When I Knew You

by Desireé Prosapio

  The piles of documents, articles, photos, and notes reminded me of a scene from a movie I'd seen, where a woman discovers her husband's study filled with wildly scribbled notes and newspaper clippings on every wall. Strings of yarn made a web through the air where the man's delusions were making links where none existed. I wondered if a skein of yarn would come in handy at this point.

  I rubbed at my eyes and looked again. Nothing. There was nothing, absolutely nothing in the last envelope I could use to make sense of any of it. I pushed the pile of papers and articles aside and a flash of silver caught my eye. The locket.

  I placed the tarnished locket in my palm, opening it to look at the photos in the heart shaped metal. The photos looked more like old fashioned drawings than photos, a handsome laughing dark haired man, and a woman with fair hair and arresting light-colored eyes. The strands of hair were tied together with blue thread, faded and thin. Who were these people? Why did my mother save this locket?

  I closed the locket, then undid the necklace clasp and placed it around my neck. The chain was long, and I held the locket in my hand for a moment, closing my eyes. I could see my mother in my mind, dropping the locket in the final envelope and delivering it to the church. She would have been relieved, then, driving home from San Elizario, satisfied that she had hidden the evidence. Did she see the truck come barreling out of the intersection towards her? Did she realize at the last minute that hiding the evidence of whatever it was she'd discovered wasn't enough?

  I thought of my accident back in the Hill Country. Was it really an accident? A cruel twist of fate? I let the locket fall between my breasts and touched my face. It was still sore, although the bruises had faded. I certainly hadn't seen them coming.

  Hot tears ran down my face, and I rubbed them away gingerly. Stop it, Kati. You don't get to cry right now. Think. Think.

  What was Bonita so afraid of that he'd go after my mother?

  I pushed away the articles and rested my head on the table when the silence was shattered by the shrill ring of my cell phone. My heart started to slam against my ribs as I answered the phone.

  "Hello?" The word sounded more like a plea than a greeting.

  "Kati. It's Gustav."

  "Calderon?" I was thrown off, expecting to hear from Eliah. "I'm so relieved to hear from you. I have to talk to you, it's about Antonia—"

  "Right. Yes," he said, interrupting. "It is imperative that we all meet right away, Katarina. I have someone you have to meet. Do you have a pen? Write down this address." He rattled off an address and I jotted it down on a corner of one of the envelopes, my scrawl a marked difference from my mother's precise script.

  "Got it." I wiped away the tears from my cheeks.

  "Meet us in an hour?"

  "All right, but who are we meeting?"

  His voice was upbeat. "A friend. A key, perhaps. Katrina, you and your mother will be relieved to meet these folks."

  "My mother, Gustav, I need to tell you..." I began. But he had already disconnected.

  I packed up my notes, careful not to leave anything behind. I slipped the locket inside my shirt, hidden from view. I could only hope Gustav would have uncovered answers that could help me find Antonia. I walked out of the library briskly, scanning the street, not knowing what I should be looking for. My shoulder blades itched as if a target was dancing between them.

  Chapter 20

  Horses ran along the fence line as I drove down the final turn to meet Gustav and the friend he mentioned. One horse was tall and inky black with a wavy mane; the other was the color of a new penny with a short mane but flowing tail. The black one skidded to a stop abruptly while the copper horse continued to the end of the fence, turning with ease and gradually slowing down to a trot. I wondered if they knew what they were running from.

  The house sat at the end of a circle drive, an abnormally large garage on one side. The yard was done in white rocks, a few cacti, and a large juniper tree. A gray sedan with a Florida plate was in the driveway, but the street was otherwise deserted. Maybe everyone was at work or school or they parked in their garages, sheltering their cars from the relentless desert sun.

  I opted to park in the street and shouldered my backpack, wondering how to tell Gustav about Antonia, hoping he could help me find her. The door was tucked inside an alcove, the adobe archway providing some shade on a small front patio. When the door swung open I felt the rush of cool air, and goose bumps immediately rose on my arms.

