Reader, I Married Him by Tracy Chevalier

Author:Tracy Chevalier
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780062447104
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2016-02-21T16:00:00+00:00

It was through that same tinny hallway phone one winter day that Teresa’s mother, always sensible and collected, called with the news about Papá. “Your father is in the hospital.” But then something choked up—her mother’s voice? the staticky international wires?—and the phone was quickly passed to one of her elder sisters. “Papá had a heart attack.”

Teresa slumped against the wall. “Oh my God. Papá—is he OK?”

“He’s stabilised now.” The sister’s tone was clipped. “But I don’t know what we’re going to do in the meantime. Every day the price of everything goes up. You need a suitcase full of bills just to buy a bag of rice at the store. We’re all doing what we can to help, but we’re barely scraping by ourselves.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To tell you there’s no money for you to fly home to see him.”

Teresa called Juan immediately after, her voice shaking; he came straight to her. She was racked with guilt. The burden of an overseas education had taken its toll on her father. She told Juan she was done with this godforsaken country. The next morning she would plead her case to the bursar’s office, beg for her tuition money back, and hop on the next plane to Argentina, never to return. Miguk was a land that had brought her more harm than good, and life is difficult enough as it is, thank you.

As she spoke, Juan walked to the window and pressed his head against the pane. Cold air seeped in through the cracked-open window. “What is it?” Teresa asked, touching his shoulder.

When Juan turned around, the light struck his profile in a way she had never noticed before, highlighting not the boyishness of his cheeks, but their hard, beautiful edges.

To her astonishment, he let out a little laugh. “Do I even mean anything to you?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, knowing it was not the answer he was looking for.

Juan’s brow deepened—with anger, with frustration, or maybe some combination of both. In that moment he looked almost like Yuna. “So you’re just going to go, like that,” he said. “And you’re not coming back.”

“My father’s sick,” she said. “Sorry for not making this about you.” But she knew it was more than just that.

As Juan stared at her with that carabobo face, she thought back to the first day they had met in New York. She was alone in Miguk and he had taken away her loneliness. But still it did not change what she felt deep down: she did not love him.

It was Juan who broke their gaze. Snapping the strap of his bag, he hoisted it over his shoulder and was out of the door before she could speak.

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