by Roger Bruner
Rosa No-Name
A coming-of-age novel
The Prequel to Found in Translation
Roger E. Bruner
©2017 by Roger E. Bruner
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted for commercial purposes except for brief quotations in printed reviews without permission of the author. To request permission, send email to [email protected]
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental. Any trademarks, service marks, product names, or named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if any of these terms are used.
Cover Design: Ken Raney
Interior Design: Roger E. Bruner
Edited by: M. Cay Fultz
Published by: Roger E. Bruner
Table of Contents
Praise for Rosa No-Name
Many thanks to…
Prologue
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If You’ve Enjoyed This Book…
About the Author
Praise for Rosa No-Name
Roger Bruner crafts a powerful story that will take you on a moving journey through the eyes of Rosa. This story grabbed hold of me as I traveled with Rosa away from the only home she’d ever known to discover a home of more worth than she could have ever imagined. Roger weaves together the harsh realities of life with redeeming truth and everlasting hope. This is the kind of story that will touch your heart and stay with you.
~M. B. Dahl, author of Through the Balustrade
~*~
This is Roger Bruner at his finest. This engrossing story has more unanticipated twists and turns than a well-designed rollercoaster. But the ride is a thrill, with an ending that deeply satisfies. Bruner’s writing pulls you in so that you feel a part of the story. You feel the anger, sense of injustice, the marvels of love, and the beauty of forgiveness. You’ll thank yourself for reading Rosa No-Name!
~Joel Sutton, author of The Five Master Patterns of Life, Draw Near to Me, Renew My Heart, Revelation Unlocked, The Three Keys, and contributing editor of Whom Shall We Send
~*~
This book depicts the journey of an innocent teenaged victim who fights to be a true thriving survivor of life's most difficult circumstances. Roger Bruner shares the difficult journey of Rosa No-Name and how she overcame terrible tragedies. I sympathized with her from page one and embraced her spunk to the very end. I’ll bet you will, too!
~Tammy Van Gils, blogger & devotional contributor to The Wonders of Nature
Rosa-No Name is a timely read of adventure, self-actualization and unselfishness that captures the reader’s attention from the first chapter. This novel is a gripping journey that challenges the reader to embrace a deeper walk and seek the courage to serve a greater good.
~Jane Herlong, Speaker Hall of Fame, Amazon Best-Selling Author, SiriusXM Humorist, Award-Winning Singer
~*~
Rosa No-Name is a well-crafted novel. The characters, especially Rosa, are engaging and believable. The plot also makes the book a page-turner. So many of the plot twists are enormously satisfying. I wholeheartedly recommend this book.
~Sally Wambold, retired librarian
~*~
Roger Bruner seems to have a bottomless well of creativity from which he draws ideas, shaping them into stories that are both engaging and intelligently written. His characters never fail to come off as genuine and unforgettable. Anyone who reads Rosa No-Name is in for a treat!
~Ann Tatlock, novelist and children’s book author
~*~
Poignant narrative of an outcast village girl's growth to fully cope in the modern world. Exceptionally well done.
~Donn Taylor, author of Lightning on a Quiet Night, The Lazarus File
Many thanks to…
Kristi Bruner Lury, whose mission trip to Mexico at eighteen inspired Found in Translation and subsequently Rosa No-Name
Kimberly Shumate for recognizing the significance of Found in Translation and using it to attract Terry Burns as my agent
Terry Burns for months well-spent in landing a publisher for Found in Translation
Barbour Publishing for publishing Found in Translation and Lost in Dreams
Kathleen Bruner and Kristi Bruner Lury, who loved Rosa No-Name more than my other novels and manuscripts and inspired me to reread and fall in love with it all over again—ten years after writing it
Ken Raney, graphic artist extraordinaire, who agreed to design the cover and did such an incredible job on it
My wonderful family—Kathleen Bruner, Anna Barker, Maureen DuMond, Kristi and Robert Lury, and Katrina and Phil Bartee—who chipped in to give me the Ken Raney cover for Christmas, with enough left over to pay for editing
M. Catherine (Cay) Fultz, whose expert editing helped to make this the best book possible, even adding occasionally to the wording in ways that were better than mine
Members of Richmond’s Christian Writers Hub who sampled chapters at our meetings
The members of the Rosa No-Name Tribe Facebook group for their continual interest and support
Tammy, who pointed out my earlier version had too many sentences ending with “though”
Those wonderful people who read a pre-release version of Rosa in spite of the fact they didn’t have time to and wrote such glowing endorsements
Those other equally busy people who read an ARC (Advance Review Copy) of Rosa No-Name to be prepared for writing reviews
My many other friends—I consider everyone who’s enjoyed one of my novels to be a friend—for their never-failing encouragement
But most of all, I want to thank the Lord for whatever writing talent He’s blessed me with and for giving me the desire to use Rosa No-Name to bless and entertain my readers.
