Glancing at Sarita, he noted the tight, uncomfortable expression on her face and sighed inwardly. The woman was as closed up as a turtle in its shell. He needed to open her up a bit before she would even see the possibilities before her. Swallowing the bit of profiterole in his mouth, he said, "Tell me about yourself."
Sarita glanced up with surprise, and then arched an eyebrow. "I would have thought your private detective had told you everything there was to know."
Domitian shook his head. "Those were just cold hard facts written on pristine white paper. I want to know more than the facts. I want to know you," he said firmly. "I want to see the past through your eyes. The present too. I want to know your dreams, your wishes, your heart. I wanted to know the real Sarita, not the facts behind her existence."
Sarita stared at him wide eyed for a moment, and then lowered her head and peered down at the ice cream melting and sliding out of her profiteroles. She was silent for so long he began to think she wasn't going to respond at all, but then she said, "I had a pretty normal childhood until I was thirteen."
Domitian exhaled slowly, realizing only then that he'd been holding his breath, unsure she would respond to his request.
Sarita shrugged. "Happy loving parents, good in school, lots of friends, and a grandfather who spoiled me rotten and who I adored . . . and then my mother was kidnapped."
She took a bite of profiterole and ice cream, chewed, and swallowed and then chased it with a sip of wine before adding, "Although, I suppose that was pretty normal too when you think about it. Kidnapping in Venezuela is practically a national pastime and there were more than a couple of kids in my school who knew someone who had been kidnapped."
Domitian nodded solemnly. Kidnapping had become rampant in Venezuela. It was visited on everyone, the rich, the middle class, and even the poor. In fact, it was so commonplace that people had begun forming groups with friends, coworkers, and neighbors, joining together to put money into funds to pay off kidnappers and get back the loved ones of the people in their groups.
"My father loved my mother dearly and did everything the kidnappers told him to do. He didn't contact the police, he didn't tell anyone, and he gathered together the demanded money and went to the meeting place they instructed him to, to deliver it. He'd expected my mother to be there and to be exchanged for the money, but they told him it didn't work that way. That once they were safely away and sure that the policia weren't there somewhere waiting to jump them, they would send my mother to him."
"But they did not," Domitian said softly, sorry he'd made her relive this sad part of her life.
"Oh, they did," she assured him, and then added bitterly, "in pieces."
Domitian winced. The kidnapping had happened three months before he'd met Sarita and learned he couldn't read her. The detective he'd hired had mentioned in his first report that her mother had died in a kidnapping gone wrong, and her father was moving her out of the country because of that, but hadn't given specifics. Domitian hadn't asked for any.
"I am sorry," he said softly.
Sarita acknowledged his words with a nod and turned her gaze back to her plate as she scooped up another bite of profiterole. After swallowing, she said, "After my mother's death, my father was afraid the same thing would happen to me, and decided he had to get me out of Venezuela. He worked for the Royal Bank of Canada here. He was the assistant manager at their branch office in Caracas and, with the bank manager's help, was able to get a transfer to a branch in Canada." Her expression turned thoughtful. "I think the bank helped to speed up the paperwork needed for us to move, visas and whatnot. It still seemed to take a while, though, several months I think."
She paused, apparently trying to recall, and then shrugged. "Anyway, off we went to Canada. We settled in a little town just south of Toronto where it would be easy for my father to commute into the city to his new bank. Fortunately, it was summer and school was out. Well, for everyone else," she added wryly. "My father wanted me to get a good start once school began, and he wanted me to be able to protect myself, so he signed me up for martial arts two nights a week, and then hired me a teacher to teach me English. I spent that first summer learning English eight hours a day, every day. It was English, English, English with the occasional martial arts break at night."
"Your father found a teacher willing to work seven days a week?" he asked with amusement.
"Oh no, the teacher only taught me during the weekdays, my father taught me on Saturday and Sunday . . . and usually for a couple of hours on weeknights after work. My whole life was mostly English. By the time school started, I was sick to death of contractions and the order of adjectives and nouns." She rolled her eyes and then sighed and shrugged. "But I had learned enough that I was able to go to a normal high school."