Chapter 23 Blind News - PART THREE


    “Are you sure?”


    I almost want to smash my face against the wall, hit it again and again until my neurons start working


    again. I stare at Darío. I can’t believe that he is actually blind, that after trying to regain what he lost


    with the death of histe wife, he is now left in that state for the rest of his life.


    My heart and mind cannot believe it.


    I cannot give it up so easily.


    He cannot give up. I have seen and heard so many miracles. For example, being cured of cancer, a


    fatal disease. Or diseases like HIV have twenty or thirty years of a healthy life without setbacks through


    care. Losing your vision is not the same. I know it is not, but it is impossible for me not to consider


    every option that manifests in my head.


    “I think you know the answer to that question very well.” He focuses his eyes on me, but I know he


    can’t see me. I understand.


    I have been unable to move or peel myself away from the hard wood of the bedroom door. His arrival


    has made my heart beat fast, and memories that have haunted me since the night we spent together


    have returned.


    “I’m sorry, really. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to offend you...”


    “You don’t,” he interrupts me, “and you never will. I know you don’t want to offend me, and this


    situation, I assure you, Tatiana, is something I could never have considered as the beginning of our


    marriage.”


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    “Our marriage has never been like ordinary ones,” I gasp without measuring my words.


    “Don’t say that. I tried every way to give you a wedding, a ceremony, and a lunch with your family. I


    tried to make you feel at home when you came here to the castle. I made you...”


    “I know everything you did.” I approach him, unsure, and ce my hands on his shoulders. He tenses


    instantly but gradually rxes. When I see that my hands are no longer a bother or an agony, I give


    myself the chance to continue. “I know what you did from the first moment, and I understand. I’ll be


    completely honest with you: I don’t understand why even at this point you’re still saying that you and


    I...” I stop abruptly.


    I don’t think this is the time to tell him what I think of our marriage, of our unconventional alliance. He


    could have tried to give me a lovely ceremony and make me feel that the castle was my new home, but


    the truth is that his emotional remoteness and his barrier of coldness have by all means prevented me


    from getting close to him. It has prevented us from carrying out this alliance in a satisfactory way for


    both of us, even when inside me, my heart beats so fast to have him close and when my hands tingle


    with desire to caress his skin like that night at theke. Had I known that our rtionship could be so


    simple without marriage, I would have stayed that way, as the woman at theke, the one who brought


    smiles to his face and could strike up a conversation with him without being looked at as if she were a


    horrible person, aplete nuisance.


    “You left and didn’t tell me the truth; you told me you were going away on business. So I had to find out


    from Donate.” Listening to her talk on the phone by mistake, I felt so inferior and minimized to infinity.


    “You didn’t have the confidence, just like when you saw me with my sister’s letter before you left. You


    said the trust was important, but you don’t keep your word. You only employ it for your own benefit.”


    “You don’t know how much I regret making this decision and even more to hear you say that. Trust


    applies to both parties.”


    “This isn’t a fucking contract! It’s a marriage!” I shriek so close to him. I find it embarrassing. I continue,


    however, as I’ve been having this pain in my chest for days now that almost keeps me from breathing.


    “You say you don’t want to get over your... Arianna.” Donate mentioned the deceased’s name to me


    days ago. “I understand. I don’t want to take her ce. However, the least I deserve from you is


    respect and trust. For example, for you to tell me something as important as the fact that you’re going


    to have surgery on your brain, it’s not to trim your hair!”


    “I know I did it wrong,” he acknowledges. At least he has the courtesy to lower his head and almost


    blush.


    “You should have told me,” I sigh sadly. “You should have told me at the exact moment you decided to


    do the surgery.”


    “You and I, Tatiana, we don’t have that closeness and that trust. I’ve known you for a few days. I


    couldn’t... I couldn’t tell you that I was going to undergo that surgery.”


    His words stab into me like a sharp dagger. I feel my heart bleed inside, and my eyes let the tears


    escape. It’s a horrible feeling, and it’s a half-truth what he blurted out because in my gut, I do trust him,


    and I do believe he’s a good man. It’s just that life has mistreated him in an irrational and imusible


    way.


