by Kim Hornsby
The town below was half illuminated by the morning sunshine rising in the sky behind the lake’s edge. Even from here, you could see the glint off the cathedral in the city square. Tina would be awake now that he’d phoned her. Would he tell her who Annie was? Is? Probably. But today was too important to get distracted. He had to stay sharp.
“Food’s ready if you boys are hungry,” Annie said with two plates of bacon and eggs. She set the food on the table and disappeared inside the house, like a coward; like she wasn’t his goddamned mother.
Diego reached for his fork, then stopped to speak. “I know you have a very important task to accomplish today and I’m going to help you, Jamey. But before we get going I want to tell you one thing.” He looked inside the house. “My wife is a good person. I don’t know what happened to make her leave four children and a husband, but knowing her as I do, it must’ve been something pretty powerful.” He took a deep breath. “She isn’t ready to tell me why. She did, however, tell me about your dreams and your visions.
So Annie did know.
“Must be hard to live with,” Diego said.
Before he could censor his thoughts, the words slipped out. “Must’ve been too hard for your wife.” Jamey set down his fork. “I’ll wait for you by the car.”
When Jamey arrived back at the hotel room, Tina didn’t ask and Jamey didn’t speak about Annie. She wanted to tell him she’d dreamed of her father at the end of the bed telling her that they would find Wyatt, but Jamey was distracted and headed straight for the shower. He needed to wash off the grime from hiding in the bushes all night. His legs were covered in bug bites, but nothing serious. His arms had fared better. Seeing her husband come out of the shower all muscular, wet, and naked, Tina’s breath caught in her throat. He was a beautiful man. She hated to break the moment, but had to ask about Annie. It would be the elephant in the room until something was said. “So, Diego and Annie aren’t child traffickers. That’s good.”
Jamey stepped into the same cargo shorts he’d been wearing for two weeks. “Nope. They probably aren’t.”
Tina stepped forward, put her head on her husband’s shoulder, and wrapped her arms around his waist. He was damp and smelled like sandalwood soap. She loved this man so much it hurt sometimes. “Pops phoned yesterday to say that Annie phoned him to ask if you were here.”
She waited for a response. All he said was, “Pops okay?’
“Surprised but okay.”
“Good. Today, I have to find Wyatt,” he said and walked away.
Tina followed, telling him about the dream, saying she thought she was awake but might not have been.
“Did you fully wake up?” he asked, stopping to put his watch on.
“No. That’s why I think it was a dream. The memory was very faint this morning. But I think it actually was my father. Not a normal.”
Jamey didn’t know any more than she did but said it was possible.
Within ten minutes they met Diego and were combing the streets looking for the restaurant in Tina’s dream with Annie. But she hadn’t seen the place clearly and couldn’t remember much except for Annie going in and coming out another door with Wyatt. Good thing Jamey had told Diego about the dream premonition or looking for a specific restaurant would be hard to explain.
It was getting difficult to maneuver the traffic and soon it was near impossible to drive around Granada. With bumper-to-bumper cars and trucks, it was faster to walk. Many roads had been closed off for the celebration. Diego said that the center of town would be like a rat’s nest and he was right. A rat’s nest with a party atmosphere.
Within an hour, Granada was buzzing with preparations for the day. Stages were being set up, banners hung, garlands of flags being strung between shops, trees, across narrow streets. Apparently the road from Managua was jammed too, everyone arriving for Granada’s big day of honoring its patron saint. If it was hard to find someone in this town before, Tina imagined it was going to be almost impossible once all the out of town people arrived and started clogging up the streets. At ten o’clock, the traffic was ridiculous, and the noise was building to match the energy of the town.
At a street corner, Jamey helped lift Kai’s stroller off the curb and Tina realized how much she was slowing Jamey and Diego’s search. “Am I helping or hindering you guys?” She looked at Jamey as his keen eyes scanned the crowd ahead.
“Probably hindering now,” he said.
The frantic feeling of the celebration escalated with every hour and as a new mother, Tina was genuinely frightened for the safety of her baby. “Maybe I should go back to the hotel.” The stage beside them played extremely loud taped trumpet music and it was hard to hear. Kai started crying, startled by the music.
