Delia’s Crossing (29 page)

Tía Isabela stared a moment and then relaxed and slipped into her chair.

“Inez!” she shouted.

It was pretty obvious to me that Inez had her ear to the door and had been listening to everything. She was there in a second.

“Yes, Mrs. Dallas?”

“Get me a cup of fresh coffee and a glass of ice-cold water.”

“Yes, Mrs. Dallas.”

“How was your weekend, Mother?” Sophia asked her, as if this was just another morning. She finished her cranberry and orange muffin in a single bite. “Where did you go, anyway? Were you with Travis again?”

“Don’t worry about my weekend, Sophia. I told you not to change the subject.”

“Well, I told you everything! What else do you want?”

“Do you or Delia have any knowledge of the whereabouts of these Mexican boys?”

“How would we? That was the first time I had ever met any of them. I’m not in the habit of hanging around with Mexican boys, Mother.”

“I can’t believe this,” Tía Isabela said after a deep sigh. “I’m already a nervous wreck. Tomorrow, we take Edward to his doctor to see how his eyes are healing.”

“What are you nervous about? You said he’s losing the use of one, didn’t you?”

“We don’t know to what extent yet, but most likely, yes,” she said.

Inez appeared with a glass of ice water for her. “In a minute, the coffee,” she said, and left.

Tía Isabela drank her water, thought a moment, and then turned to me.

“
Ella está diciendo la verdad
?” she asked me.

“You never speak Spanish, Mother,” Sophia said immediately. “What are you asking her?”

“
La verdad
?” Tía Isabela asked me, ignoring her.

I knew if I said no, that it wasn’t the truth, Sophia would hate me and try to hurt me in some way. I saw what she was capable of doing, and I feared her almost as much as I feared my aunt, but I remembered that Grandmother Anabela used to say, “
Es más fácil de atrapar a un mentiroso que a un cojo.
” It’s easier to catch a liar than a cripple.

Besides, I had little faith in the loyalty of Sophia and her friends. One would betray the other if she was in any danger, I thought, and eventually, Tía Isabela would know what was true and what wasn’t. Up until now, I had traveled with them into the dark side, but it was time to go back, or at least try to go back. Tía Isabela was no Father Martinez, and I expected no forgiveness nor wanted any from her, but I would no longer bathe in the same water or breathe the same air as my cousin Sophia. To do so would stain the memory of my parents and move them closer to that third death.

“
No lo dije a Ignacio. Estaba ella.
”

Tía Isabela nodded, smiling coldly.

“What did she say? Huh? What did she say?”

“She said she didn’t tell Ignacio about Bradley raping her and where he was; you did.”

“What? She’s lying. She’s afraid she’ll get into trouble and be deported or something.”

Inez returned with a cup of fresh coffee for Tía Isabela. No one spoke until she left. Tía Isabela sipped some coffee first, thinking. Then she nodded to herself.

“Actually, it’s more believable that she would tell him,” she said. “It’s better for us. And for her,” she added, looking at me. “People will sympathize and understand. She was violated. It’s natural for her to turn to Mexicans for help. You tell everyone that you told him about Bradley, not Sophia, Delia.
Entiende
?”

I understood. I just couldn’t believe that she would rather I lie. My silence annoyed her.

“I’m getting my lawyer to defend you, all of you. I’m paying for all of this, and it’s going to cost a lot of money. I’m not about to have this family dragged into something so ugly. You will do as I say.
Entiende
?” she shouted at me.

She brought her coffee cup down so hard that it shattered the saucer. I felt myself leap inside my own body.

I nodded quickly.

Inez and Señora Rosario came rushing in to see what had broken.

“Not now!” she shouted at them. They stopped, looked at me, and returned to the kitchen. My aunt sat there drumming her fingers on the table as she thought. Then she turned back to me.

“Until I say otherwise, you are not to leave the house.
No salga de la casa.
Not even for school. I don’t want to take the chance of your saying something by accident,
entiende
?”

Again, I nodded quickly. She looked at Sophia and pointed her right forefinger at her.

“This time, you’ve gone too far, Sophia. After this is over, if you just look the wrong way, I’ll have you skinned alive. Now, get ready to meet with Mr. Rudin in my office. Both of you. And be sure your stories coincide. Inez!” she screamed and stood up.

Inez hurried back into the dining room.

“Clean all of this up,” she ordered, pointing to the shattered saucer. Then she turned and left us.

Sophia sat there steaming while Inez worked. The moment Inez carried away the broken pieces of saucer, Sophia turned to me.

“Traitor,” she said. “You’ll be sorry.” She got up and walked out of the dining room.

I looked after her and thought, I’m sorry already.

A little more than a half-hour later, we were both called to Tía Isabela’s office to meet with my aunt’s attorney, Web Rudin. He was a robust man, not quite five-feet-ten, with dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. His ears stuck out a little too far, but he had a rich, smooth complexion, with soft facial features and eyelashes that would make any woman envious. He sat across from Tía Isabela at her desk, close enough to write on a long yellow pad he had set there.

“You know Sophia, Web. This is my niece, Delia, who recently came from Mexico.” She turned to me. “Mr. Rudin is the attorney who prepared the papers I needed to bring you here.”

I looked at him, but he still didn’t smile.

“She had a little working knowledge of English but has learned a lot since she’s been here,” Tía Isabela added. “She’s a bright girl.”

Finally, he started to smile at us and then stopped, as if he had nearly done something very wrong. He glanced at Tía Isabela, and she nodded at the leather sofa. We both sat, Sophia glaring at me once more in warning.

“Go on, Web,” she continued. “Tell them what you told me.”

