Tortilla Sun (12 page)

“A
descanso
is the marker of an interrupted journey. When life is cut short. I put it there,” Nana said.

“My father’s,” I whispered.

Nana nodded.

A million whispers glided down my spine.

Nana continued. “It is only a marker. It is part of our tradition to honor and celebrate the life of someone we love. I placed the marker there to honor him.”

“Is that where he … drowned?” I asked as I watched the flickering candle wick burn so low I thought it might burn out.

Nana rested her small hand on my leg. “
Sí, mija
.”

I reached for my bag at the foot of the sofa and pulled the box out. “So this was his too?”

Nana scanned the metal box and smiled. “I left it there for you. Your papa would want you to have it.”

“But why didn’t you just give it to me?”

“I knew you would find it when the time was right. It wasn’t up to me to decide.”

I cradled the box as if it were a newborn baby. It felt light and hopeful. “It’s locked.”

“
Un momento
.” Nana disappeared down the hallway, reappearing a few minutes later. She handed me a small silver key.

As I stared at the key in the palm of my hand, I whispered, “Thank you.”

Needing to be alone, I carried the box to Estrella and set it on the bed.

I carefully inserted the key into the lock and unlocked the box. When the lid lifted, my eyes at last glimpsed the face I had searched for. A face like my own.

Lifting the photo from the box, I studied his deep-set green eyes. My eyes. He squinted into the sun, his smile wide and welcoming. He stood on a baseball field with a bat swung over his left shoulder and a baseball in his right hand. My baseball!

My breath quickened as I studied the picture closely. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t read the words written across the front of the ball in the photo. But one thing was certain, there were two words floating between
because
and
magic
.

Beneath the photo was a small ivory note card. I opened the note; it was dated the week before I was born.

How is our little girl doing? I can hardly wait to meet Bella.

Did the wind have the right girl after all? I folded a corner of the card back and forth trying to make sense of it all before turning back to the note.

Will be home soon.

I love and miss you both.

Jack.

My head felt like it might float out the window, just like a marshmallow ghost.

Nana left a note on the kitchen table the next morning, telling me she was shopping in the village. She drew a smiley face and an arrow pointing to a plate of bacon-and-egg
burritos
.

I grabbed one from the plate and strolled back to Estrella. When the phone rang, I expected Mateo or Nana’s voice.

“Izzy?”

“Mom?”

She laughed on the other end. “I’m so happy I got you. The connection is awful here.”

I didn’t know whether to be happy or mad. “I need to talk to you …”

“I can’t wait to see you. Just a couple more weeks. Do you hear the rain?”

Her voice reminded me how much I missed her.

“Why couldn’t you tell me? About my name? About Dad?”

Static.

“Hello? Mom? Are you there?” I tapped and shook the phone. “Mom?”

Silence.

There was so much I wanted to ask, but reaching her seemed more impossible than sending a
tortilla
to the moon.

“Izzy, help, help! I’m bleeding!” Maggie hollered.

I hung up the phone and ran out to the living room, banging my head on the bedroom doorframe on my way out.

“Let me see. Where?”

Maggie leaned on the sofa crying. She opened her mouth wide. Blood oozed from her gums.

I laughed. “It’s just a tooth. Is it loose?”

She shook her head and cried some more. “No. I can taste it. I’m dying!”

I walked her to the bathroom sink and let her spit a few times. “You aren’t dying. I promise. Do you want me to pull it out?”

Her eyes widened. “My tooth? No, I want to keep it!”

“But Maggie, it has to come out otherwise the new one can’t come in. And don’t you want the tooth fairy to visit you tonight?”

“Fairy?”

I nodded and she let me pull her front tooth.

“Hey, it didn’t hurt,” she said with her new toothless smile. After she swished warm water around her mouth a few times she pushed her tongue through the hole and giggled. “It feels funny, slippery.” Then she turned to Frida. “Do I look any different?”

Looking at Maggie with her missing tooth reminded me of that first day in our new apartment on M Street, the day I found the photo of myself as a six-year-old on the beach with Mom. The same day I found the baseball. Now it seemed so, so long ago.