Roger E. Bruner
Prologue
My precious Anjelita,
I can’t believe you are eighteen now and attending an American college. How quickly the years have passed.
Although I clearly remember every detail of your birth, other facts about our life together would have been lost forever without the journal Dr. Morales convinced me to keep. You know too well how my journal was almost destroyed and yet lovingly preserved at far too costly a price.
You are familiar with many aspects of my past, some from your own experiences. But you’ve also asked questions that were too personal—too sensitive—to answer when you were younger. I didn’t think you could handle that much truth yet.
You’re a grown woman now. A very mature one. I believe you are ready.
I couldn’t tell you these things in person. Regardless of what you might think, I don’t consider myself a very strong
woman.
The solution came like an expensive, unexpected present. You have always loved to read. I would give you the details of my history—our history—in writing.
Yes, I could have simply loaned you my journal, but it contains too many gaps. Whenever I look through it, I recall details I failed to include. Important ones.
So I had Dr. Morales get in touch with Señor Roger Bruner for me. You remember Señor Roger, don’t you? He’s the older gentleman who wrote about Kim Hartlinger’s trip to Santa María in Found in Translation. If Nikki hadn’t translated it into Spanish, you and I might never have been able to read it. But he made a few mistakes I would politely point out when we went through my journal together.
If he agreed to help, that is.
Thank goodness he was delighted at the idea of using my journal as the basis—the skeleton, he called it—of a new book. He would add to it the things Nikki and I remembered, including corrections to his earlier mistakes. Nikki would be especially helpful in recalling things she had said to me in English before she learned to speak Spanish. As well as things I couldn’t have seen or known about.
He flew to San Diego and drove down to Santa María. The roads are much better now, he was pleased to discover, but it’s still a long drive. At least the village has gotten some vestiges of civilization. Like electricity and running water. Occasionally.
After many hugs, he and Nikki and I sat down together to begin. She had already translated my journal into English for Señor Roger, and he recorded our numerous conversations to keep from forgetting anything. Especially the additions Nikki and I made as we went along.
Although he calls this book a novel, one that is “character-driven,” he says it’s actually a memoir about my growing-up years from age sixteen to twenty-nine. That’s why he wrote it in my adult voice, using the language skills I have acquired over the years.
More important than any of that, however, Rosa No-Name will tell you everything there is to know about our family.
As you can see, Señor Roger published this book in English. (How strange not to be able to read my own words!) Since you speak and understand that strange language so well now, you shouldn’t have a problem reading it.
I wanted you to have this, the very first copy. I pray that it will not only answer your questions but entertain you as well.
Vaya con Diós, my dearest daughter.
Your eternally loving mother,
Rosa
1
“Where are you, Rosa No-Name?” a man’s voice called from a distance. “Are you hiding from me?”
Although the voice sounded real, I thought I might be dreaming. None of the villagers would have asked questions like those; none of them would have wanted to find me. On my bare knees at the edge of the river, I ignored both questions and questioner and continued to scrub the only two pieces of outer clothing I owned on the worn-smooth rock.
“Baby,” I said aloud, addressing my words to the giant bulge in my belly, “quit kicking and getting in my way or I’ll be too exhausted to deliver you.” I laughed. “And you will be too tired to come out.”
Footsteps on the hard pathway made me draw my blanket around me and turn halfway to look.
“There you are,” he said.
Oh, it’s you. I’d hoped you were my imagination. Not a living nightmare.
Tomás stood looking down at me. Although the late afternoon sun at his back kept me from distinguishing the details of his face, I could hear him clearly. He gasped as if he might be trying to catch his breath, his voice so husky I wondered if he was ill.
At one time, I would have cared.
When I twisted to face him more completely, gravity rolled me into a sitting position and the baby protested with such a hard thump I thought she might kick a hole in my stomach and come crawling out. Was that why the village women cried out in such pain at childbirth?
Although I had never expected to confront Tomás again, his interruption gave me an excuse to set my laundry aside and rest my arms, back, and shoulders momentarily. When I relaxed, so did my baby.
