I never once saw him angry.
Not really angry.
Not the way Julia got angry.
Her insults came easily, sometimes within earshot of the children, sometimes loud enough for the neighbors, and maybe even for innocent passersby who had only meant to walk down the street and got an earful.
It was always one of those he makes me lose it situations.
As if he had forced her hand.
As if his very existence had reached across the room and shaken her into cruelty.
“Look at you, you klutz. All you’re good for is writing stories about nothing. Still editing that damn book?”
That damn book was El Espejo.
When his novel piqued the interest of a movie producer, Fernando was happy. Proud, even. He told people. There had been an offer, a conversation, even a tentative new title.
Julia laughed.
“Wonder if it’s even true.”
It was true.
The film never happened. The deal fell apart somewhere, as things often do. But the offer had been real.
So was the book.
So was the man she constantly mocked.
Once, she chased him through the house with one of her heels in hand.
A heel.
Not a slipper. Not a rolling pin, which at least would have had some old comedic dignity.
A heel.
She chased him right into Mila’s bed.
Mila did what children do in ridiculous emergencies.
She pretended to be asleep.
Years later, the memory does seem rather comical from a distance: Fernando ducking, Julia storming behind him, heel raised as if it were just another prop in the tragicomedy of their lives.
Almost.
Then the afterthought arrives.
There was a child in that bed.
Julia mocked him for years. Then she came to the United States and, once here, behaved as if he had never existed.
Three years later, Fernando died.
“I am his widow now,” she said. “I’m a widow.”
The word seemed to please her.
Not the loss.
The title.
***
I never once saw him lose his temper with her. Never saw him raise a hand. Never heard him scream back. Once or twice, exasperation crossed his face, and he would quickly leave the room.
How did he manage that?
Outside the house, Julia performed the submissive wife.
Inside, she ruled with a heavy hand.
Yet Fernando remained calm.
Maybe calm was the only safe place left for him to stand.
***
As a child, Mila did not realize how grateful she would one day be that her father stayed in that house.
Because as bad as things were, they never became what they might have become had he walked away.
A terrible kind of gratitude.
Still.
Thank you, father.
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