by Audrey Braun
The moonlight is now filtered by a cloud. These two must have planned to camp out here. There’s no way they’d they be going up the mountain at this hour unless they planned to spend the night. Maybe they’re meeting someone up the hill.
When they call my name again I know instinctively that they’re not there to save me. Leon’s people sent them when Roberto never returned. Why else would they come out in the night like this? Real rescuers only search by day. Isn’t that what the six o’clock news always reports? The search is called off for the night and will resume first thing in the morning.
A clanging upriver startles me. Plastic pounding rock. The couple’s flashlights cut swaths of light through the trees.
They stomp right past me to the river’s edge.
I crawl to the other side of the tree. I’m shaking so badly I’m afraid I might accidentally fire the gun.
More clanging against the rocks. Beams of light swing faster.
Then a loud clatter, voices yelling, choking, words muffled as if stuffed down a throat, others coming out strangled and thrown, nothing making sense.
I can’t see anything.
“No!” The voice is Benicio’s traveling downriver on the wind. “Stop!” Then comes a terrifying, savage scream.
I draw my wrist to my mouth, stifle the cry down my throat. I choke back the sounds gathering there, but they escape in strangled gasps and groans.
“Celia!” he begs.
All I can think of is Oliver. I can’t move. I can’t take even the smallest chance that these people might do me harm.
“Celia!”
Hot tears stream down my cheeks.
I breathe deeply through my nose and hold the gun near my face, ready, expecting at any moment that they’ll find me because how can they not feel me there? My whole body is bursting with emotion, a beacon pulsing through the trees.
Then silence. Crickets and frogs. The river gushing past.
I peek around the tree but see nothing. The gun trembles against my cheek. I could shoot into the dark and hope for the best. But I might shoot Benicio or miss everyone, and their lights will be on me, blinding me, guns firing within seconds.
Moonlight slowly returns, revealing shapes at the river. The flashlights lie on the ground now, catching the movement of bustling legs, a yellow raft, an oar on a rock, a torn garbage bag, scattered food, and finally a listless leg, the canted sole of a shoe. After a moment the foot slides across the dirt, stops, then slides again. Benicio is being dragged away as if by a creature into the dark.
Part Two
20
I’ve slept in front of the air-conditioner for two days, my body sleepwalking at intervals to retrieve a glass of water and then return me to the bed. I had every intention of calling Oliver the minute I got to Mismaloya, but the cell phone died, and by the time I reached a shop with a cord to charge it, grabbed a few supplies at the corner Oxxo Mart, and checked into Casa Romero, it was all I could do to stumble onto the bed and plug the phone in and catch my breath. The last thing I remember is closing my eyes to try to think straight, to choose my words carefully. I didn’t want to frighten Oliver. I didn’t want to give anything away.
Now, here I am, waking to a crack of early blue light slanting through the drapes. My mouth is tacky, my tongue pasted to the roof. I blink into focus the spare, quiet space, the white stucco walls and simple kitchenette. Fruit stacked in a bowl on the counter. I don’t know if it’s real or plastic. I barely remember coming into this room.
I rise from the bed and realize how weak I am, my movements slow and light as if my arms are filled with air. My head is the only part of me with any weight, a bowling ball balancing on my neck. I turn the television on CNN to find out what time it is, what day it is. Six o’clock in the morning. A week since I first arrived in Mexico.
My room is on the second floor overlooking the Bay of Banderas. I stagger out to the balcony and stand in the bright morning sun. Blue water covers the earth as far as I can see. To the right and left green hills ascend into jungle.
A foul smell lifts with the breeze. It takes a second to realize it’s coming from me. I’m filthy, covered in grime and sores and body odor. And somewhere still, the rotten, vinegary chunks of iguana.
I glance down at my leg. The wound has crusted over, its center a hard brown rock, the rim made up of pink skin, pulling, and puckering as it tries to renew itself. There’s something vulgar and carnal to its shape and color. I squeeze gently and a bubble of puss oozes free. I need to get back on the antibiotics. I’m surprised it isn’t worse.
I close my eyes. White stars float through my vision. I need to eat.
I step inside, relieved to find the fruit is real. Bananas, apples, mangoes. My hands tremble as I peel a banana and lift it to my mouth. It’s too tacky to slide down my parched throat. I choke. I get a glass of water from the water cooler. Agua! floats through my mind. Roberto. The gaping black hole in his neck. The phone.
I force the water down, then the rest of the banana. I locate the phone on the floor, plugged into a socket between the bed and nightstand, flashing with fifteen new messages no one is ever going to hear.
I sit on the edge of the bed. My fingers tremble as I struggle to remember a number I’ve dialed several times a day for years.
After two rings a male voice picks up. “Hello?” the voice draws out as if confused by the strange number. Is it Oliver? How can I not know my own son?
“Who is this?” he asks.
“Oh my God,” I say.
“Mom?”
“Yes, honey. Yes. Dear God. Yes. It’s me.”
“What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” I look around the room, stifling my tears, searching for my voice, my mind. “Oliver.” There doesn’t seem to be anything else.
“What?”
“You’re safe.”
