Sisters, Strangers, and Starting Over

by Belinda Acosta

  “I really pissed him off, huh?”

  “You surprised him, that’s all. You know how he is with surprises.”

  “But you weren’t surprised?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew you weren’t interested in going to school in Michigan the way he wanted. And I thought maybe you and Marisol were getting serious. That was about it.” She leaned against the counter. “So, culinary school, huh?”

  “I didn’t mean to keep it a secret, but he’s so hardheaded,” Carlos scoffed. “He always thinks he knows the way to run everything, and when things don’t go his way, he flips out!”

  “I know, mi’jo. I know. In his heart, he thinks he’s doing what is best.” Beatriz thought it would do her good to remember that, too. “But look—he’ll come around. Don’t worry. “You should go to bed. It’s late, and I know you have to get up early, no?”

  “Yeah.” Carlos kissed his mother good night and turned to leave when he stopped suddenly. “I’m sorry if I disappointed you.”

  “No, mi’jo. You could never disappoint me. Go on to bed. I’m going to stay up and wait for your dad. Trust me. Everything will be better in the morning,” she said. But even Beatriz wasn’t sure if that was true.

  It was well past midnight when Beatriz had the sinking realization that Larry wasn’t coming back. She reluctantly dragged herself upstairs, weary with exhaustion, and ran a shower. After she finished pinning up her hair, she stepped into the shower, sat on the spa chair placed inside, and cried. Her fingers were pruned and her hair flattened by the time she had finished letting loose all the tears she’d been storing up. As she dried herself off, she stood in the door of the bathroom staring at the bed she shared with her husband. She couldn’t remember the last time she went to bed without Larry. Each of them occasionally traveled for work, but this time the bed looked different. When she crawled in, she noticed how cold it felt without him. She sank her feet deep into the covers and pulled the sheets over her head, but she couldn’t relax. After an hour of frustrating restlessness, she finally took her pillow and the throw at the foot of the bed and went back downstairs.

  When she reached the foyer, she peeked out the window. The glow from the street lamp above the pavement where Larry’s SUV was usually parked made the empty space look large and barren. She wrapped herself in the blanket and went into the living room, where she curled up in a chair. She didn’t think she’d fall asleep. She wanted to be there when Larry returned. She wanted to talk to him, to help him understand, to try and understand what his reservations were about having Celeste stay with them. But before she knew it she was asleep.

  She felt the slump before she heard the scream. It was deep and heavy, as if someone or something had fallen into the chair next to her, and it woke her instantly. She thought it was Larry and blinked against the darkness, looking for his familiar outline, but there was no one. She could hear the sound of a car passing down the street and jumped up to see if it was him pulling into their drive, but when she got to the window she could see it wasn’t. She stood there thinking she would go back upstairs again when she heard the bloodcurdling scream. It was a sound so ragged, so full of anguish, it made the hair on every part of her body rise. She immediately ran toward it.

  When Beatriz turned on the overhead light, Celeste was standing on the couch, the sheets balled up and clutched against her chest, her face drenched with terror and confusion.

  “ ’Amá! ’Amá! Don’t let them get me!” she screamed. Beatriz did the only thing she knew to do. She went to the girl and pulled her down from the couch.

  “It’s okay! It’s okay! You’re safe, mi’ja! Shh, shh, shh. No one is going to hurt you. I’ve got you! I’ve got you!”

  The two of them collapsed onto the couch. Celeste was fighting Beatriz’s embrace, unsure of who Beatriz was, of where she was. The girl was shaking so violently, Beatriz thought she was having a seizure. Beatriz had never seen a child so frightened in her life, and it broke her heart. She wanted to make it better—she had to make it better. Instinctively, she began to sing a song about doves that she hadn’t thought of in years. The airy notes of the song were a stark contrast to Celeste’s violent thrashing and her distorted expression. But Beatriz would not give up. She continued singing to the girl even as her voice quivered. She was almost as scared as Celeste by now, remembering what it was like when her boys got sick or spiked a fever and there was nothing to do but worry and wait. After what seemed like an hour, Celeste realized where she was and who was holding her. She finally understood she was safe and let herself fall limply into Beatriz’s arms.

