Mirror Images
Margarita

Mirror Images

Part 2: Margarita

Diego had spent a most pleasant evening on the patio, engrossed in one of his favorite books and consuming the best part of a bottle of one of Don Alejandro's excellent rojos. Now, as the deepening dusk made reading impossible, he closed his book and began to make his way up the patio stairs. He climbed slowly, savoring the coolness of the air and the gentle sounds of approaching nightfall. As he reached the last few steps he noticed Margarita standing on the balcony. She appeared to be gazing at something in her left hand.

He came quietly up behind her. "Buenos noches, Querida".

"Oh! Diego!" She started and stepped back, eyes wide with surprise — or was it alarm? Clearly she had not heard him approach, although he had made no effort to suppress his steps.

"Forgive me, I did not mean to startle you. But you seemed very engrossed in what you were looking at." He smiled and tried to lighten the mood. "May I know what captures your attention so completely?"

She clasped the trinket — whatever it was — to her breast. "Ah…."

Now he was concerned. This was most unlike his wife. "Querida?" She sighed and after a moment held out her hand. He took it and gently uncurled her fingers to reveal a gold coin that appeared to be attached to a chain. "What is this?"

"It was a gift from Will," she replied. "He gave it to me a week after I agreed to marry him."

Diego grasped the chain and held the coin up to the moonlight. "This is most beautiful. Is a coin such as this some kind of Americano betrothal tradition?"

She shook her head. "No, not really. Will won it in one of the officers' poker games. He always kept it in his pocket as his 'lucky piece'. When he first gave it to me I didn't understand. Then he told me that he had decided he didn't need a lucky piece any longer, because since I had agreed to marry him he must be the luckiest man on the face of the earth. Will could be quite the romantic like that."

Diego obviously knew of her previous marriage. After all, her first words that long-ago afternoon on the patio of the inn had been: "You would call me 'señora.' I am a widow." But she had never before spoken of her first husband. And Diego had never asked.

He returned the keepsake to her, feeling that he had interrupted something very private, and not sure of what to say. For a long moment the silence stretched between them. Finally he managed, "Do you look at it often?"

"No, not often," she replied, still gazing at the coin. "But sometimes, when the moon is like this —" she looked up at the silver crescent floating in a sapphire sky — "the memory comes back. I don't invite it, it just comes back. Because it was a night very much like this one, a night when you think you could just reach out and pluck the moon from the sky, when Will proposed to me. Old feelings come over me and I want to hold his lucky piece and remember him, and what we had together."

She sighed and looked at her husband. "Will Emerson was a part of my life for almost three months and I can't just pretend that never happened. I can't pretend I didn't love him. I can't pretend we weren't married." She looked at the moon again and shook her head. "I don't dwell on this, Diego. I swear I don't. And I don't regret you or our children or anything that happened to me since I came to California. But sometimes, I just need to remember." She closed her fingers over the coin. "But I'll put it away, and I won't look at again so you won't —"

"No Querida," he interrupted, gently taking her by the shoulders. "I understand. There is no need for you to put it away. He was your esposo. He shared your life for a brief time as I have shared your life for all these years. His memory will be always with you. But memories are not real life, and as a very wise woman once told me, that was then and this is now. So keep Will's gift, and look at it whenever you like, with or without the moon. I will not mind, for I know I have all of your love in the present. He wrapped his arms around her, for the air was growing chilly. Besides, "he smiled, "I think I would have liked this man. He and I have much in common and I think Will and I could have been friends."

A puzzled expression crossed her face. "You two, friends? What would you have had in common?"

His eyes took on a mischievous twinkle. "Well, for one thing, it seems we both have excellent taste in women."

_ FIN _

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