I finally breathe. My shoulders drop about a million miles.
“Esha Margolis,” Virg says, stepping toward her, “you are under arrest for the manufacturing and distribution of a Schedule 1 illegal substance and for the death of Eslee Dominguez. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”
Everyone starts talking at the same time. As Virg cuffs Esha and leads her out of the room, I know it’s just a matter of minutes before the attention goes to me, a million questions I’m not ready to answer. I slip into the kitchen where Amelia’s standing by the microwave.
“Come on,” I say, grabbing her hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
She doesn’t move. “You’re totally insane!” she says, bumping me with her hip. But she smiles as she says it. “I never thought this was going to work. Missy dumping skull and bones hot chile sauce into my mole was nothing compared to what you just did. I’m going to go on ‘Teen Chef’ and show that girl she’s got nothing on me. I’ll win that contest and then we’ll see who’s laughing!”
“Great,” I say, glancing nervously at the door. “But can we celebrate that later, like back at Alma’s?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Let’s go. Just one sec.” I’m about to protest and tell her we don’t have a second, but she grabs two pots of food, one in each hand. “Someone should eat this. We can’t let it go to waste.”
Can’t argue with that. I grab another two dishes and together, hands full, we slip out the back door and hurry to Amelia’s truck.
As we drive away from SCPG, away from the immediate chaos, the seriousness of what just happened sinks in. “Do you think Esha’ll be charged with murder?” Amelia asks.
I look out the window as we head north. “I’m guessing the charge will be manslaughter. I don’t think she intended to kill anyone.”
“Well, what the hell did she think was going to happen?” Amelia snaps, approaching a yellow light too quickly and slamming on the brakes.
I rest my cheek against the window. “I don’t think she knew they were deadly.”
“Oh yeah? And how’d she figure that?” she asks, blasting through the light the second it goes green.
I sigh and tell Amelia what I think happened—everything I’ve been mulling over, the clues of the past few weeks and the story they tell. “Esha screwed up. The plan must have been for her and Cruz to grow liquid gold in the chiles so nobody would detect the drug,” I say, closing my eyes. “Then they harvested their crop and Bulldog extracted the liquid gold, like we saw him doing in his trailer, and sold it. That’s why Virg said it was coming in cheaper and why the cops couldn’t track it. Then when Eslee died, things changed. She realized the chiles themselves were deadly.”
“But how did Esha know it was the chile that killed Eslee?”
I hear the emotion in Amelia’s voice, the venomous cocktail of anger and betrayal and shock. I recognize it because I feel it, too. “I think I had something to do with that,” I say, recalling the conversation I had with Esha the day Eslee died. “I told her about Rudy disappearing and the party and Mari’s liquid gold overdose. Cruz would’ve told her that Rudy had taken some of the chiles. She must have put two and two together and figured out that her liquid gold was somehow responsible for Eslee’s death. And she wanted out.”
“What makes you think she wanted out? Maybe she was a psychopath and didn’t give a shit about who died.”
“Right after Eslee died, I saw this text on Esha’s phone saying ‘it’s over,’” I say. “At the time I thought it was a breakup message, but now I think it was a message to Cruz saying that growing the chiles was over. She didn’t want to do it anymore, but it wasn’t just the text that makes me think that. It was finding the necklace in Bulldog’s truck that she told me a boyfriend had given her. She gave it back to him when she decided not to do it.” Something else occurs to me when I say this. As Amelia turns off the main road onto the silent side street leading to Alma’s, I go on. “Maybe Bulldog wasn’t going to let her stop. I mean he could blackmail her to keep making the drug. Maybe that’s why she burned the fields, so there wouldn’t be any chiles left.”
“Man,” Amelia says as she pulls into Alma’s house. “People suck sometimes.”
“Not all people,” I say, meeting her eye as we climb out of the truck. A slow smile stretches the corners of her lips and together we carry the food we salvaged inside.
Thirty-four
“You’re home early,” Alma says, meeting us at the front door. She looks from Amelia, to me, to the food we’re carrying, and her eyebrows shoot up, seeming to intuit that something bad happened.
“What smells so good?” Mari calls from the other room, and a second later she too is standing by the front door, wanting to know why we’re back so early.
“I think,” I say, not knowing how else to begin, “we should all sit down and have something to eat.”
“Come then, Mijas,” Alma says, without asking questions. “It’s a beautiful evening and it’s still light out. We’ll eat outside.” She takes one plate from Amelia’s hand, one from mine, and tells Mari to bring dishes.
When we’re settled at the table on the flagstone patio, surrounded by Alma’s garden, I realize what happened tonight means telling Mari what happened to Eslee. If she hears it from someone else, as gossip or on the news, it’ll destroy her. I glance at Amelia, but she seems to be in a sort of posttraumatic stun from the evening and doesn’t speak. It’s up to me to explain to Mari about the chiles.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” I say to Mari as she serves herself a helping of green chile mac and cheese.
