Free 1451693591 by Alice Hoffman

until there was a burst of rain, and then we had to run to take cover. When the torrents ended, a pale drizzle came down around us. Everything smelled green and sweet. On this island there were a hundred varieties of rain, from blue to clear, from whirlwind storms to a dash of dew to the driving rain of winter. We used banana leaves as umbrellas and sat under the canopy of the trees. On very clear days we could see the islands that were used as pastures, Goat Island and Water Island, where livestock ran free, chewing the wet, salty grass. Light drifted through the raindrops and the sky broke into colors. The heat came back, and we lay down in the field. We made garlands out of tall grass and bits of twig. No one passing by would have seen us, except that the grass moved whenever we breathed.
    “Have you learned to love Monsieur Petit?” Jestine asked me.
    “I don’t hate him.”
    She laughed and shook her head. “That isn’t an answer! I told you not to do it. He’s old enough to be your father.”
    “He’s not my father when we’re alone.”
    “Oh?” She smiled. “So now you know. But is it good with him in bed? Do you long for him to touch you? Yearn for him when he’s not there?”
    I shrugged as if I were an old married woman, though I was little more than twenty. “It’s better than I thought it would be.”
    Jestine snorted. “Because you thought it would be hell.”
    I was surprised to find I was insulted on my husband’s behalf. Although I didn’t love him, I respected him, and surely that counted for something. Another woman would have thought him a considerate lover, but I had been inflamed by the stories I’d read and the passions of Solomon, and I wanted more. “I could not ask for a kinder man. That can’t be hell.”
    But Jestine knew me and could see this wasn’t love. “There are those who say that heaven and hell are not so far apart. They are not at opposite ends of the world beyond ours, only a step away from one another.”

    EVERY FRIDAY NIGHT WE had dinner with my family. I brought Rosalie along so she could watch over the children if they fell asleep, but also because I had made her a promise, which I intended to keep. I would never let Rosalie go, even though my mother had instructed me to dismiss her and get a new maid, one who hadn’t been loyal to the first Madame Petit. I smiled and nodded but did the opposite. I gave Rosalie extra spending money, Saturdays and Sundays free, and warned her to stay away from my mother on Friday nights.
    “I’m happy to do that,” Rosalie said.
    I grinned. “If only I could do the same.”
    All of the men in the family were now partners, members of the Burghers’ Association, for tradesmen must be accepted by the royal Danish organization in order to do business on our island. The marriage had strengthened the business, although Aaron Rodrigues wasn’t happy to have Isaac Petit rise above him in a single day. My husband was a full partner, Aaron merely a distant cousin whose official title was manager, which couldn’t have pleased him. I knew that he and my father had been meeting to discuss the future, and on several occasions I had heard my cousin slam out of the house, grumbling under his breath, striking the gate with a stick on his way. I heard my parents arguing in the parlor.
    “There are ways around this,” my mother said.
    “So you can keep him here? And baby him while you treat him like a son?”
    “Why not? He is a son to me.”
    “And what will his child be to you?” my father asked.
    “What is yours to you?” my mother said coldly.
    This was dangerous territory, I thought, even though I wasn’t certain what my mother’s meaning was.
    “Am I not married to you still?” my father said, which ended the conversation.
    THAT EVENING AT DINNER my father revealed that Aaron was being sent to France. My mother looked like she’d been crying, and my cousin did not look pleased by the announcement. All at once I viewed