Querida Gabriella:
No, I will not let you forget where you come from. Half of you is from the Northern Hemisphere. Half of you is from the South, from here. It doesn’t seem like a world away, but it is.
On a clear day, from this terrace, you can see the snow peaks that are three states away.
You’ll see that the grass is greener and the sky is bluer, and no matter how long you stay away, you can always come back. There was a time when I thought I had lost this, when I was lulled into thinking that I didn’t need it. I used to scoff at these people—the fake Latinos, I would say to myself—who stop going back.
And then I became one myself.
One year. Two. Three.
There is such comfort in predictability. It makes you brave, the capacity to function in a world that actually works, where there is little risk in getting up in the morning, where mundane tasks are truly mundane. You can be brave because you know nothing can hurt you.
You grow, because nothing prevents you from growing. Until you need something else again, and then you go back. I waited. For as long as I could. Until the colors started to fade from my comfortable days.
I didn’t even know what I missed, or what I needed, until I went back.
He called at nine this morning.
What was it about these Cali men, I thought, who can go to bed at 4 a.m., having drunk a liter of whiskey, and wake up three hours later feeling as if nothing had happened?
“Helenita, telephone,” my mother said, softly but insistently knocking on my door before pushing it open.
“It’s Juan José, doll. I’m sorry, I told him you were asleep, but he said it was urgent.”
My mother, who is the most consummately considerate person I have ever met, had turned off the ringer on the phone in my room and drawn the double blinds on the ceiling-to-floor windows, so I’d never be woken up unless it was absolutely necessary.
In bed, I lay still, considering the implications of this call.
There were none, I finally decided. Or none that I could discern with just five hours of sleep.
“Helena,” my mother insisted, from the door.
“Okay, okay,” I finally answered. “I’m picking up.”
And I did, holding the phone against my shoulder until my mother, who looked more than a tad inquisitive, quietly shut the door behind her.
“Hello,” I said huskily.
“Hey, wake up, sleepyhead!”
“Isn’t it too early to be this cheerful?” I answered crossly. Was the man on amphetamines?
“Of course not. It’s a beautiful day outside.”
What was I supposed to answer to this? Chatting about the weather was not an urgent matter. This was ridiculous.
He sensed my impatience, because he started to speak, and I could tell he was a little bit nervous. I mean, he really was. Jamming his words together in one breath, like people do when they’re given ten seconds to give a five-minute speech.
“Listen, I woke you up because I’m going to the farm in Ginebra this morning to take care of some business. I have to be back by five, so I have to be there by eleven. I thought it’d be good for your book. It’s a great house, and you could look around all you want without anyone else there. We could stop in a couple other places on the way back if we have time. And”—he went on before I could say anything—“my mayordomo knows the area like no one else. He can tell you the history of every house. He can tell you about every legend and every ghost.”
“Ghosts. What ghosts?” I laughed despite myself.
“Hey, if you want to find out, this is your chance,” he replied. “I can pick you up in forty-five minutes. Can you make it?”
I curled my hair around my finger, my nervous tick.
Could I make it?
“It just happened,” my brother Julián had told Mercedes the night she found out he’d been having an affair with his assistant.
“Things don’t just happen, Helena,” she told me later, after she filed for the divorce. “You allow them to happen. That’s the difference between your brother and me. He thinks events are out of your control. But you always have a choice. And with affairs, it’s about saying no at the beginning, by refusing to even let it be an option.”
I wasn’t like Julián. I wasn’t like Mercedes.
There wouldn’t be an end to say no to. There wouldn’t even be a beginning to say no to.
Just a day that will come and will go.
My book. It would help my book.
Our family had never been into farms. They were doctors and architects and attorneys. I was photographing this book from an aesthetic, architectural point of view, but having the inside history would give it added perspective, no?
Why was I trying to justify my actions?
At my age, I didn’t need to justify anything to anyone.
“Yes, I can make it,” I said as I sat up in bed and looked around, wondering what to wear.