“You’re quitting?”
“Retiring, Andres. There’s a difference. Maybe I’ll turn my attention somewhere I’m actually needed. Like a garden or a wood shop or . . . I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to give it much thought.”
Somehow, Andres can’t picture Guillermo on his knees with his hands in the dirt. “A nice, quiet life. I can see why a man in your profession would miss that.”
“Quiet is just a lack of noise. What I really miss is the trust. Working in kidnappings makes you cynical. You don’t take anything for what it is. You’re always looking for hidden motives and traps.”
“That’s what makes you good at what you do, though.”
He chuckles to himself. “It’s what makes me bad at living my life.”
Andres sits back in his chair and lets out a long breath. He’s just now realizing that for all the plans and wishes he made for Marabela to come home, he’d never bothered to picture life beyond that. Everything has been defined by this crisis, and he’s not sure he’s capable of handling it without Guillermo. He tries to think of ways to ask him to stay, at least until life feels safe again, when they hear a scratching sound coming from the backyard. Without hesitating, Andres leaps up from his chair and runs outside, but the lawn is empty, and the sound is coming from the opposite side of the thick stucco wall that divides his property from his neighbor’s. To look over the wall, he needs a ladder or something tall to stand on. He takes a stool from the patio. It wobbles as he steps onto it, and Guillermo rushes over to hold it steady with both hands.
The scratching continues. Each second that passes it gets more intense and desperate. Andres tries to hurry, but he has to be careful not to cut himself on the barbed wire along the top of the wall. He pulls himself up and looks down. It’s just the neighbor’s dog, trying to escape. The dog starts barking at him, his whole body shaking.
Disappointed, Guillermo and Andres go back to the kitchen and wait again. After an hour, Andres makes his way to the living room and Guillermo to the dining room. Both are restless. Guillermo starts reading yesterday’s newspaper, stretching its pages across the table. All Andres can do is sit on the couch and pick at the stitches in the cushions. He stares at the ceiling, chasing the translucent shapes that float, like amoebas and worms, across his sight. Every few minutes, he hears a car approaching the house, and each time he sits up and looks out the window only to see it pass by.
He’s just about to go back to the kitchen for another cup of coffee he doesn’t plan on drinking when he hears the faint click of the metal gate. Ever since he dropped the children off at his mother’s, the gate has remained unlocked. He’d rather risk intruders than lock Marabela out. The gate swings open with a high pitch. Andres runs out the door.
Seeing her, his hope gets flung around inside him, unsure whether to be grateful or deflated. Her steps carry their usual rhythm but lack strength. She wears a silk blouse and a pair of dark pleated pants—the same outfit she was wearing the last morning he saw her—but the clothing has aged like she has. The fabric hangs loose like a bunched-up curtain as she stumbles down the pavement. Andres runs to meet her, helps her walk down the path. When their bodies touch she flinches.
“It’s just me, Mari,” he says.
For a moment, she looks at him with terror and confusion, her eyes squinting under the dull sky. Then he sees the recognition sinking in and relief spreads across her face from her forehead to her neck; it gives out and her head falls forward, shaking side to side in disbelief. Andres tries holding her, whispering and repeating, “You’re home, you’re here, it’s all over,” but his words fall weak and far beyond her reach. She’s somewhere else. Her body came home before her senses did. With one arm wrapped around her waist and the other stretched out so she can press down on it, they walk down the long pavement to their home. It is one in the afternoon, and already the sun has slipped past the clouds, turning everything gray. He sees Guillermo watching them through the window, but by the time they enter, they’re alone.
“Mari . . .” All he can seem to say is her name, all he can seem to do is marvel at her—her hands that he holds in his, her eyes so flooded with tears, he can barely look into them, and the very stiffness of every muscle in her body. It is both the most beautiful thing and the most terrifying thing he’s ever seen. Her pain is so self-contained, it makes her brittle against his touch. Every inch of her is hard as bones, but when she leans into him, her elbows pierce at his side and her body feels like it could crumble.
