The Lost Story of Eva Fuentes - 23

Havana

1966

For a moment, Pilar thought she must have misheard Eva. “What was a lie?”

“The love between the main characters—Ana and Michael. The romance. All of it. Michael—the man who inspired Michael, at least, was not the man I wrote him to be. Yes— A Time for Forgetting is fiction, but it was largely inspired by my life, by what happened when I attended the Cuban Summer School.

“When I left Havana that summer and arrived in Boston, I was working on a different novel. I had been writing it for years, and it never quite spoke to me. The story kept changing, the characters shifting, and it just never felt right. I don’t know how to explain it—there’s this feeling you get when you’re writing, when everything fits into place perfectly. I never had that until I started writing A Time for Forgetting. ”

Eva took a deep breath, and even though she was speaking of events that had happened sixty-six years ago, Pilar could feel her anger, her grief, filling the room.

Beside her, her granddaughter Evita looked shocked.

“We met at Harvard. Just as I wrote in the novel. It was at a dance. The part about him asking me to dance in the book wasn’t true, though.” A ghost of a smile played at Eva’s lips. “Even back then I wouldn’t have danced. I was never one for such things, but my roommate Dolores was, and if I’m being honest, I think I envied her a bit. There was a lightness to her that I never had, a lightness I always wished I could slip on. So, I gave some of that to Ana, and I had her meet Michael at a dance where he swept her off her feet.” She smiled. “I got to be brave when I wrote about Ana. Got to be some version of myself that I wished I could be in real life. Ana was aspirational. Like a big sister you look up to or a friend you ask for advice. Ana had gone through the war like I did and came out differently. It hadn’t worn her down like it had done to me.”

“And Michael?” Pilar asked.

Eva closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she had a faraway look about her as though she were in another place, in another time.

“Michael’s real name was James. When we met, I thought he was a Harvard student. We were encouraged to socialize as part of the exchange program, you see. I didn’t realize until later that James was a journalist. He wanted to write a story about the summer school from the perspective of one of the Cuban teachers who attended it. I don’t know how much that played into his decision to approach me. I don’t know what to believe anymore. He insisted that it wasn’t about that, that he cared about me, but I learned that he could say a lot of things he didn’t mean.”

“He isn’t a journalist in the book.”

“No, he isn’t. I changed that, too. It was my life, but it wasn’t my life, you see. I wrote the truths on the page that I needed to excoriate from myself, and the rest I altered so that I wouldn’t feel as though I had just bared my soul for all. Writing a book is a bit like walking out in public without your clothes on. It’s hard to know if you’ve shared too much of yourself. Better to muddy things a little so you can protect the parts of yourself that make you feel the most vulnerable.”

“Is that why you wrote it in English? I wondered about that.”

She smiled, but the effect was sadder than anything else.

“No—I wrote it in English for the opposite reason, in fact—not because I wanted to hide parts of myself, but partially because I wanted to know that James would read it. I didn’t want him to be able to look away from it. He asked me once if I would ever write something for him in English so he could read it. He didn’t speak Spanish; our entire courtship was conducted in English. In my anger, in my hurt, I wanted to throw it in his face.”

“What happened between you?” Evita asked.

“I fell in love,” Eva answered, reaching out and taking her granddaughter’s hand. “I knew it wasn’t a good idea, knew better. But with James—he had this way about him. He made me feel special. And when I fell in love with him, I thought he felt the same way. Before I met him, I’d never experienced anything close to that, had never so much as held hands with a man. But James was smart, and he was funny, and for the first time in my life, I lost my head. It was every cliché they write about in the books. We were together almost the entirety of the summer school. And then it was time for me to go back to Havana. I had a teaching job waiting for me, responsibilities here. Like Ana in A Time for Forgetting , I prepared to leave, to say goodbye to the only man I had ever loved.”

“Did you ever think about staying in Boston?” Evita asked.

“I did. I wanted him to ask me to stay, wanted him to ask me for a lot more than that if I’m being honest. I thought—I thought he made me promises. I don’t know. I was young, and naïve, and I imagined he was like the heroes in my books. He told me he loved me, and I believed him. He told me that he would come see me when I returned to Havana, and I believed him.”

“He didn’t?” Evita asked.

“No, of course not.” On unsteady legs, Eva rose from the couch and walked over to the window, her back to Pilar and Evita.

