Part 14 (1/2)

chapter 16 AGUARDIENTE.

Bruce was standing in the lobby of Caracol when he heard a van pull up to the carport. He walked over to a stained-gla.s.s window and looked out, sighing with relief at the sight of his daughter. Sylvia told him that they had gone to a village festival, but Bruce didn't like the idea of those two running around El Salvador unescorted, for a variety of reasons, only one of which was safety. Will could barely take his eyes off Monica, and she had been uncharacteristically guarded lately. As much as he liked and perhaps even admired Will Lucero, he didn't want to see his daughter ensnared in a dead-end relations.h.i.+p with him. Perhaps, as a father, he was jumping the gun by worrying about the possibility of romance between those two, but he figured it was his parental right. Will's load of emotional and financial baggage was simply unacceptable.

Bruce looked at his watch. The two had been gone for four hours. Not such a long time, really, but he knew that one could change the course of one's life in less than five minutes. He frowned as they walked in.

”Hi, Daddy,” Monica said, looking surprised to see him as she walked in the entrance of the lobby. (When was the last time she had called him ”Daddy”?) ”Sorry I didn't catch you before I left-we just had to get out of here,” Monica said, cinching her fingers around her neck. ”Will's gonna ask Sylvia to get ready for dinner. The driver will take us somewhere to eat, then he'll drop us off at the guesthouse and return Sylvia back here. Sound okay with you?”

Bruce nodded, his mood lightening at the mention of food. ”I'm tired of pupusas pupusas every night. I heard there's a nice little seafood place down the way.” every night. I heard there's a nice little seafood place down the way.”

”Back in about twenty,” Will called out as he disappeared in the direction of the infirmary.

Bruce turned to his daughter and said, ”So where was this festival?”

Monica gave him a long look, took his arm, and tugged, leading him outside. ”We have to talk,” she whispered. ”Let's go out on the beach.”

They flung their shoes onto the empty sunning patio and headed out to the wide, empty strip of beach. Bruce felt a tightening in his diaphragm, so he took a deep breath to dislodge his tension. He tipped his head from side to side, making an audible crunching sound as he tried to loosen the tightness around his neck. ”I'm due for a neck ma.s.sage,” he said, looking for an excuse to delay a discussion that for some reason he was already instinctively dreading. ”You've been neglecting your old man.”

”Then sit,” she said.

The words hadn't left her mouth before Bruce plopped himself down on the sand and took his s.h.i.+rt off, bowing his head forward in antic.i.p.ation of a ma.s.sage. As Monica began to rub his neck, he marveled, as he always did, at her talent for such a thing. She truly had a gift for healing. It felt as if she were plucking tightly strung strips of muscle, like guitar chords- there was pain, release, then a music-like rush of blood flooding the soreness. Pain, release, rush. Pain, release, rush. Ah, she was an artist.

”I'm so glad I sent you to college to study therapy,” he mumbled. ”Well worth it.”

Ten minutes later, when she had relaxed the fierce grip that his sore muscles had on his withering skeleton, she said, ”Now lie flat on the sand.” He obeyed. She sat down next to him, her legs folded. She faced the water. He was waiting for some kind of bonus scalp or shoulder ma.s.sage. After a moment, he looked up and saw that her eyes were closed.

”Is that it?”

”Yeah, that's it.”

”So what did you want to tell me?”

Monica opened her eyes. She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands for a moment before she spoke. ”I didn't go to a festival today, Dad. I visited Francisca Campos.” She took a deep breath and said, softly, ”Mom's not dead.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment. ”Did you know this?”

He looked away, not having a clue what words should be coming out of his mouth. He was glad to be lying down. ”No,” he said finally. ”I know no such thing.”

”I asked Paige to do some research on a seash.e.l.l discovery, an uninteresting little murex found off the coast of Costa Rica last year. The discoverer was listed as 'Borrero.' Paige followed the trail of professional members.h.i.+ps and found an Alma Borrero, born in 1949, now a marine biologist working for the University of Costa Rica. Francisca just confirmed it, Mom's alive.”

He sat up and said, ”That's ridiculous,” even as the idea was already settling into his bones, fizzing up like a hard, white tablet plunked into his bloodstream. Alma had told him, the first time he'd ever been to Negrarena, that she both loathed and craved her parents' moneyed world. She had said that she wished she could start anew somewhere else, somewhere where she wasn't a Borrero and where she wasn't expected to be someone she wasn't and would never be. And if Francisca said Alma was alive, then it was true.

”Dad, you never buried a body.”

He took a deep breath. ”I don't even know what to say, Monica. All I can say is that I need proof. Besides, why would she ...?” His voice trailed off, the sentence severed by the weight of the questions bearing down. He pulled himself up and sat next to Monica, keeping his eyes focused on one house in the distance, with its giant slanted roof. A bird, brown with a white breast, landed a few feet away on the sand and looked at them as if fascinated by their conversation.