“That might be a good idea,” Jamey said.
“I can watch from the balcony, phone you if I see them,” she added.
Diego laid his hand on Tina’s arm and leaned in to them. “Do these dreams always come true?”
Jamey had told him about Annie taking Wyatt out of the café.
She shrugged.
“Because the dream where you saw Annie doesn’t sound right. My wife wouldn’t come to town on hipica day for anything. She rarely comes off Mombacho anyhow. Hates it down here. Believe me, she won’t be looking for Wyatt in a restaurant today.” He looked at Tina sympathetically. “Why don’t you take the baby to my house and stay with Annie. We’ll come up with the boy later.”
“That’s a better idea. Get out of town, avoid all this.” Jamey added.
She knew this was what he wanted. “That might be best.” Her baby continued to cry in her arms. She tried jiggling him.
“I’ll run her up to the house.” Diego told Jamey. He signaled to Tina to follow him to the truck that he’d strategically parked on the outskirts of the congestion, pointed towards Mombacho.
Diego grabbed the stroller and led the way while she carried Kai. Once in the truck they drove out of the core of town and broke free of the traffic. Near the cemetery, the traffic thinned out on their side, the lane leaving town. “How will you ever get back here?” Tina asked.
“Oh I have a secret route. Don’t worry about me. These people,” he pointed to the cars lined up to enter Granada, “are coming from other towns, but I’ll make a wide circle and come in along the lake.” He pointed to his brain and nodded.
At the Mombacho house, Tina settled in to a chair by the pool to nurse Kai. Diego had only dropped her off and turned around again. Tina had forgotten the stroller and car seat in her hurry to let Diego get back to town. Annie hadn’t shown her face yet, but soft music played from inside the house and her truck was in the garage. As soon as Kai got comfortable, he fell asleep. She pulled him off the boob and lowered her T-shirt. Staring at the town of Granada below, Tina hoped that Jamey would find Wyatt today, or if not, at least be able to stop the accident from happening somehow. The town was the size of her hand when she spread her fingers and she wondered if a telescope would afford her any view of the parade. She hadn’t seen one. She still believed that Annie would take Wyatt by the hand from a restaurant in Granada, but it might be any day if the restaurant kept their decorations. She’d assumed the scene took place on hipica day, but maybe it happened tomorrow. Or maybe Jamey would change the future by intercepting the horse today and it would never happen.
When Annie came through the house and found Tina on the patio, she looked older than two days ago. With what was going on, Tina doubted Annie had had a good night’s sleep. What mother could live with the knowledge that she’d walked out on her children? Jamey had said that Annie and Diego were up talking most of the night.
As a mother, Tina had to think that seeing Jamey this week had been horribly traumatic for Annie. And telling her husband that she’d been living a lie with him. That she had a husband and four children who didn’t have a clue what happened to their mother. Anyone who did that had problems.
“Here I am again. With my baby,” Tina said. Then she realized tha
t her baby was Annie’s biological grandchild. Had the woman thought of that? But Annie’s hesitance two days earlier to hold the baby or even look at him, hadn’t been because she worried he was her grandchild. This was before she’d seen Jamey, phoned Pops, knew their last name, wasn’t it? Maybe she did not like children. Why then would she give birth to four of them if she wasn’t cut out for motherhood?
Tina smiled tentatively as Annie plopped down in the other chair.
“I’m glad to see you again,” Annie said. Her smile today was different, almost embarrassed.
“Me too. I heard the news about you and Jamey.” Tina wanted so much to give her a chance to talk, but only if she wanted.
Annie looked at her lap. “It was quite a shock after all this time.”
“I can’t imagine.” Tina wasn’t sure what to say in case they left here tomorrow, never to be seen by this woman again. “I hope you and Jamey get a chance to talk after all this.”
Tears fell to Annie’s lap. “Me too. I can see how he hates me and I don’t blame him. They must all hate me. Well, the boys anyhow. Jenny was too little to remember me, at least.” Annie wiped her face with her shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry Tina. I like you, but I can’t invest anything in you or Jamey, in case he never forgives me.”
