Toward the Light

by Bonnar Spring

  Luz’s pulse raced as her thoughts shifted into high gear. She didn’t need much time, but she had to distract Cesar—and cajoling would take too long. A treat, then. She had a couple of DVDs she’d been saving for an emergency. This qualified.

  Luz settled him in front of the TV. She returned to the bedroom, closed the door, and had just assembled her material when the phone rang—Delores asking about her keys already? Tears of frustration welled as she ran into the living room to answer it. So close.

  But it was only Father Espinosa who wanted to give Luz detailed instructions on how Cesar was to complete a history assignment. Cesar, still antsy, drifted over and listened to Luz’s side of the conversation. He soon wandered away—back to his video, she assumed—but when Luz got off the phone and turned around, Cesar wasn’t in front of the TV. Instead, she found him in his bedroom, rolling her clay into little balls.

  “Look, Luz, it’s a caterpillar. And I can make a snake, too—watch. This stuff is cool. Where’d you get it? D’you have some more?”

  Once the clay was removed from its sealed package, it dried to a rock-hard lump in ten minutes. Luz took a step forward, ready to pluck the clay from his hand. Less than ten minutes now. If it came to an argument with Cesar, she would lose one way or the other. Luz stilled her hand. She could probably come up with a Plan B to create her mold, but would she be able to do so while she still had the blasted key?

  “Ay, querido,” she said to the boy. “Es muy hermosa.” Her mind whirring, Luz took the bright pink snake from Cesar’s hand, assessing as she appeared to admire it. He hadn’t taken that much clay. She could make the duplicate key with less than the full amount.

  Luz eased Cesar toward the living room. “This is very special clay, Cesar. I thought we could use it for—we could use it for surprises for each other.”

  Yes, that was the right tack. Christmas, surprises, secrets. Cesar beamed.

  “The problem is, this clay gets hard really fast, so let’s turn off the video and set your homework timer. Bueno. Now you have exactly seven minutes.”

  Cesar, intrigued, looked from Luz to the clock and back again. He hid the lump behind his back.

  To forestall time-consuming questions, Luz said, “I’m going into the bedroom right now so I can’t see the surprise you’re making for me. And I’ll make something for you.” She walked away while she spoke, finishing on the upbeat “isn’t this fun!” note popular with parents.

  Luz closed the bedroom door and leaned against it. Her breath, in the hush of Cesar’s room, sounded as harsh as a rusty saw on an iron bar. She held her hands to her face. They were cold and trembling and her cheeks burning hot, but she had no time to waste.

  She opened the empty metal tin of hard candies she always carried with her and pressed polymer clay into both halves. One side remained slightly concave. Luz needed more clay to create an accurate impression. Since there wasn’t any more, she had to find something to take up space in the mold. She could tear off a section of cardboard from a paperback cover, but Cesar would be punished for defacing a book if Father Espinosa noticed. For the second time in as many minutes, Luz pulled back her hand. Then she laughed out loud. All she had at stake right now, and she worried Cesar might lose TV privileges! The changes she would unleash on Cesar’s life would dwarf anything the child had ever experienced—Where would he go? With whom? Would he grow up an exile like her? Would he be safe? Her questions ricocheted around his uncertain future. Stop. No time.

  Some debris on the bookcase caught her eye—a small piece of cardboard covered with a jagged line of hard plastic where batteries for his new remote-control car had been ripped out. Luz grabbed it and tore off the plastic layer. She pried out the concave lump of clay. Placing a folded section of cardboard in the tin, she replaced the clay and pressed it firmly against the cardboard. Yes. Enough.

  She smoothed the clay. Then she detached the key with the blue tag, the key to Bobby’s suite. Her hands working with precise muscle memory from endless practice in Miami, Luz dusted the clay with graphite from a cavity inside her mechanical pencil to keep the clay from sticking together so Luz could retrieve the key after the two halves hardened. She removed the clear plastic cover of her tiny eyebrow brush, which formed a funnel-shaped collar. Luz slid it around the key’s handle and laid the key on the clay, orienting its point to a tiny yellow dot, barely visible on the outside. Then she snapped the two halves together, exactly as they’d shown her.

