The Lemon Orchard

by Luanne Rice

  Jack hid a smile—she was just like the nuns he’d grown up with. They were focused and strict, and they didn’t let anyone give them guff, even the monsignor. The doctor walked away. Jack killed time by wandering over to an alcove where a bronze statue of a nun in an old-school floor-length habit stood. He read the sign:

  Catherine McAuley

  opened the first House of Mercy

  on Lower Baggot Street in Dublin, Ireland,

  on September 24, 1827,

  as a place to shelter, feed, and educate women and girls.

  On December 12, 1831,

  Catherine and two companions took their vows

  and became the first Sisters of Mercy.

  “Now,” the old nun said, “how may I help you?”

  “You’re Sisters of Mercy?”

  “That’s right. Are you here to visit a patient?”

  “Not a current patient,” he said.

  “Well, isn’t that a smart answer?” she said. She had pale blue eyes and a glare that could put the fear of God in anyone. She reminded him of Sister Michael Joanne, his high school principal.

  “Have you been on this floor long?” he asked.

  “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

  He laughed, feeling more at home by the minute. “You’re from Boston, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, and don’t think I don’t hear Dorchester in your own voice.”

  “The nuns at my school were Sisters of Notre Dame.”

  “A fine order.”

  “The reason I’m asking if you’ve been here long—”

  “Your charms might work on the good Sisters of Notre Dame,” she said. “But Sisters of Mercy are a little tougher. I’ve been here thirty-five years, long enough to know that whatever you’re selling we’re not buying.”

  “I’m not selling anything. I’m retired U.S. Border Patrol, and I’m following up on an old case. Trying to find a missing girl. She was transferred to this hospital from the Pais Grande clinic in May 2007.”

  “And you think I’m just going to look her up in the computer for you? Are you her father? No. Are you a family member? No. You do your job down at the border, and let us do ours here on the fourth floor.”

  “Here’s her picture,” Jack said, placing the photo of Rosa and her family on the desk.

  The nun leaned over to look, but didn’t pick it up. Her lips thinned.

  “And here’s the case number. She came in as a Jane Doe,” he said.

  The old nun slid both the picture and the slip of paper back to Jack. “You could be anyone,” she said. “I should call security right now. You have no business on the pediatrics floor.”

  “Sister, her family needs to know what happened to her.”

  “Then have them contact Medical Records. Unless they have proof she is their daughter, and that can be tough with a Jane Doe, they will need a court order and a DNA test.”

  “The father is undocumented. He and Rosa crossed from Mexico, and she got sick and lost in the desert. He can’t get a court order.”

  At that the nun paused. She reached for the photo again, and Jack saw her studying Rosa.

  “I just read about Catherine McAuley,” Jack said, pointing at the statue. “Your order was founded to help the poor. I see the map of Ireland on your face—just like you see it on mine. Our people knew poverty, just like the Mexicans know it now. Catherine McAuley tried to do something about it.”

  “Don’t go telling me about my own order,” she said. “And what’s a retired border agent doing trying to help undocumented Mexicans? You don’t hear that every day. Am I supposed to trust you just because you’ve got some Irish blood and went to Catholic school?”

  “No,” he said. “You’re supposed to trust me because you know the truth when you hear it.”

  She drew the case number closer and her fingers began clicking on the keypad. “No matter what I find, I can’t give out any information about the child without written permission from whoever is caring for her now.”

  “Understood,” he said.

  The sister frowned. She checked the number on the paper, and then reentered the sequence into her computer again.

  “What’s the problem?” Jack asked.

  “She doesn’t exist,” the nun said. “As far as our records go, we never had a Jane Doe with that case number sent to us by the medical center in Pais Grande.”

  “Your files go back to 2007?

  “They go back much further than that,” she said.

  Jack checked his watch: 3:15 p.m. It would take him an hour and a half to get back to Pais Grande, and no matter how late the clinic stayed open, he was pretty sure the shift would change at five. He thanked the nun and headed for the elevator and his car.

  Luckily, traffic was light. With temperatures above one hundred, people didn’t seem in a rush to head for the desert. He floored it to Route 8, took a left off the interstate at Gila Bend and headed south.

  Passing through the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range, he hoped they weren’t doing bombing exercises today. He crossed the line from Maricopa into Pima County. The Mexican border was less than twenty miles south. He couldn’t help scanning, knowing that migrants were walking nearby, and if he stopped to cut sign he’d probably find a group within minutes.

  He had seen Dodge Chargers on Route 8, known that the unmarked cars belonged to the Border Patrol. Now he passed a white and green SUV, same make and model as his, and raised a hand in greeting—the driver was Ralph Landers, a guy Jack had trained. It felt jarring but familiar to be back in his old territory, now on a completely different mission.

  The desert around him glowed in late-day light. The sand seemed to be a thousand different colors instead of the relentless brown it always appeared under the noon sun. The saguaros were casting long shadows again, just as they had at daybreak this morning, only now the sun was in the west.

