Endless Chain (29 page)

“Think?”

She was silent. She knew better. And she knew, and thought that he did, as well, that it was not one-sided.

The CD had ended. The room was quiet. He nodded at last. “I’d better go.”

“Yes. Please.”

“Don’t leave because of me, Elisa. I’ll back off for good, if that’s what you want. I won’t ask questions, and I won’t make demands.”

She wanted to say something. She
had
to say something. She touched his arm. Lightly. “I don’t want it to be this way. Can you see that?”

“Probably not. Because it doesn’t have to be this way. I won’t hurt you.”

“But knowing me could hurt you.”

“We can face whatever it is together.”

“No, because there’s no way to face it without being parted forever.” She knew she was speaking in riddles, but it didn’t matter. Her life was a riddle with no solution.

“I’m not going to understand. I’m not even going to try.” He ran his hand through his hair. “It was a wonderful dinner. Thank you.”

“I’ll walk you to the door.”

He let her, as if another argument would have been too much to bear. He said goodbye, and she watched him walk down the steps. Only when the door was locked behind him and the house silent did she begin to weep.

S
am belonged to a small clergy group in Winchester that met on the second Monday morning of every month for coffee and conversation. Although their theologies differed, the men and women in the group had found they had many things in common. Their discussions were enlightening, and he had grown particularly fond of a Catholic priest named Joe Menendez, who served a small country parish.

Father Menendez had come out of retirement to assist the struggling church with the promise that he could still spend more time fishing than hearing confession. The church was small, but his fluent Spanish and warm smile attracted many from the local Latino population on Sunday mornings.

On the second Monday of November, Sam walked Joe to his car after their monthly get-together. The group had been smaller, and therefore more intimate, than usual. They had gotten off their assigned topic immediately when one of the members, a Presbyterian minister, related a story about a family who was refusing to deal with the approaching death of a grandmother. They had all shared ways they had dealt with similar experiences, and the morning had flown by.

“You didn’t say much today,” Sam told Joe as they started down the street to the older man’s car. “Is that because your church has a sacrament that pretty well announces the time has come?”

“What we used to call Extreme Unction? After Vatican II we started calling that our anointing of the sick, and now it’s more of a community healing service.”

Joe, still handsome at seventy with a full head of silver hair, searched a pocket for his keys. “But back when it was a deathbed ritual, I was refused permission to administer last rites any number of times because the patient or family refused to acknowledge the end was near. Protestants don’t have a market on denial.”

Sam thought of all the ways he practiced denial himself, particularly in regard to Elisa. Since he had kissed her more than a week ago, he had denied himself access to her and even denied himself the right to think about her.

The only thing he could not deny was the fear that now, if he took one misstep, she would disappear forever.

He was still thinking of her when he spoke. “Maybe we don’t have a market on denial, but we don’t have the colorful pageantry you do, either. I celebrated the Day of the Dead with a friend this month. She flew a kite, something she did once as a child in Mexico, with messages to her departed family. It was therapeutic.”

“You mean Guatemala.”

It took him a moment to process Joe’s words. “I’m sorry?”

Joe stopped beside a green compact sedan. “Guatemala. That’s where they fly the kites. Not Mexico. One particular village, Santiago Sacatepéquez, is well known for it. I was there once to see it. People come from all over. Very impressive.”

“You never flew kites in Mexico?” Sam knew Joe’s father had come to Texas as an undocumented worker and stayed to become an influential citizen. But the Menendez children, all eight of them, had spent every holiday and vacation with family in Guanajuato, so they would not forget their roots.

Joe unlocked his door. “Not on
Dia de Los Muertos.
Never did it, never saw it done. I’m fairly certain that’s peculiar to the Guatemalan highlands, and only a village or two, at that.”

“I’m curious. Did you have a special dish you ate that day? Sort of an antipasto?”

“That’s Guatemalan, too. Very tasty, as I recall. I can’t remember what they called it. In my father’s town we feasted on the foods that had been offered on our altar. Any specialty of the house. Only the best was good enough. Molés, tamales, a special bread called
pan de muerto.
” He paused. “You’re making me hungry. Do you want to follow me home for some lunch?”