Frida stood on her hind legs as Maggie smiled down at her, and for a moment I thought she might bark.

Maggie and I sat on the edge of my bed, planning a celebration for her lost tooth.

“Can we have ice cream, Izzy?”

“Of course. We’ll have a tea party with ice cream and
sopaipillas
.”

Maggie squealed and hugged me. “Can we bring your glass sun? It would look so pretty hanging from the tree.”

“Uh-uh. Socorro told me to leave it in the window.”

Maggie reached up and took it from the east window where it had hung since the day at Socorro’s.

“It’s so pretty though.”

“I said no!”

She glared back at me defiantly. “It’s just a piece of glass.” She stood up on the bed and held the truth catcher up to her face, giggling. “Everything is yellowy.”

“Put it down.” I reached over to grab it from her. But she pulled back, and the truth catcher tumbled from her hands in slow motion like a giant snowflake twirling from the sky.

It crashed to the
Saltillo
floor before I could catch it.

I stared at the shattered pieces. The broken tiles all over the kitchen floor back on M Street flashed through my mind. “You broke it!”

Maggie jumped off the bed and dropped to the ground, “Oh, I’m sorry, Izzy. I didn’t mean to.” She tried to pick up all the pieces. “Socorro might give you another one.”

“No she won’t. It’s one of a kind.” Anger swelled inside. “Just leave me alone!”

“But our celebration—”

“Just forget it. There’s nothing to celebrate.”

I gaped at all the broken pieces. Now I would never see what Socorro promised.

Hours later, twisted feelings bounced inside me, unsure where to land. I thought about all that Maggie had lost, and felt mad at myself for being so mean to her. Then the thought of my shattered truth catcher reminded me of all the pieces of stories Mom hadn’t told me about my father, and now my name, and I got angry all over again. But with each hour that passed, it was harder to apologize, so I just stayed mad and Maggie stayed in my room the rest of the afternoon.

When Nana got home I was chomping down my third
tortilla
in the kitchen, hoping each one would make me feel better. I didn’t even bother to slather butter on this last one. Cold and plain did just fine.

Nana set down an armload of brown paper grocery sacks. “
Hola
, Izzy. You all right?”

Shaking my head, I picked at the brown spots on the
tortilla
and my stomach began to ache.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Maggie broke my truth catcher! The one Socorro gave me.” I blinked hard trying to keep my tears from falling. “Now I’ll never see the truth.” I buried my face into my folded arms on the table.

Nana sat next to me and stroked my hair. “What truth would you like to see?”

I didn’t answer for a long time. Then I raised my head and wiped under my eyes with my fingertips. “I don’t know. I’m just
tired of it coming in pieces.” I leaned my elbow on the table and rested my head against my hand. “Like my name. Why didn’t you tell me?”

Nana smiled softly. “But I did. I gave you the key to the box.” She folded my half-eaten
tortilla
in half and pressed along the seam, but it didn’t split like the store-bought ones.

“But what does it mean? Is my real name Bella?

“This is a lot for you to think about. That is why it comes in pieces. You can better absorb it then.” Nana reached for my hand. “Your father and mother named you Bella before you were born,” she said softly.

“Then, because of all that happened, your mother chose Isadora instead, which is also a beautiful name.”

Was this last part supposed to make me feel better? I flicked a speck of
tortilla
from the table.

“The name you are given is not as important as what you carry inside here.” She pressed her palm over her heart. “And that’s the truth. If you are meant to see another truth, you will.”

“But how? Socorro gave me the truth catcher to show me the most important truth. And now that it’s broken I’ll never know.”

Nana stood and leaned against the kitchen counter. “My nana once told me that anything that is broken can be mended.”

I shook my head. “The pieces are too small and sharp to put back together. I wouldn’t even know which piece went where.”

“You know,
mija
, sometimes we need to see things from a different point of view. You are still looking at the truth catcher as a whole. But you see, it has only changed shapes.” She pointed toward the floor. “Look at the
Saltillo
tile. What do you see?”

I looked down. “Bumpy tile.”

