"Then what? She obviously wants to see you if she is still looking for you." He paused as I looked out the window. "Is this because Alejandro raised you?" he asked, and I felt my stomach twist painfully, making me almost wonder if I needed to reach for an airsickness bag. "Evan, you had no idea. She is not going to blame you, or look at you any differently. If anything, she might want you to reassure her that he never put his hands on you."
Ugh.
I hadn't even thought of that.
Of course, as a mother, and as a woman who had been brutally raped, she would worry about a similar fate happening to me. Hell, with the amount of trafficking in the world, maybe she even worried I had been sold into a child sex ring.
I couldn't imagine how much she had worried about me.
Meanwhile, I had been traipsing around her rainforests several times in my life. With her rapist.
What a fucked up situation.
"Look," Luce tried when I stayed silent, lost in my own swirling thoughts. "Worst case, if it sucks, if you are uncomfortable, it's just an hour. We can say when we get there that we have plans or some shit. You can tolerate anything for an hour, right?"
That was true.
"Right," I agreed.
And then I didn't have to force my fingers to stay straight anymore, because his curled inward and held mine.
Somehow, I felt instantly a lot better.
Which was crazy.
But true nonetheless.
"I don't think we thought this out enough," Luce said, swatting at a swarm of gnats around his head.
"Why?" I asked, somewhat amused by his discomfort.
He might have been a vigilante, a stone-cold killer, but he was not the outdoorsy type. He was what I might call indoorsy. He was thin and had more muscles than I had been aware of under his hoodie, but it was clear that a long, hot, exhausting hike was not his thing.
"Because your feet hurt in those converse?" I suggested.
"Because... where the fuck are we going to stay overnight in the middle of Bumfuck, Nowhere?"
Okay.
He had a point.
"We will just have to walk back to the motel," I suggested, shrugging.
"You want to walk this in the dark?" he asked, waving at the wide open landscape. "I mean, what are the local predators?"
"Oh, nothing really. Caiman near the rivers and such. You might see some wolf occasionally. And, you know," I said, trying to fight back a smile. "Just some jaguar."
"Did you just say fucking jaguar?" He asked, stopping.
"I'd worry more about the puma, I think."
"Jesus Christ. Can we go back to fucking Jersey now?" he asked, shaking his head. "We had one, one coyote loose once and every animal control officer and cop was hunting that mother fucker down."
I laughed at that, used to the threat of wildlife. Though, even I could admit I was more afraid without my fath... Alejandro and his blow darts around.
"Look, this is farming land," I said as we kept moving. "The big cats would be around farms with animals that they could pick off. I haven't seen a farm with any animals for almost an hour. We'll be fine in the dark. Plus, it will be a little cooler, so we can move a little faster."
He nodded at that, but there was a definite grumble, like maybe he thought this pace was fast enough.
"Hey, didn't they say blue with red trim and roof?" Luce said, stopping, and pointing toward the side of a hill where, sure enough, a blue wooden building was half-hidden by said hill. There was a large garden out back and, even from a distance, I could make out a few chicken walking around.
In the US, they would call this small, squat, rectangular, typically one-room dwelling a 'shack,' or something equally low-brow. In most countries, however, this was how many of the people lived.
"Yeah," I agreed, stomach spinning. "That looks like the one they described."
"You ready?" Luce asked, moving back a step to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with me as I reached up to self-consciously swipe a sweaty brow.
"Not really," I admitted truthfully. "But it's just an hour, right?" I asked, bringing up his words from the plane. "I can tolerate anything for an hour."
"Sure as fuck can," he agreed, elbowing me in the side a little in a 'let's get moving' kind of way.
So we did.
And fifteen minutes later, we were standing outside the door to my birth mother's home.
I could feel Luce's stare on my profile, but I couldn't seem to force myself to raise my hand to knock.
"Allow me," he said, taking the whole thing out of my hands by knocking twice on the old, shaky door.
There was some shuffling for maybe only five seconds before the door pulled open, and there she was.
I got an eyeful of what I would look like in about twenty years. Sister Maria was right; we were very similar looks-wise. We had the same skin, the same hair, the same eyes. I was taller, but we both seemed to carry our weight in our lower bodies. She was dressed in a simple blue dress with a white apron tied around her waist. Her hair was in a loose braid, with tendrils floating around her face. There were some wrinkles beside her lips and eyes, but she looked young still somehow.
I could have sworn I heard Luce mumble something about 'good genes,' and I had to agree.
There was only one part of her face that didn't match mine, an unevenness beside her right eye that might have pointed to a broken eye-socket at one time.
I think we all knew how that got broken.
"Oh minha filha!" she gasped, making a steeple of her fingers in front of her mouth. "Oh minha filha!" she said again, eyes filling as she reached for me, and yanked me against her chest.
Really, there was nothing to do but hold her back, this woman who had never given up, who had constantly written to ask for updates on my search, even when she herself was forced back to Brazil.
Before too long, she was sobbing into my neck, letting out a string of Portuguese so fast that I was struggling to make it out, if it even made any sense to begin with.
