When news of Batista’s defeat reached Dolores, she sat at her sewing machine, mending trousers for some wealthy city people, a job she’d secured via her underground typewriter-ladies circle. Circle of saviors. She wept before the silk dresses and pleated pants, waiting for Carmen to arrive home from school. Wept as Elena tugged at her hem and said, “Mamá café. Mamá café.”

And then in the afternoon, to the city again. How the plaza came alive that day, rumblings and murmurings, singing peanut vendor, nannies with smiles on their faces patting little blond heads, Carmen and Elena making wishes over fountain coins that weren’t theirs. Dead? Alive? Surely dead. For days, she waited for the postman with a letter announcing her widowhood or perhaps a compañero from the mountains with a beret in his hand over his heart … I’m so sorry to inform you of this, comrade …

Instead, Daniel showed again. Came through the door at dawn on a Wednesday before Dolores was up, when it was still dark outside. Walked right into their bedroom and kissed her atop the head.

“We won,” he said to her. “Get up and get the cafetera going. Did you hear Fidel himself is coming to the city? Perhaps today, even.”

She had no words. All Dolores could do as she lit the gas and placed the rusted metal contraption over the fire was think of the machete she’d purchased when Daniel left, tucked under the big guava bush behind their house. She’d sharpened it herself. She’d practiced the blow that could bring a fat sugarcane stalk thudding to the ground.

The girls ran to Daniel’s side when they woke, hugged him tight, chattered away.

“Today we’ll celebrate,” Dolores said to them. “You can stay home from school, Carmen.”

“Why?” Carmen looked up from her father’s shoulder, where she’d burrowed her head.

“Things are going to be better now.”

“What things?”

“All things, darling.”

She needed a plan. The coffee bubbled, filled the kitchen with the heavy, burnt scent of dark roast. It rose like chimney smoke through the barrel, hot and fragrant. She poured three little cups. She needed Carmen bright awake in case they had to run at any minute. Dolores shaky, sticky, in the kitchen, bending over the stove. A shiver up her spine.

Little cups before Daniel and Carmen. She drank her own in a sip.

“Me too?” Carmen asked.

“Yes, cariño. Celebrate with a little cafecito.”

She knew Daniel would never let her leave. He’d hunt her down; he’d find her. He’d said as much. She was most afraid for Carmen and Elena. If she left them. If she took them.

“What are you making?” Daniel slipped a cigar from the pocket of his shirt and lit it over the stove fire.