Kern - 28 - At the Clear Fountain

 

In 2013, Fernando Morales discovered his brother Juan’s eldest son Carlos wearing a dress and makeup, and decided Juan needed to be told. Juan kicked Carlos out of the house, just weeks before high school graduation. Carlos appealed to his grandmother – Abuela – but she supported his padre.

Eleven years later, Carlos returns to Buttonwillow as Carmen, a successful young woman who works for an insurance broker in Orange County while attending law school at night. Juan has had a stroke, and Abuela tracks her down and demands that she help. Carmen is appointed to act as temporary conservator for her father. In the course of trying to do that job, she has to confront many ghosts from her past. The mother who abandoned her and her brother Joaquim (“Ximo”) when she was eight, writes an apology that includes a confession that she had been in love, not with Juan, but with his brother Fernando.

The closest relationships Carmen re-establishes are with Ximo and her cousins Kelsey and Inés (“Innie”). Kelsey had been living with Dace Gutierrez, the older brother of Carmen’s first crush, Diego. The relationship is both physically and emotionally abusive, but despite Dace putting her in the hospital, Kelsey goes back to him. When Diego returns to Buttonwillow to get his belongings, he finds Kelsey unconscious and overdosed, and calls an ambulance.

While Carmen, Innie and Diego are dealing with Kelsey (and with each other), Dace slashes the tires of Carmen’s car and tries to ambush her at the motel where she’s been staying when in Buttonwillow. The next morning, Innie and Carmen try to get Kelsey to cooperate with the police, and Carmen visits Fernando in prison to attempt to enlist his help. While there, she has to confront her own long-standing rage at his role in her abandonment 11 years earlier.

For a refresher on Carmen’s family tree, see this post.

Chapter 28: At the Clear Fountain

I was getting very tired of hospitals.

Since Kelsey and padre were not brought to the same hospital, I wasn’t able to accomplish anything for padre while cooling my heels at Mercy Southwest, waiting for Uncle Fernando and his escort to speak with Kelsey. This was particularly true because, courtesy of Dace Gutierrez, my car was in the shop. So I made calls. Sent texts. Fretted.

Innie had left to run some errands while I’d gone to the prison, since the nurse hadn’t wanted either of us disturbing Kelsey. I called her.

“Is he going to help?” she asked without preamble.

“He’s in with her now.”

“Wow . . . I never thought they’d agree to let him come – or that he’d agree to help.”

“I think the sheriffs really want to nail Dace. And as much as Uncle Fernando would like to do that personally, helping them is the closest he can get.”

She snorted. “Twisted. What’s the story on Kels?”

“I don’t have anything new. But I can’t imagine they’ll be able to keep her long. From what I understand, naloxone’s like a miracle drug. They probably only kept her this long because she was out cold . . . and because of the suicide watch.”

“Where will she go? Back to Gomer’s place?”

“I don’t know – señor Gomez really didn’t want Dace around. If Kelsey’s a possible target, she might not be welcome there.” I thought for a minute. “She can stay with me at the hotel, I guess, but I’ll only be there through tomorrow. And I want to try to talk Ximo into staying there until Dace has been picked up.”

“Huh,” she replied. “Listen, I’ve got an idea. I’ve got a friend at work who’s taking a leave of absence for a month to be with her daughter and her new grandson in Las Vegas. Maybe she would let Kels stay at her apartment in Bakersfield while she’s gone.”

I chewed on the idea for a minute. It fit the bill – safe, quiet, out-of-the-way – and I didn’t have any better ideas. “Worth a shot, I guess. Do you want to reach out?”

“I’ll do that. Let me get back to you, okay?”

I agreed, and we ended the call.

After a little under an hour, Uncle Fernando emerged from Kelsey’s room, still shackled, escorted by officers Braddock and Cooper. His eyes were red and his expression, bleak.

I rose slowly and shifted my attention to Braddock. “Did you get what you need?”

He nodded, subdued. “Yeah.”

To Uncle Fernando I asked, “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know.” He raised his hands, a gesture of helplessness. “She’s here, and she’s hurting. And I . . . need to go back. I can’t be with her.” He almost choked out the last sentence.

