"About the fire and the cover story of you being dead and everything," Abuela crossed herself.
His eyes sparked, and there was the briefest flash of the Eliah at the fire as he locked his gaze on mine. "I had to explain the plan, Kati," he said, his voice sweet as a poison-laced tea.
He walked over towards Abuela, who suddenly seemed impossibly fragile. He towered over her and placed one of his huge hands on her shoulder. He could break her neck with those hands. "You understand, don't you? I had to tell them so they wouldn't put you in danger. Tell me you understand, Kati."
I understood what he was saying, standing behind my grandmother, his grin satisfied like a cat listening to the pleadings of a mouse.
"Yeah. I understand completely." My mind raced. He was no doubt looking for the envelope, but given the ashes of my apartment, I had to accept that it wouldn't be enough just to give it to him. I looked away casually and turned to Margie. "Where's Mom?"
Margie avoided my gaze. "Antonia's having a difficult time with all of this, Kati."
"This is too complicated for her," Abuela said impatiently. "You know how she gets sometimes. "
I felt my shoulders tighten. "Where is mom?"
"In her room," said Eliah.
I moved to get past him and Abuela, but Eliah reached out and grabbed my arm as I went by his grip tightening. "I'm sure she'll be happy to see you."
He squeezed my arm and I gritted my teeth. The pounding stopped in my head as I turned to him, jerking my arm away.
"Don't touch me, Eliah."
"Kati!" Abuela admonished.
"It's okay," said Eliah, grinning like a shark about to tear into a seal. "Kati has had a long day. Haven't you?"
I spun on my heel and went into Antonia's room without knocking.
She was standing in front of the French door, looking outside, waves of hair like a dark wild river down the back of her bright blue shirt. The room was bright and airy, the walls painted a rich yellow. Pictures were everywhere, on the walls, dresser, the nightstand, affixed with little sticky notes with names carefully printed on them along with a description. Margie. Dr. Davidson. Kati. Cookie (deceased). Mrs. Caro (neighbor).
She swirled around, her face angry, then melting into relief as I shut the door behind me. She raised her finger to her lips, then reached over to the night table where there was a large silver framed photo of the two of us before the accident. My smile was bright, her gaze intense, we were holding each other as if the world could fall away at any moment.
Antonia clicked a button on a tape recorder next to the photo, then grabbed the cassette next to it, tucking it in her pants pocket. From the tape recorder her voice filled the room, and it sounded like she was talking with someone. I recognized the other voice as Margie and they were reviewing basic history.
Antonia grabbed my arm, picked up a flower patterned overnight bag from the side table and pulled me to the French doors leading out to the backyard.
"We can't just..." I started to say. She glared at me, raising her finger to her lips again. Then we were out the door and headed for the back gate, dodging a dozen potted plants and the water hose sprawled on the patio.
She stopped at the gate. "Do you have a car, Kati?" she said quickly, looking back at the house, then to me. The glare was gone, but her grip on my arm was tight. This was not like her, and I was still stunned.
"Yes, I have a truck, but we can't just leave Abuela and Margie with him. You don't understand, Mom. He's very, very dangerous."
"I know. The lady told me." She pulled me through the gate and I heard sirens. "That's why I called the police."
"The police? The lady? What are you talking about?"
"Kati!" she said impatiently, brushing a long dark strand of hair away from her face. "Later. Right now we have to go. They will be okay, the police are coming. Where is your truck?"
I looked at her, searching for Antonia, for my mother, for the woman who couldn't remember things for more than a week. None of them were there, this woman was a stranger. "The police?"
Her eyes met mine, and she spoke firmly, desperately. "Mija. We have to go. I have to keep you safe."
The sirens were louder and I heard a shout.
Together, we ran.
"What is that smell, Kati?" Antonia whispered.
