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"I still can't believe it!"

"Are you going to repeat this over and over till the tavern's closing time?"

"Well excuse me for having a hard time realising that I suddenly have a baby sister I had never heard about!" a rather upset Diego snapped at his father. "A baby sister you have been hiding to me for six years!"

"Diego, don't raise your voice at me!" Don Alejandro said in a warning voice. "I might have disappointed you but I'm still your father! You still owe me respect!"

Diego slowly ran his hands down his face, sighing.

"Of course, you're right," he said, lowering his voice somehow but still a bit stiffly. "My apologies."

Don Alejandro calmed down and nodded.

"So she's really yours?" Diego asked, fishing for anything. Perhaps his father had chivalrously volunteered to cover up for someone else...?

"Yes Diego, she is."

Diego let out a little sigh, and Don Alejandro watched his face closely, not saying anything.

"Still," Diego went on, "you have to admit it's quite a shock to discover a sister turning up just like that, out of nowhere!"

"Leonor doesn't come 'out of nowhere', as you phrase it: I remind you that she has a mother, just like anyone!"

"Indeed," Diego replied, "let's talk about that woman! You never t–"

"Diego...!" this time Don Alejandro was the one raising his voice, another warning edge in it. "You are not to disrespect Araceli...!"

He gave his son a stern look.

"Especially since she isn't there to stand up for herself," he added. "And don't call her 'that woman', she has a name."

Diego closed his eyes, not very proud of himself.

"You're right, I'm sorry." He sighed again. "But what I mean... you didn't ever tell me about her! Who is she? What are her intentions? I don't know anything about that! You never–"

"She's a good person, Diego. I know what this looks like, but she is a good person. And a good mother."

"I believe you about that last part, she'd walk through fire for her daughter... I'm sure," he added hastily. "But still, I don't know what to think..."

He looked at the wall separating the kitchen from the rest of the tavern, as if trying to see through it.

He resumed pacing around the kitchen's central table in long strides, while Don Alejandro was standing in the middle of the room, leaning on this same table.

"For God's sake, Diego, please sit down, your endless pacing in circles is making my head spin!"

Diego didn't sit but only stopped, turned around, and resumed pacing in the opposite direction.

"I can't believe it," he simply repeated for the umpteenth time.

His father grabbed a chair and put himself on his son's way, stopping him by setting the seat right in front of him.

"Diego, my boy," Don Alejandro gently told him, "come on, sit down before you wear a hole in Victoria's pavement."

His son complied, putting his elbows on the table. He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed them with his thumb and index just like he did earlier in the afternoon, then ran again his hands over his face – twice, thrice – before looking at his father across the table.

Another heavy sigh.

"Father..." he started, before pausing.

He pinched his lips, searching for his words.

Gesturing in the general direction of the tavern's main room and of Leonor and her mother, he began to ask:

"How...?"

Not finishing his question, he gestured again vaguely in the child's general direction.

His father unexpectedly chuckled.

"Really Diego," Don Alejandro told him with a slightly amused note in his tone, "if you don't know the answer to that question, then there's been serious gaps in the education I tried to give you."

Alejandro's attempt at joking didn't lighten Diego's mood. At all.

Quite the contrary, in fact.

"It's hardly funny, Father. And to tell you the truth, I'd rather not think about–"

He made a face.

Alejandro sobered.

"Diego, hijo..." he started to say.

"How... How could you...?" Diego seemed to be at a loss. Not angry, at a loss. "How could she...?" He stared at his father. "Honestly, Father, what kind of woman would... You say she is a good person, and I'm ready to believe you, but really–"

"Diego! Araceli is a very fine woman. I now she... I know we..." He paused. "But don't say any ill word about someone you don't know." He became a bit more agitated. "I know what we did. I know we shouldn't have. But I'm asking you to be respectful toward her. Now, if you really want to blame someone, then blame me."

Oh, but be sure that I do, Diego reflected inwardly. He wisely chose not to voice this thought aloud.

"Father, as much as I admire your willingness to act gentlemanly toward Señora Valdès by taking the blame on yourself, my concern as a son is first and forem–"

"Diego, my son, you have nothing to worry about," Don Alejandro assured him.

"Well, excuse me for worrying about my father!" Diego retorted. "For being concerned that a young and charming woman happens to find a rich and older successful landowner who could be her father suddenly irresistible!"

"Diego," Alejandro warned him, "I really don't like the way you're talking about Araceli... I've already told you to speak of her respectfully, she's the mother of your sister!"

He too ran his hands over his face to calm down. A family trait, perhaps?

"And what you just said was not terribly flattering for me either, I must say..." he added. "Diego, I understand your concern about discovering a woman...." He didn't finish his sentence. "Whatever. But I'll have you know there was nothing 'sudden' in this, contrary to what you just said. Well, I can understand how to you it seems sudden, but in truth it happened years ago. And it's been over for a long time, too..."

