“Did you get pepper in your eye?” Carol grabbed a clean dishtowel and wet it. “Just press this to your eye and let the tears wash away the sting. I’ll get the eye drops.”
Ana was seated at the kitchen table, and while she didn’t need another reason to cry, she struggled not to be overwhelmed by tears after the burning sting finally abated. “I haven’t cooked anything for myself in so long, I’d forgotten to be careful. I won’t forget again.”
Her mother smoothed back her hair. “You should visit us more often. This is the real world, not the make-believe paradise I raised you in.”
“I know the difference, Mother. Now what can I do for the salad that won’t involve peppers?”
“First scrub your hands to get rid of all the juice and cut the tomatoes.” When they sat down to eat, Carol paused after taking a few bites. “There’s the nicest young man working at the bookstore near Claude’s café. We should have stopped there the other day.”
“I’m sure he’s a sweetheart, but I don’t belong with a man from the ordinary world. He’d soon tire of the attention I receive, and it wouldn’t last long.”
“He’s a poet, so he might be more understanding.”
Ana speared a bite of cucumber with a fierce jab. “A poet? That’s even worse. They’re such sensitive souls and need to comfort themselves. They have little time or emotional strength to sympathize with anyone else.”
Carol swallowed a sip of tea and added more lemon. “No one from the ordinary world, nor poets? Who does that leave? Only the men you meet on jobs?”
“I’m not looking, so please let it go.” The plea worked until Claude came home carrying a tabloid with Alejandro and her on the front page.
Claude handed it to her. “One of the waiters saw this and showed it to me. If you went on a cruise with your husband, where is he? Why haven’t you mentioned him? Did you think we didn’t care? God help us, did he fall overboard and drown?”
Ana sighed unhappily and quickly scanned the story. They’d been photographed on the deck of the Siren. Alejandro had knelt beside her wheelchair, and they were laughing at some shared joke. Anyone could have taken it, but the comments on how little she ate had to have come from someone seated at their table. Linda Suarez was the likely source, and she hated the fact the psychologist had pretended a friendly interest simply to gather material to sell to a tabloid.
She looked up at her mother and stepfather. They were all the family she had and deserved the truth. “Why don’t we make tea, and I’ll tell you all about Alejandro Vasquez.”
Carol put on the teakettle, and Claude produced a box of pastries from his café. “I need more than a tepid cup of tea.” He opened a bottle of his favorite chardonnay and poured himself a glass. “Please begin,” he urged.
They stared at her as though expecting a damning confession, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. Fatima had met Alejandro and knew most of their story, so Ana hadn’t had to provide more than a few details of the end of their romance. She couldn’t use the same verbal shorthand with her mother and stepfather. “I should start at the beginning.”
Claude refilled his glass. Carol poured Ana a cup of tea and fetched a stemmed glass to join her husband with wine. The box of pastries sat unnoticed on the table.
Ana fortified herself with sips of sugar-laced tea and began her story in a calm, detached manner, without prejudicing them against Alejandro until she disclosed his lie about their marriage. “It doesn’t matter what the tabloids say. We aren’t married.”
Carol reached across the table for her daughter’s hand. “I’m astonished. A man who’d lie about something so important would lie to you again and again. You’re better off without him.”
“Wait just a minute,” Claude cautioned. “He’s from one of the wealthiest families in Spain, so clearly he can afford you. He’s handsome, so he’d be an attractive partner. He wanted to marry you, which is honorable, even if he went about it poorly. I think you should give him another chance.”
“Another chance at what?” Carol responded. “To create another preposterous fabrication? No, you did the right thing to leave him, sweetheart.”
“If she did the right thing,” Claude countered, “she wouldn’t look so miserable. You must listen to your heart, regardless of what your mother says. Men make more mistakes than women, and you should be generous with your forgiveness.”
Carol got up to wash out her wineglass. “I think I’m going to be ill.”
Ana had felt ill for a long while and understood completely. Alejandro kept leaving her phone messages, and she was disgusted with herself for listening to each one more than once. He had such a marvelous voice. She wished she could trust what he said. “Can we agree not to talk about him?”
“Of course,” her mother replied.
Claude looked between them and shrugged. “If you insist, but if you’re heartbroken without him, you already know what to do.”
“It would be like walking into a burning building,” her mother chided.
“We just agreed to drop the subject,” Claude replied. “I need to go back to the café for the dinner hour. I’ll see you both later. I may stop at the cathedral to pray for wisdom on the way home.”
Once he was gone, Carol returned to the table. “I knew there was something wrong. Why didn’t you tell us about Alejandro when you first arrived?”
“I’d rather you didn’t think me a fool.” She opened the pastry box and removed a cherry tart. “These are always so good.”
Carol leaned back in her chair. “At least you’re eating. That’s good. Do whatever you truly want to do about Alejandro, and we’ll back you either way.”