Beyond the Ties of Blood (46 page)

They heard the gate clang shut, then a key in the front door. “Hallo! Anyone home?” It was Sara. She stopped short when she saw Tonia and Eugenia still on the couch, Eugenia's head in the other woman's lap, the curtains drawn against the early afternoon sun.

“I left Laura at the Committee offices,” Sara said, a quizzical tone at the end of her sentence. After neither woman answered her, she continued: “Joaquín's mother came by to help with the accumulated files and said she'd stay and close up later on. Joaquín was going to meet her there anyway, and—” her voice faded out, and she just stood there. The silence deepened, until it seemed to echo off the walls.

“What is it?” Sara finally asked.

The room folded them into a hush soaked with the stillness of a graveyard. For a long time nothing moved. Then Tonia and Eugenia spoke together, syncopated stabs of sound.

“Laura—”

“Manuel, he's not—”

“The dreams—”

“Her father!”

Sara made it to an armchair. Silence again, drenched with dread. By the time she finally spoke the filtered light inside the room had gone flat. “Yes,” she said. And after a long pause: “I think I knew. I think maybe I've known for quite a while.”

“What are you going to do?” Tonia asked.

“Do? What is there to do? I'll tell Shmooti, of course. Though maybe he already knows. Sometimes he surprises me. And then Laura must know. In some deep place inside she probably already does. But we must tell her that it doesn't make any difference to us.”

“But
doña
Sara,” Eugenia began.

The older woman raised a hand. “No,
hija
, “she said, standing up from the chair. “There's been enough loss already, enough mourning. Tonia, remember the last time the curtains were closed like this? It was when Manuel was confirmed dead. That's when we found out about you,
hija
, and we started looking for you. Shmooti and I spent three months, do you remember, Tonia? Three months with the curtains drawn, sitting shivah, Jewish mourning. We had so many people to mourn, you see. His parents, my parents, Manuel. We were surrounded by loss, by death. But enough is enough.”

She began pacing then, and as she moved around her voice got softer, then stronger, depending on the way she turned, wave after murmuring wave, a current that wandered through the room punctuated by pauses.

“I told you, my dear, when you first came to stay here, that your mama didn't know how lucky she was. When Manuel was little, I was so tangled up in the web of my own fears that I don't think I ever listened to him, not really. And then he left for Santiago.

“And the thing is, I never saw this, never got a chance to figure it out, while he was still alive. The times Shmooti and I have said, why couldn't we have a second chance, if only just to say we're sorry. But that's the irony of it. If he hadn't disappeared, if he hadn't forced us, finally, to come look for him, I don't think I would have ever understood any of this.

“That's how it is, raising children. Most of what you need to know, you find out when it's too late. That's the way things work out most of the time. That's why your mama's so lucky, because she got a second chance. But so did we, with you, with Laurita.

“Tonia knows this, too. We've met children through the Committee of Relatives, most of them around Laura's age, like Joaquín, who never knew their papas. Often their mothers were so sad, so traumatized, that they hardly ever spoke to their children about them. Blood of their blood, and they can't remember. But it's different with the two of you. Even though Laura never saw a picture of him, somehow, growing up, she still was able to paint one in her heart.

“I would rather have Laura than a granddaughter who is my own blood but has no idea who my son was. Even Joaquín, with the photograph of his father pinned to his mother's blouse every day of his life, doesn't have a clear picture of what his papa was like. You and Laura have my son's likeness engraved in your hearts.”

When Laura got home it was already dark. She could feel the change in the air inside the house, and goosebumps prickled right under the skin of her arms in response. Her mother and grandmother were sitting together at the kitchen table, and they jumped just a bit, startled, when she walked in. Her grandma stood and came around the table, hugging her just a little too tightly.

“What is it,
Bobe
?” she asked, hoping that Joaquín's smell was not too obvious on her neck.

“
Hijita
,”
doña
Sara answered, “you know how much we love you.”

This sounded serious. Had they discovered that she and Joaquín were … and then her mother stood up, too, and came around the table and hugged her too tightly.

“What's going on?” Laura asked in alarm.

“Well, we've been worried …”

“And it seemed that—”

“So we asked Tonia—”

“And she read your urine, and …”

Laura raised a hand against the sudden avalanche of words. “Wait a minute,” she said. And then the words sunk in. They'd taken a sample of her urine and Tonia'd read it. Were they afraid she was pregnant? Did they not understand that she and Joaquín … and what business did they have! “You took a sample of my urine without my permission?”

“Well, it's just that—”

“We were so worried … your nightmares and everything, so we—”

“How dare you?”

