Chapter 33
Sparks flickered against a black velvet surface where I lay listening to faraway voices. What I thought was thunder was more a thumping sound, as if something heavy were being dragged across a wooden floor. I focused on the pinpricks of illumination and discovered it was the jar of fireflies Stella and I captured on the night Rita and Lesroy came running into the house with Uncle Roy in hot pursuit. In all the excitement and the culminating storm, we forgot to set them free.
Stella’s solid little body lay beside me in Gran’s bed. I eased out from under the quilt. The gentle rhythm of my sister’s breathing remained constant as I slid off the bed and tiptoed to the dresser. The tiny creatures clustered near three holes in the top. Only a few blinked out a farewell light show to the world. I got to them just in time.
I’d forgotten what awakened me until it sounded again, this time more of a shuffling accompanied by an occasional female grunt. Because of Stella’s aversion to complete darkness, the door to wherever she slept was always left ajar. I stepped into the hallway and felt my way toward the living room, stopping at the entrance, where I could see Gran and Mom standing side by side. At first, I thought they were fighting over a coat or jacket. But it wasn’t a jacket they were tugging at. It was Uncle Roy. I thought he was dead, but then he snorted and sniffed in his usual drunken style. A combination of relief and disappointment washed over me as I watched the women drag my uncle through the open front door.
Once outside, they closed the door behind them, and I ran to the window, ducking low to peer out at them. Uncle Roy’s head banged on the steps from the porch to the walkway and continued bumping along as my mother and grandmother struggled to haul his body up and into the passenger seat of his truck. Once they stuffed him in, head lolling against the window, Mom walked around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off. Gran followed in our old Chevrolet.
In a late-night trance, I wandered onto the front porch, still holding the imprisoned fireflies. From behind me, Stella’s soft little voice drifted up. “We better let them go now.” I unscrewed the top and shook the jar. It took a few seconds for the dazed creatures to remember what freedom looked like, but gradually they fluttered away. Stella held my hand as we stumbled back to Gran’s big bed and held each other in the dark.
We never saw Uncle Roy again.
Chapter 34
A murmur surrounded me as I swam toward consciousness. The constant buzzing in my ears made it hard to understand what the words meant, but I knew I was no longer in Gran’s bed. My eyelids were heavy and sore. I opened them only enough to allow the tiniest glimmer of light in. But it was bright enough to send excruciating shards of pain through my brain. I reached for my forehead, but the needle and tube stuck in my hand restricted my movement.
I had to be in a hospital, but where was it, and why was I there?
“Grace? Are you awake, Grace?” A soft voice suppressed the buzzing. “Nurse! Somebody get a nurse, goddammit! She’s waking up.”
“Please, not so loud.” I opened my eyes again and tried to sit.
“Take it easy. Here, let me help.” Gentle hands eased pillows behind my back.
“Justin, what are you doing here?” For a second, I thought he was the one in the hospital bed, and I was the visitor. “I don’t know where I am,” I admitted and convulsed with gulping sobs.
A nurse pushed past him and placed a cool cloth on my forehead. “I’m giving you something for the pain,” she explained.
While she and Justin whispered at the end of my bed, flashes of memory returned. I didn’t know where I was or how I’d gotten there, but I remembered crouching down with Marco in front of the trailer.
He finished his conversation with the nurse and sat beside my bed, then took my hand.
“What happened?” I hated the foggy sensation permeating my memory.
“It looks like lightning struck the construction shack and it exploded.” He rubbed my arm, and I noticed a line of stitches from my wrist to my elbow. “You got hit by some flying debris.”
“Oh, God,” I groaned and rested my head on a pillow. “Ben was in that trailer.”
Justin nodded.
“What about Marco?” I thought about the heavy-muscled man with the sweet face and how he threw himself on top of me.
“He’s in pretty good shape—loopier than you, believe it or not, but they expect both of you to be fine.”
Justin explained the blast had rumbled through the land, and local farmers had followed the smoke to the construction site. There had been a store of ammunition in the mobile unit, exacerbating the effect of the lightning strike. The men took us to an emergency clinic. The doctor there had us transported to Vernaza Hospital in Guayaquil.
“How did you find me?”
Justin ran his fingers through his hair, and I saw how exhausted he looked.
“When we found your note, Harry and I weren’t too worried at first. I thought maybe you were right about Balsuto not wanting to hurt you. But the later it got, the more scared we got. Harry put his security people on it right away. Somebody picked up on an explosion in the hills above Montañita.”
He looked away. When he returned his gaze to me, there were tears in his eyes. “We heard there were fatalities but couldn’t find out who had been killed.” He paused and grabbed my hand again. “I thought it was you.” His voice broke.
“But it wasn’t,” I whispered. “I’m fine.” I slipped my hands out of his and touched his cheek, dragging my IV line along. We were in the middle of untangling ourselves when Harry came into the room, carrying flowers, a balloon, and a box of chocolate.
