Forever Hearts Read online

  I wondered if Lucio knew about his father. Lucio seemed so far away now—as if part of another lifetime. My life had changed so much since the last time I had seen him. And the changes in the hacienda caused by the leaving of Don Clemencio didn’t stop there. One day, we woke up to find that someone had hung Mr. Velasquez from a nearby oak tree. Leonardo’s uncle was dead all of a sudden, taking with him his particular evil but leaving the cruelty of his actions embedded in those who knew him.

  We never found out who had murdered him but with so many who hated him, it could’ve been almost anybody.

  Months passed by with me hearing very little about Leonardo. From soldiers who came through the village, I found out snippets. I knew that he was actually one of Villa’s favorites because he was always first in battle—something that frightened me more than I cared to admit to myself. I would’ve rather him been a coward if that would keep him alive. But it was my father who reminded me of General Emiliano Zapata’s great words, “I’d rather die on my feet than live on my knees.”

  “Valentina, you married a man and not a boy,” my father chided.

  There wasn’t a moment in the day that I didn’t think of Leonardo and at night I’d dream about him. Sometimes in those nocturnal get-a-ways we’d be caring for the animals, or he’d be leaving me colorful flowers on my pathways. There were times we’d be children again, and he’d be staring at me while I was preoccupied with work. The dreams would always end the same way. He’d be dangling the heart necklace, staring furiously at it and then at me.

  I had already gotten rid of it, selling it to a merchant. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been as difficult for me to let go of it as I had assumed it would be. I had thought that when I handed it over for the last time, I wouldn’t be able to contain my emotions. Instead, I was flooded with relief instead of tears.

  Getting rid of an object that was part of another lifetime was like freeing oneself. My steps became lighter, my oxygen less heavy, and my movement more purposeful. The heart necklace had weighed me and my new life down.

  “You’re different these days,” my mother had told me, a puzzled expression on her face.

  Nodding, I smiled at her. And I impatiently waited for Leonardo to return. I waited.

  Chapter 42: Valentina

  Without a landlord, my family and I took to growing as much food as we could on our plot of land. We didn’t have jobs anymore. Thankfully, my father was able to get work in town with the blacksmith, and somehow we managed.

  Every day I’d go through the rows and rows of corn, making sure they were doing fine. Often, I could see Leonardo as he was that day he had confessed about the flowers, pulling out weeds with a determined face that was streaked with long beads of perspiration.

  When I’d get done with my work, I’d go to the river where I’d sit for hours under the tree Leonardo and I had shared. The water flowed with gurgling and swooshing sounds—a reminder that movement was happening, even when it didn’t feel like it.

  One night, my mother asserted, “It’s going to rain tonight.” We were having dinner, a simple plate of sliced cactus in green chile sauce.

  “Judging by the clouds, it’s really going to come down,” agreed my father.

  “Sleep in here tonight,” my mother told me.

  “I’m fine in the vegetable shack.”

  “I don’t know why you insist in sleeping there,” my father grumbled. “The house is much more comfortable.”

  “I’d rather stay there.”

  My father shook his head but my mother nodded with an understanding look on her face.

  Later that night, when it was storming, I snuggled deep in the blankets that Leonardo and I had shared. Even though I had washed them many times since he had left, I could still imagine his scent. I could still picture his form on the side he always slept. I could still feel him close to me. With this thought I fell asleep.

  Chapter 43: Valentina

  Like a dream, he walked in the door of my parents' home as if he’d never been away. He nodded at me, not kissing me or even hugging me. But my parents rushed to him and embraced him as I stayed stiffly glued to the floor.

  “My troop is nearby,” Leonardo stated solemnly. “I wanted to make sure all of you were okay.”

  “We’re fine,” asserted my mother. “But a lot has happened.”

  “Son,” my father said painstakingly. “I hate to be the one to give you the bad news but your uncle is dead. He treated you and almost everyone around him like insects to be stepped on, but he was still your uncle.”

  “How did he die?” Leonardo asked, his voice shaking.

  “Someone hung him from a tree. Your aunt and cousins left after they buried him.”

  “I guess it doesn’t surprise me that he ended up that way,” Leonardo said solemnly, whatever he was feeling at the moment locked inside of him.

  “Don Clemencio is also dead,” my mother explained.

  Leonardo nodded. “I know about him.”

  “You do?” asked my father, surprised.

  “I was in Juarez when he got accidentally shot.”

  After having dinner, pinto beans and some green salsa—that was all we had, Leonardo and I went to the vegetable shack. We had barely said anything to each other. He began going through my possessions in our dresser with frenzied purpose. His hands grabbed at my clothes and things and shoved them aside.

  “It’s not here,” I told him calmly.

  He stopped what he was doing and eyed me. “You know what I’m looking for?”

  “The necklace,” I said simply.

  “Where is it?” he snapped. “In the house?”

  “I sold it.”

  “The money must’ve come in really handy,” he mumbled.

