The Empty Place at the Table

by Jode Jurgensen John Ellsworth

  "You stay here," Isaac told me. "Let me see if I can get us inside."

  He stepped up to the guard station and rapped on the glass window. It slid open, and I saw at least two men inside. It wasn't small, more like a small living room in size so there could have been others, too. Isaac talked to the man through the opening for a good five minutes. Then I saw the man shrug and place a phone to his ear. His lips moved.

  Minutes later, the front of the home opened and out through the patio and archway came a handsome man who looked to be fifty, his mouth hidden behind a Zapata mustache so I couldn't tell if he was smiling or scowling. Four Mexican men carrying guns with short barrels accompanied him. They all came up to the guard station, and he went inside.

  Then he appeared in the window, and I could see him speaking to Isaac. Isaac stopped at one point and turned and indicated me with his hand. I had no idea what to do, so I lifted the CPA bag and showed it out the windshield.

  Then the talking resumed.

  Finally, the Zapata man came out of the guard house, and the gate rolled sideways until he could pass through. With two of his guards, he came up to my car and motioned that I should roll down the window.

  "How much?" he asked. Nothing else, just "How much?"

  I knew he meant how much money did I have.

  "One million dollars USD. I want to buy a girl."

  He leaned back and looked away.

  "Who told you I have a girl?"

  "I saw her in your van. I want to buy her."

  "Saw her in my van? When was this?"

  "This morning. Our car hit a cow, and your van was blocked. I could see the girl inside the window. She's the one I want."

  "How do you know she is here with me?"

  "We followed your van. We saw it turn in here."

  "Very smart," he said, appraising me where I sat. His eyes roamed over my body.

  "How would you like to be one of my girls?"

  "I don't want to be a girl, sir. I want to purchase one."

  "Which one would that be?"

  "About sixteen, blond hair cut short, blue eyes looks right into your eyes when you look at her."

  "Oh yes, Maria."

  "Maria? Her real name is Lisa."

  Suddenly he stood fully upright and scowled down at me. "How do you know what her name is?"

  "I'm her mother, and I want to buy her from you. It will be a quick sale we can do right now, and you get the money, and I get the girl. Then I'm gone out of your life forever."

  "How do you know I won't just take your money and bury you out in the desert? How you know that?"

  "Because you're not stupid. Because you know the girl's father is very brave and very wealthy and that he will come down here and kill everyone he can find if something bad happens to me. I can promise you he will."

  The man started laughing and laughed so hard he bent over at the waist. He spoke Spanish to his two guards, and they fell apart laughing as well. I looked over at Isaac, and he pursed his lips. Neither of us had any idea what was coming next. They might shoot us, they might bring Lisa out and take the money, they might tell us to leave and never come back--anything was possible.

  Isaac returned to the car and climbed inside. The Mexican men ignored him.

  They were all about the money. You never want to underestimate the persuasive powers of ten-thousand hundred-dollar bills.

  "Do I need to count it?" Velasquez eventually asked, recovered from his coughing fit.

  "No need," I said. "I know you'll come and kill me if it isn't all there. I wouldn't try to cheat you."

  He looked at me, and his eyes narrowed. "No, I don't think you would. Because next time I will kill her. And you. And your husband and your other kids," he said, suddenly drawing a huge gun and pointing it at Isaac. Isaac cringed and slammed his head sharply against the window glass behind him. He came forward and shook his head violently.

  "No!" Isaac cried.

  "Get out of the car and come inside. I want to make sure you're serious about my inventory."

  Isaac and I climbed out of the SUV, leaving it where it was, half-blocking the driveway into the garage. The CPA case was dragged out by me, and I held it by its handle. It weighed me down considerably. Ten-thousand of anything is heavy, I remember thinking.

  Velasquez motioned that Isaac and I should lead the way, so we started up the driveway to the house. As we walked, Velasquez and his men were just behind us, chattering and laughing.

