DRIVING DROWSY

Chapter one


      Shoot that question to Mercedes. Why did she decide that Joachim was the man of her life, the chosen one? I Did otherwise. I would not have chosen such a man in my life. However, he might have chosen me. I did not even know  Mercedes. Between she and I, why did he choose me? Did he want to ruin my life?
   I have many questions, myself. But, to be honest, it was love at first sight. I remember thinking that I had not seen him before. He was twenty-five years old, I was twenty-one.  He was drop-dead gorgeous. And I was...Well, I think I was pretty. Anyway, among my worries and priorities that has never been one. But he was good-looking, so handsome that none of my friends and mainly, neither of my sisters, could understand why Joachim and I, we were together.
   _ You don´t match at all._ That is what I was said on and on, and when I put the question ´Why?´
 the answer was as silly as that he was much more handsome and cool than I was, and I am.

   Although I had had apprehensions the very moment we met, maybe that stupid reason, that I did not seem as cool as him, was what made me take the plunge and marry him.

  Once that we were married to each other,  he introduced me to Mercedes and I found out that she had been his girlfriend for almost seven years.

  Then he told me more. When he had met Mercedes he was already a divorced man.
How could have imagined such a man in my life?

   I had never been very good at maths. But I remember doing my sums and I said to myself that if he was 25 at that moment that meant that he had been 19 when he met Mercedes and both went to live together. And that if he had been married before for two years to another woman ( that was Oleina) that meant that he had got married when he was merely seventeen!

   When I discovered my husband past life it was too late. He lived so quickly that the day after having met Mercedes for the  first time, I knew I was pregnant.

   Then he started to borrow money from Mercedes. We had already wasted all my money, that money I had earned selling my paintings during the summer. But meanwhile I was preparing another exhibition, we had run out of money. He was jobless. Why was he not seeking a job ? That was my wonder.

  Then we decided to go to Asturias from Madrid. He wanted to introduce me to his family.
   It was a kind of relief to hear that he had an old cabin there, in Asturias, and a little field to grow vegetables...Why not?  I remember saying to myself that we could perfectly scrape together enough money to live, by returning to a cheeper lifestyle in the countryside. I would keep on painting and he would work as a farmer. But, all our planes were no more than a sort of short bucolic dream, so brief it was.


   It was then the last week of november. It was very cold in Madrid. We got a pre owned car, not a luxury one, in fact it was quite old. I did not trust that such a rosty bargain could go very far away. By then, I had never had a car in my life, neither now. Any way, Joachim could not drive, neither did I. But we were quite lucky when the friend who Joachim had bought the car from,  offered to carry us to Asturias. Then, as soon as we were setting off, we had to stop in a petrol station, in the pass of Navacerrada, to get the car wheel tyres changed. Besides, we had no a single spare wheel in the boot to replace. We had to buy it. Then we could afford buying a new pair of front wheel tyres but the back ones. On the pass of Navacerrada snow was in the air. I remember thinking that we should have taken a train.

   I also remember saying to myself that I should have taken, too, notice of my apprehensions four months before that moment. But, on the other hand, the wind was blowing ice-cold so, unless I had chosen going frost to die, I got in the car and laid on the back seats. I felt so tired.