I nodded, understanding. But I said, “She’s not alone. We’ll be with her. Me. Innie. The family.”

He swallowed, hard. “Thank you.” His voice was harsh, like burlap on a sunburn.

I stared at him for a long moment, trying to make some sense of my complicated feelings for the man who had caused the abrupt end of my childhood, and more recently had deeply hurt my friend and cousin. The man my mother had loved, to her detriment. Who had been, to my knowledge, the only brother who’d been close to padre. Dealmaker, salesman . . . felon. Who are you, really?

I gave up. “Anything you want me to say to my padre?”

“He’s awake again?”

“Not exactly . . . . But I think he can hear, and understand. When I talk about Momma – about Kathy – he weeps.”

He flinched, then drew an unsteady breath. “¡Dios mío! Tell him . . . .”

I waited, but he struggled to complete his thought.

Officer Braddock gave a discreet cough. “I’m sorry, Carmen. We need to take him back now.”

I had been so angry at my uncle . . . and I’d carried that anger for over a decade. Staring at him now, seeing his pain and his helplessness, I felt like all my emotions were spent. Exhausted. “Vaya con Dios, Uncle Fernando.”

They shuffled him to the elevator, but just before he entered he turned back and said, “Tell him I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For everything.”

Then he was gone.

~o~O~o~

It was another half hour before they let me back in to see Kelsey, and only then with fierce warnings about not upsetting her. Her bed was up in the sitting position and she looked alert, though her eyes, too, were red-rimmed and puffy.

She gave me a look. “You’re a manipulative little bitch, you know that?”

“I got five inches on you,” I reminded her.

“Fine. Two outta three ain’t bad.”

I pulled a chair over and sat by the bed. “No argument. Sorry, Kels.”

She glowered at me for a minute before relenting. She held out a hand as a peace offering and said, “Thanks anyway. How did you know I needed to see him?”

I covered her hand with mine. “Because he’ll always be your papí, no matter what.”

“I guess. Maybe.”

“Tell me he apologized, or I’ll sneak into his cell and squeeze him ’til mierda comes out of every orifice."

“I almost wish he hadn’t,” she grumbled. “I can’t stay mad at him when he apologizes.”

“I thought that was the idea?”

She sighed. “Yeah, I know. But when I’m mad at him, I’m not thinking too hard about my own issues. Know what I mean?”

“I get that, for sure.” I squeezed her hand. “I was pretty rough on your papí, too. I told myself I was just angry for you – for the way he treated you. But it was way more than that.”

“You got your own beef with him. I get that.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. But, ¡Dios! I blew it way out of proportion. Like I was making him responsible for all the bad things that happened to me, once he let padre see me in a dress. I’d found a way to forgive padre, and Abuela. Even Diego. I guess all that anger had to go somewhere.”

“Wait . . . when did you get around to forgiving Diego? Last time we talked about him, you were plenty pissed.”

“That’s right – we didn’t get to that point before. Diego’s the reason you’re still with us.”

“Huh?”

“He’d decided to relocate to Oregon permanently, and came home to get his stuff. He found you on the couch and recognized the signs of a fentanyl overdose right away. After he called 911, he called Innie and she called me.”

“I’d wondered how I got here.” She brooded for a minute, then said, “Look, I’m sorry. I fucking hate the fact that I caused all this drama. Especially after telling you, over and over, that I wasn’t some sort of victim. Honest to God, after Dace left, all I intended to do was drink myself into a coma.”

She stopped, and shook her head. “Fuck! Talk about sucking on my own foot! Sorry; I know comas aren’t a joke to you.”

I just squeezed her hand again in reassurance.

“What I mean is, I only intended to get super drunk. But once I was drunk – and I mean, fully, completely, totally shit-faced – that’s when I got really dark. Like, all those voices in my head that always tell me I’m no good, that I’m a fuck-up, that I’ll never amount to anything? They got so loud, I couldn’t hear anything else. Does that make any sense?”

“Kels,” I said softly. “You’ve seen me go off into my own nightmares, right in the middle of a conversation. Believe me, I get it.”

She nodded, then closed her eyes. After a moment, she said, “It was so strong, right then. I couldn’t resist. I stopped wanting to try. And . . . it scares me, thinking it might happen again. How do you get through it, Carmen?”

