Anonymous

General Posada wasn't really a man for correspondence, save for the orders issued from the capital or the letters Maria's mother periodically sent from Spain ('You better not be treating our child as cattle or I swear to God I'll rip out your–') before he sent the child back to her five years prior; so having the unmarked envelope delivered to him was quite the surprise.

He didn't particularly like surprises, mind you.

"Maybe an old acquaintance, sir?" one of the soldiers said, in a tone that pretended to be light and funny, as they stood in front for him awaiting for their orders for the day. The morning sun bathed San Angel gently and Joaquín, in his trainee condition, had been sent to jog around town, leaving the adults to their business...which up to the moment had been see General Posada pace around, examining the letter as though expecting it to have a snake inside "I hear you were quite the ladies man back in the day"

"Waaaaaay back in the day" another one muttered and the rest hid their snickering behind a hand.

"Silence!" General Posada barked, eyes still set on the envelope. It looked a bit yellowish, as if it had been saved for a couple of years in a not particularly dry enviroment. The scripture was somewhat clumsy, but still distinctively loopy and stylish.

"Maybe it's from María?" another one suggested "Or Señora Dora Luz, sir? I heard there was a cholera break in Spain not long ago, it could be bad news..."

At this, General Posada's entire body tensed. He ripped the envelope open and retrieved one single paper sheet from it and starting to read it. The soldiers saw his face go from red to purple and then a worrying hue of yellow before he crushed the sheet in his hand and threw it away, breathing harshly and angrily opening and closing his hand, mouth pursed.

"Uh, was it bad news-?"

"Three laps around San Angel, the five of you" he hissed, turning his back on them to walk towards his house.

"But-"

"NOW"

Thankfully, the crushed paper sheet was still on the ground when they returned after accomplishing the task, and the five of them read the contents, grabbing it from each other's hand eagerly.

'General Posada:

The life of a military man -of any man, really- is full of acts they might not be proud of. With decisions that may hurt but are for the sake of others.

Which is why YOUR ACTS are so unforgivable.'

"Oooooooh!" the soldiers howled in glee, before hurriedly covering each other's mouths, fearing the general might hear them and look outside to see the cause of such a racket. Hushing each other on the way there, they moved to the church grounds and continued reading.

'I'm not even talking about the way you treated your own daughter, your own flesh and blood, María, the poor dear. "For her sake" you might be tempted to say. For her sake, you sent her away and taught her that her father won't hesitate to hide her from sight if he happens to find her unsightly. For her sake, you sent her to another continent, to another country for the sole purpose of crushing her spirit. If María had been a boy, you wouldn't have thought twice about her behavior, but ALAS, heaven cursed you with a child that is intelligent, strong and righteous. You are to be pitied, indeed.

One last note on María. Though now you say a woman shouldn't be all the things she is, you should remember another woman. Carmen Rivera de Sanchez. You didn't seem to think it was wrong for a woman to take the initiative when you were cowering, locked and hidden inside your big house and she was fighting the bandidos for her injured husband and her baby boy. She died a hero's death and you lived another day, and even so you learned NOTHING.

I just hope Dora Luz has all the common sense you lack to encourage that light within Maria which you furiously tried to kill. So rare it is, in these dark days! Your behavior towards her can, however, be excused. Seeing how probably the best thing to happen to that child is to be AWAY from you, where she can grow into the marvelous flower she will surely turn into.

But I'm straying from the real reason I wrote this letter to you: Joaquín Mondragon.

That boy misses his father terribly. He doesn't know what Capitan Mondragon became before passing- and I sincerely pray it will stay that way. To him, the image of that soldier whose last act in this earth was to fight off the bandits attacking San Angel is more sacred than anything in this earth. Many around town have chosen to forget it as well, mostly for his sake, and now cling only to the good days, when Capitan Mondragon lived only for justice, for his wife and child. You? I doubt whether you ever bother to remember him, either then or what he became afterwards. After all, you were one of the first ones to abandon him when he began losing his grip on reality. What was that you said during the town council where we spoke about how his behavior worried us? 'You can't expect me to fix him. Some are just too weak to handle the responsibilities of being a leader and a hero' Spoken like a true rat, as you abandoned the sinking ship. Even Sanchez stayed on his side longer than you did. And now that he's gone and Joaquín's growing, you intend to use that poor child. You have no shame.

I've seen Joaquín around town, as everyone has, training harder than most men twice his age do. Already wearing an uniform. Your perfect little pawn. Tell me, what will you do if that boy gets hurt, if he dies in action? How will you explain it to Gertrude, to María? Or, the same as before, you will be long gone from his side when that happens? You betrayed his father, Posada, I don't expect you to be any more faithful for his son. You don't care about his well-being any more than you do about his happiness.