“You have found me,” I said, trying to swallow my sarcasm like a bite of bitter fruit. “You have found us. Your unborn child and me.”
He glanced at my belly. Under the tattered blanket I’d wrapped up in so I could wash my skirt and blouse, my middle resembled one of the wild gourds that proliferated in this west Mexican wilderness.
Eight months ago, my stomach had been as flat as the terrain of my tiny village, Santa María de los Campos. I had trusted Tomás then. I thought I loved him.
“You don’t look like a proud papa-to-be.”
He grunted as if answering would be too painful. “Rosa, we should marry.”
Simple words. Words I’d once longed to hear. But…no longer.
“We need to marry,” he said as if I hadn’t heard him the first time. Although his voice sounded raspier than it had a moment earlier, I couldn’t miss his emphasis on the word need.
I no longer tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. “Not ‘I love you, Rosa, and I’m proud to be the father of your child?’”
“Not that,” he said, gazing past me at the river we had once frolicked in like a couple of little children. After several moments of silence, he looked at me again. “Can’t you see what they’ve done to me?”
I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to care.
“They beat me up just for getting you pregnant.”
Just? You hope to win my sympathy that way?
“They’ve ordered me to take you to my home in San Diego and marry you.”
I turned my head the other direction to keep him from seeing me twist my face into a scowl.
The villagers of Santa María weren’t any more concerned about me now than they’d ever been. They wanted me out of their sight because they couldn’t—they wouldn’t—accept an unwed mother.
Especially a sixteen-year-old orphan who wouldn’t be pregnant now if one of her past “keepers”—the numerous guardians who’d shuffled her back and forth from shack to shack since infancy until finally sending her to live in a cave—had bothered to teach her even the basics about intimacy between men and women and to reveal its dangers.
No, Tomás. If the village men beat you up, they didn’t do it for me. They were warning you never to touch one of their daughters.
“They?” I spat the word out as I looked toward him again. Shading my eyes with one hand, I looked at the expensive clothes he’d been wearing that morning upon his arrival. They didn’t look so fine now. They were filthy. Shredded. Blood-stained.
“The Council of Elders, of course.” He might as well have said, Why did you bother to ask? His voice had grown even coarser—and more urgent. More desperate. “The villagers will stone me if you don’t leave Santa María with me. Today.”
I had never thought anything could terrify Tomás. I was wrong.
“They won’t let me come back here unless I bring proof of our marriage. They’ve locked my van in the storage barn and taken my key so I can’t run off without you. They know I can’t make it back to civilization without my van.”
I stared at him. My stomach jolted and reeled at the still-fresh signs of his beating. He looked thirty years older than me, not just ten.
Bruises, caked blood, and swelling formed a mask that hid the most handsome face I had ever seen. A bumpy, low-lying purple mountain had replaced his once-perfect nose, and a cut over his right eye continued to ooze blood. His short ponytail had come undone, and the hairs stuck to his head—stringy, matted, knotted. Someone had pulled—perhaps yanked—enough hair out to leave him with several conspicuously thin places.
When I shuddered unintentionally, he probably thought I pitied him.
I didn’t. He deserved all of this and more.
What had become of the Tomás del Mundo I used to love, the man whose muscles were as powerful as his air of superiority and self-assurance? Could a man be so strong and yet so w
eak at the same time?
I couldn’t laugh at his downfall. He had brought it upon himself, although my naiveté had played a part.
“You must come with me now,” he said. His voice was weaker, his words harder to understand. Had someone jabbed his voice box with a tightened fist? The very thought of that made me woozy.
Although we had been talking only a moment or two, his face had grown so much puffier during that time that his eyes now looked more pig-like than human.
“If you’re willing to.” When I didn’t respond, he said, “Please.” I still didn’t say anything. “I will treat you well. You and the baby. I promise.”
The only thing Tomás had ever promised me was a new water jug. Since he hadn’t said when I would get it, I couldn’t accuse him of lying just because he hadn’t given it to me yet.
And during our three jubilant days together, Tomás had convinced me he loved me, although he never actually said so.
Yes, Tomás had implied many things that later proved false. I had learned over the months how sly he was. None of the villagers trusted him. But no one had warned me not to.
Despite his record of deceit, something deep inside me whispered, “Heed him now. However twisted his sense of right and wrong is, he may prove to be enough of a man to keep his promise.”
No matter how I doubted that, what choice did I have except to go to San Diego with a man I detested?