  "Come in Kati, come in," Gustav said. He rushed me in, then looked over my shoulder. "Where's Antonia?"

  "That's what I tried to tell you on the phone." I swallowed hard. "She's missing."

  His eyes grew wide and his hand flew to his mouth. "No. No."

  I closed my eyes and nodded. I felt his hand on my shoulder. "Tell me what happened."

  We walked into a living room with a soaring ceiling. A stunning painting of the Franklins in sunset dominated one wall with low slung couches were arranged in a semi-circle. I looked around for the others.

  Gustav saw my confusion. "They are in another room, freshening up." He gestured to the couch and sat down opposite me. "Tell me what happened to Antonia."

  I told him about the university, about her slipping away while I talked to Theresa, the graduate student. He nodded slowly, looking as if he was examining each and every word. This time I didn't leave anything out; telling him about Theresa and why we were there.

  When I was done, he leaned back.

  "She did it on purpose." He sighed. "She slipped away to protect you, Kati. It's the only explanation."

  I thought of her change in demeanor. Her damned insistence on leaving right at that moment, when it was only going to take minutes to talk to Theresa. What the hell was she thinking?

  "Seriously, Gustav? Why would she think she was protecting me? I've been protecting her since I was a kid." I swallowed my anger and took a deep breath. A cleansing breath. Being angry wasn't going to help.

  "Kati," he said, "trust me, that's what she was doing."

  "I don't know, Gustav. She'd been losing bits of memory all morning. I can't believe she could have done something like that. And how could leaving protect me?" I shook my head.

  "Well, whatever her reason, we have to find her," he said, taking my hands in his. "We will find her."

  But his smile was pained. I knew he shared my fears.

  "Excuse us." A voice rose from behind us.

  Gustav rose, his manner once again stately. "Hello, Lupe. Kati, this is Lupe and her daughter, Irena. They came from Chicago this morning," he said. "I apologize Lupe, Kati and I were discussing Antonia. She was... detained." He smiled warmly. "Please join us on the couch. This is Kati, Antonia's daughter. She's the one I told you about."

  Lupe was a woman about the same age as Antonia, heavier, but about the same height. Her dark hair was pulled back into a bun, and her face looked drawn, the bags under her eyes were dark. At her side was Irena, clearly her daughter, but with startling green eyes that contrasted with her mother's dark ones. I thought of the photo in the locket, the woman with the light eyes.

  Lupe sat across from me as her daughter, Irena, walked over to the painting, seemingly disinterested.

  "Have you found out anything about my father?" Lupe asked.

  "Your father?" I looked over to Gustav for guidance, but he looked encouragingly at Lupe.

  "Yes. My father. Antonia was looking for him, she called a few weeks ago and left me a message. I couldn't reach her, so I contacted Gustav." She looked at me earnestly and I shifted uncomfortably.

  "I'm sorry. When I spoke to my mother she had lost her memory again. I've been trying to piece together the story ever since." I reached down for my backpack, unzipped it and pulled out the envelopes, and placed them on the coffee table between us.

  "This is a ridiculous waste of time, Mama." Irena's voice was sharp, her back still to us. "I can't believe we flew all this way."

  "Irena. Please." Lupe's voice was
soft but stern. "Deja lo." Lupe reached out for the envelopes.

  "These are all the notes my mother hid away," I said. "But can you tell me why you came to her in the first place?"

  Lupe sighed. "It's a long story. But it's best told by my mother." She turned to her daughter. "Irena, bring your interview of grandma."

  Irena stiffened, then walked out of the room, returning with her bag. She pulled out an iPad and sat next to me. Her fingers tapped the screen deftly and she spoke without looking at me, busy launching her app.

  "When I was in high school I interviewed my grandmother. I've lived most of my life hearing about the mystery of my grandfather, supposedly Javier Bonita. So for a school project I interviewed her."

