The Love of a Latino (8 page)

“Hello? Hello?” A male voice
questioned on the other end. Was it her brother-in-law Roger?

“Yes, hello—good afternoon,
is this Roger?” He asked, still holding his breath.

“Nah man, this is Kelon.”

“I’m sorry, but this number
was given to me by a young lady. Dahlia Moore?” He was fishing.
Please say I
have the wrong number. Please.

“Yeah, Dahlia. This is she
phone, but she in the bathroom now. Yuh want to leave a message?”

“No, thank you.” Rafe
disconnected the call.

Jealously blazed through him
like a raging fire, ready to destroy anything in its path. He flung the phone
across the room and it landed on the leather sofa. Shoving his hand through his
hair, he swore loudly into the empty office. Why was a man answering her phone
while she was in the bathroom? Had she taken another lover? Rafe fumed at the
thought of another man possessing her body. In one sweeping motion the entire
contents of his desk landed on the ground, his computer shattering to pieces. Another
man was touching her, kissing her, enjoying the pleasure that should only be
reserved for him. He lifted the desk overturning it, crushing anything that
hadn’t broken on first impact. His office door flew open, his assistant Luann
was at the entrance. Her eyes widened in dismay at the mess scattered across
the office floor.

The plump young lady, with a
worried voice asked, “Mr. Cavos, are you alright?”

“Get out!” He barked without
even looking at her.

“Mr. Cavos…?”

“I said.
Get Out!”
This
time his eyes met hers and what Luann saw in the depths chilled her to the
bones.

The frightened girl all but
fell out the door, shutting it behind her. Raphael lowered himself to his chair
which had slid a little distance away. He rested his elbow on his knees and
buried his face in his hand. He had lost her, the
one
woman he loved,
the only woman he would ever love. She was lying in the arms of another man
halfway across the world and there was not a damn thing he could do about it.
How could he have messed this up so bad?

****

“Oh Natasha, what am I going
to do?” Dahlia cried in desperation. Natasha sat next to her on the bed, both
of them staring at the blue line on the stick.

“Are you going to tell him?”

“No—no. I am not going to
tell him, besides I don’t even know where he is.” Natasha opened her mouth to
say something but Dahlia continued, “I know what you’re going to say. I was
stupid to have sex with a man I hardly know and didn’t even think to use
protection.”

Dahlia stood at the opened
window. Peering through the slanted louvers, she could see Missy, her cat,
lounging under the Julie Mango tree in the back yard. Not far away, Marley, her
beloved Rottweiler was engulfed in a round of tug-of-war with one of her flip
flops. “Mangy mutt,” she yelled through the glass and the dog aware he was
doing something wrong, dropped its rubber opponent and disappeared behind the
water barrels.

Natasha hugged her sister
from behind, resting her head against Dahlia’s. “I was not going to say that,
Dahlia. What
I was
going to say is that everything will be fine. Roger
and I will help you with the baby. It will give me something to do around this
boring house the whole day.” Dahlia turned to her sister, a tear escaping her
lids. “I know you love him, but maybe you weren’t meant to be together. Now you
have a baby to think about. These things don’t happen by mistake. A baby is a
blessing.”

“I’m sorry, Natasha; it’s
just that I thought that I would forget him after all this time. It’s been
three months. How could I allow myself to fall in love with him?” She groaned.
Walking away from her sister, Dahlia plopped down on her bed, frustrated.
Pulling the pillow over her head, she screamed into it. When that didn’t help,
she resorted to throwing forceful punches at it, wishing it was Raphael Cavos.

Natasha chuckled from across
the room. “That isn’t going to help, you know. If you want to take your mind off
him I have something that would help.”

“I can’t wait to hear this.”
Dahlia rolled her eyes in fake annoyance.

“Remember when we were small,
what we use to do over the August holiday?” Natasha asked a mischievous glint
in her eyes.

“You wouldn’t…” Dahlia didn’t
believe Natasha would do it.

“Want to bet?” Her sister
challenged.

“If Mr. Fred catches us…he
will kill us.”

“Then we won’t let him catch
us.” Natasha threw over her shoulder as she made a mad dash for the door.

****

Pitches of playful screams mixed
with the wind, travelled upward through the open sky. Dahlia and Natasha
splashed about in the big pond, Dahlia wrapped in childhood memories. When they
were little girls and Dahlia still lived in Trinidad, they would spend almost
every day at the pond. Natasha would make a huge bowl of mango chow, seasoned
with pepper and they would spend hours in the warm water. Their mother would
usually come to fetch them when the sun decided to slip away, belt in hand
promising to ‘to blaze their asses.’

Being here in the water,
still fully dressed in her short pants and tank top, with her sister, Dahlia
realized how much she missed this. She knew that after being away for so long
there was nowhere else in the world she would rather live. This is where she
wanted her children to grow up.

In a few months she would become
a mother. The idea terrified her. She wasn’t sure she if was ready to be a
mother, but the idea of a life growing inside her brought out her protective
instincts. Her hand went to cover her stomach as if to shield her baby from the
world. Dahlia made a silent promise—to be a good mother to her baby as her
mother had been to her.

A splash of water hit her
square in the face. She sputtered, trying not to drink any of the brown liquid.
Turning, she glared at Natasha who was wading in the water a few feet from her.

“Natasha…” She threatened
playfully.

“What? You were doing it
again, drifting off, so I thought I would bring you back.” Her sister
explained; a wicked smile plastered on her face.

“Well
…you better start swimming because when I catch you,
you’ll
need a doctor to bring you back.”

Natasha burst into laughter
but turned and swam off in the direction of the bank; however, Dahlia– always
the better swimmer– caught up in a few strokes, wrestling with her, playfully
dunking her beneath the murky water.

