Juan—Rosario: marriage

Juan and Rosario’s marriage brings together love at first sight, a family and business built side by side, and a widening private distance. As Juan sees it, Rosario has been both the partner who helped their bakery prosper and the wife whose unexplained absences leave him afraid to ask what has changed.

Love, Family, and Shared Work

Rosario came to Elizondo, Amaia’s hometown, from San Sebastián on vacation; Juan recalls loving her from the first time he saw her. Their marriage includes two daughters, Flora and Rosaura, and, at this point in the account, Rosario is carrying their third child. He remembers her as a loving mother and as a capable partner in the bakery, where she worked beside him and, in his view, had a stronger commercial instinct. Her contribution helped the business grow beyond what he had imagined possible.

Juan’s admiration is personal as well as practical. He describes Rosario as elegant and carefully turned out, someone who could be charming with customers and colleagues at the bakery while remaining distant from the neighbors and other mothers. For a time, he understood himself and Elena as her only friends in Elizondo. When he asked why Rosario and Elena had stopped speaking, Rosario said only that she had lost her friend. Juan’s portrait of their marriage is thus shaped by a contrast: a wife he considers devoted to her family and business, yet increasingly closed off from the people around her.

Absence and Unanswered Questions

Rosario’s nighttime departures intensify that distance. Juan wakes to find her gone, searches the house barefoot—including the girls’ bedroom, the kitchen, the bathroom, and the balcony—and fears both that she might be hurt and that she has left deliberately. He suspects she will return before dawn, bringing the cold in with her, but does not know where she goes or whom she sees. When he asks about her solitary walks and absences, she gives him an evasive explanation: she goes out to walk and think. His attempt to make room for himself in that private life is met with anger and a response that leaves him feeling shut out.

Pregnancy becomes another point of conflict. Juan suggests that the work of running the household may be too much for Rosario and that she might accept help. She rejects the suggestion, takes it as an insult, and warns that she could leave for San Sebastián if he interferes with how she manages the house. Her anger lasts for days; afterward their outward routine gradually resumes, but the underlying issue remains untouched.

A Marriage Sustained by Avoidance

The recurring pattern is not reconciliation so much as postponement. Rosario continues going out, and Juan stays awake until he hears her return, cold and silent. He repeatedly resolves to talk to her the next day, then delays because he fears facing her reaction. He describes himself as secretly cowardly and compares his fear to that of a child before a strict headmistress; relief comes when he hears her key in the lock, even though her return does not answer the questions that keep him awake.

That mixture of tenderness and apprehension defines the marriage at this point in the narrative. Juan still recalls the woman he loved, the mother of his daughters, and his closest working partner, but his longing to understand her is checked by his dread of another confrontation. His account makes the silence between them consequential: the marriage continues through family routine and shared labor, while the conversation that might clarify Rosario’s absences never takes place.