Silence filled the room.

“I realized I was pregnant a few weeks after I returned to Havana.”

Eva said each word slowly, as though they cost her something great to voice.

Pilar’s gaze shot to Evita. She’d gone pale, her mouth agape.

“I was terrified,” Eva continued. “I had never thought about having children, was barely getting by in those days. I was supporting myself as a single woman on a schoolteacher’s salary in a country that had just come through a terrible conflict. I had no family left.

“I wrote James immediately to tell him what had happened.” Eva turned to face her granddaughter. “I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I proposed to him in my letter. Such things were hardly done, but I didn’t see much of an alternative. I loved him. I thought he loved me. We were going to have a child together even though it was unexpected. I hoped we would marry, that the happy ending I’d only ever dreamed of might be possible.

“I waited for James’s letter for months. It never came.”

“I’m so sorry,” Evita whispered.

“I worried something had happened, that perhaps my letter had gotten lost in the mail. I wrote him again, and still no response. When I was three months pregnant, there was no more waiting. I couldn’t hide it anymore. I didn’t know what to do. I penned one last letter to him, telling him that I was coming to Boston. I bought a ticket for passage on a ship, and I prayed everything would work out. That he would reply telling me that he would be there to meet me.

“I knew something was wrong, I think. I kept trying to have faith, but I knew. I just didn’t want to face the inconceivable, because the truth was I had nothing, no good options. So, I went to Boston.”

“Did you see him?” Evita asked.

Pilar felt as though she was intruding on their private family moment, but there was something in Eva’s demeanor—as though she was unburdening herself of a story that had weighed her down for far too long. She didn’t seem to mind that Pilar was here; perhaps Pilar’s presence offered a buffer of sorts with her granddaughter.

“I did,” Eva answered. “When I showed up pregnant at the newspaper office where he worked, he looked terrified. I discovered that he had a wife, so there would be no marriage between us. He offered an apology and expressed his regrets for what had happened, for the situation that I now found myself in. And that was it. My great love affair that started out with a flame died just as quickly.”

“What a coward—what a—” Evita exclaimed.

“Yes. He very much was that.”

“I’m so sorry,” Pilar replied. “I can’t imagine how terrifying that must have been for you to be all alone in the world, to have been betrayed by the man you trusted, and to be pregnant.”

“I was—I don’t know what I was—I can’t even put into words how desperate I felt. And angry. I was so angry at him, and at myself. There was a home where you could go in Massachusetts—it was run by the Church—I went there to have my baby. And to give her up.

“There simply was no other option. No one would have hired me to teach, knowing that I had a child outside of marriage. They never would have trusted me. And without the ability to work, how would I have supported us? How would we have survived? It was the hardest decision I have ever made in my life. Not a day goes by that I haven’t regretted it, and that I haven’t known that it was absolutely the right one even as it broke my heart.”

Pilar batted at a tear that slid down her cheek, Evita’s openly streaming down.

“It was so lonely there. So quiet. So sad. I was surrounded by other women who were in similarly horrible situations, in their own states of anger and grief. My body felt as though it were a ticking clock, and even as I knew that there was no other choice, I thought I would go mad the closer I got to my due date, the closer that I came to having to say goodbye. I had been working on a book when I was at Harvard, while I was falling in love with James. I threw it away. I started writing A Time for Forgetting instead . I wrote through the baby kicks, and the sleepless nights when my body ached. I wrote through the days when the only thing that got me out of bed was knowing that I had to do so for my child.”

Pilar understood now that Eva explained what she had gone through working on the novel. There had always been something about A Time for Forgetting —a tension, a story beneath a story. There had been anger and sadness seeping through the love that filled the page, and that had been the thing that had drawn Pilar to the novel the most. It was messy in places, the way that life was messy, its jagged edges catching her.

“And then the book was done. And my daughter was born. I did the hardest thing I’ve ever done giving her up. I found a publisher in Boston and sent the book to them, and I boarded a boat and returned to Havana.”

“Do you know what happened to your daughter—to my aunt?” Evita asked.

“She was adopted by an American family in Boston. A couple who couldn’t have children of their own, I believe. I never met the parents, never so much as learned their names, but some of the nurses took pity on me, I think, and told me that they seemed like nice people. I held my daughter for a few minutes after she was born and then—

“Not a day has gone by that I haven’t thought of her,” Eva replied with a whisper.