“Of course I’m safe. What’s wrong with you? When are you coming home?”
Home? I shouldn’t have called yet. Jonathon has told him something, but for the life of me I can’t think of what it could be. After all I’ve been trying to sort through, all I’ve been forced to imagine, I seem to have exhausted my imagination.
“Oliver. Are you saying you’re at home?”
“Um. Yeah. In my room getting ready for school. Why are you acting so weird?”
“Where is your father?”
“I think he’s in the garage looking for another suitcase. What’s going on? Did they put something in your Kool-Aid at that place?”
Jonathon is in the garage. Jonathon is home.
“What place?” I ask.
“Mom. You’re not making any sense. The place you went. The retreat thing, whatever it’s called.”
Retreat thing.
“Oh,” I say, not wanting to frighten or confuse him. He sounds so normal. So safe. “You know, they just, yes, maybe. I haven’t been feeling quite myself since I got here.”
“I thought that was the whole reason you went.”
So that’s it. Jonathon told him I ran off for some kind of spa retreat, a break for the mentally strained.
“Do you want to talk to Dad?”
One thing is clear. Oliver detests small talk. In fact, this is the longest conversation I’ve had with him in months without it turning into an argument. Oliver is still Oliver.
And Jonathon?
My whole body trembles with adrenaline. Think, think, think. I’m blundering around in the dark, ricocheting between elation that Oliver’s safe, at home even, and horror and confusion over the rest.
I crawl under the blanket. “Yes,” I say. “Why don’t you put him on?”
“All right.”
“But Oliver? Wait.” I can hear him walking through the house, opening and closing doors, clunking down the stairs. “Did you get home all right? Is everything…good?”
“It’s fine,” he says, his pitch of sarcasm a welcome note. Everything is back to normal for him. I can’t ask for more than t
hat. “I don’t know about Dad, though,” he adds. “He’s been pretty edgy since you’ve been gone.”
“Has he?”
“Which, by the way, was kind of weird. You didn’t even mention you were going. Or say good-bye.” There’s an unmistakable trace of hurt in his voice.
“I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry about that. It was kind of a last-minute decision.”
“Anyway, now he’s going off on this business thing.”
“What business thing?”
“You know. Work stuff.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that. When is he leaving?”
“Day after tomorrow. You’ll see him before he leaves, right?”
“I don’t think—what time did he mention I was getting in?”
“Jeez. You really did drink something funny. Don’t you know when your own plane arrives?”
“Not, it’s just, I mean, I don’t have everything in front of me.”
How can Jonathon tell him I’ll be home before he leaves if he doesn’t even know if I’m dead or alive? Is he planning on leaving Oliver alone when I don’t show up?
“Here he is,” Oliver says. “You can ask him yourself.”
“No, Oliver! Wait!”
“Hello?”
The voice of my husband. The father of my child. The man who’s nothing if not an endless well of reason. I love you. Please pinpoint what it is and I will try to make it better.
“Jonathon.”
“Cee! I didn’t think I’d be hearing from you so soon.”
I can’t speak.
“Did you call my phone first?” he says. “Sorry, I’m in the garage. I left it upstairs.”
“What?”
Jonathon muffles the mouthpiece, but I can still hear. “I’ll bring it right up to you when I’m done with it, Oliver,” he says, apparently referring to the phone. It’s all so normal. So ordinary that I have to look down at the crusty crater in my leg to remind myself of everything that’s happened. I stare at the bites and scrapes and grime, and for a fleeting moment wonder if I’ve imagined it all. Maybe I fell and got a concussion, hurt my leg in some other way, wandered off with amnesia, or simply went insane. The true crazies have no idea they’re crazy.
“He’s gone now.” Jonathon’s voice takes on a frantic whisper. “I didn’t want to scare him. My God, Cee. It’s so good to hear your voice!”
I don’t say anything.
“Where are you?”
“I’m safe.”
“Where? What happened?”
“Why aren’t you out trying to find me?”
“I was! I am! Jesus. I’ve been half out of my mind. I brought Oliver home to keep him safe and I’m going back, that’s what I’m doing out here in the garage. Getting a bigger suitcase. I’m coming back for you.”
It almost makes sense.
“Where are you?” he asks.
And then I see Benny’s murky green eyes innocently giving everything away.
“I’m safe,” I repeat.
There’s a long pause that ends with a sigh. “Celia,” he says, as if I’m trying his patience. “It’s not what you think. These people—”
“Has this all just been some kind of misunderstanding?” I ask. “As a matter of fact, yes. I’ve made mistakes, but I had no idea—”
“How the hell did you get away?” I ask.
“Get away? What do you mean?”
“Why did they let you go?”
“Who?”
“I know all about the trouble you’re in.”
“Listen. I don’t know what they told you, but—”
“I’m lucky to be alive.”
“Whose phone are you calling from?”
“I was shot in the leg!”
“Don’t exaggerate, Cee. No one was going to kill you.”
In that moment it seems as if anything at all might fly out of my mouth. So many thoughts run through my head at once. A funnel cloud of ugly, complicated thoughts spin through my brain. Everything swirls upward into a finely tuned point, a bayonet sharp enough to skewer me, which is exactly how it feels in my chest.