  Luz had not dared glance at the clock while sweating over her task. Now she looked. A whimper of release escaped her lips. It would solidify in a minute or less. She swallowed and exhaled. Slipping the tin into her pocket, Luz cracked open the door to the living room.

  “Don’t come in,” Cesar yelled. He was still manipulating his clay, so she had to wait.

  “Time’s almost up.”

  Luz counted to one hundred. She bent her paperclip to a fishhook and opened the tin. Tapped the edge of the clay. Solid. Careful not to mar the imprint, she slipped her fishhook into the funnel, which had kept the key’s center hole from clogging with clay, and lifted the key out. She dusted off as much as she could of the graphite. Then Luz threaded the key back on Delores’ loop and tossed it under the bed.

  Opening the door to the living room, she called out, “Ready or not, here I come!”

  Delores stood next to Cesar, her head bent toward the boy, as he showed her the treasure cupped in his hand.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As Evan slunk home from his encounter with Luz, he passed a young Guatemalan man walking proudly with his two sons. Sons, because of the unmistakable family resemblance. Proud, because of the conspicuous pleasure as the trio swaggered, three abreast, along the sidewalk, the boys skipping at their father’s side. The man greeted passersby with a proprietary nod instead of relinquishing contact with his boys.

  Family. That story Evan had told Luz about his first memory—holding his father’s hand while they walked—had been one of only a handful of memories of him and his father alone together. And he’d only told her the first part: They’d met some men from the base, and his father had told him to run along home. Run home. Evan had no idea where they were, and besides, he wasn’t allowed to cross streets by himself. Whether he’d found his way home alone or cried and embarrassed his father—how that long-ago afternoon had ended was lost in the fog.

  Evan grew up thinking his bisected life normal: When his father left, Evan’s toys lay strewn throughout the house for days at a time; bedtime became flexible. Sometimes he and his mother had popcorn for dinner, sitting together on the rug while they watched movies on their old VCR.

  When his father was home, the house filled with soldiers. Richard, his mother’s brother and his father’s comrade-in-arms, often showed up. His mother usually cooked a huge pot of something savory before the men arrived, then retreated to her room. Now that he was grown, Evan understood she’d been steering clear of them.

  It was more complicated for Evan. When he joined his father and the other soldiers, they sat too straight. They apologized for swearing, asked diligently about school, about sports, about stupid shit. Evan caught the looks that occasionally passed between the men—glances that said, When’s this kid’s bedtime?

  Evan became invisible so he could pretend to be hanging out with them. Sitting in a dark hallway or outside the windows on a summer night, he listened to their uncensored stories of heroism and disaster. Evan—always more at home in the visual world—saw their experiences: firefights and rescue missions, sand, torrential downpours, explosions.

  Inevitably, in the course of eavesdropping, he heard stories not suitable for children. Comrades mangled when their tank detonated an IED, slaughter in the jungle, execution-style killings. Evan began having nightmares. He stopped sneaking around. His father’s world was not Evan’s. He, too, began to stay in his room when the men arrived.

  Evan grew taller and filled out. He turned thirteen, fourteen. His father deployed to
Germany to train demolition teams. His jeep flipped over on an icy road, and he died there.

  His mother accepted the flag at his funeral. She accepted the condolences of his friends. Then she put the flag in the bottom drawer of her bureau and applied to graduate school. The men—the single or divorced ones—came by, offering to cut the grass or take Evan to a ball game, but she discouraged their attention, until only her brother Richard came around.

  Richard took Evan under his wing in a way his father never had. He’d left the Army by then. Although his new government job as a civilian analyst at the CIA involved a lot of travel, he was no longer stuck overseas for lengthy postings. Richard treated Evan as an intelligent equal, took him around to colleges, took time to explain the importance of his work. Later, Richard introduced Evan to Evan’s own small role in the big machine protecting American interests throughout the world.

  Richard. Evan could not fathom how Richard squared his beliefs about spreading democracy, about a strong and just America, with discarding Luz.