He sighed. What a mess he has gotten himself into!

"I should have told you long ago, Diego, I know. I'm so sorry..."

Diego barely dared to ask his next question:

"Father... how did... what happened...?" he whispered.

Alejandro stared into space, suddenly recalling a nice garden at nightfall and the subtle smell of honeysuckle...

Seeing a small wistful smile on his father's face, Diego breathily asked another question he never thought he would ever dare ask him:

"Are you... were you.... in love... with that woman?"

Alejandro snapped out of his reverie and threw his son a slightly reproachful look.

"Diego, I'm your father, I don't think you have the right to ask me this kind of question..."

Diego looked down.

"I'm just trying to understand... to get a clearer idea of all this... I don't mean to intrude, I swear. Is that so wrong to worry for one's father's heart?"

Alejandro reached for his son's hand and gently squeezed it.

"Of course not, Diego, of course not..."

"I just feel a bit lost in all this, Father, so I'd like you to help me understand a bit better..."

Yes, Diego was inwardly asking himself a dozen questions. But the most crucial suddenly seemed to be that one. Had he fallen in love with this woman? Was that why he let himself have an affair with her? And if so, Diego reflected, wasn't it some betrayal of the loving memory of his deceased mother?

And what would bother Diego most: that his father slept with a woman he hadn't even the excuse to love, or that he could love another woman after Diego's mother?

"So," Diego repeated tentatively, "did you fall in love with this wom– with Doña Araceli?"

Don Alejandro ran a hand through his grey hair.

"It's not... That's not... No, that's not exactly what... what we..." Don Alejandro mumbled. "No, no Diego, that's not how things... And anyway, she was far too young for me..."

You're telling me! Diego thought. But inwardly, he felt rather relieved by this answer. The idea of anyone taking his mother's place, be it in their hacienda or only in his father's heart, didn't sit well with him.

"Father, please forgive me for asking this other question, but... hum... how can you be sure this child is really yours? Well, I mean–"

"I know fairly well what you mean, Diego," Don Alejandro growled, "and I demand you to stop!" He was getting really irritated at his son. "This is highly insulting to Araceli!"

Diego sheepishly stared at the tip of his shoes."I apologise, Father, this was uncalled for..."

"Yes it was!"

"Alright, I take back what I have hinted at. I'm sorry. It's just that, for a lone widowed young woman, having a child with a rich landowner and honourable caballero like yourself could appear as some sort of... guarantee... for the future."

Don Alejandro gave him a very steely look. Mixed with heavy disappointment.

"Don't worry about your inheritance, Diego," his father told him in a very cold voice, "Araceli has never asked me one centavo. Of course I have arranged some things for Leonor in my will, plus one or two others that I have planned for her to have while I'm still alive, but I assure you that the near entirety of what I own will be yours."

Diego was appalled and truly hurt at his father's not so veiled accusation.

"Father, I swear you that's absolutely not what I had in mind. I... I... I swear..."

Father and son were getting very displeased with each other, and Diego knew he had to do something to defuse the situation and clear the air. He therefore reached to his father's hand across the table, cleared his throat, smiled at him and asked in a gentle voice:

"So, tell me a bit about my little sister..."

z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z ~ z

Having Don Alejandro talk about Leonor – about what she liked, what she disliked, what she was like – had been a nice diversion for Diego, as well as a mean to learn more about this unexpected little sister showing up in his life. He wholeheartedly laughed at some of her child's remarks, sweetly smiled at Alejandro's recollection of the first time he saw her as a newborn, chuckled at his father's description of her as a reckless toddler, as well as at Don Alejandro's obvious lack of objectivity as he evoked her ability to read at the age of four.

But after a while, the talk went back to the subject of Don Alejandro and Araceli, to how his father had reacted to the news about his impending paternity, and the conversation became slightly heated again.

"...and I can't imagine you didn't make amends for that by putting things right!"

"Diego..." Don Alejandro tried to cut in; but his son just got started, and nothing could stop him.

"Really Father, you taught me that a man worthy of the name has to take his responsibilities, wholly..."

"Diego..." Alejandro tried again.

"I would think the only honourable thing to do in this case would be to marry the woman, and I thought that was your opinion too..."

"Diego!"

"Since you had known since long before the birth, you had to propose, whatever the circumstances or your own feelings–"

"Diego!"

"Really, I can't believe that you didn't marry her! Honestly Fath–"

"DIEGO!"

This time his father's shout made its way past through Diego's ears and reached his troubled and boiling mind. He quieted, surprised, looking expectantly at Don Alejandro.

The latter sighed, raised his gaze to look his son right in the eyes, and then he simply told him in a slightly sheepish voice:

"She said no."