Feminist and Abolitionist by Virginia Sanchez-Korrol

Author:Virginia Sanchez-Korrol
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arte Público Press
Published: 2012-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Homeward bound, I sat in the train compartment snug in my woolen cloak, attempting without success to hold my fur collar close to my neck against the draft that seeped in through the cracks in the window frame. Staring out into the darkness, I barely noticed the intermittent flicker of lights coming from sparsely spaced houses that dotted the landscape. My mind was back in time, back to that warm spring day in 1869 at the end of a lilac-laden April when my parents had escaped the clutches of the despot and arrived safely at our front portal.

I heard the horses’ hoof beats and ran to the front porch just in time to see my husband gently helping mother climb down from the carriage. I gasped and could do nothing to hold back my tears at the sight of my poor father. Once a robust, energetic figure, he was now a slight, bent man, broken in body and spirit. Where was the father of the fabled Canarias? The protective riding companion of my youth? As soon as he saw me, he held out his slender arms to enfold me. I ran into his arms, noting his sad, watery eyes.

Locked in the circle of his embrace, he whispered to me in a raspy voice, “Thank God you are safe! I was so worried about you; the scoundrels threatened me with harming you, kept reminding me that I was the father of that traitor, Emilia Casanova!”

I stared at him in utter disbelief! My safety? But he was the one who had suffered imprisonment unjustly. It was then that I understood that the bloom of the Cuban sun was no longer on his cheeks; his loyalty to the Spanish government had been forever severed. He was my father once again, the protector of our family against injustice.

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