Where You End

by Anna Pellicioli

  After a few minutes, an SUV slows down and pulls up toward the curb. I can’t see who is in there. The driver steps out.

  “Un segundo,” he says before he shuts the door.

  My ass is stuck to his steps.

  “Hello,” he says. I can hear a little accent.

  “Hi.”

  “Are you looking for someone?”

  “Uhm, sort of.”

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. The man is confused, but he doesn’t seem mad. He seems nice. He must be the uncle. She never talked about a father. He notices the phone in my hand.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  “Yes.” I sigh. “No. Look, I’m really sorry. I’m just … I know your niece.”

  His eyes get real big, and he puts his hand on his mouth, and then he looks back at the car. It feels so good to share it with someone that I just want to keep going. No mercy.

  “I met her a week ago.”

  Uncle Eva shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry to just show up at your house like this, but I’m sort of looking for her. She borrowed something from me.”

  “Do you know where she is?” he asks, frantic.

  “I’m not sure. Isn’t she here?” I say.

  “No. Eva hasn’t been home in more than a week.”

  “But I just spoke to her. She said she was with her mom.”

  His eyes get watery. “Dios mio,” he says.

  He bites his thumbnail and then looks at me like I am a child he should remember to protect.

  “What’s your name?” he asks.

  “Miriam.”

  “You really know Eva?”

  “Yes, sort of, yes.”

  “How do you know where we live?”

  “Because she told me.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “I know her mother is sick, and that she has a little brother. She was really worried about her little brother.”

  The man’s eyes start to water and he bites his knuckle to make himself stop.

  “What?” I beg.

  “Miriam, I have to talk to my wife. We have to find Eva.”

  “Have you called her?”

  “She does not answer. We thought she was at her boyfriend’s house.”

  “She has a boyfriend?”

  “He is a stupid guy, a mean guy, but sometimes she went back. He is the father.”

  “Whose father?” I ask, but within two seconds, the look on the uncle’s face shuts me up. Pablo is not Eva’s brother. I look over at the car, where a boy is sitting quietly in his car seat.

  “Is that Pablo?”

  “Yes,” he says.

  “And where is Eva’s mother?” I ask.

  The man shakes his head. “Se mató,” he says.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t understand … ”

  “She’s dead, hija. My sister, her mother, killed herself.”

  My head is reeling from too much truth, all at once, and so much pain. I think of the way Eva begged for a picture of her son, of how guilty she felt, how she spoke of her mother. Was she giving me clues? Everything is mixed together: the book of poems, the greasy hair, the gold fish, the altar. I think of the woman in the silver frame, surrounded by candles, and how Eva refused to look at that photograph. She was trying to tell me something, goddamnit, and I was not listening.

  The car window opens and a little head leans over and yells, “Tiiiiiiiooooo. Can we go inside? Tengo hambre.”

  “Ya voy, mi amor. Un rato, por favor.”

  “So that’s Pablo … ” I say.

  “Yeah, that’s Pablo,” he says.

  “We have to call the police,” I say.

  He motions for Pablo to wait, and Pablo huffs and grabs a bag of little plastic dinosaurs from the seat pocket. I am sure Eva put those there for him.

  “I know what to do,” I say.

  I got Pablo. He is okay.

  Eva’s uncle talks to his wife on the phone. He looks lost. I pray for Eva to write back. I promise God everything if he does me this one more favor. The thought crosses my mind that maybe I’m being punished, maybe this is my punishment for pushing the sculpture, for having sex without a condom, for lying to my parents. I beg him for a different punishment, one that does not hurt Eva, Pablo, and this man standing in front of me.

  “My wife says we cannot go to the police, because maybe they take away Pablo.”

  “They would not do that.”

  “My wife says we need to find her,” he says.

  I look at Pablo in the car and think of places where his mom might be. His hair is black like hers, but more curly, all over the place. He smiles, and I smile back.

  With my mom, she said. To find Eva, we have to solve the ultimate puzzle—where the fuck do people go when they die?

  “When did you see Eva?” he says.

  “The last time was at the zoo,” I tell him.

  “How many times? Where else?”

  “At the park, at my school, at the Cathedral.”

  He presses his temples to think.

  “She was bad?” he asks.

  “Bad?” I say.

  “Not bad. Sad? She was sad?”

  I don’t know how to answer. She was everything. She was sad, she was angry, she was funny, she was smart, she was worried, but she did not seem done. I don’t believe that. She was the one who helped me. She was hopeful.

  “She had hope,” I say, wishing that didn’t sound so vague and unhelpful.

  The man, who looks older by the minute, sighs. “How did you know her?” he asks.

  “She found me,” I say. “We met at a museum last Friday.”

  “Last Friday?” he says. “Are you sure it was last Friday?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “That’s when she left,” he says. “She said she needed to get out for a little bit, and my wife took care of Pablo, but Eva did not come back.”

  He starts shaking his head again, and I’m afraid he’s going to cry and I won’t know how to comfort him. It strikes me I don’t know so much about his niece after all, not as much as he does at least, not as much as his wife does. I see how this was a dangerous game we were playing, how there were parents and children and mourning aunts and uncles involved.

