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Jesusa’s stories impressed the twins.
    Sometimes Ramón came alone, sometimes Inocente came as if he were Ramón, and a few times they came together, dressed unalike so that her parents could tell them apart. As she spent more time with them, she discerned that, in spite of the Argosos’ plan to make sober businessmen out of them, Ramón and Inocente were romantics, and the bravado of the Larragoity and Cubillas men, especially as presented by Ana’s hyperbolic parents, inspired them to imagine that they, too, could have an adventurous life.
    “What a magnificent horse.” Ramón stopped before a portrait of Ana’s great-granduncle, the tobacco planter from Cuba, solid on a chestnut stallion, acres of fields around him and, in the background, a columned mansion and barns.
    “He owned three hundred horses,” Gustavo said, “and so much land that it took him a day to ride from one end of his plantation to the other.”
    “He must have needed that many horses,” Ana said.
    Jesusa ignored her daughter’s remark. “It was called Nonpareil. No other could compare.”
    “Yes, that’s what it means,” Ana said, but neither her parents nor the twins acknowledged her sarcasm.
    She couldn’t help herself. Her parents irritated her, but at the same time, she understood that their boasts about glamorous ancestors aroused Ramón’s and Inocente’s imaginations and confirmed her stories that adventure was waiting across the ocean.
    Ramón and Inocente missed the independence they enjoyed before they were apprenticed in their uncle’s business. They dreaded that Eugenio’s plan to retire to the country and turn over the business to them would mean a staid, conventional life. They didn’t want to spend their daylight hours in an office. They wanted to be outdoors amid horses and men.
    “I imagine you both on stallions as beautiful as this one,” Ana said, sweetening her voice, “riding these vast fields, masters of your own world.”
    Ana encouraged and flattered them, and Ramón and Inocente began to see themselves through her eyes. Yes, they were young, brave, strong, imaginative. They had learned much about how to manage a business. Why couldn’t they go to Puerto Rico and develop the land their uncle left their family? The sugar hacienda already had a workforce in place that knew what to do. Ramón and Inocente could be the saddled
señores
who oversaw the operation and reaped the profits.
    “In a few years,” she said, “we can return to Spain with a fortune. And stories enough for a lifetime.”
    She nurtured their swashbuckling fantasies, and they were as eager as she for a life of adventure. To them, she represented their independence. To her, they were the agents of her freedom.

A COMPROMISE

    Leonor and Elena were upstairs being fitted for new frocks and Eugenio had just settled in his study with the morning papers, coffee, and a cigar when his sons walked in.
    “We need a word, Papá,” Inocente said.
    Eugenio folded his newspaper, set it aside, and gestured for them to sit.
    “We’d like to take over the farm and plantation in Puerto Rico that Tío Rodrigo left in the inheritance,” Ramón began.
    “I plan to sell those properties.”
    “But there’s greater potential in the hacienda,” Inocente started, “than realizing a small profit in the short term,” Ramón finished.
    “We looked into the accounts.” Inocente spread some pages in front of his father. “Tío Rodrigo has owned the farm in Caguas for five years. It’s closer to the capital than the plantation, and he used it as a retreat from the city.”
    “Fruits, vegetables, chickens, and pork from the farm provisioned his ships,” Ramón said. “A husband and wife do the entire planting and harvesting with three grown sons who live on the property in exchange for a small plot where they grow their own food. They cared for Tío Rodrigo’s house when he was away, and when he was there, the wife and daughter cleaned and cooked.