  Isaac whispered. "They're saying they want to strip your clothes off and all of them--"

  "Silence!" Velasquez shouted. Isaac's mouth closed and he looked away from me. But I'd gotten the gist of the conversation going on behind us. This could turn very ugly very quickly at any moment, and I steeled myself. My bottom line? I didn't want to leave there without Lisa. No matter what else they did or didn't do to us, I was leaving with my baby. The fear inside me squeezed hard against my chest, causing me to break out in chill bumps even in the soft desert air. Plus, it had been hours since I'd used a bathroom and just really needed to go. My mind wandered back over the movies I'd seen where the good guys got abducted by the bad guys. If nothing else, no one ever had to use the toilet. So much for all that: I did.

  Over my shoulder, I tossed out, “¿Adonde es el baño?"

  "Is inside. You can use it, and we don't even take pictures," said our new host. Again, more laughter.

  I realized Isaac and I had become his toy, his plaything. My guess was that even he didn't know what he was going to do with us just then. He was just making up our lives as we all went along.

  "Just go inside," we were ordered.

  Isaac twisted the front doorknob and immediately an insane rush of dog barking erupted. Isaac hesitated. He looked around at our captors. "Jes go in," he was sharply told. So he took a deep breath and pushed the door full open and stepped inside. I followed right behind. The entryway was Spanish tile--what else?--with Clerestory windows overhead. Very civilized and very nice. I didn't know what else I was expecting, but it was a bit of a relief, and I immediately felt foolish and totally unsuited for what I was trying to do. And poor Isaac for agreeing to come along with his crazy aunt. There was a moment of regret that I hadn't made him stay behind in the U.S. when I returned this time.

  Velasquez ordered us on into the large living area just ahead. We stepped down three steps and found ourselves in an expensively furnished family room--for want of a better word--where everything was rich, creamy leather and what looked to be solid mahogany, hand-carved furniture. Three Dobermans had followed us from the entry down into the living area. They sniffed me and sniffed Isaac and watched their master for instructions. It occurred to me that the dogs had been used to attack people before. Even now they were baring their teeth and lurking nearby.

  Velasquez passed beyond us and then turned, extending his arms toward a long, low sofa covered in zebra hide. We sat where instructed, and I set the bag down between my feet, waiting.

  "Anybody like some wine before we begin the game?" Velasquez said with a laugh.

  "No thank you," I said. Isaac didn't answer.

  Velasquez then walked over to a heavy coffee table and began unstrapping weapons from inside his sports coat and from around his ankle. He put down the small machine gun he was carrying. When he had finished, he picked the ankle gun up again. He pushed a small rod, and the gun opened up. He turned it butt-down, and all the bullets fell into his hand. Then he smiled at us very broadly and held up one shiny bullet for all to see, turning in the room so that even the guards knew there was one bullet in his hand and that that bullet was going back inside the gun. When it was reinserted, he snapped the chamber shut and spun the gun around an index finger. "Nice," he said, feeling the balance with the muzzle laid across the opposite wrist. Then he turned and pointed it directly at me. I flinched and turned my head to the side. If it had come to this, so be it. But at least I had tried to save my daughter.

  I looked up, and he was spinning the c
hamber with the palm of his hand. Then he stepped over and handed me the gun, handle first.

  "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

  With his other hand, he made the sign of a pistol and pointed the finger barrel at his own head. He then mimed pulling the trigger with the muzzle pointed at his head.

  "You want me to shoot myself in the head?"

  "No. I want you not to shoot yourself in the head. Shooting yourself in the head means my zebra gets all messy. I don't like messy. So be sure when you pull the trigger that you avoid the chamber that has the bullet. Here. We get started with this now."

  "And if I do it," I said, accepting the gun from him.

  "You must do it six times. If you don't die, you get your daughter and keep your money. If you kill yourself, I get the money and the daughter. And the man you have here? He gets to walk outback across the field where we have our landmines. He will probably shake your hand in heaven just fifteen minutes after you. What is your name?"

  "Melissa."

  "Melissa. We are going to bring your girl out. Javier," he said to one of his stooges, "bring me Consuela."

