* * *

One morning, while David was walking down to the jetty, I got dressed and went down to the bathhouse and the restaurant called La Taberna del Mar, at the foot of the bay of San Pol. From there I called Juan. It was now two and a half weeks since I’d disappeared.

“Where are you? Are you all right? Are you safe?” he asked me.

“Yes.”

“Are you going to come back?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything, Juan.”

“I love you very much, Isabella. I’ll always love you. Whether or not you come back.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me whether I love you?”

“You don’t have to explain anything to me if you don’t feel like it. I’ll wait for you. Always.”

Those words sank into me like a dagger, and when I got back home, I was still crying. David, who was waiting for me by the door of the house, hugged me.

“I can’t go on being here with you, David.”

“I know.”

Two days later, one of the gypsies from the beach came over to warn us that the Civil Guard was asking about a man and a young girl who had been seen in the area. The guards had a photograph of David, and said he was wanted for murder. That was the last night we spent together. The following morning, when I woke up under the fireplace blankets, David had gone. He’d left a note in which he told me to go back to Barcelona, marry Juan Sempere, and be happy for the two of us. The night before, I’d confessed that Juan had asked me to marry him and that I’d accepted. Even now, I don’t know why I told him that—whether I wanted to push him away from me or wanted him to beg me to elope with him in his descent to hell. He decided for me. When I’d told him he had no right to love me, he’d believed me.

I knew there was no sense in waiting for him. That he wasn’t going to return that afternoon or the next day. I cleaned the house, covered the furniture with sheets again, and closed all the windows. I left the key behind the stone in the wall and made my way to the train station.

I knew I was carrying his child in my womb as soon as I stepped into the train in San Feliu. Juan, whom I’d called from the station before leaving, came to meet me. He hugged me and didn’t ask me where I’d been. I didn’t even dare look him in the eye.

“I don’t deserve your love,” I confessed.

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

I was cowardly and afraid. For me. For the child I knew I carried inside me. A week later, I married Juan Sempere in the church of Santa Ana, as had been arranged. We spent the wedding night in the Fonda España. The following morning, when I woke up, I heard Juan crying in the bathroom. How beautiful life would be if we were able to love those who deserve it.