Best Kept Secrets (22 page)

1929

Havana, Cuba—veintiuno de diciembre 1928

M
arguerite-Josefina sat on a cushioned love seat next to Jose Luis, enjoying the smell of blooming flowers in the garden of the mansion in the Vedado neighborhood.

“Everything is so beautiful, so peaceful here.”

Jose Luis heard the wistfulness in his daughter’s voice. “Is it not beautiful and peaceful in Florida,
Chica?
”

She let out a soft sigh. “It is, Papa, but it is different.”

A light breeze off the ocean stirred wisps of hair that had escaped the single braid. There were a few occasions when she talked about cutting her hair like millions of other women
worldwide, but Samuel had pleaded with her not to. She’d acquiesced, because there weren’t that many things he asked of or from her.

“Different how?” Jose Luis asked. “Did you not tell me that the house Samuel built for you is one of the finest houses in all of West Palm Beach?”

A knowing smile parted her lips. “It
is
the finest. When we return I plan to host the grandest gathering just to give those
putas
who hate me so much something to talk about.”

“Chica!”

M.J. rolled her eyes while sucking her teeth, a habit she’d picked up from her housekeeper. “They are bitches, Papa. I threatened Samuel that I would divorce him if he told any of their husbands that we were building a house.”

Jose Luis chuckled. “What did they say when you moved away?”

“There wasn’t much they could say. While the house was under construction I ordered the furniture I wanted. The pieces were delivered one week, and we moved in the next week. One morning I put Martin and Nancy in the car and drove away. Samuel and Bessie stayed behind to monitor the movers when they loaded everything from our old house onto a truck. Our housekeeper has a cousin who works for one of these
vacas
and she said they were so upset that some of them took to their beds once they realized Samuel and I owned the property.”

Jose Luis shook his head as he smothered a laugh. “Which ones are they,
Chica? Putas
or cows?”

M.J.’s grin matched her father’s. “Both.” She sobered quickly. “When are you coming to visit with me and your grandchildren?”

She had written and called her father so often that she’d lost count, inviting him to come and spend time with her son and daughter in the U.S. Three months after Martin’s birth, she and Samuel sailed to Cuba to introduce Jose Luis to his first grandchild. Thereafter she and Samuel visited Cuba every six months.

The exception had been the year Martin celebrated his second birthday when she found herself pregnant again. This pregnancy was different from her first because she’d been plagued with nausea. Her labor was long and difficult, but once she saw her daughter, M.J. knew she would willingly do it again.

In less than a week she would celebrate her twenty-fourth birthday and fourth wedding anniversary. Her life had changed from the time she’d sat in the Moreno garden flirting with Samuel Cole. He’d changed her when he made her his wife and a mother. And it was being a mother that she revered most. She loved her husband, but her children more.

“I don’t know,” Jose Luis said after a pregnant pause.

M.J. peered closely at her father. He was thinner. “Are you okay, Papa?”

“Sí,”
he replied much too quickly.

Her forehead furrowed. “I don’t believe you.” Her tone was sharp, waspish.

“You forget yourself, daughter!” Jose Luis snapped angrily. “I am still your father.”

She refused to back down. “And I am your daughter, and I have a right to know if you’re not well.”

Jose Luis was saved from responding to M.J.’s accusation when Samuel walked into the garden with his dark-haired, dark-eyed daughter sitting on his shoulders. Martin, who would turn three in a month, raced ahead of his father and sister.

“Abuelo,”
he shouted excitedly. “
Titi
gave me
papas fritas!
”

Luis reached out, picked up his grandson and settled him on his lap. “You like fried potatoes?” he asked him in English. The child nodded and smiled. Matching dimples creased his cheeks like thumbprints.

“Please speak Spanish to him, Papa,” M.J. chided in a quiet voice. She’d promised herself that her children would be raised as Catholics and would be equally comfortable speaking Spanish and English.

Jose Luis ruffled the boy’s coal-black curly hair. “Don’t worry so much, Marguerite-Josefina. The boy will learn Spanish.”