“I have a guardian angel.”

Her eyes popped open and she gave me a disgusted look. “I was serious.”

“So am I. The woman who ran the shelter in LA, who took me in off the street. She was everything I could ever want to be. Kind. Loving. Grounded. She’s my anchor, even now.”

Her annoyance faded. “You’re still in touch, then?”

I shook my head. “She died in the pandemic. But as long as I remember her, she’s with me.”

“She loved you?”

“Unconditionally.”

Her eyes closed again. “Sounds nice,” she said wistfully.

“You have your own angel, you know.”

“News to me.”

“You do,” I insisted. “I can tell you about her, if you want.”

That got a tired half smile. “Sure. Fire away.”

I pulled my phone out of my purse and opened the email that was pegged to the top of the page.

How can I even explain Brittany? I can tell you she was fun, and exciting, and kind, and outgoing, and all of those things are true. But those are just words, after all. They can’t begin to describe what she meant to me. What we meant to each other.

Her eyes were open again, astonished. “From your momma? Are you serious?”

I nodded, but kept reading.

My God, we had a great time together – I probably would have gotten into less trouble if my parents had packed me off to Paris! We’d go to the clubs downtown and dance until 2 in the morning, then get up at dawn and find more trouble to get into. It was boys, half the time. I hope that doesn’t seem scandalous. But we were young and stupid and it felt like the world would always be ours for the taking.

She snorted. “I guess I know where I got that from!”

“Yeah – been meaning to talk to you about that. It gets worse, too. Listen to this!” I continued.

Imagine riding on the back of a Harley as it cruises down Lombard Street in a fog so deep you barely have time to see the curves ahead, arms wrapped deathly tight around the guy who’s trying to hold it together and keep us from going over the edge! Yep, that was me – and Brittany was there, right beside me, on another bike, with another guy. Who? I don’t remember. I don’t remember any of the guys. Just Brittany.

“Jesus,” she said, stopping me. “That . . . that was Mom? I can’t even. Papí used to tell me about her. Tried to give me a memory of her. Or a memory of a memory, anyway. But she never seemed real. Not like this – she would have been younger than I am now!”

“There’s more here – lots more.” I swallowed. “My momma loved your mom something fierce. She talks about how excited your mom was to be with your papí, and to become a mother. How she wanted us all – you, me, our padres, and the two of them – to live together. One big family.” I got too choked up to continue, imagining what it might have been like.

“I’m guessing there’s a lot of shitty stuff in there, too.”

I nodded. “Yeah. I mean, I’ll send it to you, if you want. But you might want to wait before you read the whole thing.”

“You mean, ’til I’m out of the hospital?”

“Something like that.” My smile was lopsided. “The important thing, though, is that she loved you, Kels. Just like Sister Catalina loved me. She’d have loved you no matter what. No matter how many mistakes you make. I want you to hold on to that, whenever those voices get too strong.”

She bit her lip. “I guess . . . .” She got quiet, processing that for a minute. Then she looked at me with a familiar glint in her eye. “We were supposed to be sisters, huh? One big family?”

“That was the idea.”

“Yeah? But you’ve got smelly feet!”

“Do not!”

“And you snore, too. Don’t think I’ve forgotten!”

I stuck out my tongue. “Sucks to be you, I guess.”

“Ain’t that the truth?” Innie quipped, as she sauntered into the room.

Kelsey looked at her, smiled, and looked back at me. “Mom didn’t count on Innie, did she?”

“She kind of did,” I replied. “She and my momma wanted to make dresses for all the little girls.”

“Ewwww,” Innie said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. “Dresses!”

Kels ignored her. “So Innie’s in the sisterhood, too?”

“Yup.”

“Eh.” Kels looked at our cousin like a farmer might examine breeding stock. “She’ll do, I guess. Should we vote?”

Innie immediately picked up on the change in mood since we’d been booted out of the room earlier in the day, and wisely decided to go with it. “If your club has some sort of ‘dresses only’ rule, I’ll take a hard pass,” she said dryly. “Tell me you’re done with the crying stuff.”