Inside, Andres leads her to the couch, the same one she asked him over and over again never to sit on, so that she can rest. He puts his hand on her shoulder and stares at her. It is an awkward moment, full of pain intensified by a longing to hold her, coupled with a certainty that this is the exact wrong thing to do. He’d imagined this moment as a happy one, a celebration of survival. How foolish, he realizes, to think they ever shared two sides of the same experience.
They sit next to each other like strangers, fully aware of the significance of this reunion but hesitant to intrude on each other’s space. Finally Andres puts his hand behind Marabela’s head and pulls her close. She doesn’t resist but she doesn’t contribute in any way to the forward momentum of her head onto his shoulder. Her movements are stilted, like images in a flip-book. Even when she’s breathing on his neck, he doesn’t yet feel her weight rest against him.
“You’re home now,” he tells her. “It’s over. You’re safe here.”
A gust of warm breath explodes against his neck, and as she nods and begins shaking violently, digging herself into him, Andres feels her tears burn against his skin, and he is happy to receive them, happy to feel their moisture sink into his clothes—until he realizes what he missed most about her is that she once needed him, and now she needs him in a way he never wanted.
PART TWO
Days 17 and On
8
IT’S AS IF the house has aged without her—still recognizable, but different. It smells slightly of lemon—maybe from a new cleaning product the girls tried in her absence. Everything looks smaller and farther away, as if items recede from her at the very moment she’s stepping toward them. The house is just a space, full of furniture and things that used to be hers, but she doesn’t feel like she belongs to them or to the life they hint at.
There was a time when this home was her domain. Sometimes she felt proud of it, sometimes she felt tied to it, but whether it was a burden or a blessing, it was hers to keep. She’d known better than anyone what this house needed; lately it’d become one of the few aspects of her life she could control. There is no corner, no ridge along the steps or crack along the wall, that she doesn’t know like her own body. The house may never have been the sanctuary she’d always dreamed of, but at least it carried no surprises. It was comfortable. Now all that has changed.
After a few glances around the living room, Marabela feels like curling into bed and sleeping the past few weeks away. In the dark room where she was kept, she used to lament that time was being stolen from her, but she no longer wants that time back. She’d happily let it go on without her if it meant she could be spared these strange, disconcerting moments. Andres holds her in an embrace she can’t get out of. When she cries, his grip becomes tighter—a vicious cycle of misunderstanding.
“We kept everything the same for you,” he finally says.
He starts to say something else about what it was like when they’d have dinner without her, but Marabela hardly hears him. “The kids. Where are they? Are they safe?” Her voice is dry and hoarse, harsh against the inside of her throat.
“The kids will be here soon. They’re with my mother. I wanted the house to be calm and quiet for you.”
Marabela sits up. Her hair sticks to the moisture on her face, the tendrils light as spiderwebs. She pushes them aside and ends up scratching her cheek. It burns, and when she pats the skin with her fingertips she can already feel it reddening, rising.
“When will
they be here?” She feels impatient for their warm bodies. Even the thought of Lorena bringing them home, filling in for her in her absence, gets buried beneath this longing.
“They’re already on their way. They won’t be more than twenty minutes. You must be hungry,” Andres says, covering her with a blanket. “I brought some soup for you, and some causa.”
Soft food for this soft body, Marabela thinks, but she only shakes off his offer with a thin smile. “I’d rather wait for them.” She stands up and tries to walk to the window, but her whole body begs for rest. The sudden rush of adrenaline from just a few moments ago has died down, and her eyelids feel like they might fall to the ground, taking her head with them.
“You should rest. I’ll let you know as soon as they’re here,” Andres says.
They don’t bother trying to climb the stairs together. She lays back down on the couch, and the home she so longed for starts to fade from her vision, taken over by a darkness she thought she’d escaped.