What I wonder the most is, do you even CARE for him? More than just as someone who can save your backside, that is. Do you know what he likes? His favorite games? How sad he is when you take him away from playing with Manolo Sanchez because he "Should be training" even though you KNOW he trains harder than you ever will or ever have? This might come of as a shock to you, but his life is more than the ways in which he's useful to you and you don't do him any favors thinking otherwise.

I dream the day will come when he'll be grown too tall to fit under your hand, too strong to be held by your puppet strings. I pray to see that day and what you do after that. Look for another puppet, I'll bet. Call him ungrateful. Or, if heaven grants us the miracle that you decide to correct your behavior towards him, be glad for him. Either way, be sure, that day will come. And I'm waiting for it eagerly.'

The soldiers exchanged glances. No wonder the General had been so angry. They had expected to laugh a bit when they started reading, but as the letter advanced, their mirth faded. It would have been easy to discard all they read as some crazy ramble, some hate-fed trash talk. But...

But it rang so true.

They crushed the letter into a tight ball and threw it far away, hurrying back to Casa Posada. If they were lucky, the general would think nothing of how long they took. Something in what they'd just read made them very uneasy to cross the man.

'Padre Nuestro que estás en el cielo, santificado sea tu nombre…'

Sister Ana, in account of her vow of silence, was granted permission to perform her contrition act mentally. Her knees ached a bit and she was close to being bored out of her mind, but being a nun often implied such things, so she didn't mind it as much. All in all, Father Domingo had reacted well to her confession of a 'Small, innocent sin', letting her do the contrition in her own chambers instead of the church or chapel, where the floor was colder.

'...no nos dejes caer en tentación y líbranos del mal. Amén. Dios te salve, María…'

María. Sister Ana could clearly remember her baptism, and how disgruntled her father had seemed to be taking a girl to the altar instead of a boy. She could also remember Dora Luz and her screams and weepy voice when she left for Spain, forced by the law to leave her child behind with a father that didn't want her, that hadn't wanted her in the first place. Hadn't it been odd, though, that the child had been left to her father when normally she would have gone to her mother? It reeked of foul play, and only aggravated by the fact that the only plausible reason he'd had to want to keep María by his side was to hurt Dora Luz.

'You don't know that' the other nuns had said when she ventured the thought on a written page once 'She's his daughter. It could have been love for her that made him do it'. It could be, she didn't discard it. But even if it was the case, she was sure he wanted to hurt his ex-wife, he'd wanted payback for the humiliation of a divorce. She knew, because satisfaction shone dimly in his eyes whenever she visited and her time in San Angel, her time with her daughter, wasn't nearly enough.

'...madre de Dios, ruega por nosotros los pecadores...'

Sister Ana remembered Joaquín's father as well. The goofy, loud, tried-too-hard-to-be-serious-but-couldn't-handle-it version of him...and the one that came later on. She remembered Gertrude's disgusted expression when General Posada had shown his face in her husband's funeral, and how she had tried to keep Joaquín away from him to no avail. She also remembered her words when she left with little Matilda on tow and Joaquín chose Casa de Mondragón and San Ángel instead of the Capital. She remembered grandma Mondragón's horrified expression at them ("I lost! Joaquín is all his now! Another little soldier he can send to war in his stead. He took my husband and now he's taking my boy-!")

She hoped Gertrude had been wrong. She prayed every night for her to have been wrong about Joaquín choosing Posada over his own family. She was certain that his vocation for the army, that his determination to be a hero like his father, and the fact that all he knew and loved was in San Angel had been the real reasons he'd stayed and not because General Posada had categorically declared that it was his place, but a prayer never hurt.

'...te salve, María, llena eres de gracia, el señor es contigo...'

She shifted on her kneecaps. Five more rosarios to go, the price she had to pay for telling General Posada her mind about him, after years of seeing him do what he pleased without so much as a peep leaving her mouth, even when she felt she could burst. But now she felt light. Even silence can't kill the truth, and she'd seen to it that he knew someone was watching. And waiting.

Sister Ana smiled in her mute prayers. She regretted nothing.

Yyyyyyup.

C.C (A) the author here. This baby had been in my WIP for at least half a year now. I finally found the words to continue, so I did it before they faded again.

I refuse to believe no one in San Angel noticed nor disliked the stuff General posada did to Joaquín and María, like...no, sorry, at least ONE person out of the entire town must have thought he was a jerk.

Comments are always welcome!

C.C out