I thought of my own relationship with Cristóbal. It was true that I directed the course of our lives in many ways. But I didn’t think of my husband as stupid—I just thought he didn’t care about the minute details of our lives, like the way we decorated our apartment or what friends we should invite for dinner, so I ended up making those decisions myself. Had he been unsatisfied with our arrangement? I recalled his words during our last quarrel.

I’m already doing what you wanted. Am I not?

“You make women sound like monsters,” I told Martin.

“Oh, no. I love women. I just don’t want one to run my life.”

“But do you realize that most women never have had the freedoms you enjoy? They constantly have to explain their behaviors to their parents or to their husbands, and restrain their actions in a society that always judges them.”

“Well, there are societal rules and laws for everybody. Just because I’m a man it doesn’t mean I can kill someone. But perhaps you’re right in that outside the home, women must show more restraint than men.”

“That is a fact. Or can you imagine a woman paying a man to fornicate?”

He let out a boisterous laugh.

“I’d volunteer if they needed someone.”

“I don’t doubt it.” I took a sip of beer. It was so bitter. How could people drink this on purpose? “So instead of running the risk of having a woman rule your life, you use all others?”

“You mean, the prostitutes?”

What else?

“It’s a fair exchange,” he said. “They need the money and I need their services. Or do you think I should be giving away money to every woman I meet just because they need it? Look, it’s a rotten system, but I didn’t create it and I don’t know how to fix it. It’s unfortunate that some women have to sell their bodies to survive, but life is not always pretty or clean. We’re imperfect creatures. We’re messy, we’re flawed, we don’t always have answers. I know I don’t.”

“And here I thought you were nursing a broken heart.”

He turned around and grabbed a plate from an overhead cabinet.

“Enough of this dull talk,” he said. “Let’s eat.”

* * *