“Okay,” she says, her expression changing from ease to anxiety. “What?”
I take a gulp of cool evening air and begin. Instead of starting with what happened at the board meeting, I tell her that the chile she took from Rudy had liquid gold in it, that she cooked the liquid gold into the stew that both she and Eslee ate, and that’s how she got drugged and how Eslee OD’d. “It wasn’t your fault,” I say, the second I finish telling her. “There’s no way you could’ve known.”
But she’s already disappearing. She pushes away her plate, her face dark and shadowed. “I’m going to my room,” she says. She gets up to leave, but Alma stands up and stops her.
“No, Mija. You’re not going anywhere. You’re staying here. We’re your family and we’re going to help you get through this. Faith is right, child, this wasn’t your fault.”
With those words, Mari’s face crumbles and she starts to sob. Her small body folds into Alma’s arms. And suddenly I get that the sobs aren’t just about Eslee. They’re about losing Alvaro and her mom; about all the sadness and loneliness she’s been holding inside.
Alma cradles Mari against her breast and gestures for Amelia and me to join. As we squeeze into the circle of Alma’s arms, I get something else—something that I hadn’t really understood until just now. Even though I’m leaving for Philly in a few weeks, these people will be in my life forever. These people are my family.
We stand cradled in Alma’s arms until a cell phone rings—two lines of “Under Pressure.” A call from Rudy ruins the moment. We untangle as Amelia reaches into her pocket. She turns her back and the two have a short conversation while Alma leads Mari inside.
“So, you guys make up?” I ask when Amelia hangs up. She nods and stares at her hands, as if not wanting to admit that she and a guy I spent the last month thinking was a drug dealer are back together again. “I’m sorry for anything lame I said about Rudy. He’s not such a bad guy,” I say, desperate to move forward and not have some other negative thing lingering between us. Still she doesn’t say anything. I worry that I owe her more of an explanation, or maybe I’m just unnerved by her silence. Whatever it is, I keep talking. “I guess Rudy and I got off to a bad start. I thought he was giving you pot at the F
armers’ Market when he gave you that box.”
Amelia looks up at me when I say this, a wild expression in her eyes I can’t read—anger? Shock? I have no idea, but then a new awful thought unfurls. Maybe it was pot in that box. Just because he didn’t deal liquid gold doesn’t mean he doesn’t still dabble in dope. Maybe Amelia’s pissed or defensive or…
“I’ll be right back,” she says, suddenly jumping up from the table, interrupting my thoughts.
She dashes toward the house, nearly knocking into Alma and Mari who are just coming back outside.
“You are not excused, Mija,” Alma says as Amelia blasts past her.
“I’m not leaving. I’ll be right back.” She darts into the house and returns a moment later carrying the shoebox Rudy gave her at the Farmers’ Market. “Since we’re all being so touchy feely this evening and having telling-the-truth time, I might as well tell you something.” She’s trying to sound tough, but she just sounds scared. “If I’m going to tell Guera, I might as well tell you all. Then you can all hate me together.”
“I guess we should all sit down then,” Alma says. “Hating takes a lot of energy.”
I feel a wave of confusion as I take a seat and Amelia hands me the box. If there had been pot in it, why is she bringing it outside now?
“Open it,” is all Amelia says.
I slowly remove the lid. The box doesn’t smell like weed. I reach inside and pull out a piece of paper. I read the first line out loud. “Dear Faith.”
My internal organs react immediately to these two words, understanding something my brain hasn’t yet computed and rearranging themselves into geographically awkward places. My heart travels to my throat. My stomach takes up residency by my feet. I don’t know what’s up with my bladder, kidneys, and the rest of the life-sustaining crew, but whatever they’re doing, I feel sick.
I read on. “I don’t know what you know about me or what your mom’s told you. She doesn’t know I’m writing to you. I had a lot of problems when you were born and before that, too. Drugs mostly. I was messed up in some pretty bad stuff. But I’m better now. I want to see you, but only if you want to see me. Here’s my address. Write if you want to. Your father, Alvaro Flores.”
“Mija!” Alma exclaims, but Amelia doesn’t say anything.
I read the next three letters to myself—all variations on the first. The only real difference is the last line of what I gather from the date is the last letter.
I don’t blame you for not writing back or wanting to talk to me. I respect your decision. I won’t write again.
I’m too stunned to cry, to move, to do anything, but sit in a catatonic state as my lungs join the organ mutiny and stop drawing air.
“I’d hate me too if I were you,” Amelia says in a dry voice, not looking at me, not looking at anyone.
I stare at the final letter, as if willing it to say something more, to tell me a different story. One in which I didn’t miss my chance to meet my father, the man I’ve spent almost seventeen years hating, thinking he bailed and never gave a shit about me. Now it’s too late. The story ended. And it didn’t end with the biggest line of crap in the history of story telling: happily ever after, except for one happy part—I don’t have to blame my mom for taking the letters.