“That’s what I told her,” Samuel said, swinging Nancy from his shoulders and putting her down. She opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing shriek. “No, Dada.
Arriba!
”

“Don’t, Samuel,” M.J. ordered when Samuel reached out for Nancy, who’d pressed her tiny fists to her eyes and wailed loudly. “You’ve spoiled her so much that she’s become impossible.”

Samuel ignored his wife’s grumbling. “Who’s Daddy’s big girl?”

Laughing hysterically, her open mouth displaying a dozen tiny teeth, Nancy clapped her hands over her head. “Nay-Nay.”

“Yeah!” Samuel and Nancy crowed in unison.

M.J. leaned over and kissed her father and son. “Good night. I’m going inside.” She stood up, glaring at Samuel. “You can put the children to bed.”

Jose Luis watched his son-in-law as he stared at M.J. until she disappeared. “Are you still away from home a lot?”

Samuel froze. It was the first time Jose Luis had broached the subject with him, and it was apparent M.J. had complained to her father about his business trips.

“No,” he answered honestly. “I only took two business trips this year, and so far I only have one scheduled for next year.”

The nostrils of Jose Luis’s aquiline nose flared. “I should not have to remind you that you are not only a husband, but also a father. Children need to see their father, especially sons, Samuel.”

Swallowing a rush of rage, Samuel counted slowly to three. “Don’t ever chastise me in front of my children again.”

Jose Luis offered a hint of a smile. “Put them to bed. Then we will talk.”

Samuel nodded. “Come, Martin.”

Martin wound his arms around his grandfather’s neck. “I want to stay with
Abuelo
.”

Jose Luis shook his head. “You must obey your father. Now
go with him. You and
Abuelo
will go for a walk along the Malecon tomorrow. We’ll see if we can’t outrun the waves coming over the seawall.”

Martin’s smile was as bright as the rising sun. “I’m not going to get wet, Grandpa,” he said in English.

“That remains to be seen,
nieto
,” Jose Luis teased. Hugging his grandson, he kissed him on both cheeks. “Good dreams.”

Martin repeated the gesture, kissing his grandfather’s cheeks. “Good dreams,” he repeated in Spanish before scrambling off the elderly man’s lap and running to catch up with his father and sister.

Samuel found Jose Luis sitting where he’d left him. The sky still bore streaks of red, orange and blue as nightfall descended on Havana. He’d managed to cool his anger when he bathed Martin and Nancy, then dressed them for bed. As he passed the
sala
, Gloria asked if he wanted to join her and M.J. for coffee, but he’d declined because he wanted to clear the air between himself and his father-in-law.

“Sit down, Samuel,” Jose Luis ordered unceremoniously. “Do you have a mistress?”

Samuel froze as if he’d been shot or impaled with a sharp instrument. “What!”

“Answer me!”

“Hell—no! And why would you ask me that?”

Jose Luis’s left hand shook slightly, and he gripped his knee to conceal the tremor. “Because that is the only reason I could come up with why you leave my daughter alone so often.”

“That was before…” His words trailed off.

The older man’s impassive expression did not change. “Before what, Samuel?”

“When I was setting up my businesses.”

“Are you saying it’s different now?”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Samuel focused on a profusion of frangipani. He nodded. “Very different. I have coffee
holdings in Costa Rica, Mexico and Jamaica, and I’m currently in negotiations to acquire a failing banana plantation in Puerto Limon.”

He hadn’t lied to his father-in-law about other women. He hadn’t been unfaithful to M.J. since becoming a father. And his love for her deepened each time he returned to find her and their children waiting to welcome him home.

“What about your United Fruit-Cole Brothers soybean contract?”

“It expires the end of March.”

It was due to expire and he and Everett had agreed not to renew it. Mark and Thomas had received offers from several European food-processing companies who’d expressed an interest in their soybean crop. He’d suggested they consider a more global market, but Thomas was apprehensive about expanding beyond the Northern Hemisphere. The meeting ended with Mark’s and Thomas’s deciding to renegotiate with their former Mexican food processor.

“Has it been five years already?” Jose Luis asked.

Samuel lifted his eyebrows, nodding. The years had passed so quickly that whenever he returned from a business trip he found his children changed. It was the reason he’d curtailed his traveling.

“Are you a millionaire?”