“Laurita, wait,” her mother said. “It's important that you know what we found. It may be that you already suspect this, with your dream coming every night, but your father is not—”

“I may not be eighteen yet, but I'm entitled to my privacy! Even if you were wondering about me and Joaquín, you can't just … What did you just say?”

“Laurita,” her mother said very softly, taking her hand. “What Tonia found is that your father is not Manuel. And I'm afraid it's true. It was one of the guards. All these years and I …”

Laura gasped, running from the kitchen into the bedroom. She slammed the door, and Eugenia heard the loud click as her daughter locked herself in. First Eugenia knocked, and then Sara, but all they heard was crying. After a long while, when there was silence, they tried knocking again. But still there was no answer.

Eugenia and Sara went around to the patio and found the window open. When they looked in, they saw the bedroom was empty. Eugenia climbed in through the window and unlocked the bedroom door, letting Sara in. When they opened the closet, they found one of the small duffle bags gone, along with some of Laura's clothes. The finality of it only sank in when Eugenia realized, looking at her daughter's bed, that the Walkman and Paco the velvet porcupine were also gone.

The phone rang later that evening, and Sara picked it up.

“Hello?
Doña
Sara?”

“Yes?”

“It's Marcela, Joaquín's mother.
Doña
Sara, before you say anything, I just want you to know that Laura is here, and she's safe.”

“Thank God.”

“
Doña
Sara, I don't know what happened, but she arrived with her bag about an hour ago. She was crying, and refused to tell me what was wrong. I told her she could stay with us. I set up a bed for her in my room.”

“Ay,
hija
, you don't know what a huge weight you just lifted from my shoulders. I need to tell Eugenia right away. Could you just wait a moment? I'll be right back, I—”

“Wait. I really need to get off. I left her with Joaquín at the kitchen table, drinking some
mate
, but of course I didn't tell her I was calling.”

“All right. I'll talk with Eugenia tonight, and at some point tomorrow we'll give you a call. And thank you again, Marcela. You really saved our lives.”

Eugenia called the next day around lunchtime. “Marcela,” she said when she heard the other woman's voice on the phone, “this is Eugenia. Is this a good time?”

“Hi, Eugenia. Yes, we can talk now. Joaquín is in school and Laura left this morning for the Committee. I encouraged her to keep up a routine, to get her mind off whatever has been happening.”

“I wanted to thank you. You don't know how much it means—”

“Actually, I think I do.” Marcela's voice sounded choppy. “You and I both know how it feels when someone we love …” Eugenia heard a cough.

“Yes,” she said. “Has she told you anything?”

“Only that she can't go back to
doña
Sara's. I'm sure she's said more to Joaquín, but neither of them is talking to me.”

“I'm not surprised. Marcela, we don't know each other very well, so forgive me if I'm completely out of line here, but …”

“She's not Manuel's daughter, is she.” Eugenia tried to answer, but all that came out was a hack. “I bet
doña
Sara wasn't entirely surprised, either, was she? Don't worry, you don't have to answer. Eugenia, it's just that, in the Committee … over the last fifteen years … Let's just say that this is not the first time I've known about a case like this. We've seen so many things, you know. And yet, when it comes to our own families …”

For a while the rough syncopation of their breath was the only evidence that they were still connected. Marcela recovered first.

“
Doña
Sara already knows this,” she said. “But all this truth … at first, I thought I would get some relief from knowing. But instead … Eugenia,” she continued, “just leave her here with us for a while. I'll keep her focused on her daily routine, let the two kids talk things out between them. I'll keep track of what they're doing, I'm sure you know what I mean. You and I both know that our mothers couldn't stop us, either, but I'll make sure they're protected. And then we'll see.”

For several weeks after she arrived at Joaquín's house, Laura did not dream. Then one night, when the rains had let up briefly and a full moon had risen, clear and bright, above the city, the man in olive garb returned. They were no longer on the path in the woods but in Santiago, in a park she did not know. He reached out a hairy paw and grabbed her arm, and he smelled of mold. But she didn't struggle, there was no point. When she stood still and looked at him, for the first time his eyes were not muddy and she could see his pupils. With a start, she realized they were her eyes.

She startled awake, but everything was quiet. The light of the full moon still slanted in through the small space between the curtains. She could hear Marcela's regular breathing in the bed across the room, so she hadn't cried out during the dream. She felt the tears on her cheeks. She groped for her Walkman on the floor next to the bed and cued Prince's “When Doves Cry.” Then she reached for Paco and cuddled him close. She knew she would not sleep again that night.