  “If I wouldn’t have found a buyer for it, I would’ve given it away to get rid of it.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Why is that?”

  “Lucio’s my past, and you’re my present.”

  He nodded absentmindedly as if considering what I was saying, but I knew he didn’t believe me. “Let’s get some sleep,” he finally said. “I’m very tired.”

  I laid down first on the straw, and he maneuvered his body next to mine without touching me, his marked back shutting me completely out. After a few minutes of sleeplessness I finally spoke.

  “You abandoned me,” I mumbled.

  “Can you blame me?” he asked, not turning to look at me.

  “No.”

  “Let’s go to sleep.”

  “I missed you,” I stated.

  “I don’t believe you,” he stated.

  “But—“

  “I don’t want to hear your lies.”

  “Leonardo, I—“

  “Stop your chattering,” he grumbled.

  “Listen to me, I—“

  “Stop.”

  The fury of unexpressed emotions ripped through me and before I knew what I was doing, I jumped to his side, staring at him face to face. “Let me speak,” I demanded.

  “Valentina—“

  “You’ll listen to me even if I have to scream or chain myself to you,” I expressed, the words rushing out as if part of a long fast train. “I know I did wrong by keeping that necklace. It’s unforgivable except that I’m sorry—very sorry that I didn’t finish throwing the thing in the river the day you found me there.” I took a quick, strong breath. “You’re my life now, and I wish you’d believe me.”

  The darkness of his eyes went deep into me. “I just don’t know if I can.”

  “When I told you I missed you, I meant it.”

  He let out a long breath. “Is that the truth?”

  “You’ve got to stop calling me a liar,” I insisted.

  He nodded deep in thought and I did the only thing a woman in my situation could do—I proved to him how much I missed him. As my lips fixed themselves on his and my hands feverishly glided over his scar-marked skin. It didn’t take long for h
im to respond to what I was trying to give him.

  And there we were—two awkward bodies, trying to acclimate to one another. It was miraculous how his body fit perfectly into mine. An excruciating pain and a blissful connection spread through me at the same time. Never had I imagined that my first time would be like this. Agony and ecstasy mixed together. What a strange combination. As we kissed with his breath inside of me, I only thought of him. Nothing and no one else occupied my mind.

  At dawn, when he was preparing to leave, he hugged me tightly to his heart. I could feel his every subtle movement, his softness underneath the hard muscle of his strength, and the full heat of what he had inside of him.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can, Valentina,” he muttered, his throat tight.

  “I’m going with you,” I proclaimed.

  “What?”

  “I heard about women traveling with the soldiers.”

  “You mean the soldaderas?”

  “Yes.”

  “But—“

  “I’m going with you.”

  “Valentina—“

  “I’m going.”

  Leonardo frowned. “You can’t come with me. It’s dangerous.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “General Villa doesn’t like women in the ranks. He says it slows us down and keeps the men from focusing.”

  “I don’t care what Villa thinks.”

  “Be reasonable, Valentina. It’s just too dangerous.”

  “You’re there,” I stated, angry peaks in my voice. “Isn’t it dangerous for you too?”

  “It’s different for me.”

  “How is that?” I asked with my hands on my hips.

  “It just is,” he said uncomfortably.

  “Because you’re a man?”

  “That's not it,” he frowned.

  “Then what is it?”

  “Please understand, Valentina,” he stated, his eyes firmly on mine. “I just don’t think I could go on if something happened to you.”

  “How do you think I’d be if something happened to you?”

  His eyebrows knit together, and his dark eyes flickered at me. “Do you really care?”

  “After last night, how can you ask me that question?” I questioned, an irritated tone to my voice.

  “There’s too much of a past for me not to ask if you care,” he declared.

  I cradled his solemn face in my hands. “Leonardo, please leave the past where it is.”

  “How can I?”

  “You have to if you want our marriage to survive.”

  “I hope that someday I can believe that Lucio is gone.”

  “He is,” I insisted.

  “Is he really?”

  “There are no traces of the runaway horse anywhere. It’s gone.”

  “Maybe after I come back from the revolution, we’ll—“

  I wrapped my arms around his neck. “I’m not letting you go back to the war without me.”

  “Please, I’m begging you, don’t come with me. Stay here. Stay safe.”

  “It’s my country too. Don’t I have a right to see what I can do to serve it?”

  “Valentina—”

  “You’re going to leave me again? Abandon me? Didn’t you say you’d never do what Lucio did?”

  His face started twitching angrily. “I’m not abandoning you! Don’t compare me to Lucio.”

  “Then don’t act like him.”

  “I’m trying to keep you safe.”

  “I’m safer with you.”

  “Valentina, you are so frustrating!”

  “I’m going.”

  With the loud objections from my parents and my husband, I stubbornly managed to go with him. For the long road on his horse, he barely said anything to me but I knew I was doing the right thing.

  I knew it.

  Chapter 44

  Before Valeria left, Dr. O’Leary asked her how her relationship with Leonel was progressing.

  “It’s been good,” she replied.

