The Hacienda

by Isabel Cañas

It is said that mortal life is empty without the love of God. That the ache of loneliness’s wounds is assuaged by obedience to Him, for in serving God we encounter perfect love and are made whole. But if God is the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, if He is three in one in the Trinity, then God knows nothing of loneliness. God knows nothing of standing with his back to a gray morning, of dropping to his knees in the dust. Of his shoulders slumping beneath the new weight of knowing what it meant not to be alone, and an acute awareness of his chest’s own emptiness. God knows nothing of loneliness, because God has never tasted companionship as mortals do: clinging to one another in darkness so complete and sharp it scrapes flesh from bone, trusting one another even as the Devil’s breath blooms hot on their napes.

Industry will rise and fall, men will scorch the earth and slaughter one another for emperors or republics, but they will always want drink.

The money it generated for her family allowed her freedom. She lived well without marrying, an enviable privilege in wartime and peace alike.

Should is an oddly powerful word. Shame and anger have a way of flying to it like coins to lodestone.

Of course he did not question. Men do not trouble themselves with women’s bodies, save when they can be of use to serve or to sate them.

Titi believed words are power: they may lay your destiny in stone or shatter a legacy altogether. Words can damn or bless in equal measure, and are never to be used lightly.

A long moment passed where only the wind spoke. It lifted and whispered through the grasses, passing the quiet gossip of the valley to the hilltop.

The rush of knowing one was not alone was a heady thing, thicker than mezcal in the way it made my head spin.