The House of Impossible Loves Read Online Free PDF

rain stopped when there were no more tears for Clara to cry. Still, the sky threatened more storms until night fell and, with frigid bones, she fell asleep alone in her bed.
     
    The next day the young Andalusian made inquiries in town and then boarded the afternoon coach to the provincial capital, five hours away. He took his two servants but left several trunks of clothing and rifles at the inn. He returned four days later, traces of exhaustion etched on his face, and immediately set out on foot for Clara’s, a leather case under his arm. He found her in the streambed garden. She had been waiting and hoping, and the moment she saw him, her chest burned with pride—and hope.
    “I thought you’d left for Andalusia without saying goodbye.”
    “I leave the day after tomorrow. My lands need me. But first I want you to come to the estate with me.”
    “Why?”
    “I’ll tell you when we’re there.”
    They walked in silence along the gravel road that crossed the pine forest until they came to the high iron gate. The biting cold flushed their faces.
    “This time we’ll go in the proper way.”
    The Andalusian took out a key and unlocked the gate. The hinges creaked as it opened. Clara stepped onto the cobblestone drive that led to the door and knew she had walked it in her dreams as daisies sprouted in her hair.
    “You’ll earn a living here,” the young landowner announced.
    “All I want is to be with you.”
    “I bought you this property. It’s for you and the baby.”
    “Then it will be a girl.”
    He handed her the case he carried under his arm.
    “What’s this?”
    “The deeds. Everything is in your name. There’s a bit of money as well, to help you get started. I went to the city and arranged everything. As I said, I leave the day after tomorrow, but I’ll be back when the child is born.”
    “I dreamed of living here, but only if it were with you.”
    “I swear I’ll be back to see what God has sent us, boy or girl. And I look forward to seeing you as a proud owner here.”
    “And will you marry me?”
    “No, Clara. I will never marry you; that was never my intention. You’re a beautiful girl, but I can’t love you like a woman of my class and position. Your mother practices witchcraft and divines the future in the bones of a cat. And you, little one, you can’t even write your own name. How could I present you in society? I would grow tired of you, and you would come to hate me. You’re like that precious yellow rose in what is now your garden: it took time to fade, but in the end it did and now it’s gone. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
    “I understand. I’m not as ignorant as you think. But you promise you’ll return?”
    “I do.”
    “Then I will wait for you.”
     
    Before the landowner set out on the evening coach with his servants and trunks, he and Clara said goodbye in the oak grove. The last rays of sun were sinking into the river when Clara heard the horse’s hooves pounding against the earth as she sat on the moss, waiting. That galloping beat reverberated in her belly, and her bones turned to ice. The Andalusian dismounted, handsome as ever, and carved a heart with their names and an arrow on a hollow trunk as he repeated his promise to return. He kissed her on the lips, climbed back onto his horse, and trotted off slowly, following the riverbank.
    The wind carried the sound of church bells announcing seven o’clock Mass. Cloaked in the shadow of an oak, Clara Laguna knew her love would forever smell of that tree and cursed God. In the distance, she watched her lover’s silhouette wind along the river. He would marry a woman other than her, a woman with beauty marks and stiff flounces, a woman who could write not only her first and last names but love letters as well. Clara cried so hard imagining this rival that the moment her eyes dried, her belly, then her vagina, which had known such passion only to have it snatched away, began to weep, too. She spent