Nana chuckled. “Ah, Izzy. Look closer. Each tile is unique. You see, the grooves and markings are different on each one. And together, when set at the right angle and lined up just right, they make one floor.”

Nana stood up and ran her small fingers over the top of my head. “Try not to see the truth catcher as you think it should be. Instead study two pieces at a time to see if, or how, they connect. That’s how you will remake it.”

“I’ll never be able to fix it and I’ll never see the most important truth now!”

I ran through the garden, down the hill to nowhere. I just wanted to run. Fast and far. When I reached the hammock, I stopped and fell back into its comfort. Tears stung my eyes and the air felt still and sad. Frida jumped onto my lap, uninvited.

“Did Maggie send you to beg? Forget it. Go back and tell her I’m still mad.”

Frida turned in circles, then finally settled down with her head on her paws. Beneath that long dark brow, her green eyes softened.

“You want to stay, huh?” Rubbing between her ears, I said, “You’re lucky you’re just a cat.” I covered my mouth quickly. “Sorry, I meant dog. It’s just a word. It doesn’t mean anything.” I stroked her ears and listened to her purr. “I guess we’re the same that way. My real name is Bella. My dad named me.” I turned my face to the side and lifted my chin. “What do you think? Do I look like a Bella or an Izzy? Definitely not Isadora.”

Frida rolled onto her back and rolled her long tongue out the side of her mouth panting. In that light she looked more like a dog than I’d ever thought before.

“Isadora. Isa. Bella … Maybe I can be Izzy and Bella, Frida,” I whispered. “Isabella Reed Roybal.”

Frida walked across my chest and licked my cheek. “Yeah, I like the ring of it too.”

I imagined what my dad’s voice might sound like, and how he would call after me. “Bella!” he’d say. “You want to play a game of catch?”

Sunlight spilled through the trees, and as I swung the hammock, my shadow shifted across the earth. I thought about Dad resetting the tiles on Gip’s floor, how he was able to make the pieces fit together.

A small dove landed on a branch above me. She rested for only a moment before she flew away, joining a flock of birds that looked like little pieces of black paper floating on the wind. They reminded me of the pieces of my story that were still missing. I wanted to be a bird, to fly away to wherever I chose. To touch the clouds and the sky, to be closer to the wind.

I gazed at the words written across the ball. “If only you were here, Dad,” I whispered. “You could tell me the missing words and how to put the truth catcher back together.” I thought about the girl from Socorro’s story and how she brought the spirit back with a chant. The idea simmered at first, then came to a boil the more I thought it might be possible.

It might be my only chance.

I looked up at Frida. “What do you think? Could it work? Maybe I need a sign to know for sure.”

Frida perked her ears.

“Here’s the deal: I’m going to throw the ball as high as I can, and if I catch it then I’m going to get the chant from Socorro.”

Straddling the hammock, I threw the ball toward the sky. Hope rose in my chest as it fell. But then the ball stopped, landing in the tree directly above, wedged in the branches.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. Just as I collapsed back into the hammock, a warm breeze stroked my bare arms, sending goose bumps from the back of my neck all the way down to my
toes. And then, in one sudden gust, the breeze flew into the tree and shook the branches mightily.

The baseball fell into my lap.

I told Mateo about my plan to call Dad’s spirit. That I’d gotten a sign. At first he didn’t want to help me until I reminded him of the promise he had made me the day at the ghost trail.

“How is that ever gonna work?” he asked.

“Because it happened in the story Socorro told us and she said the story was true, so that makes it possible. Right?”

Mateo shrugged. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Look, I’ll talk to Socorro and ask her all the details. Tonight is supposed to be a full moon so you just meet me at the hammock at midnight and we will go to the river.”

Mateo didn’t say a word.

“Are you going to help me or not?” I insisted.

“Yeah, I’ll be there. I just hope you know what you’re doing.”

I visited Socorro that day and asked her if the chant was real.

“Why do you need to know?” she asked.

“I need to talk to my dad. I can’t wait for the right time anymore. I’m tired of waiting. And if the story is true, if the girl from the story can bring back a spirit, I can too, right?”