He put his pen down and pressed his palms together. “Three of the Mexican boys have been found and are in custody. The fourth is still a fugitive.”

“Which one?” Sophia asked.

Mr. Rudin glanced at his pad. “Ignacio Davila. Has he tried to make contact with either of you?”

“No,” Sophia said. She looked at me.

I shook my head.

“I’ll have to have a clear understanding of the extent of your involvement in all of this,” Mr. Rudin went on. “I have a general idea of what these boys told the police. Let me hear it all from you two.”

“It will be faster if Sophia speaks for them,” Tía Isabela said, smiling. “You can ask Delia questions after that. I’ll help her if there is anything she doesn’t understand.”

“Sure,” he said, and sat poised.

Without the smallest change in her story, Sophia retold everything as she had told Tía Isabela. Then, as an afterthought, she added that she and her friends had been very worried about what the Mexican boy Vicente would do. “He looked like he could kill his own mother,” she said, and glanced at Tía Isabela, who stared without expression. “That’s why we tried to follow them.”

“So, you’re saying you didn’t urge them on, you didn’t tell them exactly where to go or what to do when they got there?” Mr. Rudin asked.

“No, sir,” Sophia said, with eyes that would melt the heart of the sternest judge.

“You weren’t there? You didn’t witness any of it?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Rudin. We went to the Roadhouse, as I said. I’m sure the police have checked on that.”

Mr. Rudin wrote something and then turned to me and asked me to describe the previous event when Ignacio had come to my defense. Apparently, Tía Isabela had already told him something about it. I did the best I could with Tía Isabela helping whenever I stumbled over an English word or expression.

“Well,” he concluded, “if what they’re telling me is true, I think we can keep the girls out of this, Isabela. Make sure no one speaks to anyone, of course. It all goes through me from now on. Call me as soon as any police or investigator contacts you. Both girls know that if they are approached at school, they should call you immediately.”

“They do now, Web,” she said firmly. She didn’t tell him that I wasn’t going to school for a while, that she was keeping me almost a prisoner here.

“Very sad thing,” he said, finally expressing some emotion about it all. He closed his pad. “Bradley was the apple of Rod’s eye, the one bright and hopeful thing he had. He was very proud of him. It’s going to be hard for him to face all of this.”

“Children unfortunately often turn out to be disappointing,” Tía Isabela said.

I raised my eyebrows.

Surely, her father had uttered the same words about her many years ago in a different place, in a different country, in a different world.

She stared at me a moment, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking.

And then we were excused.

Sophia said nothing to me. She simply gave me a hateful look and went to her room to call her girlfriends and report, I was sure.

Later, Tía Isabela came to my room.

“You did well,” she said. “For the time being, while you’re not going to school, you’ll return to household duties. I’ve already spoken about it with Mrs. Rosario. I will not have you simply lying around.”

I didn’t say anything. Of course, I would rather be in school, but I wasn’t afraid of work. In fact, I was grateful for anything that would keep me from thinking about all that had happened.

“I hope we’ll get this all cleared up, but if things don’t go right and it gets any more serious, I’ll have to inform your grandmother. I’m not sure I shouldn’t do that now, in fact.”

I pressed my lips together to keep from bursting into tears. She looked satisfied with how she had made me cringe, nodded, and left, closing the door behind her. I sat there staring in silence, feeling like someone who was waiting for the second shoe to drop.

It came a little while later, when Sophia appeared to give me some updated news about Ignacio and his family.

“I just spoke with Alisha. They haven’t caught him yet, but the police are looking for him everywhere because of how important Bradley’s father is in this town. His father is going to make things hard for Ignacio’s father, too, Alisha says. They all might as well just pack up and go back to Mexico. Maybe his whole family will be deported.”

“That’s not right,” I said.

“You almost got me into big trouble with my mother. I told you not to contradict me. You know what that means? I told you we stick with my story.”

“I do not like to lie.”

“Oh, no, not you, not Señorita Perfecto. Give me back my bracelet,” she demanded. “You don’t deserve it. C’mon, give it back.”

I took it off, and she seized it out of my hand.

“I’m taking my dress back, too,” she said, going to my closet. She ripped it off the hanger, looked down at the shoes Tía Isabela had bought to match it, and grabbed them, too. “I have a real friend it will fit now, thanks to what you did to it. I think she’s your shoe size as well. You’ll never wear it again, anyway. You’re nothing more than a servant again,
prima
or no
prima
.”

I said nothing. Actually, it felt good to have her take back her things. It was like a cleansing. She mistook my failure to look upset to mean I felt superior to her.

“You think you’re so smart. We’ll see. I’m not finished with you yet,” she said, and left.

Soon after, Señora Rosario sent Inez to tell me to come down to help with the kitchen duties. I worked on the downstairs bathrooms as well and then helped rearrange the pantry and wash the floors. We were to do a general dusting of everything as well. Sophia walked past me as I worked, smiling gleefully.

When I was finished with the household chores, I went up to shower and change. I was not sure if I would be permitted to have dinner with my aunt and Sophia. Edward, who had remained in his room all day, would probably have his meal there, too, and wait for his bandages to come off the next day. I had not seen Jesse all day and wondered what Edward was doing to pass the time.

I didn’t need to wonder long.

He was thinking about me.

I came out of the bathroom and went to my dresser to take a pair of panties out of the drawer. I was just slipping them on when I realized I wasn’t alone.

Standing just inside the doorway, dressed in his robe and pajamas, was Edward.

I gasped. I was naked, but he still had bandages over his eyes.

“What do you want, Edward?” I asked when I gathered my wits. Even though he couldn’t see me, I quickly slipped my bathrobe on again.