“You scared me,” she says, standing up.
“Shit, I’m sorry, are you okay?”
She stands with one hand in the air as if it’s wet, and when he reaches her side he sees she’s scratched her thigh against the bed’s metal frame. Her blood—so bright it looks like it could catch fire—sticks to her fingertips and has stained her thin white gown.
“I’ll get a nurse to bring you some bandages,” Andres says.
“It’s not a big deal. Just . . . knock next time.” She looks around the room, hands still suspended, for something to clean her wound.
“But the blood.” He feels like he has to do something. “Just push down on it, put some pressure . . . I’ll be right back.”
Now he is like the nurses and doctors, trying to mute his steps as he runs through the hall and back to the kitchen where Betty is clipping the stems of her roses.
“What happened?”
“It’s just a scratch, nothing to worry about. Can you help me bandage it up?”
They hurry back to her room and Andres sits in the corner armchair, nibbling his nails and trying not to stare as Betty pulls Elena’s gown up to her stomach, exposing her thighs and her yellow string-bikini panties. After she’s bandaged up, Elena runs her fingers over the gauze, gently tracing its path around her inner thigh. She stretches her leg out and points her toes, as if making sure everything still works. She takes her time covering herself back up, and when he sees her head rise, he quickly looks away, hoping he was quick enough to dodge her glance in his direction. He feels ashamed he didn’t look away sooner.
Betty, still kneeling on the floor, tucks her gauze and tape into a plastic box and leans into Elena, rubbing her knee. She eyes Andres suspiciously and turns back to her patient.
“Everything okay in here?”
“I’m fine, Betty.” Elena cuts her off and turns to face Andres, tucking her hair behind her ear. He nearly apologizes again for scaring her, but she looks so upset by the situation that he thinks it best to ignore it.
“Let’s go for a walk. We can do that, right?” He looks at Elena but catches Betty nodding behind her.
“Whatever,” Elena says. “It’s all the same to me.”
It’s early enough that the heat hasn’t settled in yet, and when they stand in the shade it’s so refreshing it’s almost chilly. Elena looks away from him, scratching at the bandage underneath her gown. “Don’t you have to be at work or something?”
“Do you want me to leave?” Andres asks.
She tilts her weight from one foot to the other, bobbing from side to side as she crosses her arms. “What do you suggest we do?” she finally asks.
“I just thought we’d talk. Catch up on lost time.”
At this, she chuckles. “Lost time is gone forever. Nobody ever catches up.”
Andres tries to stay cheerful, keep smiling, but this is not the same Elena from a few days ago. “Well, then we start over. Or we start from where we left off.”
“Where did we leave off?” she asks, though they both know the answer. There’s no point in avoiding it now.
“With a conversation we never had. That weekend at the beach, you told me you were fine with Marabela and me, but then you left without saying a word.”
“You could’ve asked me about it.”
“You could’ve protested. You had every right. I kept waiting for a fight from you.”
“Someone who doesn’t want to be with you is not worth fighting for.” She says this with so much conviction it’s like she’s rehearsed it, repeated it, many times before.
He’d never thought of it like that. He looks away and wonders what takes more courage: asking someone to stay or accepting that they shouldn’t need convincing. “You’re right, I see that now,” he says.
For a moment, Elena looks like she wants to say something, but then her cheeks relax and her eyes soften. “You’ve gotten better at apologizing. I like that.” She takes his hand and squeezes it at his side, a gesture so quick he almost doesn’t notice it.
They decide to walk around a bit, squinting and smiling at each other as the sun catches and melts away the tension. Andres studies the small wrinkles around Elena’s eyes, the way her skin looks thinner and almost translucent, revealing the pain that her face tries to hide. He wonders if it’s an aftereffect of her kidnapping or her time here at the facility, and if he should prepare for Marabela to look the same if—when—she comes home. There is so much he wants to ask Elena; he wishes she could lead him through her experience and say it all works out in the end, but he’s afraid of where his questions will take her.