I inhaled and the comforting smell that was a mix of talc, rubber, and nylon mingled with dirt filled my nose. "Climbing shoes, sweaty harnesses, climbing ropes, the usual." I peered out the windows of the camper shell. "Basically the inside of a climbing bag."
The sirens were loud, but there was no sign of the police yet. I was beginning to think they were responding to some other call nearby. I wanted to run, to hit the road while we could, but Antonia had insisted we hide in the back.
I'd parked the truck at the corner at Beto's house where there was always a ragged collection of trucks, cars, and assorted RV parts. Pilar's truck fit right in. I parked at an angle so I would be able to see the house, but just barely. But from the camper all I could see was the street.
"And this white stuff?" Mom brushed at her shirt and a little cloud of dust rose.
"Chalk. To keep your fingers from getting slippery on the rock."
"Slippery? Really?" She rubbed her fingers together, and then froze as the red and blue lights cut across the windows. She gestured to the windows. "There you go. The police are here."
I peeked out and saw a police car pull into Abuela's driveway. The siren cut out as another police car approached from the other end of the street and pulled along the curb.
I felt the back of my shirt tighten as Antonia pulled me away from the windows. We ducked low while outside I could hear heavy footsteps running toward us. My mouth went dry. No. No, come on, jerk. Don't you have your own car?
A sudden loud bang rang through the camper, like something slamming onto the hood of the truck. I jumped and felt Antonia's hand pressing on my back. I turned my head to look at her, she had her eyes closed and her lips moved silently. There was a rattle of someone trying the drivers' side door. Locked. Thankfully I hadn't unlocked the truck doors when we crawled into the camper area.
I heard another bang on the truck's hood and a curse.
That's when I realized the back latch to the camper area wasn't locked. The silver handle was still turned, the bars pulled away from the sides of the frame. All anyone needed to do was to grab the handle and lift open the hatch, and there we would be, with nowhere to go and nothing to defend ourselves with but a rope, some climbing shoes, and a chalk bag.
I felt Antonia squeeze my hand. Her eyes met mine and she nodded. The camper seemed to get smaller, the distance between us shrinking, the ceiling dropping and the walls impossibly thin. We lay there, our eyes locked, my lungs too tight to take in air. She reached out and tenderly put her hand on my face, cupping my cheek.
It struck me that it had been a long time since I'd looked into my mother's eyes, and I never remembered them looking like this, warm and intense at the same time. Usually, it seemed like she was looking at the world in soft focus, accepting everything around her as a visitor does, taking in the big picture, but not the details.
She blurred before me as tears rose from a place I'd worked damn hard to bury. Not now, Kati. I closed my eyes and leaned ever so lightly into her warm hand.
I heard it then. The sound of running footsteps again, this time running away from us.
"We should wait a little longer, don't you think?" she said quietly, taking her hand away slowly, then lifting her head and glancing back to the street through one of the camper windows.
"Definitely," I said. "Besides, I don't think I can drive until I can breathe."
We lay there in the quiet of the camper, red and blue lights strafing the camper's interior.
"So. Antonia."
She turned away from the narrow window. "Yes, Kati?"
"How did you know?"
"About the man?"
I nodded. "His name's Eliah."
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She rolled onto her back and looked up at the ceiling. Climbing stickers covered the ceiling, creating a mosaic of bad puns and hipster drawings. "It was... it was the lady. Like I told you. She told me."
"What lady?"
Antonia sighed deeply and closed her eyes. "The lady. She... tells me things. She always has."
I was startled. "I don't remember you ever talking about a Lady..."
"I did, I think, at first. Maybe not. But I had to stop talking about her." She pulled out a yellow piece of notepaper from her pants pocket along with a cassette tape. She handed me the paper and tucked the tape back in. "It's right here."
I unfolded the note. The handwriting was Antonia's simple script, careful and neat.
Antonia,
Do not take the white pill – not in the morning or at night. Hide it and pretend you did. Then throw it away in the toilet.
