Minerva

1938, 1941, 1944

Complications 1938

I don't know who talked Papa into sending us away to school. seems like it would have taken the same angel who announced to Mary that she was pregnant with God and got her to be glad about it.

The four of us had to ask permission for everything to walk to the fields to see the tobacco filling out; to go to the lagoon and dip our feet on a hot day; to stand in front of the store and pet the horses as the men loaded up their wagons with supplies.

Sometimes, watching the rabbit in their pens. I'd think, I'm no different from you, poor things. One time, I opened a cage to set a half-grown doe free. I even gave her a slap to get her going.

But she wouldn't budge! She was used to her little pen. I kept slapping her, harder each time, until she started whimpering like a scared child, I was the one hurting her, insisting she be free.

Silly bunny, I thought. You're nothing at all like me.

--

It started with Patria wanting to be a nun. Mama was all for having a religious in the family, but Papa did not approve in the least. More than once, he said that Patria as a nun would be a waste of a pretty girl. He only said that once in front of Mama, but he repeated it often enough to me.

Finally, Papa gave in to Mama. He said Patria could go away to a convent school If it wasn't one just becoming a nun. Mama agreed.

So, when it came time for Patria to go down to Inmaculada Concepcion, I asked Papa if I could go along. That way I could chaperone my older sister, who was already a grown-up senorita. (And she had told me all about how girls become senoritas, too.)

Papa laughed, his eyes flashing proudly at me. the others said I was his favorite. I don't know why since I was the one always standing up to him. he pulled me to his lap and said, "And who is going to chaperone you?"

"Dede," I said, so all three of us could go together. He pulled a long face. "If all my little chickens go, what will become of me?"

I thought he was joking, but his eyes had their serious look. "Papa," I informed him, "you might as well get used to it. In a few years, we're all going to marry and leave you."

For days he quoted me, shaking his head sadly and concluding, "A daughter is a needle in the heart."

Mama didn't like him saying so. She thought he was being critical because their only son had died a week after he was born. And just three years ago, Maria Teresa was born a girl instead of a boy. Anyhow, Mama didn't think it was a bad idea to send all three of us away. "Enrique, those girls need some learning. Look at us." Mama had never admitted it, but I suspected she couldn't even read.

"What's wrong with us?" Papa countered, gesturing out the window where wagons waited to be loaded before his warehouses. In the last few years, Papa had made a lot of money from his farm. Now we had class. And, Mama argued, we needed the education to go along with our cash.

Papa caved n again, but said one of us had to stay to help mind the store. He always had to add a little something to whatever Mama came up with. Mama said he was just putting his mark on everything so no one could say Enrique Mirabal didn't wear the pants in the family.

I knew what he was up to all night. When Papa asked which one of us would stay as his little helper, he looked directly at me.

I didn't say a word. I kept studying the floor like maybe my school lessons were chalked on those boards. I didn't need to worry. Dede always was the smiling little miss. "I'll stay and help, Papa."

Papa looked surprised because really Dede was a year older than me. She and Patria should have been the two to go away. But then, Papa thought it over and said Dede could go along, too. So it was settled, all three of us would go to Inmaculada Concepcion. Me and Patria would start in the fall, and Dede would follow in January since Papa wanted the math whiz to help with the books during the busy harvest season.

And that's how I got free. I don't mean just going to sleepaway school on a train with a trunkful of new things. I mean in my head after I go to Inmaculada and met Sinita and saw what happened to Lina and realized that I'd just left a small cage to go into a bigger one, the size of our whole country.