  And Luz. His unspoken grand romantic declaration now seemed as childish as a kiss and a Band-Aid to make it all better. From his first sight of her on the bus, Luz had ignited a spark in him. Yes, it began simply as selfish interest, but he’d known since Saturday that wasn’t all. He’d sensed her incandescent passion before he understood she was living the rest of her life in a hurry because she had so little time left. All the vibrancy, all the warmth. And all the lovers. Yes, that hurt, but Luz had made no promises to him. An empty chasm opened in his chest at the thought of her bright flash of light blowing out. Blowing up.

  It wasn’t right, what Richard was asking her to do.

  And since it wasn’t right, Evan had to divine some miraculous way to thread a microscopic needle—protect Luz without betraying his uncle.

  Evan trudged home. When he opened his front door, he realized his day had only just begun to go downhill.

  No mystery men lay in wait outside Luz’s gate. The street was empty of friend or foe. Her tiny apartment echoed with the absence of sound from the empty nights that remained. Luz hung her jacket in the closet; she put away the single bowl and spoon she’d used for breakfast. With a fleeting glance at the telephone that would not ring tonight, she set a pan of water to boil.

  Luz took out the little tin with the clay impression of the key and, using a jeweler’s screwdriver, she removed two almost invisible screws around the yellow mark and lifted off a small section of the edge, exposing the conical depression in the clay. Then she clamped the tin, funnel-shaped hole on top, to a sturdy bookend to hold it upright.

  Into the saucepan of hot water, she set a coffee cup containing a St. Christopher medal that always sat innocuously in her velvet-lined jewelry box. The medallion had been fashioned from gallium, a metal—solid at normal room temperatures—which liquefies at ninety-five degrees. The shiny silver disk dissolved into an amorphous blob oscillating at the bottom of the cup. Luz lifted the cup from its water bath and poured a tiny amount of liquid metal into the opening of her clay mold. She tapped it to remove air bubbles. More gallium. Another tap. Luz was on automatic pilot now. Again and again, until it was full. The man who’d demonstrated this in Miami had made her practice the process dozens of times until she could accurately gauge the amount of metal required.

  When she was done, Luz moved the setup to her refrigerator, where it sat next to the oranges and eggs. Half an hour later, she opened the mold and threaded the makeshift key onto her key ring.

  Luz smiled as she recalled her shock at seeing Delores inspect Cesar’s Christmas surprise, fearful Delores would be suspicious about the unusual material or about the missing keys. But no—Delores, having discovered her loss, was merely retracing her steps. Luz joined in the game of searching and coached Cesar on places to look, so he “found” them.

  And as a bonus, Delores revealed she was off to air out Bobby’s quarters since he was expected home in a day or two. Soon, Luz could swap out the flash drives. Then she’d melt the damn key. No evidence would remain.

  Luz considered not going to the market the next morning, but even the slightest chance of news from Toño propelled her there. She wasn’t sure what to do about Evan, though. Her successful duplication of the key was a milestone to report, but the “Bobby” assignment held secondary importance. Discrediting him was all to the good, but her main job was the death of Martin Benavides. Besides, she only had the key, not the locked-away thumb drive.

  Notifying Evan could wait. So Luz took a different route to the market. Evan sat at his usual table in the café, facing the direction she’d normally appear. She’d almost made good her dash into the covered market when a police siren screeched. Evan, looking around for the source of commotion, spotted her. He stood and waved when she passed. Luz lowered her head and raced away. It wasn’t the business part that distressed her, but the personal stuff. Luz had treated sex with Evan casually, and she assumed he felt the same, but something had happened Saturday at Evan’s house. He wasn’t feeling casual anymore.

  And increasingly—kicking the ball around with Cesar, absently folding and refolding laundry, picking at dinner—Luz flashed back to Evan’s hands, hot and insistent as they slid between her thighs, his low moans of excitement, their explosive release.

  It had become so good so quickly. Luz had already begun steeling herself to the idea of forging more emotional distance. She had to keep Evan from succumbing to the illusion of a real, developing relationship.

  Then came her weekend in the mountains. Damn Toño—of course he was right about Evan being a security risk. He’d already gotten too curious. Richard wouldn’t have told Evan she had ALS. There was no reason to divulge that, and Richard operated strictly on need-to-know. Evan had dug up that secret on his own.