  “Wh-wh-why did they do that to her?” Celeste hiccupped into Beatriz’s chest. “Why did they take her from me? Why can’t I…” But Celeste couldn’t finish her thought. She began to sob as if her insides were slowly being pulled out of her.

  Beatriz stayed with Celeste through the night, stroking her hair, whispering in her ear, and singing tender songs until she finally fell silent. By sunrise, Celeste was sleeping with her head in Beatriz’s lap, her face quiet and her breathing serene. Beatriz had slept most of the night sitting up. She had kinks in her neck and back, but she was determined to stay there as long as necessary. She stroked the girl’s face lightly and watched her sleep. She had no idea what Celeste had seen or heard before she came to her, had no idea how to take away the pain she had and was obviously reliving, but she felt rabidly protective of the girl. She knew she would do everything in her power to keep Celeste from being frightened or surrounded by danger ever again.

  “Where’s ’Amá?” Beatriz heard Raúl ask in the foyer down the hall. She could hear who she thought was Carlos answering him, on his way out of the house for work.

  “ ’Amá!” Raúl called. Beatriz carefully moved Celeste from her lap and onto the couch and quickly made her way out of the office and down the hall to the foyer, where her son was standing in his pajamas.

  “Shh, shh, shh!” she said, her finger to her mouth. She motioned for him to follow her upstairs.

  “What’s going on?” he whispered.

  “Celeste had a little trouble last night,” she explained.

  “What’s wrong? Was she sick? Did she throw up? Man, I hate that!”

  Beatriz could see Raúl was deeply concerned, and it made her proud. She put her hand on his cheek and caressed it.

  “Ay, no, mi’jo. She had trouble sleeping. She’s okay now, and she’s finally asleep. Everything is okay, mi’jo. Don’t worry. But look at the time! You need to get ready for school. And your lunch—I’ll give you some lunch money, okay?”

  “Dad already said he would give me some money,” Raúl said.

  “He did?”

  “Yeah,” Raúl said. “He woke me up and said he would take me to school like always.”

  “Okay, honey.” Beatriz was confused. “Go finish getting dressed.” When she peered into her and Larry’s bedroom, it was as she had left it the night before. She stepped inside the room and looked in the bathroom. The shower had recently been used. She was wondering who had used it when she heard the bedroom door close behind her. When she turned around, there was Larry, his hair still damp, holding his coffee mug with steam rising from it, dressed in his robe.

  “Hi,” he said timidly.

  “Hi.”

  “I forgot a few things in my office that I need for work, and I… I didn’t want to disturb you. I saw you asleep with Celeste in the office. Is she okay?”

  “For now,” Beatriz said. “She had a nightmare. It took a while, but I settled her down.”

  “Poor kid.”

  “Yeah, poor kid.”

  The awkwardness between them was screamingly loud and unsettling.

  “So, I’m going to take Raúl to school, like always,” Larry said. “I—I would appreciate it if we could keep the kids out of this. I don’t want them to get wrapped up in our… thing.”

  “I agree,” Beatriz said.

  Larry began to move to t
he closet, then felt suddenly ill at ease. “I need to get some clothes for work,” he announced.

  “I know. Where did you sleep last night?”

  Larry scoffed. “I didn’t sleep. I went to a bar, then drove around. I came home around four o’clock, and when I didn’t see you in bed, I went to look for you and I saw you with her. I figured something happened, but I didn’t know what. Poor kid.”

  Beatriz was exhausted and exasperated. “Larry… what’s happening here?”

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “I’m trying to get ready for work and get my kid to school, just like always.”

  “You think just because you come back in the middle of the night that everything is better, just like that?”

  “No. We still have some big things to discuss, but I don’t want my kids’ lives to be turned inside out. I thought we could just act normal and—”

  “I don’t believe this. I really don’t believe this. You think we can just go back to the way we were, just like that?”