Kels furrowed her forehead like she was giving the question careful consideration. “Probably.”

“’Cuz, like, I can come back later.”

I laughed. “If you two are going at it again, maybe everything will work out after all.”

Innie glowered at me. “Not if you two are going to get all maudlin about mothers. God knows, I love mine, but there are days I want to strangle her!”

“I’m guessing she’d say the same thing about you,” Kels observed.

“I hope so,” Innie replied cheerfully. “Now if we can puhleeze move on . . . when do they spring you from this place?”

“They’re doing the paperwork now,” Kelsey said, suddenly serious. “I hate to ask, Carmen, but . . . do you think Ximo might put me up? Anna’s pretty pissed at me for all the back-and-forth with Dace.”

“I’m sure he would,” I said slowly. “But . . . it might not be safe.”

“Huh?” She looked from one of us to the other. “What’s happened?”

I shot Innie a look, but she just shrugged.

Kels said, “What aren’t you telling me?”

Innie sat on the end of her bed. “Dace seems to have gone off the deep end. He went to Uncle Juan’s house last night, while Carmen and I were out and Ximo was home sleeping. He might have tried to break in; we don’t know. But he slashed Carmen’s tires, then he went to the Motel 6 to try to find her there.”

Kelsey’s face lost all color. “Jesus! I thought he’d left town!”

“He probably has, by now,” I said. “The sheriffs are looking for him, and I assumed they’d find his truck, at least, if he was still around. But we don’t know, and anyway, he might not be far.”

A thought suddenly struck her. “Carmen – you aren’t still staying at the ’Six, are you?”

I shook my head. “No; Ximo and I found another motel last night.”

“Thank God!” she said fervently. “We’ve got their cleaning contract, so I keep a master key on my ring. Dace might have taken it!”

It was my turn to go pale. “¡Joder! He could have walked right in while I was sleeping?”

“Fuck!” she spat. “To think I tried to protect him! After everything!”

“No way you could have known,” I assured her, but my voice shook. The idea of that pendejo catching me alone, defenseless, and sleeping made my skin crawl and my blood run cold.

“Yeah, there was,” she said, disgusted. “I knew how pissed he was about you and Ximo breaking up our fight and calling the cops. I just thought he’d back off, when I agreed to talk to the DA.”

Innie growled under her breath, “Cochino!”

Kels heard her anyway, and gave a sharp nod. “Yeah. Yeah, he is. And I’m fucking done with his pinche games. No-one fucks with a Morales!”

“Any Morales,” Innie and I agreed.

Kels ground her teeth. “Well, I can’t stay at Dace’s place, and it sounds like I can’t crash with Ximo. I’ll shoot Gomer a text. Maybe call her. Time for a little groveling.”

I gave Innie an inquiring look.

She grimaced, took a deep breath, and gave Kels a wary look. “Well . . . I’ve got a proposal for you. Hear me out, okay?”

“Not gonna like it, am I?”

“Like I said . . . hear me out. A friend of mine from work is out of town until Labor Day; I asked her if you could use her apartment until she gets back.”

Kelsey pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “That . . . that’d work.”

“Except it didn’t. Nothing against you personally, but she isn’t comfortable having someone there that she doesn’t know. She’s okay with me staying there, since she just knows I’m God’s gift. But If I go there, then you can stay in my room.”

Kelsey’s eyes went wide. “You mean, share a house with Aunt Consola! She doesn’t approve of me at all!”

Innie frowned. “That’s just wrong, Kels. Yeah, she’s not going to let you bring a guy home or anything, but you’re family. That counts for everything in her book.”

“But . . . she’ll, like, make me go to church!”

Innie patted her knee. “It won’t kill you.”

“And you’ll have Uncle Augui there, and Javier when he’s not working. It’ll be, you know . . . ?” I left it hanging. She would see it, or she wouldn’t.

“Like family?” She finished. “Uggh! Haven’t we all had enough of that?”

But she wasn’t fooling me. Not even a little bit. Innie was champing at the bit to be gone, but Kels? Family meant a lot to her, too. I grinned. “Like I said: sucks to be you.”

“What do you say?” Innie asked her. “Should I call madre?”