  The screen lit up with the face of an older woman. She appeared to be sitting in a chair and was fussing with her colorful blouse, blue flowers bright on a beige background. Her hair was shot through with gray, curls swept back up a black headband. Off camera, a voice drifted in, somewhat muted. It sounded like Irena.

  "You look fine, Grandma."

  The woman on screen looked up, her dark eyes bright behind her glasses, a wide smile on her face. She was sitting in front of a pale yellow curtain, the outline of a bright window backlighting her so completely she was nearly a shadow figure. A light off screen flicked on, and her face was clearer. The crows feet around her eyes were more evident, a tiny square bit of light shone on each lens of her glasses.

  "Who's going to see this, mija?" Her voice had that wonderful lilt I knew so well, reminding me of cinnamon hot chocolate and empanadas.

  "Probably my teacher, maybe the kids at school."

  Grandma nodded.

  Irena spoke again. "Say and spell your name."

  The old woman smirked on the screen. "Aye, you know my name, mija."

  "I have to follow the rules, Grandma."

  "Ah," she said, nodding solemnly. "My name is Estella Bonita." Estella spelled both names.

  "How old are you?"

  Estella laughed. "I'm old enough to know better than to answer that one."

  "Grandma." Elena's voice had a hint of a whine.

  Estella waved her hand. "Okay, okay. I'm fifty."

  "Grandma!"

  "Fine, Mija. 56." She leaned in, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. "Are you sure this is recording? I don't see a little red light."

  "It's recording, Grandma." The screen shifted to the right until Estella was a bit more centered in the frame. "There. I like that better. Okay then, let's start. Tell me about Grandpa."

  Estella's eyes sparkled. "Javier was the most handsome man I'd ever met. His smile is what you noticed first. He made you smile when he smiled, beautiful full lips. He had thick hair, dark and wavy and he wore it longer than most of the boys. But his eyes. Ay, dios mio, that's what really got me. Most of the time they were green, but sometimes they looked like they were a bright shiny copper. Like a penny—"

  "Wait," I said. "Can you stop it for a second?"

  Irena paused the playback.

  I thought of the descriptions I'd read about Javier Bonita in the news stories I'd read at the library. The magazine story I'd found described a short-haired man with gray eyes that had an almost permanent squint and a thin lipped scowl. "That doesn't sound like Javier Bonita."

  "Exactly." Lupe agreed. "That's because Javier Bonita is not who he says he is."

  I sorted through the papers on the coffee table, looking for the article. I dug out what was supposed to be a photo of a younger Javier Bonita, taken when he was in his forties. Supposedly he was something of a recluse, so photos were scarce. He had a flat look to his face, thin lipped, his skin looked leathery. His eyes were a bluish gray.

  I handed it to Lupe. She studied at it for a moment, then dug through her purse. She handed me a print of an old black and white photo.

  I recognized a younger Estella and at her side was a man who looked just as she described in the video, his lips fuller, his hair wavy and dark. His eyes were so light they looked gray in the photo.

  "Javier looked like his mother," Lupe said. "The woman in the locket. Her name was Magda, and she had the very same color eyes, but her hair was more blonde."

  "Isn't it possible that there is more than one person named Javier Bonita?" I asked. "It's not that uncommon of a name."

  "But there was only one Javier Bonita who was supposed to be deeded property in Texas. And that was my father." Lupe turned to Irena. "Can you forward to that part?"

  Irena adjusted the slider on the interview. Estella on the screen looked dramatically different. Her glasses were off and her eyes were rimmed with red. She was frozen in place, dabbing a tissue to her eyes. Irena hit play.

  Off screen Irena's voice sounded concerned. "We don't have to talk about it, Grandma."

  Estella crumpled the tissue, tucking it away somewhere out of site, then took a deep breath and straightened, putting her glasses back on. "No, Mija. I want you to have this story because someday you'll want to tell your children. This story is your story too, you know."

