He looked at me with a puzzled expression. “Yes, that was Mamá Berta’s room. My room was where my mother grew up and later where she and . . . our papá lived . . . after they married . . . before I was born.”
His voice softened and our eyes held fast. We hadn’t yet spoken of him, but in that moment, we spoke volumes. There was no need for Spanish or English. What I saw in his eyes, I had seen before. The aching loss and deep sadness. The torment of not knowing. With the mention of my father, I had seen this response countless times in Rosa’s eyes. And I began to weep.
He moved over closer to me and took my hand. “Berta said you came here to find him. Or to find out about him.”
I nodded, still unable to talk.
“That year, that he disappeared, I contacted every agency on both sides of the border.” He stopped and shook his head. “This is difficult for me in Spanish.” He took a deep breath and began again slowly, struggling with his words. “I have a friend whose cousin works for the Border Patrol, and he did a lot of investigating for me. He also told me who to talk to both officially and unofficially. And since there’s such a brotherhood amongst firefighters, I contacted several departments along the border. I’ve been at this a couple of years now.” He stopped and pressed his lips tightly together.
I knew that what came next, he did not want to say, but the lips parted, “What everyone has concluded is that he probably died somewhere in the desert. That was a record-breaking summer of deaths. ¡Muertes innumuerables!”
I closed my eyes, but I could not block the image of the sun-bleached bones huddled together or the solitary skeleton prostrate in the sand. “But no body. No one found his body,” I said evenly.
He sat back.
“No dead body was ever found,” I repeated.
He studied me for a moment, and from the silence in the kitchen, I knew Berta was listening, too.
Diego cleared his throat, and then in an official voice—that of a man who knew how to deal with people in an emergency situation— he spoke. “Alma, there is a cemetery near the border in a little town called Holtville. And in the back, in a field of mud, there are many bodies buried—unidentified bodies—of men and women and even children who have died crossing the border. Their families will never know. Nunca. They will never see a body. Nunca. Perhaps his body rests in peace in such a place.”
“Or perhaps,” I began and stopped. He wrinkled his forehead and waited. “Perhaps there is some reason, some other reason.” I left it at that.
“Like?” he asked impatiently.
I shrugged, and with that movement, I saw him dismiss my reasoning.
I sat up. “You don’t know everything about me. And I don’t know everything about you.”
“What does that mean? We hardly know each other at all.”
“Does Berta know everything about you? Have you no secrets? Do you think you know everything about her?” He startled for a moment, and I saw his eyes take focus again. I continued. “Our father lived two lives that we know of, and even then, we know so little about each of those. How do we know anything for certain—except that he is missing?”
Berta had slowly entered the room and sat on the arm of the sofa. “Alma, what are you getting at? What is behind this?” she asked.
I thought of the letter in his wallet, the elegant curve of the script, “Forgive me,” tucked so tenderly away.
I thought of the hands that touched my body in the moment Luz was conceived. Were they greedy and cold, or loving and warm? Cruel and rough, or soothing and soft? Anything could happen in this world. Nothing was certain. ¡Nada!
“We don’t know,” I said firmly. “We don’t know anything for sure.”
Berta rose and approached me with a sadness in her eyes. “Then why are you so certain . . . about Rosa?” she asked gently.
“What about Rosa?” Diego asked, puzzled.
I looked away. My heart began to race. My stomach burned. My face flushed, as my skin prickled all over. I could barely catch my breath.
I was certain because I knew about Rosa. I had always known, but I wouldn’t let myself go there. At least not until now, in this room, with these two particular people who knew and loved Papá. It was almost like he was here. I could feel him. Here, where I felt as safe as I could ever feel again. I closed my eyes and remembered . . .
I was being lifted into the air. The sky, a vivid blue. The sun, so bright it blinded my eyes for a moment. Then my body hoisted over a shoulder. My head hanging down. Scattered amongst the gravel and brush, a shoe, a torn shirt, a trail of blood. My head bounced as I was shifted on the shoulder. And then . . . Rosa, stretched out on the ground, her head tilted back. Unaffected by the brilliant sun, her lifeless eyes were open wide, as wide as the scarlet gash across her neck, a flood of blood down her chest. Rosa! I tried to scream, but the sound I made vibrated inside my head until a thousand tiny lights exploded into darkness.
I knew Rosa was dead. But of Manuel, I had no memory. My brief glimpse was of only Rosa and her vacant, lightless eyes. Trembling, I tried to reach out toward Berta, but suddenly the room began to spin until only a pinpoint of light closed into blackness.
I awoke on the sofa, my legs elevated and a cool washcloth across my forehead. Berta was stroking my hair, and Diego was taking my pulse.
“I’m sorry, m’ija,” Berta said. “I told Diego everything. It’s good that he knows. He is your brother.”
Then squeezing my arm and cooing in a deep, soothing, familiar voice was a young man