  Narrowing, the road split and Jack took the fork heading for Pais Grande. He checked his watch—4:35. He gunned the engine and thought about going off road. He would save five minutes, but he heard a Predator B—an MQ-9 Reaper drone—overhead, and he didn’t need to show up on camera in his old command station. So he stayed the course.

  Barely ten minutes later he pulled into the parking lot beside the Pais Grande Medical Center. There were fewer cars than before, but an ambulance had backed into the emergency room bay. He hurried inside, found the waiting room full but no one at the desk. He’d missed Ronnie for the day; her nameplate had been replaced with one that said Delfina Guerra, RN.

  He stood still, then walked back outside, his heart racing. Ronnie had said everyone pitched in; whatever the emergency, Delfina must have been helping. He paced the entryway, waiting to ask Delfina about the mix-up. All he could figure was that the clinic had sent the records to another Tucson hospital.

  Glancing toward the parking lot, he saw a group of clinic staff heading toward their cars. Ronnie was among them. She spotted him right away but just kept walking—he couldn’t blame her. It was Saturday night, and she was probably in a hurry to get home.

  “Hey, Ronnie,” he said, approaching her just as she reached her Toyota Camry. The white car was old, covered with dust, typical of any vehicle that drove through the desert every day.

  “Oh, hi,” she said.

  “I have a couple of questions for you.”

  “I’m in a bit of a hurry,” she said, unlocking her car, throwing her purse inside. She climbed behind the wheel, clearly not in the mood to talk.

  “It won’t take long. My trip to Tucson didn’t go so well,” he said.

  “No?” she asked, starting the engine.

  “No, not at all.”

  “Delfina can help you,” she said. “A car crash victim just came in, and she’s busy with
that, but . . .”

  “Hey, you live in Mexico,” Jack said, noticing the SENTRI sticker on her windshield. It meant she had undergone a detailed background check and been preapproved as a low-risk traveler who could cross the border easily without inspection. The passes were given to workers who made daily, or at least frequent, trips from their homes in Mexico to work in the United States.

  “Yes,” she said. “Nurses are scarce everywhere, especially at a clinic like this. No one wants to work here.”

  “So you cross the border every day,” he said. “Well, you’re doing the work of the angels, that’s for sure.”

  “Gracias,” she said, giving a slight smile.

  “You cross at Nogales?”

  “Yes.”

  “Wow. I used to work that sector—I know a lot of the guys.”

  “I’d better go, my husband is waiting for his dinner.”

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Just one thing—that Jane Doe case file didn’t match up with the records at San Jacinto. Any chance you got the hospital wrong?”

  “We don’t make those kinds of mistakes,” she said. “Have Delfina check for you.”

  “Or maybe transposed the digits on the case number?”

  She tried to laugh. He picked up fear coming off her.

  “I’m not blaming you,” he said quickly. “It happens. I just—”

  He heard tires on gravel and saw Ralph’s SUV pulling into the lot. Ralph grinned, pointed, and rolled down his window.

  “You old dog,” he called. “I couldn’t let you sneak by without tracking you down to say hello. How the hell you doing, Jack?”

  Jack waved to let him know he’d be right there, then turned back to Ronnie. “Look, sorry to trouble you. I’ll go check with Delfina. Have a good night.” He started toward Ralph’s SUV.

  “Thank you,” she said sounding relieved. She snapped on her seat belt. “She’ll help you. When you find Rosa, let us know how she’s doing, okay?”

  The hair on the back of Jack’s neck stood up. He stopped walking and turned slowly toward Ronnie.

  “How do you know her name is Rosa?”

  “You must have said it,” she said. “This morning.”

  He stared at the worry lines in her forehead, at the sweat breaking out along her brow.

  “No, Ronnie,” he said. “I didn’t. I never said her name.”

  “You must have,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Otherwise, how would I know?”

  “Good question: how do you know?” Jack asked.

  Ronnie seemed to think about it. She looked up at the sky, hands gripping the steering wheel. She drew a deep breath. “I took her,” she said.

  Julia

  The ride had been long and hot, and she was glad she’d left Bonnie with Roberto’s father. As they passed Yuma and drove through the desert, he stared out the window around as if seeing it for the first time. Glancing over, she saw a shocked, numb look in his eyes. The brown landscape seemed endless. Raptors wheeled high overhead, hunting for prey.

  She had programmed Pais Grande into her GPS, and they were getting close to the exit. She had a nervous feeling in her stomach, and she wasn’t sure whether she was afraid of Border Patrol checkpoints or what they would or would not find at the clinic.

  She reached across the gearshift and held his hand. It was hot and sweaty; he wiped it on his jeans, then took her hand again.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “But it feels strange.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “We walked very near here.” He gestured south. “The rock is over there.”

  He didn’t have to say which rock.

  “Now I am in a car with you, moving fast,” he said. “It seems like a different life.”

  “It is,” she said.