  "I know, Grandma." Irena's voice was low.

  "So like I was saying, your grandpa got a letter from Mr. Davis. Everyone knew that Javier was his illegitimate son, but back in those days people didn't talk about things like that. Mr. Davis was the Patrón. El Patrón. And he was good to his people, they say, so they let it go. When Javier came to Chicago and we met, I didn't care about any of that. But he did. Deep inside." She put her hand to her heart.

  "When he got that letter he was so excited." Estella's voice cracked. "I told him not to go. That I didn't care about the land, I didn't want to live in Texas. It's too damn hot. Lupe, your mom, she was little and we were getting started with our own lives. We were about to move out of my parent's house, about to get an apartment on the North Side of Chicago. What did we need with some ranch in the middle of nowhere in Texas? We were doing fine."

  Estella looked away, gazing at something off screen. Tears began to flow; she didn't bother to dab them.

  "It wasn't enough for Javier," she said, her voice trembling. "It wasn't just the land, you know. For him, it was about his father finally acknowledging him as his son. Javier said Davis had married his mother some years before but had never admitted to being his father." She closed her eyes. "Pride. That is what killed him. His stupid pride."

  She sniffed, then looked back up to the camera. "So he left. He took the bus. I got three letters from him. Then nothing." She swallowed. "Nothing. I sent letters, tried calling some people, but no one knew where he was. It was like he had disappeared into the desert. He never came back to me." She raised her hand to her face. "He never came back."

  Irena reached over and stopped the playback.

  We were all silent.

  "Irena started filming this when my mother was diagnosed with cancer," Lupe said quietly. "She was dead in just a few months." She straightened her shoulders and blinked away fresh tears. "And here's why Irena thinks I'm wasting your time, Kati. Your time and your mother's. Our family suspected that Javier had abandoned my mother and me. That he found another woman in Texas. Our family hired a detective to find out. This man."

  She pulled out a card and handed it to me. It was yellowed with age, plain with a name and an El Paso address for William Alacon—Willie's father, apparently.

  "And he said it was true, mom," Irena said, closing her iPad and shoving it roughly inside her bag. "He said he found him and he was living with some other woman."

  Lupe raised a finger in protest, and I had the feeling they'd had this argument many times.

  "Except he didn't have a very good photo, only a black and white, and a name. Sometimes I think my grandfather never wanted Javier found." Lupe leaned toward me. "But then I started to wonder. What if the man the detective found wasn't Javier?"

  "Wait, wouldn't Estella have recognized him, or known it wasn't him?" I asked.

  Lupe and Irena looked to Gustav, who had remained silent all this time.

&
nbsp; "The family told her Javier had died," he said. "They were afraid she'd be devastated if she found out he had left her for another woman, that perhaps had never loved her. They felt this was a kindness."

  "I found the report from the detective when I was clearing out family papers after my mother died." Lupe said, waving Irena over. Irene brought her a large leather purse. Lupe pulled a manila folder out and handed it to me.

  "My mother must have suspected something all those years. Because she asked me, before she died, to find out the truth. Then I came across an article about a young Texas politician, Trent Bonita. I dug a little more, since he had the same last name as ours, figuring he must be a distant relative.

  "The article said Trent was a rising star, he was the darling of the political machine in the state. Then I read his father was Javier Bonita, who owned some big ranch. That's when I contacted Antonia, to try to research if the land was what my great grandfather had supposedly deeded to our family."

  I flipped through the contents. There was a report from Detective Alacon, old color photos of a young Estella and Javier, along with a more recent article about Trent Bonita, which had an inset of a dated photo of his reclusive father as the young land baron, Javier Bonita. I pointed to the weathered face in the article, his eyes narrowed as he squinted into the sun.

  "If this Javier Bonita is not who he says he is, then who is he?"

  "That appears to be a very dangerous question, Kati," Gustav said.

  Lupe nodded. "And it's the same one Antonia asked."