    “On the other hand, you could have gone away and left me in full care of your son, the most precious


    thing a person can have, and you left him to me.” It’s silly, his earlier excuse. Not knowing me, not


    trusting me. “But of course, we don’t have that kind of trust.”


    I walk away and feel like maybe I’ve been a little cruel. But, right now, that man in front of me, staring


    nkly, still looking straight at me, shoulders slumped, and mind dislocated, deserves to be cared for


    and understood, to receive positivity and good care. Support from his family. Support from me.


    “It’s not the same, and you know it.” He reaches into his pants pocket; it’s a gesture he makes


    repeatedly. I wonder if he’s resisting touching me or if he’s trying to stop any kind of touching or rubbing


    with me.


    However, his kisses before he went to the city for surgery told me something else. They gave me to


    understand that he really wants me. Although his mind wants to avoid it, his heart feels something for


    me. That gives me sad and false hopes in a world where I have not asked to be offered a marriage with


    a stranger who turned out to be someone important to me.


    Why false? Because I know that he loved histe wife, the mother of his child. He told me so himself:


    he’s still not over her, and he’s not interested in getting her out of his heart either. I don’t know how I


    can live with that.


    “No, Darío, it’s not like that. I don’t know. I don’t understand what you want me to know. For me, for


    Tatiana, it doesn’t make sense that you don’t trust me as a wife, as a person, and not enough to tell me


    that you have a high probability of dying in surgery, but that you trust me with the care of your son for


    more than a week.”


    “I knew you wouldn’t be alone. I left you with Donate. She knows Dante perhaps more than I do. She


    is a woman. She’s the one who took care of us as children when we were little. I knew you’d be fine


    with her.”


    “What if something happened to you? Did you even think about that?”


    My hands are nervous, ufortable. I feel like grabbing him by the cor of his shirt and shaking him


    until he understands what I mean until he understands how false and empty his words sound. His logic


    is not at all understandable.


    How could he have made love to me and say he still doesn’t trust me? What kind of world is it that I


    came to live in? One where people can have unbridled sex and the next daypletely ignore each


    other?


    This is not what I wanted to be when I was someone’s wife. It’s not what I wished and dreamed of


    having.


    This is what I meant when I told Teresa the day before I got married that I didn’t want to marry Darío. I


    remember me with my baggage, eager to get away, preparing to go far away, while thinking that I could


    have a future with Lucian.


    Now I realize how deluded I was. This is what she, my sister, concluded when she told me that not


    everything in life was made of roses. She has more of a head for these things than I do. She knows


    more about rtionships, more about life. Her advice is now starting to make sense. Just because I


    slept with Darío doesn’t mean he trusts me. Even when I gave him my virginity, I gave myself to him,


    body and soul, one night in front of theke, with the stars as witnesses. He promised me infinity and


    beyond.


    “I wanted to stay positive and think I was going toe out ahead.” He rolls his shoulders up,


    unconcerned.


    “Good for you!” I roar.


    “Don’t act like that, don’t! I don’t need this right now. I’m... I’m not good with words and with... feelings.”


    He runs his hand through his hair. Then, exasperated, he runs them down his face and shakes them,


    frantic. “I don’t know how to apologize anymore, and I don’t know what to say to you, so you don’t


    make this bigger than it is. I’m here, at home. This should be enough.”


    “But it’s not,” I admit out loud. It’s more for me than it is for Darío. “It’s not enough. It’s not enough for


    me.”


    “What does that mean, Tatiana? What do you mean by that?” He steps closer.


    I don’t know how he does it, but he stands in front of me and fumbles for my hands. I stand still, not


    knowing if I should leave before I fall into his silky, cheating voice, in that tone that only lets me recreate


    forbidden moments, where we were not two strangers, but a woman and a man destined to meet under


    the gaze of the moon.


    “I don’t know.”


    “And who does? Tell me who knows so I can ask them. Dawson, perhaps? Your sister? Should I ask


    Donate? Or would you rather...?”


    “That’s enough!”


    Iunch myself and kiss him with the intention of making him as ufortable as he makes me, but as


    our lips touch, a caress creeps up my face. His hands grip my jaw, and his mouth takes control of the


    lingering caresses.


    He takes absolute control.