Kelsey glared at her, then gave me an extra glare, just to spread the love around. “Oh, fine! Beggars can’t be choosers!”

I couldn’t help thinking, I hope to God you never find out just how true that is. But Kelsey didn’t need to hear from Dark Carmen today, so I kept quiet and hoped for the best.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Innie chirped maliciously, “madre was super excited by the idea.”

Kelsey buried her head against her knees and groaned, “I am so doomed!”

~o~O~o~

Another pinche hospital. Joy.

I waved as Innie drove off with Kelsey, then made my way up to padre’s room. After the day I’d had – a tense sleep in an unfamiliar hotel, finding out that Kels tried to kill herself, then dealing with Uncle Fernando – I was kind of hoping that at least I would have some quiet time to think and recharge.

Still, I wasn’t surprised to find Abuela by his bed; she was there most days. Tia Juana was with her, talking softly, but she broke off when I arrived.

“Buenos días, Abuela. Tia.” I turned to the bed. “Hi, padre. I’m back.”

Abuela grunted something in response and tia Juana opened her mouth to answer me. But instead she looked surprised and gave a startled, “Oh!”

It was the second time I’d seen his eyes open since the stroke. This time it happened slowly, as if the muscles were straining to comply. The right eye came completely open; the left eye didn’t quite. I wasn’t sure that had been true the previous time.

I found my heart was pounding, but if this wasn’t just a coincidence – if he was really awake in some significant sense – I didn’t want to react in any way that communicated my own anxiety.

Be cool, Carmen, I told myself. Be calm.

Since his head didn’t move and his eyes were fixed forward, I went to the bed, cupped his right cheek in my left hand and gently moved his head a little, so that he might more easily see his guests – assuming he was actually getting any sensory input. “We’re here for you, padre. Me and Juana and your mamá.”

Behind me, Abuela said, “What is happening?”

“His eyes opened, suegra,” tia Juana replied, her voice soft.

“Ah.” Characteristically, Abuela sounded non-committal.

What to say? What would he want to know, right now? “Padre . . . I don’t know how much you’ve heard or remember, about what’s been going on. About what I’ve told you and what I’ve talked about with Abuela. But you had a stroke, out in the fields at work. You’re in the hospital now, and they’re taking good care of you. Ximo’s taking care of the house for you, and I’ve mostly got your finances sorted out. So don’t be worried, okay? It’ll take a while, but you’ll be all right.”

I couldn’t detect any change in his left eye at all – it might as well be a marble, set in clay. But both his right pupil and the fine muscles at the outside corner of his right eye contracted narrowly. If I hadn’t been paying the closest attention, I might have missed it.

Tia Juana rose and stood by me. She took his claw of a left hand in both of hers and raised it, both prayer and promise. “It’s good to see your eyes again, hermanito. I brought Javi last week, and you know how he hates hospitals. He told me you’ll get through this.”

This time both eyelids definitely moved, lowering like an unused garage door with bent and rusted tracks. It took maybe ten seconds for them to close completely, though it felt like much longer.

“Padre . . . if you can hear me, would you please open an eye?”

Nothing happened.

I found myself holding my breath, thinking, come on, padre! Come on!

Tia Juana turned to give me a look filled with sorrow and compassion.

Come ON!

With agonizing slowness, his right eye twitched, then began to open. Again it felt like it took forever, but in reality, I thought it might have opened a fraction more quickly. “Gracias, padre,” I whispered.

“So. He hears you.”

“Sí, Abuela.” Hearing her rise, I turned, guided her to the bed, and joined her hands to tia Juana’s.

“They tell me your eyes are open,” Abuela said. “But that doesn’t mean you see, as I know. If you hear me, hear this. You must be strong now. For yourself. For your family.”

I wasn’t sure that padre needed lectures right now. “You’ll have to forgive your mamá,” I said with a nervous chuckle. “Tough love is the only kind she knows. But she’s been here with you every day.”

That earned me a surprised – and approving – look from my tia, who obviously thought I was playing with fire.

But Abuela went with it. “I have been,” she growled. “And I hate hospitals almost as much as Javier.”

