Beyond the Ties of Blood Read Online Free PDF

even come out of your room?”
    â€œDon’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady. I only have your best interests in mind. God knows how hard it’s been for me, and you just don’t …”
    That was always the moment when Irene would slam out of the dining room, and Eugenia would hear her steps going up the stairs. And that would be the cue for Mama to turn her attention to the younger daughter, who sat there wishing she were on her way out the door just like Irene.
    â€œChenyita,” she wheedled, using her pet name for Eugenia, “are you going to change into more comfortable clothes and begin your homework? I can have Teresa bring you a cup of hot tea with milk in a little while, when you’re ready to take a break.” Eugenia would trudge up the stairs, ever the dutiful daughter, unable to slam the door and follow in Irene’s footsteps.
    It was a year later, about halfway through her last year in high school, that Irene dropped a bomb at the dinner table.
    â€œMamita,” she said casually during dessert one evening, “I’ve decided to apply to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the United States, for their degree program in chemistry. My teacher this year, Mr. Roberts, thinks I’m talented enough to get in.”
    Mama choked on her baked apple. “What? Hijita , what in heaven’s name are you talking about?”
    â€œJust what I said. I’m applying to MIT.”
    â€œBut … but … isn’t that very expensive? With your papa gone now, we don’t have that kind of money, especially not in dollars, why …”
    â€œI talked to Papa about it last week. He knows some people in the chemical industry who are looking to train new scientists. He thinks they’re offering scholarships. The best ones pay for everything, and maybe I can …”
    â€œYou talked to your father? Before you talked to me?”
    â€œMama, the point is that I can get my education paid for, and …”
    Mama got up from the table and slammed out of the dining room. Although Eugenia knew that Irene continued to speak with Papa on the phone several times a week, she also knew that her sister had been careful to do so when Mama was not home.
    Things moved quickly in Irene’s life after that. She put in all the application papers in September, and graduated with high honors in December when the school year ended in the southern hemisphere. By April of the following year she had her acceptance and she boarded the plane for Boston in late June. Though Mama had given her a special goodbye gift, an expensive Spanish–English dictionary for scientists, she refused to go to the airport. “What for,” she sighed. “Her father’s been behind this all the way, I know it. He wants to take my daughter away from me.” So Eugenia, Papa, and his new wife went instead. Eugenia still remembered the last-minute flash of panic in her sister’s eyes, the slightly too tight hug before she hefted her knapsack onto her back at the gate.
    Left alone with Mama in her last two years of high school, Eugenia was placed under the microscope. Mama wouldn’t make the same mistakes and lose her, too. “You need to find a nice young man, Chenyita,” Mama repeated over and over, “someone from our own circle who will understand you, a young man who’s been brought up right and who will know how to respect and appreciate you.” Three months after Irene’s departure, during their stay at the farm over the national independence holiday, her mother announced she had found the solution to their problem.
    â€œOf course, hijita , I don’t know how I didn’t think of it before. I just had tea over at our neighbors’. Their son Sergio is home from the Catholic University, where he’s studying sociology. He’s such a handsome, polite young man. You know him, don’t you, Chenyita?”
    Eugenia