Attractive lines fanned out around Samuel’s eyes. His aim had been to become a millionaire by age thirty, but he had exceeded his own goal by a year. Everett had worked well into the night, completing the profit and loss, balance sheet, and the upcoming year’s quarterly projections for Mrs. Harris to type when she came in the next day.

Samuel knew something was afoot when Everett presented him with the financial statements, instead of his secretary. There was only the sound of their breathing when he read and reread the figures. It had taken only three years for
his newly renamed ColeDiz International, Ltd. Inc. to net more than a million.

“I was before I built and furnished the new house,” he admitted.

Jose Luis released his knee and ran his hand over his hair. “I’m sorry if I implied that you were keeping another woman, but I had to know before I tell you something.”

Lowering his arms, Samuel stared directly at Jose Luis. “What?”

“I’m dying, Samuel.”

There came a long, thick silence that grew more uncomfortable with each passing second. Samuel looped one leg over the opposite knee, struggling not to break down. Jose Luis had become the father Charles couldn’t or did not know how to be.

“We’re all dying, Papa.”

Jose Luis stared at the younger man as if he were a stranger. It was the first time he related to him like family and not a business partner. Samuel had changed. He wasn’t the arrogant and brash man who’d come to Cuba five years ago. But after marrying his daughter the brashness was tempered by confidence—confidence and a boldness that seemed to make him invincible.

However, it was fatherhood that had made the greatest impact on Samuel; he’d openly lavished affection on his children and they worshipped him as if he were a god. Jose Luis knew Samuel loved Marguerite-Josefina as she did him, and that he would always provide for his daughter and grandchildren.

“That is true, but I am dying,” he repeated, his voice quivering with fear and dread. “It’s my heart. There are times when it stops beating for a few seconds, causing me a great deal of pain. The doctors say there is nothing they can do for me. They tell me not to do anything strenuous, and that I should take a lot of rest. That is why I cannot travel.”

Samuel closed his eyes and swallowed painfully. “Have you told M.J.?”

Jose Luis placed a hand on Samuel’s shoulder. He opened
his eyes with the slight pressure. “No. And I don’t want you to tell her.” A muscle twitched in Samuel’s jaw. “Swear to me on your children that you won’t tell her.”

“Don’t bring my children into this.”

The hand on Samuel’s shoulder tightened. “Swear it!”

It was a full minute before either man spoke again. Samuel was the one to break the impasse. “I swear.”

M.J. woke up the morning of her twenty-fourth birthday and fourth wedding anniversary to find her husband staring at her. Her lips parted in a smile that always softened his heart wherein he could not refuse her anything.

“Happy birthday, baby.”

“Thank you,
mi amor
, for four years of the most exquisite happiness any woman could ever hope for.”

Tiny lines fanned out around Samuel’s eyes when he threw back his head and laughed. “Four down and seventy-one to go.”

M.J. stared at the man she’d married. She still found his features interesting. His lean face had filled out, softening the sharp angles of his prominent cheekbones and along his jawline. His salt-and-pepper hair gave him an air of sophistication not attributed to thirty-year-old men.

What hadn’t changed were his eyes. Dark, deep-set and penetrating, they seemed to see everything in one sweeping glance. His deep voice was the same, and she discovered he didn’t have to raise it to prove a point.

Although she hadn’t liked his traveling so much, she’d reconciled that as an international businessman this was what Samuel had to do. He had his companies and employees, whereas she had her home and children.

Looping an arm around her waist, Samuel pulled M.J. atop him, her legs sandwiched between his. “What do you want for the next five years, darling?”

She rested her chin on his breastbone and stared down at him
staring up at her. “I don’t know, Sammy. I can’t think of a single thing. I have the house I’ve always wanted, I get to have you home practically every night now, and I have my children. What more could I want?”

“Do you want more children?”

Her expressive arching eyebrows lifted. “Why are you asking me this? After Nancy was born I remember you saying that with a son and a daughter our family was complete.”

Samuel closed his eyes. “You’re right. It’s just that every time you go into labor I keep thinking that I’m going to lose you.” He opened his eyes, meeting her startled gaze.

“You are not going to lose me, Sammy.”