  And she’d been so off-balance by what he learned that she’d thrown the whole bomb thing at him, making things a thousand times worse. For that, she had no one to blame but herself.

  So much for the easy let-down. Judging by Evan’s pale face and slumped shoulders, it was too late. Luz hurried into the market. Juana greeted her with warmth, perhaps even with a twinkle that tacitly acknowledged her role in conveying Luz to Toño, but she had no news.

  A peremptory knock at Cesar’s door a few hours later heralded her next advance.

  “Pase,” called Luz, looking up from the book the boy was reading to her.

  In walked Alicia, in day-glo lime, reflections from her jangly ankle bracelet making rainbow prisms on the wall. Behind Alicia appeared one of the rifle-toting black-uniformed men of Martin Benavides’ personal militia. The men, reputed to have been culled from the ranks of the Army as a reward for loyalty and—it was whispered—for ruthless extermination of any Benavides enemies, hung around the compound when they weren’t needed to safeguard drug shipments in transit.

  Luz’s stomach dropped to the soles of her shoes. Guilty. Run.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The soldier accompanying Alicia stopped at the door and stood, arms crossed, blocking her escape.

  “Your presence is requested elsewhere,” Alicia said. Something overlaid Alicia’s normal expression of snooty superiority. A gleam in her eyes suggested excitement—no, it was more vulpine. Or perhaps Luz was merely projecting her own anxiety.

  “W-what is it?” Time slowed as though Luz might have eternity to examine the bluebottle fly buzzing at the screen, the pale green walls with the watercolors of local birds, simply framed in pine, the rag rug, the plush sofa where she and Cesar sat, a beam of slanting golden sun lighting a path across the floor.

  She’d tell them about Toño immediately. How grateful she now was for the blindfold. About six hours from the city, an hour up a steep track from a small town smelling of roasting coffee beans and chicle, that was all she knew. Surely, they couldn’t locate him with those paltry directions.

  “Come on.” Alicia snapped her fingers, a gesture that could have been directed at Luz—or just as easily been a signal
for the guard to grab her and drag her away.

  As though her terror was contagious, Cesar curled closer on the couch. “I don’t want you to go.” He entwined his fingers in hers.

  “I shouldn’t leave Cesar.”

  “Unfortunately for all of us, I’m supposed to stay with him,” said Alicia with ill-disguised peevishness. “La Señora wishes to talk to you. This man will escort you.”

  Dominga. Luz swallowed hard. Not torture and the firing squad after all. Perhaps her hints had finally borne fruit.

  Luz laid her free hand on Cesar’s clenched fingers. “Está bien, mijo. I’ll be right back.”

  She joined the man at the door. They walked in silence, footfalls extinguished by the thick carpet, down the wide corridor, past the elevator Luz normally rode, toward the center of the building and the heavy door—bulletproof, Delores had once told her—that barred the way to Martin’s lair.

  The guard, blocking sight lines with his body, punched in a code. The door sprang loose with a hiss, and they went through. Wordlessly, the guard motioned Luz into an elevator at the far end of the central wing. Another code. He pressed “up.” They exited on the roof, facing a helipad. Keeping a muscular hand pincer-like on her elbow, he led Luz to a pergola covered with leafy vines. In the center, an old lady in black lay atop an inclined hospital bed. Grossly fat, with ankles puffing out over her old-fashioned black lace-up shoes. She fanned herself with an elaborate folding fan.

  Although it was cool on the rooftop, the woman was sweating profusely. She lifted her hand and, with a fluttering wave, dismissed the guard. He retreated to the wall by the elevator.

  “Be seated.” Her voice was a reedy whisper, feathery light on the breeze.

  Luz sat.

  “You know who I am.”

  “Of course.” Luz bobbed her head, an attempt at a seated curtsy. “I’m honored to meet you, Señora Benavides.” And that, thought Luz, was two lies in one sentence. It was no honor, only necessity, to be back in the presence of this old woman, a woman Luz had met a few times when she was a little girl.