by Toni Andrews
Or so I thought.
“I heard back from the adoption agency,” Sukey said, seating herself next to me on our makeshift balcony during my morning break. The pages in her hand appeared to be faxes.
“The adoption agency?” I’d almost forgotten about my own family issues.
No, that wasn’t true. I’d thought about Bobbie Hollings a thousand times in the last few days but firmly stifled the thought each time. I’d watch both Sam and Tino risk everything for the sake of their respective families.
The only thing I’d ever done for my own family was destroy it.
But they weren’t my real family. Maybe that was why—
“Bobbie was right, you were abandoned. See? The orphanage listed you as a foundling. I didn’t think anyone actually used that word, at least not on legal papers.”
“They probably don’t anymore,” I said. “I guess it means they found me somewhere. Does it say where?”
“Yes, it does. I mean, not the exact place. But it was in a church.”
The tendrils of a chill wrapped around my spine. Why?
“A church?” I repeated stupidly.
“Yeah, probably an Orthodox church. Because the orphanage was called—” She read from the page. “‘St. Michael the Archangel Orthodox Orphanage.’ I looked it up on the Internet. It’s still there, but they don’t call it an orphanage anymore. Now it’s the ‘Home for Children.’ Political correctness has hit the church, too.”
It’s still there, I thought. The chill got stronger, and suddenly the day seemed too cold for sitting outside. An Orthodox church—for some reason that resonated.
“Orthodox? You mean like Greek Orthodox?”
“Not specifically, at least I don’t think so. Anyway, I called them, to see if there’s anyone around who remembers what church, or if they have some paperwork that’s not in the file you got from your mother.”
“Bobbie’s not my mother,” I said automatically. But she was—once. And she still would be, if I hadn’t decided to…cut myself off from her.
“Sorry, I meant the file you got in Tucson. Anyway, I’ll let you know what I find out.”
“Thanks.” I think.
She grinned. “I heard that.”
I looked at her carefully. For a long time I’d assumed Sukey only heard my thoughts when it was my intention for her to do so. Now I wondered what percentage of my thoughts she regularly overheard. I hadn’t told her what I’d learned in Tucson, at least not the part about having pressed the Hollingses to let me go. I intended to tell her everything. But…not yet.
If she were picking up on this mental debate, her expression didn’t show it. I didn’t think she was even capable of deception—her face was like a child’s, showing every emotion.
The phone inside the office rang, and she got up to answer it. “Hollings Hypnotherapy, how may I—” She stopped in midsentence. “Oh my God, when? Just a second. Mercy, it’s Hilda.” I’d already gotten to my feet. She extended the receiver to me.
“Hilda, what is it?”
“It’s Gus,” she replied. “He stole the Suburban. Estela left the keys in it when she got back from the grocery store, thinking we needed to rearrange cars, and he sneaked out while Tino was in with Teresa. Tino thinks—”
“He’s gone after Joaquin,” I finished. “Where’s Tino now?”
“He went looking for him. But Teresa’s afraid he’s going to be too late, and that Gus may know somewhere to look for Joaquin that Tino and the police haven’t thought about. Some of the uncles and cousins are talking about going after him, too, and Teresa’s got herself all worked up.” She paused for a breath, and I jumped in.
“Maybe the cops will stop him,” I said. “A fourteen-year-old kid behind the wheel should stick out, and he’s got to drive practically in front of city hall to get off the peninsula—there are always a lot of police coming in and out of there.”
“We’d have heard by now if that happened,” she said. “I’m not sure when he left, but he’s had plenty of time to get to Santa Ana, or wherever he thinks Joaquin is. Please, Mercy, can you come over here? Teresa wants to talk to you.”
Aw, crap. I’d thought that with my instructions to keep my special hypnosis techniques confidential, I’d put Tino’s family issues behind me this morning. “Yeah, okay. I’ll be right there.” I hung up. “Sukey—”
“I’ll reschedule your late morning appointments,” she said. “There’re only two. Will you be back after lunch?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll call you when I do.”