  “No more nervous attacks.”

  “No, I don’t freak out about our wedding anymore. These sessions with you are working a miracle,” she declared.

  “Great,” Dr. O’Leary said, pleased that if she hadn’t been able to be truthful with her, at least she was helping Valeria in some strange way.

  Even with Leonel’s ridiculous jealousy of his cousin, things are going well,” laughed Valeria.

  “What?”

  “Leonel’s cousin is very outgoing and flirtatious, and Leonel misinterprets complements.”

  “Other than that, your relationship with him is going well?” asked Dr. O’Leary.

  “The only thing is . . .”

  “What is it, Valeria?”

  “I still feel an uneasy twinge in the pit of my stomach about marrying Leonel.”

  “It’s normal to have pre-wedding jitters.”

  “I guess so, especially for a woman of my age who has never been married.”

  “Getting married is a complete change of life,” Dr. O’Leary sighed, knowing she would never be where Valeria was at. Enzo would never propose.

  “Yes, a complete change.”

  “So how are your wedding plans going?”

  “We’re still working on setting a date, but everything is fine.

  Chapter 45: Valentina

  It was a tough life, going from town to town and scrounging for food and other basic necessities. We would stay in abandoned buildings (sometimes they’d be in ruins), in train cars after we took over them, or simply out in the open. Some of us were lucky enough to have tents. We cooked over fires we made from twigs we could find, trying to make a home out of practically nothing.

  For those of us staying at camp, away from the battlefields, it was a surreal nightmare to watch our men go to war and wondering if they’d ever come back. Not all women stayed behind. They were the fearless ones who stayed close to their men at all times or who fought as soldiers.

  Women undertook different roles in the revolution—some were caretakers of their husbands, some sold meals, some even bargained their bodies away to the weary warriors, and some actually went to battle. General Villa absolutely despised that so many women were braver than his own male soldiers! He hated cowardice in any way.

  We were called soldaderas, Adelitas, or other names, but we were simply women trying to find fairness in a world turned upside down. Most of us weren’t there for glory because we weren’t given any. We did what we had to do with a longing to bring peace and harmony to a world we didn’t create.

  I wish I could’ve been like those brave women who actually went to battle. Some of them dressed up like men and made everyone think they were males, even pretending to shave non-existent beards in the mornings, so they could keep fighting without being taken out of the ranks. Certain soldaderas even became generals—their passion for justice was so strong. Still there were others who picked up their dead husband’s weapons and started shooting. And there were times General Villa would order the women off the front lines but as soon as he turned his head, the women would run to the forefront.

  I wasn’t one of these remarkable ladies because early on Leonardo made his plea.

  “Please stay at camp while I’m in battle,” he asked of me.

  “I don’t want to stay behind.”

  “Valentina, can’t you do as I ask at least once?”

  I let out a frustrated breath. “I have to do my part.” Rage and contempt for the lack of equality and fairness had festered in me for so long that this would be an opportunity to let it all out—to finally see justice taking form.

  “I won’t be able to concentrate during battle with you there.”

  “What?”

  “If you’re killed by accident . . .”

  “We already went over this,” I stated. “I have to live every day with the possibility of you getting killed. Why is it okay for me to worry and not you?”

>   “Because . . .”

  “Because what?” I demanded to know.

  “You’re much stronger than I am.”

  “What?”

  He stared at me straight in the eyes. “If I got killed, you’d make it through but if you got killed, I’d die with you.”

  “Leonardo—“

  “So keep coming to the battlefields if you want me to lose my focus and get shot.”

  When he put it that way I didn’t have much of a choice but to stay at camp and do whatever I could from there. I did, however, help with the injured after the fighting ended and made it to what I would secretly call the death grounds.

  Death grounds.

  I just couldn’t get all those lifeless bodies out of my head. I grew so tired of the smell of death. What a waste it was! Human beings with so much potential dead on the ground, one after another. Those they left behind crying bloody tears. Why? All because we couldn’t share what God had given us. All because the takers wanted more, claiming God had put them in the position of power while assigning the rest of us the roles of servants. As if God was a bad parent, placing some of His children in a position to abuse His others!

  If I sounded bitter, it was because I learned so much being so close to the killing. And while it was a necessary evil, all wars were evil nonetheless. Benita, who had been a schoolteacher, started teaching us to read and write. With her, we started sharing knowledge.

  “All through history,” Benita said, “men have created wars. Unfortunately, it is their world we live in.”

  She would tell us about the many battles the world had known, why they were fought, the power that was sought, and who actually benefited.

  Leonardo would share my frustration at learning about some of the worst traits in human beings. The truth of knowledge can set you free but before it does that, it sits on you like a heavy ocean waiting for you to wade through it and discover all its dangers and beauty.

  “I wish there was another way to get our country back,” he stated after a particular brutal battle.

  I sighed. “But there isn’t.”

  The dream of a democracy that Leonardo and I shared where even the most destitute had a say in their government kept our resolve strong under the direst of circumstances.