Victoria Fox - The Santiago Sisters

In her letters, she pleaded with Teresita to come home. She said she was sorry for the spiteful words they had exchanged, vowed that their friendship was worth more and had to be saved. No matter what … right? No matter what, they were there for each other. She wished to explain that there was a way back. There always would be. She wasn’t mad with Teresita for the decision she had made—it would have been a decision borne of the hurt and frustration of their showdown, and she understood.

Calida didn’t know what she had expected from initiating correspondence—but whatever it was, it wasn’t what she got. Silence.

Each one of her letters went unanswered. She waited every day at the gate for mail, hoping for change—but nothing. She imagined Simone and Teresita scrutinising the notes, her increasingly despairing tone as she implored her twin to reconsider, to come home, and laughing cruelly at her efforts. Though she tried with all her soul to deny it, she knew she had to face the truth. Teresita had closed the door on her family—what was left of it, anyway—and had no intention of opening it again.

She had always possessed a harder heart than Calida. But to read those letters and not be touched by any of it, or moved to reply, if for nothing else than to cement the choice she had already made? To ignore the twin who asked for understanding, for help, for forgiveness; not stopping once to acknowledge her part in the collapse of their relationship?

It wasn’t the sister she knew … or thought she had known.

It was a stranger.

The year 2000: a new millennium, a new start. Instead, it felt like an end. As the days passed and turned into weeks, Teresita became a ghost in her mind; the sudden ring of her sister’s laugh or the mischief that danced in her eyes assaulting her from nowhere, like a ghoul from the shadows. She couldn’t eat. She couldn’t sleep.

Calida’s sadness solidified into fury. Right now her twin would be in London, loving every moment, living out the fantasy that she and Julia shared, the fantasy that had always turned its back on Calida because she couldn’t understand it. How could she be so unfeeling, so pitiless; and for what—a palace of fakery? Yet despite Calida’s indifference to the glamorous lifestyle, and the painstaking denials she made to herself that she desired anything whatsoever to do with it, she couldn’t help the worm of envy that burrowed its way into her heart. Why hadn’t Simone taken her? Was she not pretty enough, lovely enough, exciting enough? What was it about Teresita that drew people like moths to a flame, while Calida stayed in darkness?

One day, Julia came to her and said: ‘I’m leaving. You’re sixteen now. You’ll live. I’ve renewed a friendship in the city and I’m going to stay there for a while.’

Calida’s mouth fell open. ‘What? But what about …?’

‘The farm?’ Julia swished a silk scarf over her shoulder. ‘Tell you what, Calida: it’s yours. You always did like this place better than I did.’

‘I can’t look after it on my own.’

‘You’ve got Daniel.’

‘Mama—you can’t. It’s not …’ Her throat closed, making it hard to speak. She felt like sand in an hourglass, time rushing through her fingers. ‘There isn’t—’

‘Come now, Calida. You’re an adult. Teresita’s started her new life. You can’t expect me to hang around here for the rest of my days playing the doting mama.’

And, just like that, the next morning, Julia left. Just like her daughter, she was able to turn away from her past and her responsibilities without a backward glance. She left behind no cash—but Calida wouldn’t have wanted it anyway. It was blood money, testament to the devil-sent pact the three of them had orchestrated, the abomination of that unholy exchange. Calida would have nothing to do with it.

Alone, she summoned Diego’s voice. Speak to me, Papa. Tell me what to do. And she heard his reply: Every path has an ending. Every problem has an answer.

It was the same guidance he’d bestowed on her when she took her pictures, telling her to be still and quiet and at peace, because only then was she truly able to see. Calida had become a lone pillar in a sandstorm, after the rest of the building had blown down. All her life she had been taught to be self-sufficient, to rely on no one but herself. Now, after the dismantling of her family, she understood for the first time how crucial this independence was. The way forward was to become the pillar; to lean on no other supports, neither props on either side nor a foundation beneath her feet.

Winter blew in. It was the harshest season Calida could recall, sleet lashing and winds crying, and some nights the gale threatened to tear the wooden farmhouse from the ground. The land froze and with it the ghosts of their crops. Food was scarce. The old roof leaked and dripped, and as fast as they repaired one fissure, another appeared. Calida lined up buckets on the kitchen floor, the slow seconds counted by the pit-pit of water as it spat into the tin. Each day she prayed for sun, a sliver of promise in the clouds, but the sky churned grey and limitless as a deep, livid sea.

Paco the horse became sick. It started with a waning in his eyes, a burning ember reduced to a flickering wick. He became listless and depressed, and lost his appetite. ‘Strangles,’ Daniel called the disease.

Calida couldn’t survive losing Paco as well. She floundered against his illness, unsure what steps to take. But Daniel knew. He said: ‘I know how much he means to you—it will be all right,’ and in the same grave, capable way as he tackled so much else on the farm, he did what was required to save Paco’s life. Calida questioned why Daniel was still here; the pay had long since dried up, but he never graced her with a response. Just once, he asked if she would refrain from enquiring again.

‘I’m part of this,’ he told her. ‘That isn’t going to change.’

But what had changed was the lost ease of their companionship, when Calida’s youth had excused her bumbling infatuation and Teresita had never said those wicked things. She can be so desperate. She should set her sights lower.

She cringed whenever she thought of it. Calida yearned to unpick it, correct it, tell Daniel there was no boy in town that she liked; Teresita had lied about everything. But if she did that she was confessing to having eavesdropped, and admitting to him her true feelings. Why couldn’t she admit it? What did she have left to lose?

Teresita would tell him, she tortured herself. Teresita would dare.

‘Do you miss her?’ asked Calida one afternoon, as she hung up Paco’s reins, stopping to rinse her hands beneath the outdoor tap. The water choked a splurge of brown before clearing. It was accompanied by the sharp stench of iron.

Daniel didn’t speak for several moments. She was wondering if he’d heard, when at last he said: ‘You know, Calida—I’m glad it’s not you who went away.’

Calida wasn’t glad. If she had gone away, she could have proven her sister wrong: she could have an adventure; she could take a chance … The trouble was, a chance never took her. It stung that he hadn’t answered her question.

‘She really wanted to go, didn’t she?’ said Calida.

Daniel faced her. ‘Sometimes, if you’re unhappy, you have no option but to leave. It’s self-preservation.’

The wind moaned in the rafters. Calida examined the nail on her thumb.

‘She hated it here that much?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Daniel. ‘She’s young. She doesn’t know what she wants.’

‘I do. And I’m the same age.’

‘But you’re …’ Daniel smiled a little, with compassion, humour, she didn’t know what. ‘You’re different, Calida. You’re not like other girls.’