They were both so engrossed
in their games; neither of them noticed the old man standing on the bank of the
pond watching them intently. It was only when the hunting dog standing next to
him, began to yelp—they both jumped, spinning around.

“Mr. Fred…” Natasha sputtered,
wiping a hand over her face to clear the water that clung to her eyelids.

He didn’t answer, just stood
there with a scowl on his aged face.

“We didn’t know you were
there.”

“Natasha, Dahlia? That is all
yuh?” He asked, narrowing his eyes against the setting sun.

“Yes, it’s us.” It was Dahlia
that answered this time. They both were close to the bank now, Natasha helping
Dahlia out.

A smile broke out on the
elderly man’s face.
“Oh meh God!
All yuh get so big. Is years since meh
see all yuh in meh pond.” He broke into a steady stream of Trinidadian dialect.

He came closer, scrutinizing
them, Dahlia couldn’t help but smile. There was a time, long ago that they
would run off through the bushes at the sight of this man. Now age had caught
up with him and in place of the stone-faced man that threatened them so many
times, so many years ago, was an old man who was admiring them as though happy
for the company.

“How are you Mr. Fred?”
Dahlia asked curious to see how much his attitude had changed.

“I good, Gyul. De foot giving
me some trouble but ah good.” He patted his left leg pointing out which one he
meant when he said ‘the foot.’ “Come nah, leh meh give all yuh some orange and
plum to carry home,” he said, his voice fading away as he turned and began to
walk toward his garden, favoring the leg he had patted.

Dahlia and Natasha stared at
each other for a moment, both surprised by his action. They followed him,
through to the clearing that brought them to his garden.  He still farmed.
There were rows of cabbages, spread out in front of her. Beyond that were
hundreds of sweet pepper and pimento pepper trees, the rich green leaves
bringing the earth to life. To her left there was a field of corn shooting up
to the sky, the part between clean. A few Kiskadees, dashed in an out of the
tall plants, their yellow and black feathered wings taking them away in flight.
Over the hill, she could hear the roar of a water pump, another farmer tending
to his crops. This is what she missed. The thrill of the outdoors, the feeling
of being wrapped in nature, a place where one could feel at home.

Dahlia turned at the sound of
someone calling out to Natasha. Roger’s rough voice cut through the air, barely
audible over the noise of the afternoon sounds.

“Natasha, I think Roger’s
home.” Dahlia notified her sister waving a finger at her.

They hastily took the bags of
oranges and plums and said their goodbyes to the old man, promising to visit
him soon.

As they took off in the
direction of the pond, Dahlia’s heart lifted a little. Her baby would have a
childhood as happy as hers. He or she would know what it meant to be a true
Trini
; a child of the soil.

****

Lauralyn Lopéz Cavos surveyed
the rows of dilapidated wooden houses that lined the unkempt road. The patches
of grass at the side were overgrown making the road seem darker even in this
hot midday sun. She hoped she had the correct address. Tracking down this girl
proved to be harder than she’d thought. If Rafe knew what she was up to, he
would be livid. Finding Dahlia’s number on his phone was a stroke of pure luck,
and that is the only reason she had decided to go through with this. After all
this time, he
still
kept her number. Could that mean he still harbored
some hope?

If there was a small chance
that he could find his way back to this girl, Lauralyn wanted to be the one to
give it to him. Even if it meant traipsing halfway across the world in this
horrible sun to find that person, then she would do it. He would have to thank
her with lots of grandbabies.

She had hoped that calling
the girl and explaining would solve the problem, but calls to the number
revealed that the phone no longer belonged to Dahlia. The man on the other end
said she didn’t work at the
Papaya Hut
anymore but he was more than
helpful. At the end of their conversation, Lauralyn had a full name and
address.

She’d promised herself she
wouldn’t get involved in Rafe’s life but seeing her son so distraught was too
much for any mother to bear. She had been horrified when Luann had called her
all those months ago to notify her that something was wrong with Rafe. When she
had arrived at his office she had been terrified at what she’d found. Her son
was sprawled out on the sofa in a drunken sleep, his office in a scattered
mess. He wouldn’t talk about what had led to his behavior that day, instead he
had become silent, refusing to even mention Dahlia’s name. But her son had
changed more than she expected. He had lost weight, drinking himself into a
drunken stupor most nights. He had become distant and bitter, a stranger even
to her. Something had triggered him that day and if he didn’t want to tell her
what it was, she would find out for herself. She did not like what her son had
become; his love for Dahlia was deeper than she had brought herself to believe.

The relationship between
father and son had become strained, neither of them saying more than a few
words to each other at any given time. Even though Alejandro had admitted to
her he was wrong, it would be a long time before Rafe would hear those words
from him. This was not how the Cavos family treated each other. She would
rather die, than see her family destroyed.

There was only one person who
could answer her questions and put an end to Rafe’s miseries. Lauralyn hoped
she could find her.

****

Dahlia relaxed in the
hammock, a copy of
What to Expect When You’re Expecting
lay open on her
lap, a gift from Roger. The book made for good reading but it was a no romance
novel. It had been a while since she’d read one of those; instead, she thought
she was living it. Not the part where the hero would sweep the heroine off her
feet and declare his undying love. Her life was the sad part where she got her
heart broken. Sarafina was living the part of the heroine. She grimaced as she
tried to put a face to the voice. She had no doubt she would be beautiful.
People like Raphael Cavos only married that type.

The hand that rested gently
on the small swell of her stomach moved back and forth, something she found
herself doing automatically when she drifted away in thought. Morning sickness
was now a thing of the past, instead, she battled with a ferocious appetite.