“He writes to women, you know? Women looking for pen pals and romance in magazines. He writes to them, then he fleeces the fools. He’s no hidalgo from La Rioja. He’s another kind of whore.”
Her aunt let out a sound that was close to a snarl, a wild agglomeration of syllables, a curse that was not a word. Inés did not know what angered Perla more: the thought of her fucking Ulises, or the idea that the refined gentleman was a louse.
Perla rose, grabbing Inés by the arm, digging her nails into her flesh. “You’re a covetous, poisonous snake!”
“Let go of me!”
“Always with that sly look on your face, plotting behind my back.”
She wrenched herself free from her aunt’s grasp but immediately felt the sting of a slap on her cheek. Both women stared at each other.
“You’re exactly like your mother. Traitors! Vipers! Don’t you think I’ll forget this. You’re a nasty leech, a parasite—”
“I’m leaving,” Inés said, cutting her off, and when she spoke it was as if invisible shackles slipped from her wrists.
She’d existed in a state of paralysis for years, but now she shook herself awake. It was over. Although she’d spent many days dreading discovery and punishment, she suddenly felt a wave of relief. Her life in this house had reached an end.
Her aunt laughed. “That’s what you said when Salvador went away. Now Ulises has gone away too, and you’re not going with him either.”
“How do you know he’s gone?”
“I’m not as stupid as you think. He didn’t borrow my car, he’s gone, forever. Good riddance, then. It’ll be easier to get a divorce.”
“I’m leaving anyway. I should have done it a long time ago, but I was too afraid. I’m not afraid now.”
She meant it. Why should she ever be afraid? She’d plotted and she’d killed. She’d gotten away with it too. Inés laughed.
Wrath made Perla’s lips tremble. “You can’t!”
The yelling and quarreling had attracted the attention of the dog, which began to bark excitedly and scratch at the door.
Inés had no desire to argue any longer. She shook her head and moved toward the door. Perla raised her voice, and there was panic in her face, a dreadful, naked terror in her eyes that drowned the rage that had simmered there.
“You can’t leave me alone!”
Those words. They flung Inés back in time, and the awful nightmare that made her cry in her sleep played before her open eyes as she stared at her aunt. The words Perla had spoken echoed those that had been spoken many years before. She remembered, with startling clarity, that moment when she had stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up.
Inés spoke slowly, as if she were still half asleep, as if the dream slackened her tongue. “You were fighting. That day with my mother, you were fighting.”
Perla stepped away from Inés. “What are you saying?”
“By the stairs,” Inés continued; her tongue was still sluggish, straining to make the proper sounds. “You pushed her.”
Her aunt’s face turned into a death mask; it was made of stone. Only her eyes seemed to glimmer with a sickening animation as she stared at Inés.
Perla began to shake her head. “I didn’t.”
“I saw it. That day, I saw it. You pushed her down the stairs.”
“You didn’t see anything.”
“Then you hugged me. You murdered her and you hugged me.”
Perla had crept back toward the desk, as if she might find solace underthe shadow of her father’s portrait. She shook her head again. “I will not have you telling lies in my house.”
It had returned to her, the whole of it, and once she had remembered, once she had seen, she could not unsee. The sound of her mother’s body crashing to the floor rang in her ears and her eyes were filled with crimson. She felt faint and her voice, when she spoke, was the weakest of whispers.
“But you did it,” she said.