I caught bits and pieces about how she never thought she would see me again, how her heart hurt every day, how she never gave up the search.
Finally, what seemed like a lifetime later, she pulled back, reaching for her apron to wipe her face, then looking at me for a long minute. Her hands rose, cupping my face. "English, yes?" she asked.
"Mostly," I agreed. "Though I can understand most of what you're saying."
"I can speak the English," she said, giving me a smile. "And who is this?" she asked, giving me a look that, while I was raised motherless, I could completely interpret as a maternal excitement to meet her daughter's boyfriend.
"Oh, sorry. This is my friend, Luce," I offered, touching his arm. "Luce, this is Gabriela," I said, feeling awkward. "My mother."
"Luce! Nice to meet you. I'm glad Evangeline has such nice friends," she said the word heavily, like she knew it was more than that, though there was no way she could, "to bring her all the way down to Brazil."
"He was the one to actually find you and sort of... bring me here," I offered, wanting to give credit where credit was due.
"So, I have you to thank!" she said, turning her hugs onto him. And Luce, well, he looked hilariously uncomfortable with the contact. His eyes were huge; his hands were awkwardly patting her back; his body was stiff as a board. "Come in, come in. You must be starving. I didn't see cars. We had rains last night," she explained. "The mud, impassable."
Yeah, they weren't kidding about the cars not being able to handle the mud on the dirt roads. We saw three of them stuck with mud that literally would have come halfway up my calf if we hadn't been walking on the grass.
"Thank you," I said as we moved inside to find pretty much what I had expected. It was a one-room space with only the bathroom separate. There was a bed pushed against the wall beside the side window, nothing hanging to cover it, letting the light shine in to, I imagined, wake her at sunrise so she could get to work on the garden out back.
I alw
ays envied the lifestyle of the small village gardeners. It was an homage to our ancestors to wake up with the sun, tend your land, eat what you grew or killed, spend time with your family and community, then go to bed. Shower, rinse, repeat.
What a simple life.
Only maybe three feet from the end of the bed was a small straight kitchen with a stove, sink, lower cabinets, and shelves of dishwear above, pretty pieces in bright colors, likely made locally, which gave me the urge to make sure we hit a local town square so I could pick up a few pieces to remember this trip by.
To the opposite side of the room, there was a dining table, worn lovingly with time, and I inwardly wondered how many generations of my ancestors had sat there and broken bread together, how many stories were shared, laughs had.
I felt a deep pang inside at the idea of never having experienced that. It also struck me that I had never actually been given any history from my fath... from Alejandro. Why that had never struck me as odd before was completely beyond me. How had it never crossed my mind to ask about my grandparents? My cousins? Especially on holidays. He had, after all, told me that relatives raised me. Relatives I would never meet.
God, I had been so so blind.
Granted, for all intents and purposes, I didn't know any better, but still. While he had exposed me to so much, so many cultures, so many different pockets of the world, it had also left me very insulated and ignorant of what was a more normal relationship to have with your family.
You would think in this golden age of technology, that would no longer be an excuse, but when you spent a lot of time in areas with little or no cell reception, and even when you had it, you had no friends to connect with on social media, well, you learned to do without things like that.
"Thirsty?" she asked, going to the fridge before we even answered, reaching inside, and pulling out a pitcher of not-quite-clear liquid that I knew to be coconut water, something I drank almost exclusively the last time I was in Brazil. It had done amazing things to my skin.
"Yes, please," I said, moving with Luce over to the table she gestured to.
"Food?" she asked, filling three glasses with liquid.
"No thanks," I answered, then shot Luce a guilty look.
"It's too fucking hot for food," he whispered back at me.
She came back over, passing out the drinks which we both took long, almost embarrassing swigs of thanks to the fact that we each finished our water less than halfway into the trek.
It only took all of five minutes before it happened.
We got the part about Sister Maria out, and then she asked what led us there.
I could have lied.
It would have made life easier.
But I didn't want to.
She was the only actual relative I was aware of having. I felt I owed her honesty at least.
So I told her.
"Ele te machucou?" she asked, voice completely shattered. "Ele te machucou?"
Did he hurt you?
"No," I said, voice firm, reaching across the table to place my hand on top of hers which was worrying a rag that had been on the table. "No, not at all. Never once. He never let anyone else hurt me either," I added. "He just... I don't know if maybe his plan had been to hurt me or let others. That's possible. But he never did. I guess I brought out the very small human side of him. Because he wasn't good, Gabriela," I said, watching as she winced slightly at that, but I wasn't at the point where I could call her Mom yet. "The things he did to you, he did that to many other women across several continents. I... I had no idea. He never..." I said, shaking my head, feeling the tears sting at my eyes again.
"He never let her get wind of the evil shit he was doing," Luce supplied. "It wasn't until after he died that, well, I told her."
"And you know because?"
I took a deep breath then rushed on before he could answer. I wanted to be truthful. But, y'know, without getting thrown out of her house.
"Luce is someone who... finds bad people, and gets them off the street."
"I'm not a cop, Evan," he said behind me, making me want to elbow him to shut up, but my mother was watching too closely.
"You are a... what is the word... a vigilante."