  She kept her eyes on the road, but she felt him watching her. Why couldn’t it be a different life for both of them? She felt as if they were walking a fine edge, steeper than the coast path. The sky had been so blue, but the colors had changed to gold and lavender, and oncoming traffic had their headlights on. Some of the vehicles could be Border Patrol, but she knew they wouldn’t stop an old Volvo station wagon with Connecticut plates.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” she said.

  He squeezed her hand but said nothing.

  Lion’s words had been haunting her. She glanced over at him. “Have you ever tried to get papers?” she asked.

  “Be legal?” he asked.

  “Yes, get a green card.”

  “Of course that’s what I want,” he said. “But it’s very hard.”

  “There’s a way,” she said.

  “What is that way?”

  How strange it felt to be having this conversation as they sped along a road through the Sonoran Desert. Purple shadows fell across the road, and the sky glowed a gorgeous, unearthly rose.

  “We could get married,” she said.

  The silence was electric, and she felt blood rush to her face. He touched her arm, gestured for her to pull off the road. The tires bumped onto gravel as she drove onto the shoulder.

  “Amor,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice. “You don’t know me very long.”

  “But I know you well.”

  “Julia,” he said, “no one in my life has ever loved me like this. My family, yes, but that is different. Sometimes it’s too much to believe.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you could have anyone. You are beautiful, educated. I’m . . . not. Why do you want me?”

  “Because I love you.”

  He leaned across to put his arms around her, kiss her. He stroked her cheek and hair.

  “Te amo, Julia,” he said. “But I would never marry you for a green card. When we know it is right, I will be the one to ask you. I don’t want you to marry to ‘help’ me. Only to love me.”

  “I do,” she said.

  “Estas es mi vida,” he said. “My life and my heart.”

  She stared into his eyes for a long time, and then started driving again. She didn’t want the police to find them pulled over, think they had car trouble. He reached across to hold her hand, and she wanted him never to let go.

  Jack

  “She was in terrible shape.” Ronnie said. “She needed fluids, supervision, treatment of her wounds. And she’d been through major trauma—she’d never have gotten the right kind of care if I’d turned her in.”

  Jack had Ronnie sitting in the front seat of his SUV, and they were driving toward Nogales. It had been a challenge, getting Ralph to drive away without a good long jaw about the politics in Tuscon Sector and life after retirement.

  “Keep talking,” he said. “Tell me why you took her.”

  “Because I know what would have happened to her. I was the nurse assigned to her when she was admitted. If I had sent her to a Tucson hospital, she would have received critical care and then been released to a shelter to await deportation.”

  “Not always,” Jack said. “She might have been considered for a foster care program.”

  “How often does that happen? And even if it did, what kind of attention would she really get? She was so fragile.”

  “So you kept her out of the system.”

  “The system,” she said, shaking her head. “She was out of her mind, worried about her father. A little Mexican girl, not a word of English, traumatized beyond belief.”

  “I thought you said she was unconscious.”

  Sweat beaded on Ronnie’s forehead, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. She tried to catch her breath, but couldn’t. “You’re trying to trip me up!” she said. “You’re going to turn me in, and I’ll lose my job and my license.”

  “No, I�
��m not, Ronnie. This is just between us.”

  Her face was bright red—he was afraid she’d have a heart attack, and he was feeling pretty anxious himself. He exhaled deeply, waiting for her to calm down.

  “Trust me, okay?” he asked. “I told you—I’m here because of her father. That’s all.”

  “Her father,” Ronnie said. “My God, she loves him.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Well, that day—yes, she was unconscious. But she would come to, and cry for him. She begged us to look for him, but how could we?”

  “Exactly,” Jack said.

  “She was very sick, with such a high fever I wasn’t sure she’d live through the night.”

  “But she did.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then what?”

  “My middle sister, Bernarda, is a nurse in Ciudad Juárez. The hospital there is excellent. They know how to deal with desert injuries, but also, especially, psychological damage in children.”

  “That city is a war zone.”

  “That’s why they know how to treat children. I didn’t intend Rosa to live there—only stay there until she was well enough to be released.”

  “So you sent me on a wild-goose chase to San Jacinto.”

  “Yes,” Ronnie said. “I’m sorry, but I had to think, and make a plan. Rosa is very sensitive, and I didn’t want you to just . . .”

  “Rosa lives with you? She’s okay?”

  Now Ronnie smiled, ear to ear. “She’s wonderful. She lives with my youngest sister and her family, right around the corner. Marisol is a nurse too, and she has loved Rosa as if she were her own. We all have.”

  “Can I meet her?” Jack said.

  “I’ll take you to her right now,” Ronnie said.

  chapter twenty-one

  Rosa

  Outside, dogs ran in the street and barked. She was in fifth grade and got straight As. She shared a room with Lita, her sister who wasn’t really her sister. Their brothers Oscar and Gustavo, who weren’t really her brothers, had bunk beds in the room next door, and sometimes Rosa wished she and Lita had bunk beds too, instead of having to share a mattress.

  Lita was a teenager, a senior in high school determined to go to college, and it was bad enough she had to share her room with an eleven-year-old, much less share a mattress on the floor. Rosa thought Lita would like her better if they had a little space between them.