Fifty-One

YNA’S stupefaction was confirmation enough for the doña.
“You see?” She had pushed away at Brad and was straightening her dress. Her gold bracelets were making tinkling sounds like chimes on her wrists as she patted at herself, as if she was trying to pat dirt from being near her. “And don’t you even deny it because Brad here bought you. He paid for you! For the amount of ten thousand pesos! How cheap are you?” She spat again but on the ground now because Brad was standing between them. “You had your hand on the coins and you wanted a barrel! If you think you can have that, you are delusional, puta!”
“Tita, that’s not how it went... please...!” Brad was in a panic now. He was trying not to drag the woman back to the car, but she wouldn’t have it.
“Will you stop it, Brad!”
“Tita, did you forget that Tito Sylver doesn’t know we’re here? With the noise you’re making, someone can hear and look. He’s not going to be happy. We have to leave. Now.”
The woman blinked and she seemed to shrink considerably at Señorito Brad’s words, and she turned to look around them. She finally succumbed to getting back inside the car, spooked.
Her spit was sliding down Yna’s chin. She knew it was already on her skin, but she didn’t want to use her hand to wipe it off. She didn’t know what to do. She just stood there, shocked.
“Helene, get inside the car. Someone might see you. You’ll never get away with it once Enrique finds this out,” Brad was saying as if he was exhausted. He hadn’t finished speaking yet but Helene was diving inside the car, looking so self-conscious that Yna almost laughed.
Brad turned to her, and pity flooded his face as he saw her. He immediately took a handkerchief out of his pocket.
“I’m so sorry, Arianna—”
“And why are you apologizing to that whore?!” the doña asked angrily from the open window of the backseat.
Brad gritted his teeth and turned back to the women in the car.
“Did you forget that if it wasn’t for your son and husband, you would have been homeless by now? Did you forget that I worked for them? So, yes! I am asking for forgiveness.”
The doña blinked fearful eyes.
“Your son believes he loves this woman, and he is willing to do anything to have her, and if he finds out the two of you have beaten her up like this—that I brought you here so you can do this—we’re all going to get set adrift! Yna is the only one who can save us now!”
Yna had already stepped away from Señorito Brad as he shouted at the car. She had a towel she used to wipe her sweat from working in the garden and that was what she used to wipe off the abomination on her face.
A big part of her still felt disbelieving about getting beaten up and spit at.
A part of her was still in shock and she could hear Señorito Brad’s words, but they felt far away.
“Arianna, take this. Please...” Brad had turned back to her and was insisting she accepts the handkerchief.
She took it like a robot. He was begging, and he stopped his companions from doing further injuries to her. He looked extremely worried. It was all she could do.
“Arianna—”
“I understand.”
“About what happened here… about what tita said, it wasn’t what I told them—"
“Did you think something like this happening to me hadn’t even entered my mind?” she asked him in a wooden voice. “I was always afraid about what would happen to me and him if people find out about that night.”
She closed her eyes. It was harder now not to cry.
“But I was more a fool to think I wouldn’t need to leave the hacienda. I grew up here. People here are kind. My brother is finally recovering from the trauma of that night. And my Inay… my Inay, her heart is doing better in such a long time…”
“You don’t need to leave. Arianna, you only have to refuse Enrique’s attention—”
She laughed at him. “Do you really know your best friend like you said you do? I didn’t even know he knew me a month after he finally approached me. Did you think I didn’t try to refuse him, then? Have you ever refused him anything yourself?”
His shoulders instantly slumped, and he bowed his head and closed his eyes.
“He will find out about this. Two farmers are watching us from the other side of the rice paddy on the right. He’ll probably know before the day is over,” she informed him.
Brad jumped like he’d been whipped, turned, and looked… and yes. Two farm workers were standing at the other side of the rice paddy, under the shade of massive bamboo stalks, looking like they were ready to run but waiting for whatever they had seen here to get finished first.
“Madre de Dios!” he whispered, paling.
“He should find it out from you, Señorito Brad, before whatever they say reaches him.”
He looked back at her, pained, speechless. “I didn’t know they would do this, Arianna. I swear.”
“When the educated happen to be wealthy, humanity can jump out the window because they can pay for other people to look away. Eric’s mother is not a kind woman. He must… he must have really suffered a lot,” she said in a soft voice, even though the two women had slid the window up on the backseat to hide their faces from eyes.
“You should have your injuries looked at,” Brad said stiltedly. He had lost hope he would not be reported.
“I’ll be fine,” she replied. Both of them knew he would be in a worse state than her after this. She returned his handkerchief to him, unused. “I don’t think you’ll be in any position to take care of anything after today, señorito,” she told him. “I’m sorry.”
She turned away from him to get back to her bike.
“Arianna…” he called at her. She stopped. But she didn’t look at him. She didn’t think she still had anything to say to him.
“I’m really sorry but I have to do this. I have to protect him and Uncle Sylver. They never knew how to protect themselves.”
She glanced over at the car again, and she shook her head.
“Yes, I was wrong in asking for their help,” he admitted.
She stared at him, surprised at what she’d heard. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. But she wasn’t the only one.
“Brad! What the hell are you doing?!” Señora Lucilla shrieked at him. The older woman slid the window down a slit to find out what was delaying him, so they heard that last part.
“Brad, have you gone mad?” Helene screeched at her cousin after climbing out of the car again but at least remaining on the other side.
“And it was my fault… that I got confused. He could have met you in any other way if I hadn't done that. You just live here in the hacienda. He could have bumped into you anytime then no one would get confused anymore. But because of what I did, you’ve been called a whore. I know that was unfair. I want you to know you are not a whore, Arianna. That is so wrong.”
She fought the tears that wanted to get back to the surface. “Señorito Brad, I’m not blaming you for what you did. The circumstances that night were beyond your control. I could… I could have been sold to another man… and if that was the case I don’t know if I…” She was shaking her head.
He winced. “Arianna...”
“Goodluck. I think you’re going to need it.”
Those were her parting words as she pedaled the bike back home, and in a way, an act of spite. She knew it was going to be hard for Señorito Brad to make up for his mistake today.
It wasn’t just that she was hurt.
She needed to do her own thing to take care of her mother.
She had to get her mother away from here. Those farmers heard what the doña said. It was going to spread like wildfire. They couldn’t stay.
That was when tears started to flow again. She really thought it would work. She really hoped. She was already convinced Eric loved her, but her mother couldn’t know the truth.
*I’m sorry, Eric. Goodbye.*