With love, Spain

I.

«In all these islands, I have observed the appearance of the people and their ways of speaking, although they understand each other, which is important, for which I hope that Their Highnesses will determine their conversion to our Holy Faith, towards which they feel inclined».

Columbus to the Catholic Monarchs, 1493

-Mommy, is there a letter from dad? - Innocently ask the woman with beautiful blonde hair and emerald eyes. She glanced at me and shook her head. I was playing with some wooden tiles, but when I saw his tired smile, which hid a worried and sorrowful heart, I couldn't help but think that I had asked a question that shouldn't be asked, but my curiosity and love for my father prevented me from to silence.

Almost daily I mercilessly bombarded my tender mother with the same question or some derivative. In those days I was not very patient, well, I think to this day it is one of my personal traits.

My father, Spanish Empire, had set sail months ago, along with a man named Columbus, and we still had no answers from them. What if he had drowned? It was not possible, we would know. But, for some reason, the ignorance was a thousand times worse than the certainty of death.

Little more than three months passed from his departure when, at last, we received a letter. I still remember that day. I was wearing a loose green suit, something like a dress, yellow stockings and a thin white ribbon holding my red hair. My father never liked that he will wear long hair, but I took advantage of his absence to avoid cutting it.

I remember how the messenger burst into the small hall of the castle, where me and my mother liked to have breakfast. That little room willingly received an enormous amount of sunlight, illuminating everything around it. I loved to see how my mother's blonde hair seemed to blend with the rays of the sun, giving her the appearance of a beautiful fairy and when she smiled, oh her smile, it was as if she poured honey directly into my heart.

By law, it was my mother who read the letter first and I had to wait impatiently for her to inform me of her mission.

A relieved smile spread across her face, one so pretty that she made her emerald eyes, the same as mine, shine brighter than jewels. Such was my mother's love for her husband. But a few seconds later the smile was lost and a confused gesture replaced it, adding one that, later I would learn, was the gesture of someone whose heart is breaking.

-Mommy? Everything okay with daddy? - Ask innocent and curious. Reino de Castilla looked at me, his eyes seemed about to melt from the pain- Did something happen to dad?-Now he was scared.

My mother shook her head and forced herself to smile at me.

"Your father is fine," she answered with a cracked voice, but without letting go of her pained smile. He arrived safely and has claimed several lands for our house.

"That's wonderful!" I commented impressed. My father's hunch had been right. He had arrived in India!

-Yes, it is- I noticed how my mother hesitated to tell me something else or shut up. In the end, she opted for the latter- I must meet with her majesties, darling. I am sure that they received the same news, but we must raise some details about your father and company. Saying that, he hurried me to finish breakfast and send me to my tutors.

"Your father" and not "My husband". Mom always called him "my darling", "my sweetheart" or "my loving husband" but this time he was "your father". If she analyzed it correctly, that must have been the first crack, one that seemed insignificant enough to ignore, but that, in the end, would end up collapsing my world. I was still small and unconscious, I could only feel happy that my father was safe and I soon forgot the look of pain on my mother's face and her way of expressing herself.