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“I’m sorry, but when I read A Time for Forgetting— there was a folded paper inside the book. It was a letter. I thought it was a love letter, I just didn’t realize—” Pilar’s voice broke off.

Eva opened the book, flipping through the pages. She stilled when she reached the chapter where she’d left the letter. Her fingers ghosted over the page, but she made no effort to unfold it. Perhaps she was waiting for privacy to do so later.

“I wrote it for her,” Eva said with a sad smile. “When I feel joy, when I feel pain, when I need to express myself, I write. I wrote my daughter countless letters, ones I knew I would never have a chance to send.”

“I’m so sorry,” Pilar said. “I’m sorry to have come here and dug all of this up for you. I never meant to cause you pain.”

“No, you have nothing to apologize for.” Eva stared down at the book. “You’ve brought me something truly remarkable. I never thought I would see A Time for Forgetting again. I always wanted to be a writer. I felt so alone, so invisible in the world in which I lived. I desperately wished that one day my words would reach someone, speak to them.”

“Your book meant more to me than you’ll ever know.”

“Thank you.”

Eva’s gaze drifted to her granddaughter. “I married Evita’s grandfather years later. It—it wasn’t a good marriage.”

If Evita was surprised by her grandmother’s candor, she didn’t show it.

“We divorced after our son was born—Evita’s father. That was why Dolores and I lost touch in the first place. She didn’t want me to marry him. Didn’t think we were suited, that I would be happy. She was right in a way—we weren’t suited, even though I eventually found my happiness and then some in my son and now my granddaughter. Dolores and I quarreled terribly at the time in the way only friends can do when they’re more like sisters.”

Evita frowned. “How did you—”

“Survive it all?” Eva asked with a sad smile.

Evita nodded, and Pilar found herself leaning forward, desperate to hear Eva’s answer for some wisdom that could give her hope.

“It gets easier with time, I suppose,” Eva said. “People always say that so it must be true.” She laughed. “Your losses stay with you; your pain becomes part of the fabric of who you are. Some days they’re as fresh as the day they happened; other times they’re a dull ache inside you.” Eva smiled. “I think about my daughter, your aunt. I imagine her out in the world, envision the kind of life that she has. Sometimes I talk to her. I write letters to her that I’ll never send. I commemorate her birthday each year. I can’t regret what happened, can’t regret the mistakes I made because I know she’s out there. I’ll never meet her, I’ll never see her, but the knowing is enough.

“I wanted to unmask the kind of man James was. In the beginning, that was my plan—to shame him. But I wrote A Time for Forgetting while my daughter grew inside me. Sometimes I read the passages to her. And if by some miracle she ever did read the words I’d written, I didn’t want her to feel as though she was born from anything but love. Maybe James wasn’t capable of love, so I decided to give her enough for the both of us. I gave her our story—the best part of it, at least.

“It sounds fanciful, I know, but all I had were the words inside me. I wanted to believe they were enough.”

Pilar wiped the tears away from her face.

“They were,” Pilar said.

“My life has been hard. But many can say that. My life has also been filled with more joy and love than I dreamed possible. My children—my grandchild—are my heart. They’re my legacy.”

They spoke for another hour, their conversation drifting from their personal lives to books that they’d enjoyed.

When it was time to go, Pilar rose to say goodbye.

Eva picked up A Time for Forgetting . She stared down at the cover, her fingers running over the title as though she was touching something particularly delicate and fine, as though she was holding her memories in her hands.

“Thank you for bringing this back to me, for letting me see it again. It means more than you’ll ever know. I like to think that things happen the way they’re supposed to, even if it’s hard for us to understand how or why. I’m glad the novel found you. I’m glad we met.”

Pilar nodded, nearly too overcome with emotion to speak.

There was something about books that brought people together, a passion, a devotion that created an intimate bond and understanding. After all, books spoke to the deepest parts of the soul and so they linked readers in unforgettable ways. Sharing a favorite book was like creating a shared history between people who had navigated the life and world that existed within the novel’s pages.

Pilar studied Eva Fuentes for a moment, all that she’d learned this evening weighing heavily on her mind. She’d trusted the wrong person in Ignacio; she knew that now. She didn’t think she was making that same mistake again.

Pilar hesitated, and then she reached into her tote.

“I need help.”