Listen to the Lady, but do not tell anyone about her. No one.
Listen to the tape. That way you can remember all the important things.
Always take care of Kati. Always.
From Antonia
"I don't understand. This is a note from..."
"From me. It was something Margie suggested, to keep me from forgetting things that were important. I have a tape and I play it every morning, make new ones every now and then when things change."
She held out her hand and I gave her the note back.
"The Lady is... she's in here." She tapped her head. "She has been talking to me for a while. Right after the accident, I think. Margie said I got excited about her one day and I told Mother, your Abuela. That was a mistake because I guess she thought I was..."
"Crazy?"
She nodded. "That's what the white pills are for. To silence her. To make the Lady go away. But they made me... I don't know the word. Blank. Like a blank piece of paper every day. I couldn't think at all, I couldn't do anything. I had to start again with the pennies."
"I remember the pennies."
Antonia looked grim. "I don't remember, of course. It was too long ago. But I tell the story... I mean, it's on the tape, I listened to it today, so I know. But I don't remember. Anyway, I stopped taking the pills for a month when they were running some tests—I think it was seven years ago. That's in my tape. The Lady came back, and right about then Margie started helping more. We worked on making tapes and notes so I could be more ..." She knitted her brows in concentration. "On my own."
"Independent, " I offered.
"Right. Independent." She said the word slowly as if savoring it. "The note and the tape, they helped. I can do more, remember for a little longer. As long as I don't take the pills and don't talk about the Lady, I can do more." She folded the note and put it back in her pocket. "I never talked about the Lady out loud. I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want you to get scared."
"Did you think I'd tell Abuela?"
"No, not really. At least, I don't think so." She shrugged. "It was just a bad idea, you were a child, then you were busy." She paused, then continued. "The Lady told me about that man, the tall man and that he would lie and try to hurt you. She said I needed to keep you safe."
We lay there in silence for a minute. Voices. She's hearing voices.
"Mom. Who do you think is the Lady?"
"I don't know. I thought she might be a special angel. A guard... guard... guardian angel. But I'm not sure. Maybe..." She raised her hand to her lips as if to stop her thoughts from becoming audible.
I reached over and pulled her hand away from her lips gently. "Maybe what?" Maybe she knows she's... not well.
"Maybe she's the other Antonia," she said quietly.
In my mind, I saw the fierce intelligence of my mother from before, the other Antonia, a force so great that I couldn't understand where she had gone, or how she had disappeared from my life and left behind so little...
The thoughts stung, because I knew Antonia, this Antonia loved me. But most of the time it hadn't seemed to be anywhere near enough. Most of the time I was watching out for her, feeling like I was more the parent than she was—until she pulled me out through those French doors.
Antonia turned away and started for the camper's hatch. "We should go before they start looking around here."
I followed her out, wondering where it was we should go.
Chapter 14
This is insane.
That's all I could think as we drove towards downtown El Paso. The modest skyscrapers squatted humbly at the foot of the mountains, tucked in the pass between the Mexican range and the US range of the Franklins.
I had showed Antonia the envelope and the tape, and told her about the lawyer who came to the ropes course to tell me she was "back." And now I was driving us to his office based on a business card, hoping he was still there and could help us figure out what was going on.
I was going there blind, not knowing what side Calderon was on. At this point, I didn't even know what the sides were. I was going there with a woman, my mother, who could only retain a week's worth of information, who was talking to "the Lady." Then there was the goofy-guy-turned-psychopath who had probably tried to kill me. Eliah was somewhere out there looking for me. For us.
And there was the old man that had come to the hospital. Abuela had warned Pilar about him.
This whole thing was a bad idea. We should go to the police, run across the International Bridge to Mexico, head back home. This couldn't be happening.
My body argued back. My side was scraped from scrambling in and out of the back of the truck, my bruises on my ribs from the accident were still tender. The little toy climbers swayed from the rearview mirror and I thought of Pilar, and the blanket that lay flat where her leg should have been.