Tina understood. She nodded. “Can I put Kai in the guest room again? I think this will be a big nap.”
“Of course you can.” Her head tilted as she studied the baby in Tina’s arms. “I used to like children, you know. But it’s too painful.” Annie got out of the chair and disappeared inside the house. If she’d been good with babies, Tina might have considered leaving Kai with the woman and going with Diego back to town to search, but Annie wasn’t trustworthy and showed no grandmotherly tendencies. Besides, Kai still needed her breast milk.
Staying out of this new situation was going to be difficult. If Jamey ever wanted the story, if there was one, it was for him to ask. She took Kai to the guest room and laid him between the pillows that she braced under the sheets to keep them from shifting. Away from the wall, even though she’d seen the dead spider. Annie was nowhere to be seen when Tina came out of the guest room. She was probably back in her studio, painting. The dogs were gone too. She settled with a magazine in the chair by the pool and alternated between reading an article on nutrition and glancing at the town below the volcano. From here, she couldn’t tell that Granada was jumping with activity, music, horses, and celebration. It looked exactly as it had two days ago, like a fairytale town on a huge lake with pointy volcanoes in the distance. It was noon, Tina was hungry. She didn’t want to go digging around in some woman’s cupboards after Annie’s remark about not wanting to invest anything in the relationship if Jamey decided against forgiving her. Now she felt unwelcome. An intrusion.
It was a bad idea to even come here. She should have stayed in town.
***
When Jamey found a quiet spot amongst the madness, he opened his phone to call Pops. When his father picked up, Jamey didn’t know exactly what to say. “Tina told me you know she’s here.”
“She called.”
“You okay?”
“Surprised, but doing fine. How about you, Son?”
“I’m angry, but I can’t really deal with Mom today. I’m looking for Wyatt.” It felt strange to call anyone Mom.
“That’s right. You find that little boy.”
“Pops, did you know a Jean person who was Mom’s friend?”
“Briefly. But she’s long gone. She left the area when you were probably ten or eleven. Is she there?”
“She’s Rose’s mother.”
“You don’t say. Well, at the time of your mother’s disappearance, she seemed as surprised as me.” He sighed. “That was so long ago, Son. But I’ll call around, see if I can turn up anything.” Pops was at Carrie’s house, waiting. Everyone was there, hoping, waiting for the phone call from Jamey to say he’d found Wyatt.
“If you can. I asked Annie to see if she could get in touch with Jean, but apparently she’s travelling today.”
“How’s she look?” Pops asked.
“Sad.” Jamey didn’t need to ask who. “And sorry.”
Pops fell silent.
Jamey added. “I’m counting on her coming through today, finding Jean, but it’s hard to trust her.”
“I’m sure, but I don’t think she’s in on taking Wyatt, if that’s what you mean.”
They hung up and Jamey stood leaning against the brick building. It was still a possibility that Annie was tied to this somehow. At the very least, Jamey knew that she didn’t want her friend Jean implicated, or even involved. Before he’d left that morning to come down the mountain, he’d told her flat out that she owed him this. “Find Jean. Get a phone number for Mary Rose. Get Jean to convince Rose to give herself up, or when I find them, it won’t be nice.” His words probably scared Annie, but he didn’t care. It was the truth.
When Diego returned to town he helped Jamey get a bunch of disposable phones, buy minutes and recruit teenage boys to be on the lookout for Kevin, Rose, and Wyatt. There would be a nice reward for anyone who led him to the threesome. The parade wasn’t scheduled to begin for hours. He had time to find them before the accident, but with the crowds and congestion, the search was slow. He could’ve used Tina’s sharp eyes out here, but that wasn’t going to happen. He and Diego split up and after an hour, when Jamey’s phone rang, his first thought was that he didn’t recognize the number. It was local.
“Hello?’
The boy spoke in rapid Spanish and Jamey had to tell him to slow down. Soon, it became clear that the boy had just seen the family in front of the Mombacho Cigar Shop, heading towards the cathedral.
“Follow them.” Jamey asked the boy what they were wearing, got a fairly good description, and said he was on his way.