“You’re awake!” He dropped his gifts onto a cart by the bed and leaned over to kiss me on the forehead. “It’s good to see you looking a little more like yourself.”
“Thanks. Justin was filling me in on some details. How long have I been here?”
“They brought you in after eleven two nights ago, so about forty-eight hours,” Harry filled a glass with water for the flowers.
Losing two full days transformed me into an unwilling time traveler, as if my body had been bound to the hospital bed while my spirit roamed. And I had journeyed far from this place. I had returned to the night when my mother and grandmother murdered Uncle Roy.
A young man with a stethoscope appeared. His smooth skin looked as if he had only begun shaving, and when he announced he was my doctor, I didn’t believe him. He was professional and efficient in his examination, though, and agreed I could go home in the morning if I promised to follow post head trauma instructions. I resisted the urge to pinch his cute baby boy cheeks and promised to do exactly what he told me.
Harry kissed me on top of the head and left, leaving Justin sitting by my side.
“You should get some rest. Have you been staying with Harry or at a hotel?”
“Neither,” he replied and titled his head toward the recliner in the corner.
“You didn’t have to do that. I’m fine, actually, I’m super fine.” My pain meds kicked in hard, and he kept slipping in and out of focus.
“Grace,” he brushed his lips over mine. “Shut up and go to sleep.”
When I woke the next morning, Justin was snoring softly from the recliner. He helped me dress, and we waited for the doctor’s arrival.
He showed up a little after nine with a list of what to expect while recovering from a concussion. I was now subject to a variety of side effects: everything from irritability, depression, and memory loss to chronic pain and personality changes. And, of course, that damn ringing in my ears.
I promised to check in with my doctor when we returned to the US, and my adorable young Ecuadorian physician wished me lu
ck and sent me on my way.
On the drive, I pictured families gathered around crowded tables and wondered how many of those families set a place for missing loved ones. Would my sister be the ghost at our family table every holiday? Or would my mother give up and let us become one of those families who go out for all the meaningful holidays until those special occasions no longer have meaning.
Justin interrupted my gloomy thoughts to explain someone from the villa had done all my packing for me, so there was no need to return to Montañita. I should have been grateful. But despite all the terrible things I’d seen and uncovered during my stay in that beachside party town, I felt a twinge of regret about not saying goodbye to the place. Glass half empty again, Grace.
We passed a deserted construction site and I gasped. I knew Ben had died in the explosion, but what about Adelmo?
I turned to Justin. “Did they find Adelmo’s body in the trailer with Ben?”
Justin didn’t look at me when he answered. “No, Grace. Balsuto’s body wasn’t recovered.”
Chapter 35
Black clouds, heavy with rain, obscured my farewell view of the country where my sister died. When I closed my eyes, vibrant reds and yellows and oranges of the row houses scattered on the hills flashed, then melted into lush greens and blues of the river with the ever-changing currents.
Turbulence jolted the plane and my stomach. I dug my fingernails into the armrests. A flight attendant beamed at us as she demonstrated the proper way to put on our oxygen masks. Her emphasis that we should attach our own before helping others reminded me of my relationship with Stella. I focused on taking care of her and forgot about my needs. Now that she was gone, would I remember how to breathe?
My eyelids burned, and I rummaged through my purse for a tissue. I came up empty, except for a soggy one left from the scene I caused when we said goodbye to Harry, who had insisted on sending Stella’s ashes home to my mother. His act of kindness unleashed a flood of emotions I’d kept damned up for over three years. During the past two weeks, cracks developed in the foundation and the damn exploded. My passion for Justin, the depth of my loss, the kindness of people I just met—all of this overcame me at the gate. I clung to Harry, sobbing into his chest. Only his promise to visit me in the States kept me from collapsing.
I closed the window shade. Whether it was an electrical glitch from my brush with lightning or my inability to comprehend how Adelmo vanished, I was having trouble remembering the story.
I tapped Justin on the arm and said, “I know you already explained this, but are you sure nobody knows what happened to him?”
He shook his head and repeated how the authorities insisted that not only was his body not recovered, but no one had seen him since the incident. They credited the trouble he’d been experiencing from both the government and the competing gangs with his disappearance. They speculated the explosion might have given him time to skip the country while everyone thought he was dead.
My sister’s lover was an imperfect man, capable of walking into that shack and putting a bullet in Ben’s head. But if Adelmo was right and Stella had changed, it was possible he was also a different person. His being alive made me hopeful, as if a part of my sister survived with him. The better part.
“I forgot to tell you we found Eduardo,” Justin added.
The name eluded me at first, but I pulled it up. They had wanted to find Eduardo to ask questions about Eva and my ex.
“He was clearing his stuff out of the house when we got there. He agreed to get in touch with his aunt for us. Before we left, he asked us to tell you he was sorry your stay in Montañita was unpleasant, but you didn’t need to worry about the Señor.”