"Is this the tape?" Antonia held the cassette in her hand, reading the label on the side. "Is it the one ... I made for you?"
I nodded, suddenly not wanting her to hear it—to hear how the "other Antonia" had referred to her.
"It got erased. I think it was Eliah." I remember Eliah standing by the bookshelf after he delivered my medicine. After he left, I'd heard the click of the machine. He must have erased it when I went to the bathroom to ditch the pills.
"Both sides?" Antonia asked.
"What? What do you mean?"
"Are both sides erased? You know, if you flip it over?"
"There's another side?" I was lost. I never even played a cassette tape before a week ago. I assumed cassettes were like the old camcorder tapes Abuela would play sometimes.
She reached into her overnight bag and pulled out a cassette player. "Let's listen and see."
I felt a sudden wave of panic. She seems nothing like me, I remembered the other Antonia saying on the tape. She seems... like an idiot. A sweet, dim, idiot.
"No!" I reached out and tried to get the tape. "Not yet, okay? Not right now."
She pulled away, palming the tape deftly. "Kati, we need to know if she, um.. I... well, you know, if she had more to tell you about this."
"It's just... I mean, I ... I don't think I'm ready."
She stared at me incredulously. "Do you think we have time for you to get ready?"
"Not now." I tightened my grip on the steering wheel until I could see my knuckles turning white. What else would Antonia say? "Not now, Mom."
We drove past the airport exit in silence, then made our way past another mall. Soon we'd be under the soaring maze of overpasses that fed traffic toward the International Bridge to the south or the Fort Bliss Army base to the north.
"Kati," she said gently. "It is still me on the tape, you know. She is still me."
I concentrated on driving, having no answer.
I pulled into the parking garage at Calderon's office. Antonia had no memory of sending him to get me, but something about the way he spoke about her, about the other Antonia, made me think he was a friend.
Calderon's office was on the third floor of the Mills building. I caught a glimpse of myself in the elevator's mirrored wall panel
. The bruises from my accident were fading to a yellow-green on my face, my hair was a mess, my clothes were dusty with chalk and rumpled from the drive.
"You look fine, Kati," Antonia said.
"I look like hell."
"Well, sure, you look like hell. You've been through hell. After this we'll go to a friend's house and get cleaned up," she said.
"Who's house? Where can we go? Where is it safe?" I asked. Before she could answer the elevator doors slid open and we froze in place.
The front lobby looked like it had been hit by a hurricane. Tables were overturned, paper was strewn everywhere, and the glass wall behind the huge reception desk was cracked down the middle. A toppled office chair poked out from behind the desk, its back section twisted. Yellow police tape was draped across the reception desk and continued to the far wall, blocking the way to the hallway on the left.
The elevator doors began to close on the elevator and I jumped forward in time for them to spring back into the wall. We stepped cautiously onto the marble floor, trying to avoid the swirl of paper at our feet. The office looked empty, but I could hear voices.
"What are you doing here?" A woman emerged from the hallway, her dark hair pulled into a messy ponytail. She wore a jacket over jeans and walked swiftly in bright white tennis shoes to intercept us, her short stride as authoritative as her voice.
"I was looking for Mr. Calderon," I said. "He came to see me a while ago and we never finished our..." I wasn't sure what to say.
"Mr. Calderon, you say?" Her eyes pinned me in place. "Gustav?"
Antonia's grip on my arm tightened. "Gustav has some papers of mine."
Antonia's voice was soft, her southern accent thick. Her accent was always heavier when she was stressed. "We need them."
"I'm afraid the office is closed for now." The woman reached over the tape to the receptionist desk and withdrew an ivory business card with embossed lettering. "Call us in a week, I'm sure we'll be able to help you."
I accepted the card. "Thank you. And you are?"
"Connie. I'm the office manager." She smiled weakly.
When I Knew You Page 8