Racing through the crowd, he stuck to the center of the road where it was possible to move. Only four blocks from the Cathedral, it was slow going. If he was lucky, his arrival at the Cathedral steps would coincide with Kevin’s arrival. According to the boy, Kevin wore a dark cap, Rose had black hair like they’d been told, and wore a blue dress and sun hat. The little boy was in shorts and a white T-shirt. Jamey could see the top of the cathedral now. Yellow with white trim, a bell on top of the spire. He wound his way through the park, which looked like a clearer path than the streets.
This was it.
He could feel it.
Was it just hope or was it intuition? Wyatt was close. Not seeing them on the park side of the cathedral, he ran around the block to the backside of the church, the direction they’d supposedly come from. A stage had been set up and a group of teen girls in traditional Nicaraguan costumes were dancing to the music on stage.
Jamey ran up the cathedral steps and scanned the crowd, swallowing a desire to yell out Wyatt’s name. “Where are you, Kevin?” he whispered. First, he inventoried the edges of the scene, people disappearing around corners, then visually moved in. People were everywhere. It was hard to see an individual. Watching for less than a minute, he frantically searched for what looked like a mom, dad, and a seven-year-old. Mariachi-style music played in the background and a dog barked near him. He didn’t see the threesome. Or even a twosome. Next, he was off the steps, running around the crowd, trying to pick out a black cap, a Caucasian child and a woman in a blue dress. Was the teen still following? Would he call again? Where the hell were they? Possibly in a store. They might still be wandering their way towards the cathedral. Jamey ran back up the steps and scanned the sea of people in front of him. After another minute, he wondered if they’d turned around, headed back towards the lake. His heart beat wildly against his ribs. No longer was there a definite feeling that Wyatt was close. He hoped he was wrong.
He’d call the kid.
Then someone grabbed his shirt and Jamey looked to see a local kid about thirteen, motioning for him to follow. “Where?” he asked as he ran.
The boy pointed and continued runni
ng through the crowd and down an alleyway. Six streets over and out of the hub of the festival, they ended up at a café, much like the one from Tina’s dream. Jamey had hope. “Wait here,” he motioned.
In the café, the festivities were in full force. People were drinking beer, singing, eating. Every table and inch of floor space was filled with revelers, like a London pub on a Friday. Music blared from speakers in the room’s corner. He didn’t see Kevin. Luckily he was tall enough to see over most people. He walked to the next room which was an open courtyard with tables around the edges. Jamey quickly walked the square, searching for any combination of the three. The center of the room was filled with trees and plants. “Is there a back door,” he asked a passing waiter.
The man shook his head. “Only through the kitchen,” he said, pointing behind him.
Jamey watched another waiter duck into the kitchen, and through the open door noticed a hub of activity in a steamy room. He followed. Cooks grilled in one corner, two women chopped on a huge cutting board and several others lined up plates at a counter. The door at the back of the room led outside and Jamey ran through the kitchen, sliding out the door before anyone could tell him to leave. The alleyway was deserted except for two dogs who looked like they were waiting for a handout. He chose to go right and sprinted down the alley to the end. He ended up back near the doorway where the boy still waited for him, hands in pockets. Seeing Jamey run around the corner, he looked confused. “Nada?” he asked.
Jamey shook his head, looked around, and then ran down the alley the other way. Coming out on a quiet street, he searched the area, walking around looking inside doorways, then when he concluded this was the wrong direction, ran back to the teen waiting at the door to the restaurant. One look from Jamey and the boy shrugged. “I saw them go in here,” he said in Spanish.
Jamey wasn’t sure if the boy was telling the truth, but it fit Tina’s description of the restaurant. He couldn’t afford to ignore this one clue. His only clue today. He told the kid he’d be right back and did another look inside, including the one bathroom for customers. They were nowhere to be found. He waited for almost five minutes before he went outside to ask the kid if they came out while he was inside. No. Reaching inside his pocket, Jamey pulled out some cordobas and paid the boy, but asked him to stay. If he saw the people, he was to call again and he’d make double the money if he led Jamey to them. The boy nodded and seated himself on a cement slab near the doorway.