Monica said, ”If you made her go away, let's say by reporting her and Max to the militates militates &” She turned and looked at him, and it took him a moment to understand that this was in fact a question. He felt a sickness rising in his stomach, a tiny spot, s.h.i.+ny and round like a black olive, gleaming and burning in the sponginess of his entrails. &” She turned and looked at him, and it took him a moment to understand that this was in fact a question. He felt a sickness rising in his stomach, a tiny spot, s.h.i.+ny and round like a black olive, gleaming and burning in the sponginess of his entrails.

He didn't have a chance to process his answer. She dove upon him in a fierce embrace, a gesture so sudden and unexpected that she knocked him off-balance and he had to put an arm out to support his torso. He opened his arms-the great, broken wings of a raven, flimsy s.h.i.+elds of armor that encircled his daughter's shoulders. ”I didn't turn them into the militares militares, Monica,” he said. ”That would have been murder.”

Monica dug at the sand with a finger. ”Then she just left us?” She looked at him, and he saw that her eyes were filling with tears, begging him to come up with a plausible excuse for her mother.

”If it's true she's alive, then, yes, Monica, she just left us.”

The bird cawed as if in response and continued to watch them. ”She didn't love us, then,” Monica whispered.

Bruce grabbed her shoulder and looked into the eyes that were so like his own. ”She loved you you.”

”Not enough,” Monica said, pretending to smile. She wiped her tears and hopped onto her feet, folding her arms at her chest. Will appeared in the distance. ”We're over here,” she shouted, then turned to Bruce. ”Will knows. And now he has a stake in finding Mom because Francisca told us that Mom is trying to shut down Caracol.” She pointed behind her, toward the building. ”I'm starting to think that everyone in that clinic is in danger.”

THE RESTAURANT was up on a second story, built on stilts over an inlet of water. It was rustic, with wood picnic tables and benches. Beefy, torpid black flies circled the colorful plastic baskets of food left behind at another table. The sole decoration was a hand-painted map of El Salvador on the far wall. was up on a second story, built on stilts over an inlet of water. It was rustic, with wood picnic tables and benches. Beefy, torpid black flies circled the colorful plastic baskets of food left behind at another table. The sole decoration was a hand-painted map of El Salvador on the far wall.

Will, Monica, and Bruce picked at their grilled red snapper. Will draped a paper napkin over his fish head because, he said, he couldn't ”perform surgery with the patient staring back.” Sylvia, on the other hand, ate with the delicate, methodical appet.i.te of a cat, pulling up the spine structure like the separator in a metal ice-cube tray.

”Two patients were aroused out of their comas in the last week,” Sylvia announced cheerfully. ”One of them is a questionable success-a young woman who was already reacting to music and voices when she was admitted. But the other was out cold for a year.”

”How did the treatment go this morning?” Bruce asked.

”Incredible,” Sylvia said, smiling and opening her eyes wide. ”Yvettte's Glasgow score has gone up two points.”

Will put down his fork and cleared his throat. ”We're suspending the treatments and starting the arrangements to take her home. I have reason to believe-”

”We're not suspending anything,” Sylvia said, chuckling falsely. ”I'm not going to listen to rumors. The treatment is working.” She thumped her index finger down on the table. ”Working, working, working.”

”A man staying at the inn told us one patient woke up a raving lunatic,” Will said, his face bright red. ”Is that what you want? To trade one altered state for another? Better to let her body continue to reconstruct itself naturally. That place is really beginning to scare me.”

”We heard some bad things about it today,” Monica said, looking at Sylvia. ”Maybe it's prudent to hold off until we know more.”

”And how long do you think I can afford to stay here?” Sylvia snapped back. ”I have bills stacking up back home. It's now or never.” She put down her fork and looked at Will defiantly.

”I'm not backing down.”

Will closed his eyes and looked away, apparently counting silently. After ten seconds he turned and looked at his mother-in-law. ”Sylvia, it's not your decision to make.”

Bruce and Monica shared a worried look.

”I have the airline tickets,” Sylvia said softly. ”Unless you have five thousand dollars in your pocket ...”

”We're gambling with Yvette's health,” Will said. ”Dr. Mendez is playing with people's lives. If the enterprise fails, there are no consequences, no accountability. The patients die or go crazy, oh, well. Dr. Mendez doesn't have to worry about being sued in this country because she's not doing anything illegal. And no consequences means the freedom and ability to take high medical risks for high rewards.”

Sylvia slurped her bottled water, avoiding Will's gaze.

There was a moment when no one spoke, and Monica guessed they were all too emotionally exhausted to argue any more. ”Did they hire a new therapist yet?” Monica asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

”Not yet, darling,” Sylvia said, patting Monica's hand. ”G.o.d will repay you for your hard work. They don't need to be ma.s.saged every day. Every other day is fine. And if you're really tired, you can ma.s.sage just Yvette.” Sylvia quickly glanced at Will, or rather, at his neck, and said, ”Yvette knows when you're in the room. Maybe you should spend the nights with her at Caracol. I can go stay at the guesthouse with Monica. Will, you can take my bed.” In a low voice she said, ”I'm sure Yvette would appreciate some attention from her husband.” And with that, she cut the head off her red snapper and got back to eating its delicate white flesh.

Bruce looked at Will, who was staring unhappily out at the water, looking trapped.

Without looking up, Sylvia said, ”So shall we make the swap tonight?”