“Sounds like he didn’t expect Ben to come back.”
“Not much escaped him, so I would guess that’s right. With him out of the way, Eva might talk to you. Speaking of talking, you never told me what happened at the construction site.” He traced his index finger over the lines in my palm. “If you’re not ready, though, I can wait.”
“I’m ready,” I said. I started with Marco’s knock at the villa and ended with me crouching underneath the man. A sense of shame made me reluctant to share how I asked Adelmo not to kill Ben. But holding back the truth no longer seemed worth the effort. So, I explained how I begged him to let the justice system take care of my sister’s murderer. My only omission was that the lightning strike had illuminated the recesses of my memory.
“When it came right down to it, I couldn’t do it, couldn’t get the revenge my mother wanted. But he loved Stella too much to let anyone else hold the fate of her killer. He had more courage than I do. Or maybe I didn’t love her enough.”
Justin pushed up the armrest and scooted close. “There’s nothing courageous about shooting someone in cold blood, no matter how much he deserves it.” In a firmer tone, he added, “I never want you to say that again, that you didn’t love your sister enough. This entire trip has been a testament to your love. If you hadn’t kept pushing and probing, we would never have learned the whole story.”
“But is it really? How can we be sure if we don’t understand why Stella disappeared? Or why she came back to the house, or what made her change into the better person Adelmo says she was. And if Eva doesn’t call, we never will.”
“Isn’t it enough she wanted to be an improved version of herself? And that she never doubted you loved her?”
He was right. But for me, the reasons for Stella’s behavior held the key to a door I wasn’t sure even existed. Yet I couldn’t get rid of the nagging feeling I was leaving something behind. Something Stella wanted me to find.
. . . . .
Midway into our flight, I thought about the contract Mom took out on Ben. I wondered how much money she offered and how she would answer if I asked her about it. Would she insist it was a joke? Or say she must have been out of her mind with grief? That she didn’t even remember saying it?
Once upon a time, I would have believed her. Now, I couldn’t picture a world where I would believe anything she told me. Because there was no doubt, Gran and Mom drove Uncle Roy, passed out cold in his truck, to the lake and pushed both into the murky water. Not only did I remember seeing them drive away, but I pictured Stella joining me, awakened by the noise. The two of us watched the taillights disappear along with the man who hurt our Lesroy, and we never mentioned it again. Until she asked about it long after we grew up.
My mother’s thirst for revenge made sense. She’d been willing to kill to protect her sister. And I hadn’t even been willing to accept calls from mine.
I glanced at Justin, who was reading the newspaper. I guessed, to the casual observer, we looked like a married couple, content to be separate, but together.
But we weren’t a couple, married or otherwise. And we never had been. Ours was one of those shipboard romances only with guns and explosives. Once we returned to home port, would we resume being strangers? Despite the urgency of our attraction, I knew almost nothing about him: what he did for a living, whether he’d been married, if he wanted kids. More important, did he want me?
Then I remembered something Stella said to me before I met Ben. I complained about how hard it was to find a good man. She told me I didn’t think I deserved to find a good man, so I talked myself out of relationships before they began. Or I tried to be what I thought the guy wanted because being myself wasn’t good enough.
And she’d been right about my relationship with Ben. He seemed too good to be true. I worried he would wake up, see the real me, and run. So, I remade myself into his perfect partner. I pretended to like fancy wine and playing tennis at the club and all his weird sex stuff. And it worked for a while until he discovered my sister didn’t require remolding because she was exactly what he
wanted.
Well, Justin had first-hand, worst case knowledge of the real me, and he was still here, sitting beside me.
I realized I was doing what Stella accused me of: thinking of reasons I wasn’t good enough to be in a relationship with a man like him. Instead of sitting here going over what wouldn’t work between us, I should talk to him and find out what would. She was right. I should stop doubting myself and go for it.
But when I turned to begin the go-for-it process, my seatmate was leaning back on his pillow, sound asleep. I sighed, turned toward the window, and drifted off myself.
When I awoke with my head on Justin’s shoulder, the pilot was announcing our approach to Atlanta.
“Glad to be home?” he asked as I sat up.
“I’m not looking forward to facing Mom. Other than that, yes. How about you? Are you happy to be home?” Where was home for him? Would someone be waiting for him? Again, I realized how little I knew about his life.
“Well, it will be a letdown after Montañita. But yeah, it’s always good to get back to the States.”
I had so many questions I wanted to ask, but people began the dreadful process of disembarking. The man across the aisle leaped up as soon as the light went off, cracking his head as he shoved himself over the woman in the seat beside him. He opened the overhead and dragged out his bag, then stood, tapping his fingers on my hand rest. A mother with three kids put one on her hip and the other two between her legs and inched toward the exit. A married couple tossed pillows and sweaters, searching for the woman’s reading glasses, only to discover they were hidden in her fluffy perm.
The Sometime Sister Page 21