AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We will come to your point in a moment, if that’s okay. Yes, I have decided to stay, but there’s something else.” She cleared her throat and sipped her juice. “Juan is your real grandpa.”
Gabi choked on the salsa, and it burned like hell. She put down her fork and took a slug of juice. She tried to listen.
“Pregnant. Sex before marriage. Gitano laws. Punishable by death.”
Silence.
“What?” Gabi said.
Nana laughed.
Clearly Gabi had missed something.
“Gabriela, cariño, you didn’t think I was a prude, did you?” Nana sighed and stared into space. “It was wonderful and reckless. But when you’re young and in love, you don’t think like that, do you?”
It dawned on Gabi that Nana had been talking about her experience with Juan, which was a relief, because the death bit was particularly disturbing. Her thoughts took her to the beach with Aisha and what had become their last moments together behind the feed shed. Thrill had great power over laws. She went back to Nana’s opening point because the other words had become a jumbled reflection of her own scenario, and she didn’t like the way that felt. “So, Grandpa in England isn’t Grandpa?”
“No. He knew our son wasn’t his. He took on the role because it came with a good lifestyle. It got him away from the front line, and my father rewarded him financially. We never spoke about the pregnancy again.”
“Did Juan know?”
Nana ate a morsel of bread slowly. “I told him yesterday. I’ve seen him every day and we’ve talked a lot. Juan and I had never kept secrets from each other. I wanted him to know you, and you, him.”
“And what about Dad?” It was odd that he mattered now, but he did. There had been too many secrets, and this was important news. His real father was alive.
“Hm.” She sipped her orange. “I want to talk to you about that, because I can’t think clearly.”
“Surely he should know?”
“That’s what my mind tells me. But how will this change anything for him for the better?”
“Maybe something would click. Maybe he’d want to get to know his real father.”
“He adored and idolised Miguel as if he was a king. He even turned out more like him than either me or Juan.” She laughed, and it sounded strained. “Strange, I know. What you’re not aware of is that your dad had a nervous breakdown after Miguel died. I’m worried that finding out the man he loved so passionately, a man he modelled himself on, isn’t his father would do more harm than good. He will be very angry. The news could crucify him.”
Miguel was just a name on a gravestone and pictures in an album to Gabi. She struggled to process that Juan was her real grandpa, and he was alive and well, and now he and Nana were going to be together. Headfuck didn’t come close to describing it. She wasn’t thinking clearly either. “What does Juan want? It’s his son.”
“He would like to see him, but only if it’s right for Hugo.”
She ran her fingers through her hair and held her head. “I don’t know what’s for the best.”
“Hm, exactly, Gabriela. We can’t know what’s best, because we can’t follow two different courses of action at the same time.”
Gabi thought about Aisha. Aisha was stuck between loving her family and loving Gabi. She couldn’t know any more than Gabi did whether leaving Sacromonte was the best thing for her, and Aisha had so much more to lose and yet she was willing to risk it all for Gabi. Aisha’s mind would be telling her to stay within the safety and security of what she knew, but her heart would be telling her to flee for love. And Gabi should be there for her to support her rather than worrying about a future—them breaking up—that might not happen.
“Did you ever stop loving Juan?”
“No, Gabriela. But if I hadn’t left Spain when I did, I would have been killed during the war alongside my parents. Assuming the Guardia hadn’t got to Juan and me first. How could I have had an illegitimate child here? We would have had to run away, and that would have meant a certain death.”
Gabi couldn’t face the eggs. “It’s like that for Aisha and me.”
Nana nodded. “She has the freedom to leave, but without her parents’ blessing, that privilege comes at a big cost.”
“We couldn’t live here.”
Nana chewed on a mouthful of egg. “Even with their blessing, Gypsy laws will not allow her to stay. She will have to go, and her name will not be spoken of again.”
“It’s shit.”
