K.Esquivel-LWFC

eading the letters contained in the box, she
realized she hadn't been
punished for that, but for having tried to see
what was in the box,
which was serious indeed.
Full of morbid curiosity, Tita opened the box.
It contained a diary
and a packet of letters written to Mama Elena
from someone named Jose'
Treviflo. Tita put them in order by date and
learned the true story of
her mother's love. Jose' was the love of her
life. She hadn't been
allowed to marry him because he had Negro
blood in his veins. A colony
of Negroes, fleeing from the Civil War in the
United States, from the
risk they ran of being lynched, had come to
settle near the village.
Young Jose' Trevino was the product of an
illicit love affair between
the elder Jose' Trevillo and a beautiful
Negress.
When Mama Elena's parents discovered the
love that existed between
their daughter and this mulatto, they were
horrified and forced her
into an immediate marriage with Juan De la
Garza, Tita's father.
This action didn't succeed in stopping her
from keeping up a secret
correspondence with Jose' even after she
was married, and it seemed
that they hadn't limited themselves to that
form of communication
either, since according to the letters,
Gertrudis was Jose's child and
not her father's.
When she found out she was pregnant,
Mama Elena had planned to run away
with Jose'. But, while she was waiting for
him to appear that night,
hidden in the darkness of the balcony, who
should appear out of the
shadows but an unknown man who attacked
Jose' for no apparent reason,
eliminating him from this world After that
terrible grief, Mama Elena
resigned herself to life with her legal
husband. Though for many years
Juan De Ia Garza had been unaware of the
entire story, he had learned
of it just when Tita was born. He had gone to
a bar to celebrate the
birth of his new daughter with some friends;
there a venomous tongue
had let out the information. The terrible news
brought on a heart
attack.
That was all there was.
Tita felt guilty for having discovered her
mother's secret.
She didn't know what to do with the letters.
She thought of burning
them but she was not the one to do that; if
her mother had not dared,
how could she? She put everything away
just as she had found it, back
in its place.
During the funeral Tita really wept for her
mother.
Not for the castrating mother who had
repressed Tita her entire life,
but for the person who had lived a frustrated
love. And she swore in
front of Mama Elena's tomb that come what
may, she would never renounce
love. At that moment she was convinced
that John, who was always at
her side supporting her without reservation,
was her true love. But
then she saw a group of people approaching
the mausoleum and from a