I didn't have to look to see the smirk Luce had on. "Exactly."
"I know he was like a father to her," she said, ignoring me completely, "but I hope he suffered."
"He took the chickenshit road and downed some cyanide," Luce countered, sounding so casual about the whole thing, reminding me how much darkness he had seen. Hell, it was etched on his skin.
"Good riddance," she said, shaking her head. Then she reached for me, rubbing my hand. "I'm sorry, Evangeline. I know he was..."
"Don't," I implored, shaking my head. "Don't apologize. It was all his fault any of this happened."
"Okay. Okay," she said, shaking her head. "Let's not talk any more of him. Let's talk of you."
So then we did.
For almost three hours.
I had never met someone who wanted to know every teeny, minuscule detail of my life from my first date to what languages I spoke to my faith, my dreams, my life in Navesink Bank.
And during all of this, I was acutely aware of Luce behind me, hearing every word, knowing about Emanuel who had taken me to a local faire, bought me a flower crown, and kissed me for the first time when I was fifteen, and he also learned that I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life now that I was done traveling.
He knew almost everything about me.
"It's getting dark," Gabriela said much later, looking out the window. "You should be getting back before the wolves come out."
"Told you," Luce growled at me, making me laugh.
"Will you visit again? Can you stay for another day or two?"
I looked over my shoulder at Luce, knowing it wasn't just me who had to make that decision.
"We can stay as long as you want, Ev. It's not like my job is missing me."
"Okay?" she asked, sounding hopeful.
"Okay," I agreed, smiling. "We can meet? In town? Tomorrow?"
"Perfect," I agreed, smiling. "I wanted to check out the town."
"Okay. Here," she said, standing suddenly, and grabbing a bat she kept behind her door. "You take this," she said, thrusting it at Luce. "And you protect my girl."
Luce looked at me, eyes warm with... something I couldn't explain. "I will bring her back to you safe and sound, I promise."
With that, I was hugged like I was going off to war.
Then so was Luce.
Which was, again, hilarious.
And we were off into the night.
"You alright?" he asked fifteen tense minutes later, both of us a little out of breath because we heard a howling that made us simultaneously start to run-walk.
"That was... heavy," I admitted, looking for the lights of the motel, still a while off, but visible.
"So if Emanuel was your first kiss..." he trailed off, sounding amused.
"I was nineteen," I supplied, shrugging. "And he was from Spain. It was on his boat," I added, shaking my head at my young naivety. I thought, like most young women did, that it meant something. And while the whole experience was lovely, leaps and bounds better than most women's stories, it didn't go beyond that night. I had been a sullen, unhappy girl all through Italy and then Cambodia before I finally shook it off.
"Nice."
He didn't offer any information about his first time and, quite frankly, I had a feeling that that was completely off-limits.
"Thank God," I groaned thirty minutes later when we finally walked into the motel room.
It was nothing like the one in Texas. There was no funky, modern color scheme or fancy bathroom accessories. The walls were a mustardy yellow. The floors were tile. The beds were only fulls. The bathroom had a stall shower, vanity, sink, and toilet. All of it was the kind contractors get in bulk, cheap and nothing to write home about.
But it was clean.
And it was near where we
needed to be.
And it wasn't the "Free Love" motel we passed on the way in that Luce had raised a brow at.
"It's for prostitutes and Johns," I supplied, explaining why I was walking right past it. "There is a huge economy in Brazil, but flesh will always be a bestselling cash crop here."
That was a sad reality of the country, of many countries.
But Brazil, unfortunately, was second only to Thailand in the epidemic of child and teen sex trafficking. I had seen them myself on the streets, fifteen and sixteen-year-old girls dressed in a way that made my twelve-year-old self uncomfortable. When I had angled my head up to question my father, he had given me a grimace. "Income inequality in a country always affects women and children the worst," he had explained. "Sometimes, the mom is out working the streets, leaving her kids at home, and they get snatched and sold into sex rings. They never get out. Women have bodies that are marketable. And in a bad economy, they sell the only goods they have to keep food in their stomachs."
Maybe that should have been a warning sign too. Maybe a topic so heartbreaking told so clinically should have made me give pause. But I was hardly more than a child, and then time long buried that conversation until I had reason to think of it again.
And while, as someone who had traveled a lot and had literally broken bread with prostitutes in countries where it was a legal, safe, and less frowned-upon profession, I saw nothing wrong with a woman who sold her body. That was her choice to make.
Children, however, had no choice.
It made me sick that there were people who profited on their misery.
"Alright, go ahead," Luce said, tossing a towel that hit me in the chest because I was too lost in my own head to pay attention. "I'll go after."
Really, as tired as I was, there was no way I was going to bed as sticky and disgusting as I felt. That was one thing I had apparently forgotten about the endless traveling I used to do with my fath... with Alejandro. You were always sweaty, sticky, just shy of dirty, and always hyper aware of that fact.
So I nearly ran into the shower, keeping the water somewhere between warm and cool, shivering slightly, my nipples hardening as I scrubbed soap over my skin and into my hair, almost moaning at the feeling of cleanliness.
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