Chương 2
He did not argue again.
The city outside moved in impatient fragments. Delivery trucks blocked intersections. A man in a reflective vest waved traffic around the bus stop where paramedics had treated Inés. One plastic grocery bag remained on the pavement beside the bench, its oranges rolling against the curb each time a car passed.
Sofía watched the bag until it disappeared behind them.
“Was your mother coming to see me?” Javier asked.
“She had an interview.”
“At GlobalTech?”
The girl nodded.
That surprised him. Laura’s letter had called her a contract accounts-payable analyst, but Javier did not know the names of most contract employees three levels below him. He approved head-count limits, departmental budgets, and quarterly labor forecasts. Individuals often reached his desk as numbers before they reached him as people.
“Who was interviewing her?”
“Mrs. Kline.”
Beth Kline, GlobalTech’s corporate controller.
Javier looked at the folder again.
“Was your mother bringing those records to her interview?”
“She said she had to give them to you before she talked to Mrs. Kline.”
“Why?”
Sofía rubbed one thumb along the folder’s edge. “She didn’t say.”
The driver slowed behind an ambulance entering Saint Catherine’s emergency lane. Sofía leaned forward so abruptly that the seat belt caught her shoulder.
“That one?”
“I don’t think so,” Javier said.
Her breathing had changed. She was trying to keep it quiet, which somehow made it more painful to hear.
He took a bottle of water from the door compartment and offered it to her. She shook her head.
“My mother doesn’t like hospitals.”
“Neither does my sister.”
“Is your sister scared?”
“Yes.”
“Adults get scared?”
“All the time.”
Sofía studied his face, perhaps checking for mockery.
“What do you do?”
“Usually something unhelpful.”
The answer startled a small sound from her. It was not quite a laugh, but it gave her another way to breathe.
At the hospital, Laura Morales was sitting on the floor outside an examination room because every chair in the emergency corridor was occupied.
Dust marked one knee of her charcoal skirt. A brownish streak crossed the sleeve of her cream blouse where Inés had gripped her during a contraction that turned out not to be labor. Laura’s dark hair had loosened from its bun, and several strands clung to the side of her face.
She held Inés’s wedding ring in her palm.
The paramedics had removed it when swelling appeared in her fingers. Inés had handed it to Laura because there had been no one else to trust.
Laura looked up when Sofía ran toward her.
The fear she had been controlling since the bus stop broke only in the movement of her mouth. She caught her daughter, pressed her face into Sofía’s hair, and stayed there.
“You went inside?” she asked.
“I found Elena.”
“You didn’t cross the street?”
“No.”
“You stayed where people could see you?”
“Yes.”
“You called Tía Teresa?”
“Elena did.”
Laura drew back and checked her daughter’s face, shoulders, hands, cardigan buttons, as if the city might have rearranged something while they were apart.
Then she saw Javier.
Her grip on Sofía tightened.
He was accustomed to recognition changing a room. People straightened, smiled too quickly, or glanced at his suit before remembering to look at his face. Laura did none of those things.
She looked past him to the blue folder.
“You opened it.”
“Your letter was addressed to me.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“Yes.”
A nurse came through the examination-room door. “Mr. Ortega?”
Javier stepped forward.
Inés lay propped on a narrow bed, one hand beneath the curve of her abdomen. She was thirty-four, seven months pregnant, and furious whenever she was frightened. Even with adhesive leads across her chest and an IV taped to her wrist, she managed to look offended by the machinery.
“You took forever,” she said.
“It’s been twenty-two minutes.”
“Exactly.”
He bent and kissed her forehead. Her skin was cooler than he expected.
The monitor beside her made a soft, regular sound.
“The baby?”
“Apparently she objected to my blood pressure and decided to kick the nurse.”
The nurse smiled. “The fetal monitoring looks reassuring. The doctor will explain the rest.”
Javier glanced toward the corridor.
Inés followed his eyes. “Laura.”
“I met her daughter.”
“Did you thank her?”
“I’m trying.”
“Try better.”
Laura stood at the doorway but did not enter. She still held Sofía’s shoulder.
Inés raised a swollen hand. “Please.”
Laura came closer and placed the wedding ring on the rolling table beside the bed.
“You should keep that with your things,” she said.
“You kept it safer than I would have.”
“You weren’t exactly available.”
Inés’s smile trembled. “The last thing I remember clearly is you telling me not to apologize for falling.”
“You kept apologizing to everyone.”
“I do that when I’m panicking.”
“You also told a paramedic his scissors were expensive.”
“They looked expensive.”
Laura glanced at the monitor, then at the nurse. “She was having trouble breathing when she went down. Has someone checked—”
“They have,” Inés said. “You can stop being in charge now.”
Laura’s shoulders lowered by less than an inch.
Javier saw then that her calm was not ease. It was labor.
“You rode with her?” he asked.
“The paramedic said they needed someone who knew what happened. Your sister couldn’t remember whether she hit her head.”
“I didn’t,” Inés said.
“You didn’t know that at the time.”
Inés looked at Javier. “She held me on the sidewalk while everyone else filmed.”
Laura turned her face away.
“What?” Javier asked.
“People had their phones out,” Inés said. “One man kept asking if I was having the baby. Laura told him to call emergency services or move back.”
“He had already called,” Laura said. “He was just standing too close.”
“She gave me her cardigan to put under my head.”
Sofía touched her own white sleeve. Laura noticed and frowned.
“Where’s yours?” Sofía asked.
May you like
“In a hospital bag somewhere. It had blood on it.”
Inés’s eyes widened.