Sam’s thoughts were elsewhere. “Thanks, but I’ll take a rain check. I’ve got to get back home to let my dogs out. It looked like a storm was moving in when I left this morning, and I didn’t want to leave them outside.”

“No dogs, no cats, no wife.” Joe grinned. “I think I’ll go fishing.”

Driving back toward Toms Brook in the SUV, Sam mulled over Joe’s words. He was certainly no authority on Latin American culture, but he
was
certain Elisa had told him she was from Mexico. He respected Joe’s knowledge of many things, but he wondered if, this once, his friend was mistaken.

By the time he had let the dogs out and rewarded them with treats, he knew he couldn’t let this rest. He had intended to spend his day off cleaning out the refrigerator, taking down the screens for the winter and going for a long run. Instead, he made his way to the computer and got on the Internet.

An hour later, he had more questions than answers. But one thing was certain: Joe was correct. The only mention of a ceremony like the one Elisa had described was at Santiago Sacatepéquez in Guatemala. And
fiambre—
he had recalled the name of the dish she had served with a little help from the Web—was a Guatemalan tradition.

He spun in his chair and gazed down at the dogs, who were lying in a circle at his feet, nose to tail. “I have a problem, guys,” he said out loud. “I can run Elisa Martinez through my computer and see if she’s mentioned anywhere. Or I can forget this and let her tell me why she lied about her background when she’s good and ready.”

Not one of the dogs looked interested.

He wondered if one of them had jumped up, clearly ready for a long run, would he have turned off the computer? As it was, their message was clear.
We’re happy, take your time.
He didn’t want to ponder how absurd it was to consult three moth-eaten mutts on issues of trust and morality.

He typed Elisa Martinez into his favorite search engine and waited for results.

The dogs were more than ready for a run by the time Sam was ready to quit. Elisa Martinez was not an uncommon name. By the time the results became too vague or esoteric to pursue, he had searched dozens of Web sites and turned up crime victims, scholars, soccer goalies. He’d seen photos and birth dates that disqualified some women immediately. For others, the facts simply didn’t fit. His Elisa was not spending her summer in Prague finishing her dissertation or waiting in Chicago to learn the outcome of a deportation hearing.

For all practical purposes—on the Internet, at least—the Elisa he knew did not exist.

Sam asked himself what he had hoped to accomplish. Had he really believed he would learn who she was and how to help her? Had he hoped to go to her and tell her he understood why she was running and it didn’t matter to him? Or had he, in some insidious way, been protecting himself? Had the complications she represented begun to weigh too heavily on him?

He didn’t have to think long. Despite what he had discovered, he trusted her completely. He was not looking for reasons to move away from her. He was looking for ways to move closer. He knew, without knowing any details, that Elisa needed help, and that if she didn’t find it, they had no hope of a future.

Now he had to find a way to convince her that he could help her, no matter what her problem. Because Elisa was already too large a part of his life for him to back away.

Elisa knew the location of nearly every public telephone in a twenty-mile radius. This evening she used one at a fast-food restaurant near the nursing home. Even though it was late, the restaurant was just noisy enough to keep her from being overheard, but not so noisy that she couldn’t hear the voice on the other end.

She waited as the telephone rang in Sacramento and hoped Judy was at home. They had carefully worked out the dates of her calls through a neighbor of Judy’s, who had relayed the schedule to Elisa in January. Elisa never phoned on the same day of the week or at the same time. It was unlikely, after all this time, that Judy’s line was tapped, but both women knew it was still a good idea to be careful.

Judy picked up on the fifth ring.

“It’s Elisa.” They had not indulged in polite conversation for years.

“Call me where you called me last January.” The line went dead.

Elisa had not expected this. It was either the best or worst of news. Either Judy had something to say at length or she had real reason to believe the line was tapped. Since she had to wait at least ten minutes for Judy to go next door and settle in, she went to the counter and bought a cup of coffee, nursing it at a table near the telephone and worrying about what she might discover when Judy got to her neighbor’s house.