“How do you like it here?” he asks.
She shrugs and twists the ends of her gown. “It’s nice. My parents say it’s the cleanest, quietest rehab center in the country, so I guess I can’t complain.”
“Have they visited often?”
“Just three times so far. They’ve come every Friday since I’ve been here. Maybe they need the weekend to recover from seeing me.”
“Or . . . maybe they look forward to visiting you so much, it gets them through a busy week.”
She gives a low, forced laugh—out of gratitude or disbelief, he can’t tell.
“How is your father, anyway? I don’t remember the last time I saw him.”
“At your father’s funeral, I think,” Elena says.
“Of course.” He feels so foolish. If he’d thought about it for half a second rather than trying to fill the silence, he would’ve remembered the funeral. Elena’s father had tried to say a few words in Rolando’s honor, but words had failed him. The men had been friends and business partners for longer than they’d known their own wives. The image of Saul’s hands, how they shook as he reached for a handkerchief to clear the sweat from his face, is one that still comes back to Andres in the most unexpected moments.
“But he’s still writing,” Elena adds, quickly changing the subject. “Everyone here knows to bring me the paper early in the morning. I think his pieces on the last elections and the Fujigolpe were his best yet.”
“They were very well argued. I imagined your mother beaming with pride as I read them.”
“Well, she is his biggest fan.”
“Yours, too, as I recall.”
“Yes. So you can imagine how hard this has all been on her.”
He puts his arm around her shoulders, and she takes a few quick steps forward until their legs are synched up—two pairs of right legs followed by two pairs of left. “Don’t worry about that right now. You know she’d want you focusing on yourself. On feeling better. Does it help? Being here?”
A long silence passes as Elena looks around, and her eyes stay on the horizon when she finally speaks. “I think so. I mean, it’s nice to not be the craziest person in the house for once. Here, everyone leaves me in peace. Being home just felt like I could never be alone. Everyone always kept an eye on me, like I was a bomb waiting to explode.”
“Were you?”
“Maybe. I am full of surprises lately.”
“That’s always been one of your best qualities.”
“You say that now,” she says, rubbing his hand and smiling longingly. “Because you remember who I used to be before. These are different types of surprises.”
“You can still be that person. You still are that person, even if you don’t see her. I can see her.”
“Because you bring it out in me,” she says. “Not every day is like this, you know. It’s not all walks around the yard.”
“You can leave anytime you want. Right?”
She nods. “My parents found this place, but I checked in voluntarily. I needed to get away.”
He looks around and finds it an odd choice of words. The grounds may be vast, but they’re still locked behind gates at the edges. “How long do you plan on staying?”
She shrugs as if the question is unimportant. “However long it takes till I feel safe out there again.”
He doesn’t understand. “How wi
ll you know unless you leave?”
“It’s not that simple. I just want to take it slow. Did you know today’s the first time I’ve been outside?” She looks up at the sky and wraps her arm around his. “Everyone else has a schedule. They have times when they come out and play cards or throw a ball around. I’ve just never felt like it. I prefer being left alone. Usually.”
They make their way to one of the gazebos and sit across from each other, holding hands over the table.
“I don’t like the thought of you being left alone,” Andres says.
She takes her hands away and crosses her arms. “Well, see, that’s over now. You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
“But I do.”
“I’m safe here.”
“That’s not what I mean. I know you’re safe, but you’re not free. You shouldn’t have to sacrifice one for the other.”
“My freedom isn’t like your freedom. It doesn’t exist in the same form. What good is discovering new places if all I can think about is how unknown it feels, how threatening every stranger looks? Sometimes, I can’t even remember what my kidnappers’ faces look like, and I end up seeing them in everyone who looks unfamiliar. And then other times, all I have to do is fall asleep, and there they are.”