She was already dialing the phone. “I’ll come over to Hilda’s once I’ve reached the clients.”
That wasn’t necessary, but Sukey wasn’t the “sit and wait” type.
On my way to Hilda’s, I dialed Tino’s cell, but my call went straight to voice mail. I left my Honda at the curb and found Hilda’s front door slightly ajar. Tino’s relatives were back in the kitchen, and Estela was at her place in front of the stove. She turned toward me, and I could see the strain on her face. I shouldn’t have left the keys in the car. If something happens, it’ll be my fault.
I closed the door in my mind that I used when I didn’t want any telepathic interruptions. In this emotionally charged house, I would be overwhelmed by the babble.
“Hilda called me. Where is she?”
“In Teresa’s room,” Estela replied. “Down the hall on the left—the one facing the water.” I nodded and found my way to a room that mirrored the master suite situated on the other side of the U-shaped house. Teresa was sitting up in bed, supported by a mound of pillows, facing the door. Hilda sat in an armchair that had been pulled up near the bed.
“Ah, you have come,” said Teresa, holding out her hand. Her color was vastly better than it had been in the hospital. I took the extended hand awkwardly.
“Hilda said you wanted to talk to me. I’m not sure what I can do to help.”
She stared at me intently, then squeezed and released my hand. Some kind of look passed between her and Hilda, who stood up.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” As she left the room, I noticed that a large flower arrangement, dominated by three enormous sunflowers, sat on a pedestal next to the door.
“Sit.” Teresa indicated the chair Hilda had vacated, and I sat down but didn’t relax against the cushions. “I want to talk to you about my son. Both of my sons.”
I nodded, feeling the coil of unease tighten in my chest. “Tino is my friend. I don’t really know Gus.” I heard the defensiveness in my own tone and suppressed a wince.
“So Tino has told me. But there is something he has not told me about you—something more.”
Her gaze was relentless, and I resisted the urge to squirm.
“First, he brings you to my house, which is strange enough. Then, he takes you to a very important meeting of the gang leaders. I want to know why.”
I cleared my throat. “He thought my hypnotism skills might be useful.” It sounded like the lame excuse it was, but it was also, technically, the truth. Tino did think what I did was simple hypnosis, or at least he had before I’d suggested otherwise.
Teresa made a disparaging noise, waving one of those graceful hands. “Tino sees what he wants to see. He told me he took you along because you are persuasive. But Gus told me something else—something I have been thinking about.”
Hairs stood on the back of my neck. Was Gus aware he’d been pressed? “What’s that?”
“He said you made him obey you.”
I couldn’t think of a response, so I remained silent. Teresa continued to watch me.
“A little close to home, I think,” she commented after a pause. She nodded, then smiled at me. Her smile was more triumphant than warm, but she didn’t seem hostile. “To be honest, Mercy, he didn’t use those exact words. He said Tino was chasing him, and you told him to stop, and all of a sudden he didn’t feel like running anymore.”
“Maybe he was just out of breath.” I didn’t sound c
onvincing, even to myself.
“Maybe, but I don’t think so.” She glanced over at the sunflowers, and her expression softened. She took a deep breath and exhaled audibly, then leaned back against her pillows, relaxing. “Tino and Gus were born in this country, and so were both of their fathers. Not me.”
“No?” I was surprised. Her English was excellent—better than either of her sons’.
She shook her head. “No, my family is from Sinaloa. You know Mazatlán?”
I nodded, and she went on.
“Well, that’s on the coast. Most of the state of Sinaloa is in the interior—desert, even. But near the mountains, the Sierra Madres, there are ranchos, some of them very large. I grew up on one—not one of the really big ones, but my father was the dueño, the owner.”
I was surprised. Tino and Gus were so urban, and nothing Tino had said about his childhood pointed toward his mother being the daughter of a landowner. It explained her educated ways and proud, aristocratic bearing.