An overweight man with mermaid tattoos peeking over a formfitting tank top ambled to the phone and spent the next fifteen minutes snarling at somebody on the other end. Elisa forced herself to read the classified section of the morning paper—all that was left behind by that time of day—and nonchalantly glanced up now and then to see if the man had moved on. Inside she was seething. He left at last, smiling and shuffling off, as if fifteen minutes of abuse had improved his day immeasurably.

It was close enough to closing time that she wondered if she would have time to finish her call now. She folded her paper and went back to the telephone, using the change from her coffee and more she had saved to place the call.

This time the telephone only rang twice.

“Elisa?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure. But it might be good news.”

Elisa had managed, somehow, to maintain her self-control while she waited to use the phone. She had admonished herself not to be hopeful, but now her legs felt weak. She leaned against the wall, propping herself as best she could.

“What?”

“We got a call last week. Somebody asked for you by name! A young man. James took the call, not me. But he knew what to do. James told him to call this number in half an hour so I could talk to him.”

“And?” Elisa heard the wobble in that one word and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry. He didn’t call back.”

Elisa waited, hopeful there was more, but Judy was silent.

“That’s all?” she asked. “Nothing else?”

“I think James scared him off. If it was Ramon, he might have thought it was a trap of some kind. Maybe if I’d answered instead…”

Elisa thought that could be true. Ramon knew Judy, because Judy had been her roommate at Stanford and had come to Antigua to visit the summer before Elisa’s parents were killed.

Elisa’s mind was spinning. She didn’t know what to say.

Judy spoke first. “Listen, James did manage to tell the man the story we’d agreed on.”

“Exactly what did he tell him?”

“James said that you and Tom were off on a picnic because you wanted to wade in the brook. Then he told him to call this number so he could talk to me.”

“What did he sound like?” But even as she asked the question,

Elisa knew how foolish it was. Even if James had described the voice exactly, it had been such a long time since Elisa had heard her brother speak. Ramon’s voice would be deeper now. She might not recognize it herself.

“James said he had a deep voice, light accent, a little tentative. He sounded young, maybe early twenties. But the conversation was so short…”

“It could have been anybody. It could be somebody who found out you were my college roommate and tracked you, somebody from the government…”

“It could have been. Or maybe it
was
Ramon. And now he can put two and two together and figure out where you are.”

Elisa wanted to believe that. She was desperate to believe it. “He’s had a week to get here and find me. Maybe he didn’t understand that ‘Tom’ and ‘brook’ go together. Maybe he didn’t catch the words.”

“It might take several weeks if he’s hitchhiking. It might take him longer if he hasn’t even crossed the border yet or if he has no cash. Who knows his circumstances?”

“Judy, I’m scared. This scares me more. What if it’s not him?”

“Don’t leave, whatever you do. Just be careful. I have a feeling about this. It would take Ramon some time to find me. We knew that. And more time to cross the border, years to cross, maybe, until he found someone he could trust to help him. He couldn’t take chances. Look how long it took you. We knew that, too. I’d about given up hope, but I just have a feeling this was really him. I’ve stayed right next to the phone all week, hoping he’ll call back. Call me here on Saturday and we’ll touch base again.”

“Your neighbor?”

“She doesn’t ask questions. And nobody’s going to tap
her
phone.”

“I’ll call. Thanks. Pray for us.” Elisa hung up.

She checked her watch, then ordered a final cup of coffee to go. She had a week-old sinus infection, and she had resorted to drowning the last vestiges in as much liquid as she could hold. Because of the infection, she had missed two shifts at the nursing home and cut her hours at the church to the bare bones.

Of course the latter had been as much to avoid Sam as to rest and recover.

Once she was in the car, she took her time driving the short distance to Shadyside, trying not to give in to either excitement or disappointment at Judy’s message. This was what she had prayed for, some sign her brother was really alive and attempting to find her. This was why she had come to Toms Brook, because this was a place Ramon might think to look for her. Toms Brook had meaning for them both. This was the reason she had stayed, despite losing too much of her anonymity and falling in love with a man she could never have.