  “I’m so sorry to ask you this, but was her mother buried?”

  “No. She was burned,” he says, a reminder that English is not his first language, that Spanish is, as Eva said to me once, stronger.

  I take out the only thing I have that belongs to Eva—the Neruda book—and look for clues as to where she might be. Someone has underlined some phrases or words and there is the occasional comment or star in the margins. All of the scribbling is on the Spanish side of the page. I had assumed that was Eva. I hand the book over to Eva’s uncle, hoping he will be able to decipher it better than I can.

  “This was Eva’s,” I say. “She gave it to me when I met her.”

  He takes the book and looks through it, then turns to the first page and smiles the saddest smile I have ever seen.

  “Por mi hija, la grande poeta de mi vida, para que no tenga miedo,” he reads.

  I wait.

  “Her mother gave her this book before … ”

  I don’t wait for him to finish the sentence. It’s too horrible. Before she died, Eva’s mother left her a book of poems. But poems can’t save your life, can they? People do. We have to find her.

  “She said her mother liked to take her to the Cathedral. Is that true?” I ask.

  Her uncle shrugs. “I don’t know. I have never been there.”

  I try Eva’s phone, but it’s going straight to voicemail again. She’s probably turned it off.

  “We have to try every place, one at a time,” I say.

  “Do you know whe
re to go?” he asks.

  “No, but we can try.”

  The uncle opens the passenger door, and I look back at Pablo, who waves his hand and asks for a goldfish. The irony. The uncle points to a bag and Pablo holds out his palm, where I drop a fistful of orange crackers.

  “Thank you,” the little guy says.

  “You’re welcome,” I say, and I’m so relieved I finally got him. I have Pablo, Eva. You stay put.

  We snake through the cars in rush hour traffic and make our way north, and the uncle and I only talk when he needs directions. He doesn’t even tell me his name. When we arrive at the top of the hill, we find a side street to park on and he asks me to wait inside. I want to go, but I understand now that this is not just my story, so I agree to stay in the car and watch Pablo, who seems to be okay with me so long as the goldfish don’t run out. I explain to the uncle how to get into the Cathedral, and he takes the car keys, probably because he doesn’t want me to run off with the other child in his care. He tells me he’ll be right back.

  Pablo and I stare at each other for a long minute, then he asks for more goldfish, but instead of eating them, he starts counting.

  “One, two, three, four, five,” he says.

  I notice he’s skipped a few crackers, but I’m not sure if I’m supposed to correct him. He doesn’t seem to be interested in eating them.

  “Actually,” I say, “you missed some. Try again.”

  “Okay—one, two, three, four, five,” he says, again skipping two.

  I reach for his palm to start counting out loud, but Pablo pops exactly two fish in his mouth before I can get to three. It cracks me up.

  “Five!” he says.

  He’s right. It reminds me of his mom.

  “I’m cold,” he says.

  “Me too,” I tell him. “Your uncle will be back soon.” I point to the spires of the church.

  No word from Eva. I don’t know what I was thinking, why I imagined she would update me. I brought him here, I remind myself. That’s all that matters.

  “Where did he go?” Pablo asks.

  I pretend I didn’t hear the question, and Pablo messes with the Velcro on his shoes. Except for the Velcro, little boy shoes look like old man shoes.

  “Did he go to hear the music?” he asks.

  “No,” I say.

  A few cars roll by, but no one comes out to tell me what to say. He starts squirming in his seat and asks if he can have his ball. I look everywhere for it.

  “It’s red,” he says.

  I keep looking, but I can’t find it. I tell him I’m sorry and offer more goldfish, but he shakes his head.

  “Did you go trick or treating last night?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “It was raining, right?”

  “Yeah, but I was a dragon, and dragons can spit fire.”

  I nod, trying to guess if Eva bought the costume before she left. My heart breaks at the thought of the uncle going to get a polyester dragon at the store.

  “But the rain did not kill the fire that I spit, because the rain is little and the fire is big.”

  “That’s right,” I say, thinking that kill sounds strange coming from a little guy, but I believe him. I believe his dragon.

  “My tío said I could have four candies because I am four years old, but I had one chocolate one because I am more than three, because my birthday party was in June.”

  In June, I was in love. I could have had seventeen candies yesterday, and I didn’t even have one. June. Was June the date on Eva’s neck?

  “Were you a princess or a fairy?” he asks.

  That makes me laugh a little, and I remember Pablo’s thing for dinosaurs.

  “I was a dinosaur,” I say.

  He gives me a serious look, followed by a quick smile, and then he’s back to his shoes.

  “What dinosaur?” he says.

  I can’t remember any of the names. It’s too long ago.

  “The mean one with horns,” I say.

  “Big?” he asks.

  “Huge,” I say.

  “Triceratops!” He beams, and looks through his bag to hand me a plastic version.

  “Exactly!” I say. “Where does a triceratops live?”

  Pablo is confused. “I don’t know.”