“I know it’s hard, but with time—”
“Time is torture, Andres. People say time heals all wounds, but it’s because they don’t know what it’s like for time to have created those wounds. I still go there sometimes. It’s like a dark place inside of me that never leaves. I know that might sound crazy, but, well—” She shrugs and gestures at her surroundings. She’s always been the type to joke her way out of discomfort, and Andres laughs. Just this once, he thinks. I’ll give her this one.
Elena covers her mouth with both hands and gasps. “I can’t believe I haven’t even asked you about the kids. And Marabela. Tell me, how is everyone doing?”
He smiles, knowing he can’t possibly tell her the truth and risk bringing her more of the fear she’s trying so hard to outrun. “They’re fine. We’re all fine,” he says.
She seems satisfied with this and turns her attention to his jacket pocket, its bulk giving away where Andres hid the book. “What did you bring this time?”
“It’s nothing. It’s silly.”
“Tell me. I won’t laugh, I promise.”
It’s the last book Elena read to him when they were young, maybe six months before they started college, but suddenly it feels terribly inappropriate for the situation. He knows Elena won’t let this go, so he pulls out his copy of Pride and Prejudice and runs his fingers along its spine. The book is so old parts of the cover are peeling, despite his best efforts to hold it together with tape. Quickly, before she can look at it too long, he slips it back into his pocket.
“I finished it many times. I know how much you loved it.”
“I see that,” Elena says. “Maybe you can read it to me this time.”
A breeze kicks in, so he gives Elena his jacket. The first thing she does is reach for the book.
“Go on. Please?” she says.
He takes a long look at her and she urges him on with a smile. So he starts. “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife . . .”
Night comes after an uneventful day. At dinnertime, Andres decides it’s as good a time as any to resume some semblance of a routine. He tells Consuelo the family will be dining together, not in fragments like the past several nights. All seems to go well until Carla sets a plate where Marabela would normally sit. When Andres and the kids take their seats, the emptiness stares back at them.
He calls into the kitchen, where Carla and Consuelo have sat down to eat with Guillermo, who arrived a few hours ago in anticipation of tonight’s call. “Carla! It’s just going to be the three of us eating tonight,” he says.
The poor girl apologizes at least six times in the few seconds it takes to pick up the place mat, silverware, and plate and take them back into the kitchen.
Ignacio slouches over his soup and keeps his voice down as he turns to his father. “We don’t have to pretend she’s dead, you know.”
“Not right now,” Andres says, keeping an eye on Cynthia. His daughter may be young but she’s more perceptive than he expected. All day she’s been asking for her mother, asking when she’ll be back, where she is, asking for specific answers like Tomorrow? Or Monday? Or Will she be home for dinner?
Without her mother, Cynthia wanders around the house listlessly, trying to find ways to entertain herself. Seeing her today only made Andres angrier with Marabela. It’s not her fault that she’s gone, but he couldn’t help thinking of the time when it was her decision to disappear. He realizes he’s never forgiven her for that absence. Marabela made a choice to go, knowing that the kids would miss her as they do now. She left without so much as an explanation, leaving Andres to make excuses for her.
In some ways this kidnapping is not all that different from Marabela’s sojourn four months ago, and when the similarities overlap, Andres can’t help but feel like he’s back there again. He blames her and then he blames himself. He waits for a call that he knows may never come.
“You okay, little one?” Andres asks. “You haven’t taken a single bite.”
Cynthia rests her head on the table and closes her eyes. Her arms and face are warm, and when Andres feels her wrist for her heartbeat, checking like Marabela always did for a pulse quickened by fever, it pushes against his fingers so fast it seems it might burst. He shouts for Consuelo to bring the thermometer and a blanket. The yellow mercury rises, stopping at 104°F. It leaves him motionless, struggling with what to do next, but Consuelo is quick to act. She gathers her purse and a bag stuffed with Cynthia’s nightgown and favorite dolls. She hands it to Andres and tells him they need to go to the hospital.
“But the phone—”
“I can take her,” Ignacio says.