“How about I lay out the real facts?” I say. “Your girlfriend tried to kill me. You’re in a shitload of trouble with these people. You’re using my life and possibly Oliver’s to try and get out of it in ways I can’t even begin to understand. You have another son. Benny. An entire secret life you’ve been living for who knows how long. Well, guess what? You’re not the only one who can keep a secret. The last thing I’m going to tell you is where I am.”
I clasp my crusted wound, feeling the thick layers of old blood, blood that has worked so hard to repair me, to keep me alive.
“There’s no need to make this any more complicated than it already is,” he says, casually, flippantly as if he’s trying to match a tie to a suit.
“You pathetic son of a bitch,” I say.
“Cee. You need to calm down. If I wasn’t worried about your state of mind before we left for Mexico, I’m sure as hell worried about it now.”
To this I have to laugh. And laugh. And laugh until my face streams with tears and I can barely speak. I don’t care that it makes me seem unhinged. I’m finally sure just how solidly together I am.
“She’s what, twenty years old, Jonathon? What were you thinking? You’d start over with a new family? Replace Oliver and me with two others half our age?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, from his place of imagined superiority, but I’m already laughing again.
“You won’t think this is so funny after the Feds find out what you’ve done,” he says.
“What I’ve done?”
“Really, Celia. Stealing my keys and codes. How did you think you could get away with embezzling from my bank?”
I throw the blanket off and stomp out to the balcony. I grip the railing and steady myself. Another giant cog clicks into place. He’s been embezzling from his own bank and is setting me up for the fall. A million tiny scenes flash through my mind. Times I was sure I left my computer open, only to find it closed. Certain I left it on the edge of the kitchen counter, only to find it next to the fruit bowl. Whatever he’s doing he’s been doing it through my laptop.
“Just tell me where you are,” he says in his reasonable husband voice. “I didn’t mean what I just said. I’m sorry. I’ve made some terrible mistakes. Just give me the chance to explain.”
And then another cog grinds through the grit.
“This is why you asked me to stay,” I say.
“Tell me where you are.”
“You’ve been stealing from your own bank for years, haven’t you?”
“Cee. Please. We can fix all of this if you just tell me where you are.”
“If I had filed for divorce, all of our finances would have been combed through by lawyers. They would have seen everything.”
“Listen to me!”
“It’s all been closing in on you, hasn’t it? And your solution is to pin this on me.” I have to laugh. “Who is going to believe that I knew something about embezzlement?”
“This is giving me a fucking headache.”
“Are you so greedy, so evil, that you’d do this to your own wife, your own son?”
“I haven’t done anything. Stop rambling. All these years I’ve taken care of you. From the moment you walked into the bank all torn up about your mother.”
The mention of my mother stops me cold. My vision spins. I’m afraid I’m going to be sick. “I have no idea who the hell you even are,” I manage to say.
“You’re not exactly the woman I married either. How many men have you had since our vows?”
“How many children have you had?”
He’s silent for so long that for a second I thinks he’s hung up.
“He’s dead, you know,” Jonathon says.
“Who?”
“Benicio.”
I dig my fingers into my thigh. It’s just another one of his lies. I play along. �
�What are you talking about?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
“You’re a liar,” I say. “You’re sick, Jonathon. I had no idea just how sick you were. I didn’t see it at all. You had me so convinced—”
“He was just using you. You didn’t think he meant all those things he said, did you?”
I need air.
“I promised to get him back into the States if he helped me. He was in love with some woman in L.A. Didn’t he tell you? He was in love with Hollywood.”
“You’re so, so sick.”
“Listen. I need to give Oliver his phone back. You know how he is.”
“What do you want from me!” I scream.
“Why don’t you tell me where you are; then I can show you myself what it is that I want?” His tone changes completely. The menacing smile is coming through the phone.
“You know, Oliver got by just fine without you this week,” he continues. “In fact, he ended up having a great time by the pool. But there’s no telling what could happen to a boy over time without his mother.”
Air squeezes from my lungs. Rage detonates my skull.
I steady my breath.
“I want you to listen to me very carefully,” he says, his voice more menacing than ever. “You’re distraught. After everything you’ve done you’re calling now to tell us that you’re sorry. We don’t deserve what you’ve done to us. Your life isn’t worth living after all the mistakes you’ve made. Soon after this phone call you’re going to be found with a bullet in your brain. Or perhaps hanging from the curtain rod in some hotel room. A suicide. No doubt in anyone’s mind.”
This madman has my son. My worst fear has come true. Oliver has been taken after all.
21
My mind shifts into high gear, steering me toward my own survival. If anything happens to me there’ll be no one to save Oliver.
I wash my clothes in the sink and hang them to dry on the balcony. I keep a gun near me at all times. I scrub my skin raw in the shower. The last of the insect bites softens and stings as I shampoo away the clumps of guts and dirt and oil from my hair. Several tangles at the base of my neck are so severe the only way I’m going to get them out is to cut them loose. I shave my legs and armpits with a used disposable razor someone left in the medicine cabinet.
