Instead, she saw only a raw young man who wasn’t quite sure of himself.
“You may,” she said, muffling a little laugh, for it would have been cruel to greet him in such a manner, and she did like Valentín, even if he lacked polish.
In the months since her father’s death, he’d scarcely stopped by the farm. She knew he did it out of respect, since they couldn’t receive guests with such fresh mourning, but she’d missed him. Yet as they rode together, behind the wagon crammed with the younger children, she was quiet and did not know what to say to him.
Valentín smiled at her. “The black mare gave birth last week,” he told her. “The foal has a white spot on its forehead. It looks like a star.”
“Does it, then?” she replied.
The time of the harvest of the xoconostle approached, and Valentín talked about that, about the rains and the everyday happenings at the Molinas’ estate. She was quickly bored by his chatter and looked at his face, wondering if she would be able to stomach long evenings conversing with him even if he wasn’t displeasing to the eye. She was fond of Valentín, but playing hide-and-seek when they were children was different than picturing him as her husband.
She shook her head. He hadn’t asked and might never ask. The Molina girls might simply be making stories up to fluster her.
When they reached the house, the first thing Alba did was herd the children up to the nursery so they could play there while the adults received the guests. Then she placed Valentín’s flowers in a porcelain vase by her window and smoothed her skirts. She helped Fernanda take the chocolate into the parlor. This time, she did not bother with the mancerinas. They did not have enough of them to serve everyone, so she passed around simple cups and plates.
Mr. Molina’s wife and his daughters sat on the pink couch while he pulled over one of the chairs that Alba had lugged into theparlor that morning for the purpose of this gathering. A few other friends of her father’s who had attended the mass were also there. Fourteen guests in total, including Valentín and his uncle. It seemed almost like one of their reunions, before her father died, but there’d be no piano playing that day, only conversation.
After a couple of hours everyone began making their excuses and it was only the Molinas and the Quirogas who were left in the room.
Mr. Molina turned to her brother. “Have you thought about that offer I made you last month?” he asked.
“Yes, and my answer remains the same: I won’t be selling this farm anytime soon.”
“I do not speak because I wish to offend you, Tadeo. I speak because your father was my friend and I know that even before he passed away, he had money concerns. The situation can hardly be improving.”
“If you came to talk about the sale of the land, then you made a trip for no reason, sir. It’s rude to even broach the matter.”
“It’s logical to broach the matter,” Arturo interjected. He was standing next to Alba’s mother, resting a hand on the back of her chair. “I’ve done the math, no doubt Mr. Molina has done the same. The expenses at Piedras Quebradas are too high.”
Tadeo stared at their uncle, his eyebrows knit in displeasure. “You did the math. Well, you are wrong.”
“Do you wish to fetch your ledger?”
“There is no formula that can show you how much this land is worth. It’s as much a part of me as my flesh and my bones.”
Tadeo gave their uncle such a harsh, terrible glare that it made the Molinas quickly rise, uttering goodbyes. Then it was them, the family, left in the room, their merriment cooling like the ashes of a fire. Alba hoped that Arturo would let the matter be, but instead he spoke.
“In six months that man will make another offer, but a substantially lower one, and you will have lost money in the bargain,” Arturo warned him. “It’s stupid to let cash walk out the door like that.”
“I have no desire to let Mr. Molina expand his holdings. In six months, I’ll be here, watching over my lands.”
“How will you do that? You have a large family, a large staff—”
“It’s not a large staff.”
“Large, yes, for what this place brings in.”
“How can you know what it brings in? You spy on me. I won’t have it.”
“I am no spy. Your mother has shared her worries with me.”