“How did you end up here?”
She shrugged. “Times changed. Farming changed. It had been getting more difficult, year by year. Then, a few seasons of drought in a row, and my father couldn’t pay he taxes. He had to sell. Some of the bigger ranchos survived, but the smaller ones could not. My father came to California, to start a new life for us.”
“How old were you?”
“Fifteen. I had my quinceañera in Culiacán, just before we left the country.” She smiled, remembering. “There was music and dancing, and we pretended, my father and I, that the young men who came were suitors, there to win the hand of the dueño’s daughter, as he had with my mother when she had her quince.” The smile faded. “But my mother was dead, and the rancho was gone. Papa was not a dueño anymore.”
I wondered why she was telling me this, but I was caught in the rhythm of her voice and could imagine a courtyard lit with twinkling lights, and a fifteen-year-old Teresa, holding out her hand to be led in a dance by a smiling young man.
“My father was an educated man, and not superstitious. But Xoatchil, the woman who cared for me after my mother died, she was Maya. Papa could not afford to bring her with us to America, and she was very worried about me going to live among gringos. So before we left Culiacán, she took me to see a bruja.”
I knew the word. “A witch?”
“More of a wise woman. Someone with the power to see the unseen, and to make amulets to protect against evil. Xotchi wanted to buy me such an object—a talismán.”
The power to see the unseen. I had a flash of Madame Minéshti, the woman who had recognized me for what I was. Remembering her face as she turned the Tarot cards, I shivered.
Teresa must have seen my reaction. “This makes you uncomfortable?”
“No,” I replied. “I just—I met someone like that once. I was remembering.”
She nodded. “Yes, well, I remember, too. We went to this little shop on a narrow street, and I was so exited, sneaking away with Xotchi, because my father would have disapproved. I thought it was an adventure.”
“I imagine it was.”
“Yes. And the inside of the shop was right out of my storybooks—dusty and full of boxes, baskets and bowls, herbs and roots hanging from the ceiling to dry. Cool, even though the sun was blazing outside. Spiderwebs everywhere. I could tell Xotchi was nervous, but I laughed at her. She was always so superstitious, and I thought she was old-fashioned and a little silly.” Her lips quirked ruefully. “I was young, and I knew everything. It is common at that age.”
I thought of Gus.
“Then the bruja came out and asked us what we wanted. Xocthi told her we had come for a talismán for me, and the bruja said that, in order to know what to put into the talismán, she needed to hold my hand.”
I was suddenly there in that room, with the smell of dusty herbs and the cool, damp air.
“I was starting to get nervous myself, but I was showing off a little, wanting to seem mature, sophisticated, you understand? Then the woman, she was called Tsuritsa, took my hand.”
“Is that a Mayan name?”
Teresa shook her head. “No, she wasn’t Mayan. Xotchi tried to speak to her in Yucatec, but she didn’t understand. She spoke Spanish with a strange accent. She looked at my hand for a long time, and I began to feel strange. Not afraid, exactly. It was just that she was so…still.”
I wasn’t sure I understood. “What do you mean?”
Before continuing, she gave me a look I couldn’t quite interpret. “Most people, they are always in motion. Even when sitting still, their hands move, or their feet.”
Teresa gestured as she spoke, illustrating the point. “When they try to be still on purpose, they move anyway. Their eyes move, and they blink. Even breathing causes movement. But not Tsuritsa, not once she took my hand. She was staring into my eyes, and it was if she had turned into stone. It went on for a long time.”
I could imagine the contrast between Teresa, always so animated, and the woman she described.
“Just before she finally spoke, I saw the life flow back into her face. The statue was gone and the bruja was back. She told me…” For the first time in her narrative, Teresa faltered, then continued. “She told me things she could not possibly have known. She refused to say anything about my future, but I could see the sadness on her face, and it frightened me. When she finally let go of my hand and started preparing the talismán, I couldn’t wait to get out of there. The only reason I stayed was because of Xotchi.”