When she wakes up she hears whispers coming from the kitchen. The door is open, and she scoots up the couch to get a better look inside. All she sees is half of a man—a leg, an elbow, and a neck, too thick and strong to belong to Andres. Marabela walks slowly to the kitchen, careful to keep her steps light. Even though she knows she’s free, trying to be invisible is a hard habit to break. Instinctively, she guards this little liberty of being able to stand and move as she pleases, hoping that no one will notice and try to take it away from her. When she reaches the threshold, she has to lean on it for balance.
The two men don’t notice her at first.
“I’m sorry,” the stranger says. “But this isn’t how I normally work. I’m happy to recommend colleagues to you, people with years of experience. I’m no bodyguard, Andres. What you hired me for and what you’re asking me to do now are two very different things.”
“I know that, I just . . . I trust you. The kids already trust you. They’re finally getting used to you and I’d hate to bring in someone else for them to adjust to, right when we’re trying to get life back to normal. Please, it wouldn’t be permanent.”
The man puts his hands on his hips and shakes his head. “If it were for anyone else but Señora Jimenez . . .” Marabela takes a step back, confused as to what she could possibly have to do with this man. “I’ll stay, but only to finish the month. I’ve been as flexible as I possibly can in this agreement.”
“I understand. We are both businessmen, after all.” Andres says this with a melancholy Marabela has never seen in him before. They shake hands and slap each other’s back in a tight hug. The man, perhaps sensing Marabela staring at them, suddenly turns around. She stands frozen outside the kitchen, shocked at his intensity. Andres urges her to come inside, looking almost proud to introduce them.
“Marabela, this is Guillermo. I hired him to protect us. He helped me through every step of this . . . process.”
Guillermo holds his hand out and Marabela shakes it lightly, feeling the cracks in his dry skin. His touch sends a vibration through her entire body, makes her head twitch as she tries to shake off the touch of yet another stranger, but it stays with her, and for a moment it is the only thing she knows. Then she hears footsteps coming from outside the front door. They are quick and light, the happiest sound she has heard in seventeen days. The kids.
“They’re here?” she asks.
Andres jumps into action and smiles, raising his eyebrows just like he used to when he would pretend Ignacio’s spoon was a train. He takes Marabela by the elbow and helps her make her way toward the door, but his stride is too slow for her. Marabela ends up rushing out of his arms, swinging the door open with the force of a gust of wind. Just the sight of Cynthia and Ignacio rushing toward her almost knocks her over. The children engulf her, hugging both her and each other at once. Her own body is so thin it gets lost inside their arms, and she lets her hands clutch at the soft hair on their heads, their sturdy backs, their faces that have a way of dissolving the rest of the world when she stares into them.
Ignacio leans into her neck and whispers at her through his tears. “I missed you so much.”
“Cynthia, Ignacio, my little everythings,” she says. She finds there aren’t many words more beautiful than their names, and she keeps repeating them just to hear the syllables and see their faces in the same moment. She rests her head over their shoulders and catches sight of Guillermo leaning into the window of a black Mercedes at the end of the driveway. No doubt it’s Lorena, trying to leave without being noticed, but Marabela’s thoughts quickly turn back to the kids. They walk into the house, unwilling to let go of one another like contestants in a three-legged race. Cynthia laughs at their clumsiness as they almost fall onto the couch together. Andres lunges toward them, his voice suddenly stern and full of caution. “Gently. Your mother is very tired.”
She smiles and waves off his words, annoyed at the interruption. “Andres, it’s fine, really.” But now that they’re inside and have taken a moment to calm down, the frailty in her voice is hard to ignore. “Come here,” she says to Cynthia, patting her lap. Cynthia slides on top of her and wraps her arms around her mother’s shoulders like she would a porcelain doll. She kisses her cheek, her lips barely touching the skin. She looks confused, trying to figure out if she should smile or pout, be happy or angry. The moment is precious but fragile.
“Where did you go?” Cynthia finally asks.
Marabela looks down at the floor, afraid to look her daughter in the eyes, afraid that even through her smile she will see the tears, the pain—and know. “I had to go away for a little bit. But I missed you. So much. Did you miss me?”