It was as close to humor as Abuela was likely to get if she lived to 100, which made me smile. She didn’t have a gentle bone in her body, but she was willing to try. I only hoped that padre would see that as clearly as I did.

It was time for reinforcements. “I’m going to go see if I can get one of the doctors. I won’t be long.”

The flick of Abuela’s fingers told me she agreed with my decision; I left the room and walked quickly to the nurse’s station. It was Darla Braithwaite, the nurse I’d met that first day after padre’s stroke, when she had to break up a verbal fight between me and Aunt Maria. It had taken several visits to get off her shit list, and even now she wasn’t especially friendly.

But she was professional. “Miss Morales?”

“Hi, Mrs. Braithwaite. I think we may have had a breakthrough just now – padre opened his eyes when I greeted him, and a couple minutes later he opened them again when I asked him to.”

She nodded sharply. “Excellent. Dr. Chatterji specifically asked us to look for that. She’s not in today, but I’ll see if Dr. Jimenez is available.”

“Thank you!”

“It may be a few minutes,” she warned.

“That’s all right. We’ll keep talking.”

It actually didn’t take long for the doctor to join us. He was a spare, ascetic-looking man, probably padre’s age, with kind, deep-set eyes. He must have encountered Abuela before, and greeted her first. “Señora Santiago. Mrs. Braithwaite tells me there’s been some good news?”

“So I’m told,” she said. “But I can’t see it.”

“Yes, of course. Let me have a look.”

We gave him some space and he performed the tests I’d seen both Jill Thomas and Dr. Chatterji run a week earlier. When he was finished, he spoke directly to padre, but loud enough that we could hear him. “Señor Morales, you’ve made real progress. Some control of your eye muscles and of your pupil on the right side. You couldn’t detect my pinching, but I think that will come, now. I know it won’t feel like much progress to you, and I expect that you’ll be frustrated that things aren’t happening faster. But you need to be patient and work with us, and with your family. Your body’s had a big shock, and it’s going to take time to recover. But you’ll get there.”

Abuela had used me as a guide and was holding my elbow. Almost imperceptively, I felt her grasp tighten, though she said nothing. I remembered her telling me how people tended to assume that blind people were also deaf and stupid; it must have been important to her that the doctor was talking to padre directly.

Dr. Jimenez turned and gave us all a smile that made his eyes seem warm as caramel in the sunshine. “It’s good news. A beginning, anyway. Keep doing what you’re doing. Visit. Engage. Keep us posted on what you see. Any changes. I’ll make sure that the staff are notified as well.”

“We will,” I assured him, while wondering just how I was going to make that happen. I had to head back home the next day.

He nodded at tia Juana. “Señora.” Turning to where I stood with Abuela, he added, with careful courtesy, “Señorita. Señora Santiago.” Then he left us.

“Such good news,” tia Juana said. “I can’t wait to let Javi know. And I’ll make sure he comes to visit, too. It’ll do him good to get out.”

Abuela snorted in agreement.

“I am going to have to go, though,” tia apologized, looking at me. “I’ve just got time to run out to Buttonwillow to drop your abuela off, and make it home in time for my shift tonight. Unless you can bring her?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry; my car’s in the shop right now. I’m hoping it’ll be done soon, but I don’t know how long it will take.”

“Oh. That’s too bad. I’m sorry, suegra; we’ll need to get going.”

Abuela nodded, then prodded me forward. When we reached the bed, she again captured her son’s hand in her own. “I can’t see when you open your eyes, so you’ll have to work on speaking. Be strong.” She nodded to herself, then allowed tia Juana to lead her out.

I took the hand that Abuela had released, wondering whether he had any feeling in it. It would be kinder if he didn’t; I could only imagine how it would ache, to have muscles cramped and bunched like that, for weeks on end.

He was still staring straight on, so there was no way to tell whether he was actually seeing me. Still, I aligned my face so that his eyes met mine. “I hope that you can hear me. I know it must be scary, not being able to communicate.”

I had sat with him many times, telling him the story of my years away. Did he remember all of that? Any of it? Did he know who I was? Who I am?

There was no way to know. He might understand everything or nothing. He might be with me in the present, or lost in the past. Before today, only his wife’s name had stirred him. What should I say?