  “Why not?” Larry asked sheepishly. “This doesn’t need to be bigger than it is.”

  “You left me!” Beatriz hissed. “You left me!”

  “Not so loud!” Larry hissed back. “I was only gone for a few hours!”

  “You said you were going to stay in a hotel! You walked out! You wanted to hurt me!”

  “And you didn’t want to hurt me with all that talk about how I would lose if you had to choose between me and the kids?”

  “You know what I meant!”

  “Come on, Beatriz!” Larry said, holding his coffee with one hand and shoving the other into the pocket of his robe. “I mean, I know what you were trying to say, okay. And I admit leaving last night was not cool. I needed to clear my head, but I didn’t want to worry the boys. That’s why I came back. So, yes, we still have things to discuss but… can’t we try and get past last night so we can work things out, for the kids?”

  “All the kids?”

  Larry didn’t answer.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  Larry sat on the arm of the chair across from his wife. He was as exhausted and frustrated as she was.

  “Look. All I’m asking for is a little bit of time,” he said sincerely. “This is a whole new ball game for me. I feel like I have a catcher’s mitt when I should have a golf club. And I feel like you chose the game and made up all the rules by yourself. You didn’t ask me what I thought. You just moved forward, just like that.”

  “I never had to ask you before,” Beatriz said softly. She could see that Larry was trying to meet her halfway. “We were always on the same playing field.”

  “Well. We still are. Or at least I think we can be. This time—I’m not—I just need more time to figure out how I feel about all this and where I fit in.”

  “How can you not know?” Beatriz asked incredulously. As much as she tried to understand, Larry’s reluctance to open their home to Celeste confounded her.

  “I just don’t!” he snapped. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t come back here to argue.” Larry was dying to take his wife in his arms but was so confused about what was happening between them, he was afraid she would rebuff him. He couldn’t take that.

  “I’m sorry you feel upended,” Beatriz offered. “I feel upended, too, but I don’t think we have the luxury to keep wishing for the way things were. We have to go with the way things are, no matter how crazy it feels.”

  Larry stood there looking at his wife, unsure of what to do.

  “I really don’t want to do this alone,” Beatriz said. “I really, really don’t. But… it’s kind of up to you. Look, I’m with you about figuring this out and I agree we don’t need to get the kids involved. I’m with you on that.”

  Beatriz wanted to take Larry’s hand and pull him close to her, but she wasn’t sure if he would take it or bat it away, and she was too afraid to find out. “You can finish in here. I’ll go check on Raúl,” she said before leaving their bedroom.

  Larry sighed and placed his coffee on the nightstand and then slid into the armchair. He sat there for a long time, staring at their empty bed. He could feel his throat tighten and his mouth tremble. He pulled himself together, sat up, and went to the closet to decide what he should wear to work. That, he felt confident, was something he could control.

  FOURTEEN

  Breakfast at the Columns bed-and-breakfast was made to order. While the other guests requested omelets and lattes, Josie helped herself to coffee and a muffin set out early for the impatient. She’d managed three hours of fitful sleep and was even groggier than usual, but at least her hands had stopped quaking. When she finished her coffee, she slipped out of the house to smoke and to gather her thoughts. She walked around the block three times. The first time to figure out which house was the one where she thought she saw Celeste and the boy in the backyard. Had she dreamed that? Had she wanted to see Celeste so much that she had imagined her? In her sleep-deprived state, she wasn’t so sure.

  The second walk around the block was to work up the nerve to go up to the house and knock on the door. What could she say that didn’t sound too crazy? Contemplating that took another walk around the block and a second cigarette. Josie slowed as she reached the house and paused. She still wasn’t sure what she was going to say, but she made her way up onto the porch. She pulled at the hem of her sleeves and ran her hand through her hair—had she even remembered to brush her hair? she suddenly wondered. Too late now. She was about to knock on the door when she heard someone come up behind her.

  “May I help you?”

  It was Larry, dressed for work in pressed khakis, a white dress shirt, and a tie. He’d just returned from driving Raúl to school.