  Javier disappeared, and Velasquez made himself a drink with ice and rum while we waited. One big swallow later and the man Javier returned with--with...my daughter.

  It was Lisa--at least I wanted it to be. It was the girl I imagined her to be over all these years gone by. Her eyes and skin were clear, and she looked to be in good health. She didn't make eye contact with me this time, keeping her gaze fixed on the floor before her.

  "Can you look at me?" I asked her.

  She didn't lift her eyes.

  "Consuela, this woman says she is your mother. Look at her and tell me what you see."

  She looked up then, and I was positive--the bone structure, the restless eyes--that it was my girl. She smiled and nodded at me. Then her eyes dropped away again. A warmth spread through my body like that first drink of alcohol, soothing, and all the usual, balled-up, coiled loss I had carried around for ten years suddenly seeped out of my soul and disappeared out the windows that looked out on the giant, land-mined pasture in this horrible/beautiful place. I could have died at last, peaceful and filled with the knowledge that she was alive and looking like she had come through whatever hell had been struck for her. We were together at last, and it was over.

  Until Velasquez stepped between us. He peered down into my eyes and again made the finger-pistol to the head pantomime. I knew it was time.

  Almost without fear, I placed the muzzle against the side of my head and fixed my daughter with my eyes and pulled the trigger. It was over in an instant, and I still was looking at my child.

  He nodded at me and held up one finger.

  Without hesitation, I snapped the trigger again, this time with my eyes tightly shut. I looked back at him.

  Two fingers.

  "Spin the chamber," he said and came and took the gun from me and spun the chamber with the palm of his head. "This way you're not moving closer to the bullet by statistics. Do you like statistics, Consuela's mom?"

  "I don't know. I don't have math in me."

  He handed the gun back to me. I looked to my left on the sofa and saw Isaac sitting there, all but paralyzed waist-up, his legs jittering up and down and tears streaming down his face. His eyes were closed, and his lips moved silently. He was always the sensitive one in my sister's family, the one who went to church camp at a young age, the one who even today proclaimed that when he married, it would be in a church, "Of some kind or other."

  When I received back the gun, I spun it again for luck I told myself, using the palm of my right hand.

  Then I placed the barrel against my head and started to pull the trigger. But this time I paused. Suddenly I knew. The bullet was right there, waiting to click over and fall beneath the hammer of the gun as it slammed forward its firing pin.

  I stopped and withdrew the gun from my head. With a great smile, I looked around at my captors and spun the cylinder again. "It was right there about to kill me," I explained. Nobody said anything. They just looked at me.

  Then I raised it up and in one fluid motion pulled the trigger again and was awarded the loud "Click!" of the hammer falling home. I rolled my eyes and smiled at Velasquez. "What can I say? I'm still here, Mr. Velasquez."

  "You are, and you are very brave. I am hoping you win against the gun."

  "Oh, this isn't against just the gun, Mr. Velasquez. This game is against life and all its hell. This game is for my daughter, for her father, for all the childless mothers of lost children you have stolen and sold and murdered. You will see, Mr. Velasquez that at the end good will win. Just like this afternoon, here in the middle of nowhere. Now watch. Go ahead, raise four fingers and watch my eyes as I pull again."

  Without another word, I brought the gun to my temple. A quick snap and again a loud silence.

  "Four fingers, indeed," I told him. "Thank you."

  "Yes."

  "And while we're at it, how about five and six?"

  I placed the gun to my temple and pulled the trigger twice in rapid succession, expecting to die and ready for the darkness that would surely follow someone with my luck.

  Snap! Snap! Said the pistol.

  Then I was laughing and crying at once, rocking back on the couch and, because I hadn't found the bathroom, wetting myself. But I didn't care, and I thought, Fuck his zebra. Followed by the crazier thought, He should be ashamed, skinning Zebras for his stinking ass.

  Like I said, my thoughts from then on that day made no sense. I had never been so frightened and so determined. I had been prepared to die for my child. Any mother would do the same thing.