I decided I had no better option than to assume he had heard me before, and that he was oriented to the present. “I’ve had a busy day,” I told him. “I can tell you a bit about it, but if you get tired – if you want me to stop – just close your eyes, okay?”

He continued to stare at me.

“Since I saw you yesterday, Kelsey had more trouble with Dace Gutierrez, and she ended up in the hospital. Innie and I couldn’t get her to tell the police what happened, so I had to go see your brother in prison.”

I wasn’t sure, but I thought I saw something in his eyes – or maybe just his right eye. It felt like he understood what I was saying, though there was no way I could be sure.

I went on. “He didn’t want to help, at first. I mean, I understand not trusting cops, and I’m guessing he likes them even less than most people I know. But they could help Kelsey, and he couldn’t, so he went and talked to her. It must have worked, because she told the police what happened.”

Still no change from padre. If anything, his eyes looked more lifeless.

“I talked to him afterwards. To Uncle Fernando. . . . He asked me to tell you that he was sorry. Sorry for everything. I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I don’t know if that means anything to you. I hope . . . I guess I hope it helps, somehow.”

Slowly, but very definitely, his eyelids fell. Eventually, his eyes closed completely.

I stayed with him for a while after that, watching his breathing, so mechanically slow and even. Feeling the inhuman tension of his hand. My slightly stooped posture was causing my back to ache, but I didn’t want to leave just yet. I half-sat next to him on the bed, keeping his hand in mine. Trying to touch older memories. Better times.

“I want Momma!” I glared at padre, looming over me.

“Hush, Carlos,” he replied. “She’s getting your ’manito to sleep right now. You can talk to her in the morning.”

“No fair,” I pouted. “She only sings to HIM, now!”

He cocked an ear. “Maybe she’s finished. Want me to see if she can spare you a song, too?”

I nodded, resolute. She was MY momma first!

A few moments later, they both came into my darkened room. Padre sat in the chair by my bed, but Momma sat beside me and rested a hand on my cheek. “Now, what’s this?”

“I want song!”

“You want A song,” she corrected. Shall I sing you the French song?”

My nod was vigorous. I liked the French song.

That had to be one of my oldest memories; there was something unreal about it. Especially now, knowing everything that happened later. Her disappearance. Padre’s anger and his drinking. His decision to throw me out. But there had been some good times, before all that. How old had I been? Four? Five?

I still remembered “the French Song,” or at least, the part she’d sung to each of us. To me, first, then Ximo. But I wouldn’t have remembered the lyrics from then. I’d learned them when I used to sing them with her, when she was getting baby Domingo to sleep, but even then, I hadn’t understood them. That didn’t happen for years.

I wondered whether padre would remember. Whether the memory would touch him, and if so, whether it would make him sad.

No way to know. All I could do was hope.

In a low, soft voice, I began to sing,

À la claire fontaine,
M'en allant promener
J'ai trouvé l'eau si belle
Que je m'y suis baignée.

The image of the woman bathing in the irresistibly beautiful, clear waters of the fountain, made me smile. But the chorus was harder.

Il y a longtemps que je t'aime
Jamais je ne t'oublierai!

“For so long, I have been loving you. I will never forget you.” Had she forgotten us, the woman who had sung those sweet words to Ximo and me? It had been twenty years. She said “no,” but I didn’t know. I probably never would.

And then there was padre. Had he forgotten me, the child who had so disappointed him? Had he forgotten little Domingo, whom he’d barely known? I didn’t know that either.

Yet there was one thing I knew with complete and utter certainty now. He’d never forgotten Kathy. He’d been loving her now for thirty years. Less than a decade together, and more than two decades apart. Memories of Kathy could still reach him, in ways that nothing else could. Even though she hadn’t loved him, even though she’d abandoned him, he just went on loving her, year after year after year.

Loving her to his death, maybe.

More softly still, I repeated the chorus, as she had always done. “Il y a longtemps que je t'aime. Jamais je ne t'oublierai.”

It must have been soothing to him, despite the heartbreak that came after. I wasn’t sure how, but I sensed that he was truly sleeping.

This time, I was the one who wept.

— To be continued

Musical coda: À la Claire Fontaine

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