At the end of the summer we had a stroke of luck. Madeleine Rosich died in Boston, and she left Quintín, her favorite, a considerable amount. Quintín proposed that same day, and we set the date for the wedding a year later. I decided to sell the house on Aurora Street but wanted to stay there with Mother until the last possible moment. A week before the wedding, I finally put her in an asylum. Quintín gave his mother all the money he had saved from working at Mendizabal & Company, and he asked her to buy me an engagement ring. Rebecca went to see Doña Salomé Beguin, the Arab woman who sold jewelry in Old San Juan, and she picked a beautiful almond-shaped solitaire for her oldest son. It was an uncomfortable piece of jewelry; the diamond was razor-sharp, and it snagged my nylons every time I put them on. One day I was playing tennis with Quintín when the racket hit the back of my hand and the diamond split in two. I was terribly upset, thinking it might be a bad omen, but Quintín reassured me that his love would last forever, even if diamonds did not.