Cynthia nods, still pouting. “But where did you go?” she repeats.
Marabela forces a laugh to hide a sob. “It’s supposed to be a secret,” she whispers. “But if you’re good, I’ll tell you someday, okay?”
Cynthia’s face brightens a little. She’s always liked secrets. “Did you bring me anything?”
“Can’t you see she had a rough trip?” The way Ignacio says this, with a smile meant to diffuse the truth, confirms to Marabela that he knows everything. Only Cynthia was spared the horror.
She plays along, of course. Ignacio’s maturity takes her by surprise; his transformation makes her sad and proud. This isn’t how her son was supposed to learn about love and selflessness. It came at too high a price.
He sits on top of the coffee table across from her and holds his mother’s hand. He has a content look on his face, and his eyes are glassy, holding back so many things she knows he can’t say. “How are you feeling? Are you okay?”
A laugh escapes her, from deep inside a place she didn’t know could hold laughter anymore. “Seeing you both, I know I will be.” She stretches her arm toward his knee and covers it with her hand. After a few moments of silence Cynthia turns to her mother with an exaggerated tilt of the head.
“So, no presents?” she says, but Marabela knows her daughter is only trying to ease the moment.
“You’ll get it when you’re older,” Ignacio says. “Why don’t you get the bags we brought from Grandma’s and start unloading them. I’ll help you in a minute.” Cynthia gives her mom one last squeeze and starts toward the garage. Ignacio helps Marabela up in one smooth movement that rises into an embrace. Like always, he towers over her, and her neck bends back at an awkward angle, pressed against his shoulder. She almost can’t breathe, but it doesn’t matter. Here is her son, and at least for this instant the world feels safe again.
He kisses her, over and over on the forehead, then takes a deep breath. She can tell he wants to say something, wants to figure out the right words in a situation like this. But his first words are an apology. Marabela doesn’t understand.
“I’m so sorry,” he keeps saying, as if just by looking at her he can see everything she’s been through. He has a sad, eager look on his face, and she’s reminded of how cavalier he would be as a little boy, slipping into the role of the little gent
leman just as easily as policeman or firefighter. He’d always walk ahead of her to open doors and offer to take her bags even when they were his size. He’s always wanted to relieve her of burdens, and she has tried hard not to lay them on him.
“None of this is your fault,” she tells him. “Blaming yourself won’t make it any easier to deal with. Understand?”
Ignacio blinks back tears and nods. As they walk across the room, she can feel her body breaking down, aching and tightening with anticipation. It’s all starting to feel real now. Home. After everything. Somehow she had imagined this would be different, that when she came back she would leave behind everything she went through. The weight of it bears down on her. Suddenly she is only aware of how weak she feels. Her knees buckle underneath her and she places her hand on a side table for balance. Andres rushes to her side.
“I need a shower,” she says. She feels heavy from the dirt that has caked onto her skin over the past seventeen days. It cracks as she moves, like glue holding her together. Andres leads her up the stairs, follows her through their bedroom and stops.
“Do you want me to—?”
“No,” she says, too quickly. “Thank you. I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll be right outside if you need anything,” Andres says, shutting the door gently behind her. For a moment she stands still, hypersensitive to everything around her. Through the thin walls she can hear Andres breathing. She follows the sound of his steps, muffled by the carpet but still pronounced enough that she can picture him pacing back and forth, guarding her in the same way her captors had on the other side of the door.
Aside from a small window over the shower, there is barely any ventilation in the bathroom. Marabela strips with the care of a nurse unraveling a bandage, and her skin sticks to the silk of her blouse in parts where she bled and started to heal. The scabs, newly exposed, burn bright red. Her pants fall quickly to the floor, bunched around her ankles. It is only once she’s completely bare that Marabela realizes she hasn’t turned on the light. She flips the switch and tenses at the sight of a small figure moving in the corner. For an instant, she doesn’t realize it’s her own reflection.
Chasing the Sun: A Novel Page 19