  “Yeah, that’s sort of a stupid question.”

  “Don’t say stupid.”

  I apologize.

  “You can say silly. We don’t say stupid in this house, and my mama says it hurts people.”

  I tell him he’s right.

  I don’t tell him his mama is missing, and I definitely don’t tell him she will be here soon to congratulate him on his impeccable manners because, frankly, I have no idea whether she will or not, and it would be silly for me to give him false hopes. (Is hope what he misses or what he wishes for next? Is hope to smell her neck at bedtime, to count the loops around her jeans, to push his arms through his dinosaur shirt and catch her distracted eyes in front of his? Does he know what to call it when you have something and you can’t keep it and then you don’t have it and it’s with you, all the time?) It’s been over a week since he’s heard her voice. Only twenty minutes in this car.

  He starts to kick his legs like a possessed pair of scissors, and whine. I look for his ball again, but he’s getting frustrated. Pablo wants to get out of the car.

  “I know, Pablo, but we have to stay here so your uncle can find us when he gets back. He might get worried if we leave. You understand? Does that make sense?”

  He doesn’t answer, but instead gets quiet and sad-looking. Shit. I made a mistake.

  “Hey, you know what?” I say.

  Silence.

  “Look what I have.”

  “What?” Pablo says, humoring me.

  I pull Adam’s camera out of my bag. He was so mad yesterday that he forgot what he came for.

  “It’s a camera.”

  I turn it on, switch to automatic, and look through the viewfinder. There he is, right in front of me. If I move back enough, I can get all his hair. Here he is, Eva, your child, the live, three-dimensional version.

  “Can I see it?” he asks.

  “You have to be very careful, okay?”

  “Why?” he asks.

  “Because there are lots of buttons, and it can break if you drop it. It’s not mine.”

  “Is it your mommy’s?” he says.

  Oh man. My mommy is home, making dinner.

  “No. It’s my friend’s.”

  “Oh. I’m not gonna drop it,” he reassures me.

  “Good.”

  “Because your friend will be very mad if I drop it.”

  I laugh.

  “He probably wouldn’t get too mad. He’s nice,” I say, thinking that’s the truth. Even if he said something horrible, that friend is the nicest one I’ve got.

  Pablo holds his little hand out to take the camera. I unbuckle my seat belt and put the strap around his neck. The camera covers most of his face, and, when I tell him to look through the hole, he keeps both eyes open. It’s hard for him to keep the thing still.

  “You have to look with one eye if you want to see better. You have to close one of your eyes … like a pirate.”

  Pablo squints. I put one hand over his eye.

  “Your hand is cold,” he says.

  I rub my hands together, against my jeans, and then together again. I put my hand back on his eye.

  “How’s that?” I say.

  Silence.

  “What do you see?” I ask.

  He puts the camera down. “The car.”

  I try to remember how my mother taught me. It’s too long ago.

  “You have to keep looking through the hole, until the picture is done. Or it will come out blurry.”

/>   “What’s blurry?” he asks.

  “Like, fuzzy.”

  “Like a bear?”

  “Like a … ”

  “Like a dog?”

  “Like the shower door,” I say, which is not fuzzy at all.

  “I don’t like showers.”

  “Okay. That’s okay. Forget that. Let’s try again. Keep the camera in front of your face, like this.”

  I hold the camera and cover his eye with my palm. He lets me.

  “Now tell me what you see, on the other side.”

  “The car.”

  “Okay. What else?”

  “The wheel.”

  “Great. Now move the camera and keep looking.”

  I take my hand off Pablo’s face.

  “Keep looking, don’t put the camera down. What do you see?”

  “The seat.”

  “Can you see me through the camera?”

  He turns to face me. He moves back, without dropping the camera.

  “Yes.”

  “What do I look like?”

  “You have a finger and eyes and a nose. This is heavy.”

  I reach for the camera, but Pablo plops it on his lap.

  “Do you want to take a picture?” I ask.

  “I took a picture,” he says.

  Now I remember. “You saw a picture, Pablo. Now you have to take it.”

  “Okay.”

  “You look, and move it around, and when you see something you want to keep, you push this button.”

  It sounds a little loaded for a four-year-old but that’s what my mother always told me.

  “But you have to be very, very still. You can’t move when you push the button.”

  Pablo brings the camera back up, and I leave his eyes alone. He turns back and forth a little and then points the camera at the church. When he’s done, he gives me the camera, and I show him his picture, happily breaking my rule. He smiles and asks if he can take one more. I put the strap back on and he points it straight at me and waits the longest second. What do you see? I want to ask, What do you see? He pushes the button and tells me he has to pee.

  Shit. I don’t want to leave the car unlocked, but it’s been long enough, and there must be bathrooms somewhere in there. Pablo holds my hand to cross the street and does not let go until we are next to the church, when he breaks free and runs to the side doors. He seems to know the way. I run after him and ask him to stay close. He looks embarrassed. I ask a purple-robed lady where the bathroom is. No sign of Eva or uncle. I would check my phone, but I have no idea what to do if Pablo pees his pants.