Teresa looked at her hands, turning them over to see the palms, as if remembering what the bruja had told her. “From that day, I never saw that stillness in a person, not even in my sleeping children. Until—” She looked up at me, her expression sharpening. “Until a few days ago, when Tino brought you to my house. When you stood on the walk in front of my steps, watching and waiting for Tino to introduce you. For a moment I saw the bruja. Just for a moment, but long enough.”
“Me?” I blurted. “I was just—I don’t know. Waiting. I’m not…” I stopped, unsure how to defend myself. Or why I felt that I had to.
As a child of foster care, I’d learned how to be unobtrusive—to sit still and avoid unwanted attention. But surely not still in the way she meant. I mean, I blinked. Didn’t I?
“Just for a moment,” Teresa repeated. “I thought I had imagined it, but once I was watching for it, I saw the stillness again. Later, in the kitchen, when Tino was telling me about what was going on with Gus. As soon as I started asking you questions, you came out of it. But there was no mistake. You did it just now, while you listened to my story.”
“I don’t know what to say.” If this really was something I did, no one had commented on it before. Not even Sukey.
“You don’t have to say anything,” said Teresa. “Just know that I see something in you that Tino is too…too busy to notice. There is power in you. I came to understand that the bruja’s stillness had something to do with going inside to access the source of that power. Tino thinks you hypnotize people because that is easier to believe.”
“Well, I am a hypnotherapist—” I protested, but she cut me off.
“Yes, a very good one, I have no doubt. But I believe there is more to it than you say. You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. But if you have power—” Her voice took on a different, rawer tone. “If you have power, please, please, will you use it to help my sons?”
14
“He’s still not answering his cell phone,” said Hilda. “I think it’s turned off. Why would he do that?”
“He’s got to be in Santa Ana. If he’s looking for Gus, the first thing he’ll do is get some of the Hombres on it. Gordo or Jaime—one of those guys,” Jorge said. Or was it Javier? I’d been introduced to Teresa’s brother and cousin, but I didn’t remember which was which. Wasn’t Tino’s real first name Javier?
“I think we should go to Papi’s bar,” said a younger man, the twins’ father. Eddie, I remembered.
&nbs
p; “You’re not going anywhere,” objected Gloria, his wife. “You promised me—”
“I’ll go,” I said. “Papi may know something, or some of the Hombres may be there. And if not, it’s a good place to wait, in case Tino decides to answer his phone.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Javier/Jorge.
“No!” said a voice from the hallway, and we turned. Teresa stood there, her face white.
“What are you doing out of bed?” Hilda hurried to her side. “The doctor said two more days, at least.”
“I’ll go back to bed in a minute,” Teresa said, shaking off Hilda’s hand. “I heard you arguing. I don’t want you all running around Santa Ana, putting yourself in danger.”
“But—”
“No, Javier.” She held her head higher. The younger man—her little brother, I realized now—backed down. “You don’t know anything about guns or gangs or fighting. I know you want to help, but I’d just be worrying about you, too.”
“I’ll go,” said Eddie.
“You have twin babies,” Teresa said. “No, Mercy can go by herself.”
A cacophony of voices rose in protest, and Teresa raised her hand for silence. Everyone backed off except Eddie, who said, “A woman? You say we don’t know about guns and fighting—what does she know?”
“Mercy has other talents,” Teresa replied. “She’s helped Tino out before, and Gus. They’ll listen to her. She’s the right one to go.” She looked around at each face, her expression imperious, and I saw the daughter of the dueño, commanding the denizens of the rancho. I wasn’t surprised when everyone backed down.
“I think I got it working.” I turned to see Jorge, Teresa’s cousin, standing in the doorway that led to the garage. “There’s nothing going on right now.”
“Jorge found Stan’s old police band radio in the garage,” explained Hilda. “He liked to sit out there sometimes and listen to the emergency calls.”
