Guayabas were a lot like large lemons, but harder and sweeter. When you split them, the food inside was red and full of seeds. I found a tree bursting with them—I used to come here a lot during my childhood—and filled my basket.

“A miracle, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice startled me. “The elusive lady is outside her palace without her eternal companion.”

I turned around to find Juan standing there.

I hated his sarcasm. I turned my back on him and continued picking guavas. I hadn’t seen much of him after the party, though I heard through Catalina that our father had given him a job on the plantation. Papá’s reasons for hiring him were a mystery to me. I’d never understood his interest in our poor neighbor.

“What do you want?” I said.

He scoffed.

I turned around, a guayaba between my fingers. “What?”

He had a contemptuous smirk on his face. “You’ve become so vain. I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m the same person.”

He shook his head. “You used to be so sweet.”

Though I would never admit to it, I knew he was right. I’d become so impatient with my sister that when we practiced our music I yelled at her over the most trivial mistakes. Not to mention my mother—she got on my nerves with her mere presence. At my worst, I excused Papá for cheating on her with that mysterious maid and having a child out of wedlock. But then, almost immediately, I would ask the Lord for forgiveness and say a quick prayer.

“Well, you’ve changed, too,” I said. “You’re so mean now. You rarely smile, and I really don’t appreciate that sarcastic tone you used with me earlier.” Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. “You never wrote me. You never came to visit. You were gone much longer than you ever said you would be. And then, one day, you show up here expecting everything to be the same. You want me to be the same idiot who followed you around everywhere you went.”

“I liked that idiot.”

He caught me off guard. I fought a smile.

“Well”—my tone softened a bit—“that idiot no longer exists.”

He took a step toward me. I tried to take a step back, but there was a tree behind me. Please, don’t touch me.

He removed a strand from my face and placed it behind my ear. I shivered.

“Are you sure she’s not somewhere inside there?” he said.