  “Oh, hello,” Josie said. She studied Larry’s face, looking for something familiar. When it looked like she wasn’t going to state her business, Larry tried to guess.

  “Are you… lost?” he asked.

  “No, I…” Josie reached into her breast pocket for a business card that she usually carried there but came up empty-handed. “I’m Josie Mendoza. I’m a writer, a journalist. I know you don’t know me from Adam, but…”

  Larry took in Josie’s disheveled appearance. Her outfit was plainly professional, but her blouse looked as if she had slept in it. “I’m sorry—what’s this about?” he asked.

  “Look, I know this is going to sound crazy, but I was, I’m… I’m looking for Celeste Sánchez. I need to make sure she’s okay.”

  Larry instinctively moved to block Josie from the door to his house.

  “I’m sorry. I’m a little—I really can’t believe this,” she said. But when Josie spent too much time trying to find the right words, Larry lost his patience.

  “You have one minute to get off my porch,” he warned. “And if you’re not gone by the time I pass through this door—”

  “I knew Perla Sánchez!” she blurted.

  Larry stopped and looked at Josie carefully, trying to decide whether he should let her speak, or call the police. He thought about the articles in Celeste’s envelope. Knowing Perla didn’t set Larry at ease. Then again, maybe she could explain why Celeste had such things. And if he turned her away and Beatriz learned she had information about her sister…

  “You say you’re a writer?”

  “Yes. I know I sound crazy, and I probably look worse,” Josie said, realizing that she indeed hadn’t bothered to run a brush through her hair or rinse yesterday’s mascara from her face. “I don’t want any trouble. I just need to find Celeste. I have something that belongs to her, that’s all. I thought I was looking for Perla’s sister, Beatriz—”

  “Beatriz is my wife,” Larry said. “I’m her husband.”

  “You’re Milligan?”

  “I’m Larry Milligan.”

  “Oh, my gato,” Josie exclaimed. She couldn’t believe her dumb luck. “You’re not a stonemason, are you?”

  “What?”

  “Never mind,” Josie said.

  Once Larry was conv
inced Josie wasn’t a serial killer, he brought Beatriz out to the porch and closed the door behind them, standing sentry with his arms crossed and his legs slightly spread while the two women talked.

  “So, how do you—how did you know my sister?” Beatriz asked. She was suspicious, too, but also hoping that if Josie was telling the truth, she could give her some insight about Perla, something that Celeste might not be able to tell her.

  “I am a writer. You can look me up online. My stuff should come up.”

  Larry and Beatriz looked at one another. Josie looked more like a meth addict than the stereotypical image of a sweater-wearing, pipe-smoking writer that popped into their minds.

  “Our computer is in the office, and my niece is still asleep in there. I don’t want to disturb her,” Beatriz said.

  “So, she is here?” Josie asked incredulously. “That was her I saw in your backyard?”

  Larry’s demeanor went from mildly frosty to stone cold. “When was this?”

  “Yesterday evening. I’m staying at the B and B behind your house,” Josie explained. “You share an adobe fence with them, right? I saw—or, at least I think I saw—her through one of the openings. Look, I know I sound like a stalker, and I wouldn’t believe me if I were you, either, but I have something that belongs to Celeste. I don’t want any trouble. I’m just thrilled to hear she arrived safely, that’s all. And I owe it to Perla…” Josie could sense she was getting aggressive, the way she did when she interviewed politicians who said a lot but never answered her question or petty bureaucrats who gave her the runaround. When Larry pulled his cell phone out of his pants pocket and began feverishly punching buttons with his thumbs, Josie lost her nerve.

  She held up her hands in defeat. “You don’t need to call the police,” Josie stammered. “I’m sorry, really. Look, I’ll just go.”

  “Why do you think you owe Perla?” Beatriz asked. The way she emphasized the you told Josie that Beatriz had understood her. Or at least that she hadn’t written her off just yet. Josie cast a quick glance at Larry, who stopped what he was doing and looked up at the women.