Rebirth: Choosing a College Husband novel · Chapter 2 of 12

Chapter 2: Borrowed Shoes

My father didn't speak for two hours.

He sat on the kitchen bench, his hat in his hands, staring at the dirt floor while the neighbors silently filed out of the yard, whispering among themselves.

My mother set a plate of mote with cheese in front of him, but he didn't touch it.

Holger and his mother had been the first to leave, backs stiff and lips pressed tight.

Before he walked out, Holger had looked at me one more time.

A long, calculating look.

Then he smiled, put on his hat, and left.

Blanca had disappeared into the back of the house without saying a word.

And the student, Angel, had gone into the back room, the one my parents rented to him for a few coins and the promise that he'd teach my little siblings to read.

He closed the door.

He didn't come out.

I stood in the empty yard, my heart pounding in my ears.

"Narcisa," my father said at last.

"Taita."

"Come here."

I went into the kitchen.

I stood in front of him with my hands clasped together.

"What have you done?"

"I made my choice."

"That one?"

"Yes."

"He's a deadbeat."

"He's a student."

"Same thing."

My mother set the spoon down in the pot.

"Taita," she said. "Don't yell at the girl."

"I'm not yelling."

"You are yelling."

"You've made me look ridiculous in front of the whole community," my father said, his voice breaking. "Doña Guaman offered us twenty hectares. Twenty! And you, with the president's eldest son at your feet, go and choose a..."

"A teacher."

"A bespectacled deadbeat!"

My father stood up.

He was a small man, fifty-two years old, with knobby hands and gentle eyes.

He had never raised his voice to me.

He didn't raise it now.

But he was crying.

"Daughter," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "I have nothing to give you. I've got half a hectare of potatoes and an old cow. I thought you'd be all right with the Guaman family. That you wouldn't go hungry like I did."

My eyes filled with tears.

"Taita."

"Tell me you've thought this through."

"I have."

"And?"

"Holger is going to kill me," I said.

My mother started.

My father stared at me in horror.

"What?"

"If I marry him. He's going to kill me."

"Oh, my God. Daughter. Who told you that?"

"No one."

"Then what?"

I couldn't answer.

How could I explain that I'd seen it with my own eyes?

That I'd felt the belt, the buckle, the blow to my temple.

That I'd felt my three daughters clinging to me in the corner of the kitchen.

My mother wiped her hands on her apron.

She came closer.

She took my face between her rough hands.

"Daughter," she said in a dry, practical voice. "If you say that man is going to hurt you, I believe you."

"Woman," my father murmured.

"Be quiet, man. I know her."

She hugged me.

I buried my face in her shoulder, which smelled of smoke and chamomile.

I cried.

That night, when the house had gone quiet, I went out into the yard with a candle.

The door to the back room stood ajar.

A yellow light flickered inside.

I knocked with my knuckles.

"Come in," a low voice said.

I went in.

The room was tiny.

A plank bed with a wool blanket, a small table, a candle, and an apple crate for a shelf.

And books.

Twenty, thirty books stacked against the wall, some with their spines patched with tape.

Angel was sitting on the bed, his glasses in his hand and his jacket folded beside him.

Without it, he looked even thinner.

He stood when he saw me.

"Miss Narcisa."

"Sit down. Call me you."

"I can't speak to you that way."

"Yes, you can."

"All right." He sat down. "Tell me... tell me what I did."

"Nothing."

"But you... you pointed to me in front of the whole village."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I sat on the edge of the table.

I thought about what to tell him.

The truth was impossible.

But part of the truth wasn't.

"Because you're the only man in this community who kept reading when a matchmaker showed up with ten suitors," I said.

He turned red.

"I didn't hear anything."

"I know."

"I was reading a passage by Benjamín Carrión. I'm sorry."

"You don't have to apologize."

"It's just... I'm embarrassed. I have nothing. My mother sells corn at the market in Riobamba. I have one suit and a pair of borrowed shoes, which I returned yesterday. I graduate in two years. And even so..."

"Even so."

"I don't know what you see in me."

I looked at him.

His long fingers gripping his knees.

His black eyes, bright and deeply frightened behind his glasses.

"I see a man who's going to be a teacher," I said. "And I want daughters who can read."

He blinked.

"Daughters?"

"Daughters."

"Not sons."

"Daughters. And any sons who come along. But daughters."

Something changed in his face.

His shoulders relaxed.

He smiled shyly, the corners of his mouth crinkling.

"I want daughters too," he said.

"Really?"

"My mother always said the women in my family are the ones who make a home work."

Something warm and strange filled my chest.

"Then we have a deal," I said.

"On one condition."

"Tell me."

"Don't marry me because you feel obligated. If you want to leave in a month, in a year, then go. I won't hold you back."

I looked at him.

It was the first time in two lives that a man had said that to me.

"I accept," I said. "On one more condition."

"What condition?"

"That you teach me to read better."

"You can't read?"

"I can spell. I want to really read. I want to read what you read."

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

"I'll teach you everything I know," he said.

I left the room, the candle flickering and my cheeks burning.

Outside, the night was clear and cold.

The stars seemed close enough to touch.

I walked over to the wooden gate.

I went to secure the latch.

But before I could touch it, I saw a shadow on the other side.

A tall man in a felt hat, leaning against the post with his hands in his pockets.

Holger Guaman.

He'd been waiting for me.

"Narcisa," he said quietly. "This isn't over."

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