  Which was something Mr. Velasquez hadn't counted on in making such a cheap bargain for my daughter:

  Motherhood.

  27

  Velasquez's men escorted us back to the SUV. The kidnapper-in-chief, the sex-trafficker in chief, Ignacio Velasquez, was suddenly "called away" and left the room. This was just after I didn't kill myself. "Release them all," he said to Javier, and doors began opening.

  Isaac got behind the wheel, and I put Lisa in the front passenger seat. Into the backseat behind her I climbed, along with my briefcase containing one million in cash. Isaac peeled backward out of the gate in the fence, rolled back against the far shoulder, and shot the car forward toward Tecate and the road to San Ysidro and our hotel. Within minutes my daughter turned to look at me. "Are you really my mother?" she asked.

  "Yes, I am." It was all I could do to restrain myself from grabbing her and hugging her for the next hour. But it had occurred to me that I didn't know her; I didn't know how she would react. So I stayed relatively level.

  "Thank you for coming to get me. It was hard."

  "I know it must have been. We'll talk about all that. The first thing is, I want to get you to an ER and get you examined all over. It won't take long, just a few hours, but I want a team of American doctors and nurses and lab people to check your health. I think we'll go to UCSD Hospital in San Diego for that, Isaac. So why don't you put that in your GPS and make that stop one? As soon as I can get cell out here, I'll call Lisa's father and tell him where to meet us. Then I can bring him up to speed on everything. Your father is going to be very excited to see you."

  "Is he the one with the red hair?"

  "Red hair, your father? No, you've never seen your father. Uh, who do you think might have had red hair?"

  "Oh, my father has red hair."

  "How old were you when you last saw him?"

  "I don't know. I was young."

  "Of course. I don't doubt someone else came along in your life with red hair. We'll figure out who that was. We're going to need a long time to learn about you. And you about us. But don't worry, we have that, lots of time."

  She turned back around and faced the windshield. Her head was canted slightly to her right so I could tell she was looking out to her right as we made our way. Again, I had been struggling with the urge to touch her. I don't kn
ow what I wanted to do with her, but it was about physical contact. Maybe a hug? That would have been good. But there was no time for it back at the finca. What would she do if I just reached forward and began massaging her shoulders? Or ran my fingers through her blond hair. Would that be something a mother would do with a sixteen-year-old after years apart? I honestly didn't know, so I decided I would stop trying to think my way through some of these things and instead just watch carefully and see what I learned about her.

  "Isaac, I'm wondering if Lisa might be more comfortable in the back here with me?"

  Lisa said, "No, no, not necessary. I'm fine up here. What do you want me to call you?"

  "Mom? Are you comfortable with Mom?"

  "I don't know. What's your name?"

  "Melissa."

  "Can I call you that at first?"

  "Yes, of course."

  "And what about my father?"

  "You can call him Mark if you wish. Melissa and Mark."

  "Do you have Mexican soap operas? ¿Uno Familia Con Suerte? But my favorite when I was little was Wild Heart."

  "I think all the providers have at least a hundred Spanish language shows now," Isaac volunteered. "I watch some of them for language practice."

  "Can I watch them?" Lisa asked.

  "Of course you can, sweetheart," I answered. "We'll also need to look into school for you. What grade are you in?"

  "What grade?"

  "Yes, how far have you gone in school?"

  "Gone to school? I didn't go to school. We had nothing like school. No, we learned to cook, to clean, to care for babies, to please some mens."

  "Please some mens? What's that mean?"

  "You know, how to do good sex to them. If we don't do good Iggy don't get paid."

  "She means Ignacio, I think," Isaac told me. "Iggy-Ignacio."

  "Si. Iggy es Ignacio."

  I was trying not to break into tears. I had known there was the possibility of anything happening to her. I just hadn't expected she would be so blasé, so open about the sex teachings. More than ever, then, I wanted medical professionals to test her for everything. Only God knew for sure at that point what might be found.