“No. You stay here. In case of anything,” Andres says.
“I’ll help him through it. You go,” Guillermo says. “Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. It could be dangerous for her to have a fever this high.” Though he knows it’s nearly impossible, he thinks back to last year’s cholera outbreak, how the entire country panicked, afraid to drink the water or eat any seafood. He turns to give Ignacio a kiss on the forehead. “I’ll call you once we know more, or if we have to stay overnight. Listen to everything Guillermo tells you, got it?” Andres hands his son the keys to his mother’s darkroom. “I’ll call you as soon as we get there,” he says over his shoulder. He fumbles with Cynthia’s buckle in the backseat until Consuelo offers to do it. They start backing out of the garage but stop as Ignacio bangs on the window.
“Are you sure they’ll call tonight?”
Through the windshield and in the review mirror, all Andres can see are the house and Cynthia, one superimposed over the other. He can’t find the words to answer his son; it feels like he’s being forced to choose between two immeasurable risks. Seconds pass, until finally Andres says the only thing that comes to him:
“Pray that they don’t.”
“Okay. I’ll take care of it,” Ignacio says. Guillermo stands behind and casts a worried glance over Andres’s shoulder to Cynthia in the backseat.
“Write down everything. Tell them you need to speak to your mother first. Tell them we need more time, but we’re getting closer. Then call me, as soon as you hang up. Got it?”
Ignacio nods, his lips moving as if he’s repeating his father’s words and trying to commit them to memory. When Andres reaches the end of the driveway and straightens the car onto the street, he can still see his son at the top of the driveway, waving and nodding and shrinking as the distance stretches out between them.
DAY 11
The nurse at the hospital is a short, round woman with tired eyes and a lively voice. Andres sits on a plastic chair next to Cynthia’s bed and watches the w
oman’s deliberate movements. Without saying a word, the nurse hooks her up to a boxy contraption, slips a thermometer into Cynthia’s mouth, studies it, and pushes a few green and gray buttons.
“What’s that for?” Andres asks.
The nurse holds up one finger but still says nothing. Andres scowls. The stethoscope around her neck hangs over part of her name tag, leaving only the letters “Mar” exposed.
“Maria.”
“Marta,” she says.
“Is my daughter going to be all right?” Though she’s asleep now, Cynthia vomited in the hospital parking lot as soon as they arrived. Only when the doctors asked did she admit she hasn’t been able to keep her food down since she got home from school.
“Her fever has barely gone down a degree. We’ll have to monitor it and make sure she stays hydrated. But don’t worry, she’s in good hands.”
Marta walks out of the room, leaving the door open and letting the light in. Cynthia is in such deep sleep that she won’t be bothered.
Andres wonders what Marabela would do if she were here now. She liked to braid Cynthia’s hair while she slept in the afternoons, into tiny ropes that unraveled at the ends, because Cynthia’s hair is so thin. When Cynthia sleeps, she’s usually so still that it looks like the life has gone out of her. Sometimes, Andres feels the urge to check and make sure she’s breathing.
Now, she stirs in her sleep, and every once in a while a moan escapes from her throat. Andres doesn’t know whether to wake her or let her sleep through the pain.
“Your coffee, señor.” Consuelo stands at the doorway holding two cups in her hands, the vapor floating out of them.
“Thank you.”
“How is she?” Consuelo whispers.
“They don’t know yet.”
She nods and takes a seat against the wall behind Andres.
“I don’t know why this is taking so long,” he says, looking at his watch. It’s already a quarter to two. He feels exhausted but wide awake, the worst kind of contradiction. His body begs for rest while his mind refuses to relinquish even a moment of alertness. When he closes his eyes, the world fades away except for the sound of Cynthia’s labored breathing. With her hand in his, he feels the muscles in her fingers spasm as small jolts of sleep rush through her. There’s almost a rhythm to it—two quick flicks of the wrist, followed by a tap of the finger—and he tries to let the predictability of it soothe him.
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