The Distant Marvels by Chantel Acevedo Page B

met Aldo Alarcón’s eyes steadily. She could feel the cold wake of his finger on her cheek. This was not the kind of man who would kiss the inside of a wrist, or draw a woman in softly, a thick, protective hand on the small of her back, and nibble at an earlobe. Lulu knew because Agustín was not that kind of man, either.
    The owner of the inn interrupted at just the right moment, halting what must have been Aldo Alarcón’s dangerous thoughts in that instant—
Should this woman be free? What threats does she pose to Spanish Cuba?
 
    As for Lulu, she’d been thinking—
How far can I get if I run?
    â€œMy niece, F-Fernanda,” the manager announced, dragging a skinny girl in a baggy blouse and pleated skirt. Like her uncle’s clothes, hers had the look of many wearings. The pleats were sad, flattened things, and Lulu’s fingers ached to fold them down.
    The girl approached Lulu confidently. Despite her clothes, she cut a figure far different from the inn owner’s. Her hands rested on her slim hips. She eyed first Lulu, then me, and said, “My Tío Julio says you need a woman to help you.”
    Lulu nearly laughed. A woman. The girl before her was still a child, her chest flat. Did she even know what little cloths were for? “Fernanda,” Lulu began, then stopped. “Is there anyone older about?”
    â€œWhen was the baby born?” Fernanda asked, all business.
    Lulu paused. There was something authoritative in the girl’s voice and in her eyes, which seemed to patrol the room every so often, stopping on Aldo Alarcón for only a second each time.
    â€œLess than a week ago.”
    â€œDo you have luggage? Any supplies at all?”
    â€œConfiscated.”
    Fernanda stole a quick glance at Aldo Alarcón again, then tapped a finger against her lips. Her nail was chewed to the quick. “You need soup for your strength,” she said after a moment. “And milk to drink. There’s a bolt of linen in the back room. I can sew. Little cloths and diapers. They’ll be ready by morning.”
    â€œThank you,” Lulu said.
    â€œYour shirt, señora,” Fernanda whispered, and indicated with a sharp thrust of her chin.
    Lulu looked down and saw that her button shirt was partly undone, and a half-moon of swollen breast was exposed, the skin stretched and glistening.
    â€œOh,” she said, shifting me in her arms to adjust herself.
    â€œIt was nothing,” Fernanda said before Lulu could thank her. Then the girl was off again, as quick as she’d come.
    â€œI’d be l-lost with-without her,” the inn owner said, his eyes following his niece. He fiddled with his lapels for a minute, then turned to look at Lulu. Lulu felt a ping and snap in her chest. There was, she realized, goodness in him. Not saintly virtue, no. But a tenderness Lulu had not seen in a man in a long time. Fernanda had called him Tío Julio, and there it was, a nameplate on the desk that Lulu had not noticed before—Julio Reyes.
    He must have caught her looking, because Julio turned the little brass plate for her to see before asking, “Is there anything else I can do for you?” without stuttering once.

10.
Mornings and Nights
    T he captain had returned Lulu’s luggage to her only after the Spanish authorities had ransacked it. Fernanda had made several linen diapers for me, as well as a few gowns of muslin, replete with a satin ribbon that tied at my feet. So, both my mother and I were well dressed for what Aldo Alarcón called our “outings among decent people.”
    Early in the mornings, when the darkness withdrew slowly from the sky, and the weak streetlamps dimmed one by one, Aldo Alarcón would come knocking on Lulu’s door. “I remember this,” she would tell me, “because you had not yet learned to sleep through the nights and I would stay up to wait for the dawn, staring out the window. As soon as