Amelia keeps her eyes on the garden, as if her words are hiding in one of the flowering plants. “When I was seven I heard him talking to Mom. He told her he was ready to write to this other daughter, to this girl named Faith,” she says, but her voice is so quiet, so tiny and transformed, I have to look to make sure it really is her speaking. “Sometimes he was so distant when we were kids. He’d just check out. I thought it was because he was thinking of his other daughter. I thought he loved you more than he loved us, and that if he went to see you he’d never come back. I was just a kid, okay?” Her voice rises to a sharp, defensive tone, but beneath the bite, I hear the effort it’s taking not to cry. “So I kept watch over the mailbox. I checked every day to see if he’d written the letter. Then one day I found an envelope with your name on it, and I stole it. I was seven. I didn’t have a plan. I just did it. I took all his letters, and the ones Gran wrote, too.” I hear Alma gasp, but she keeps quiet. “When Mom died I finally realized what I was doing. What I was taking away from you. I knew I had to tell. But I couldn’t do it. I mean, what if he left us for real? I was too afraid to take that chance. I told myself I’d do it when I was older. Then he died, and I didn’t see the point.” She closes her eyes and takes a breath. “I hated having them around, reminding me what I was doing, but I just couldn’t destroy them. Rudy offered to take the letters, but when he found out you were here, he gave them back to me and told me I had to tell you.”
She opens her eyes and waves her hand around as if shooing away a fly, then spins around to face me. “When you showed up I was so pissed. You were that other kid. The one I thought he was going to leave us for. I was afraid you were my competition for so long I believed it. When you came over for dinner, I just wanted to hate you.” A bird sings off in a bush somewhere. I close my eyes and take it all in. “The thing is, I don’t hate you,” she says, softly now. “I hated myself for what I did, and I took it out on you and avoided telling you the truth. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, Faith.”
I open my eyes when she says my name, the first time she’s ever called me Faith and not guera, but I don’t say anything. I want to hate her as much as she hated me. I want to throttle her and pummel her into the ground, but deeper than that, there’s another feeling that keeps my fists safely in my lap. Even though her words blister, even though she stole something from me I can never have back, I get how that kind of hurt can drive you mad, can make you do stupid shit like stealing letters. I get why she avoided telling me, too. After all I’m the master of avoiding hard shit. Avoidance must be a shared thing. Part of our genetic code. More than all that, though, I get that I don’t want to be stuck in the past. I want a half sister, not an enemy.
I’m too raw to speak, so I just nod, hoping the words will come when they’re ready.
“Oh my God!” Mari suddenly exclaims. I think she’s late in reacting to Amelia and the letters, that she’s about to sock her sister in the face, but when I look at her, she’s pointing at a hummingbird buzzing between patches of small, pink flowers. “It’s the calliope! The one I’ve been waiting for. Dad’s bird.” She points at the rock she painted. “I have to get my camera.”
As Mari charges off to the house, Alma rises. I’m suddenly afraid of what her reaction to Amelia’s betrayal is going to be, but Alma takes Amelia into her arms and hugs her. As Amelia softly cries into our grandmother’s shoulder, I get, maybe for the first time in my life, what forgiveness is. In that moment I forgive Amelia, and my mom, and yeah, even my dad. Because I need that foundation to look forward to the future I want so much: a future full of hope for this new family.
Thirty-five
I get back to the dorm Saturday evening smelling of onions and garlic and chile and march straight to Clem’s room. I stand outside his door for a moment gathering inspiration from Amelia. If she found the courage to come clean and tell me about the letters, I can have the courage to freaking carpe diem. For once I’m going to live in the now, not in the “what if” worry of the future. Clem and I can do this thing. We can be together for the rest of the time I’m here. I’m leaving in a few weeks anyway. I’ll sort things out with Jesse when I get back to Philly.
Clem opens the door and I decide to show him what I’m feeling, not tell him—my lips have better use than talking. As soon as we start to kiss I can tell something’s wrong.
“What?” I say, pulling away. “Oh my God! The onions. Do I stink?”
“No,” he says. “We have to talk.”
“Oh. That.” I look down, disappointed, wishing talking had never been invented.
“I’m going to Julliard in September. I just found out yesterday t
hat they’re giving me a full ride,” he says. “My mom said I should go. In fact, she said I have to go, that she’ll disown me if I stay around here and try and babysit her.”
“Are you going to listen to her?” I ask, and then quickly add what should’ve come first. “I mean congratulations!”
“Thanks and hell yeah!” He laughs, then leans over and kisses me on the cheek. It’s just a peck, but heat radiates down my spine and those darned toes tingle again.
It finally dawns on me how this affects me. Julliard is in New York. A short hop away from Philly by train. “So, that means we’ll be closer?” I say softly into the dark silence of the moonless night.
“It does,” he says just as softly. “It also means that while I’m an hour away, you’ll be back with Jesse.” I try to say something, but he keeps talking. “I’ve been thinking about this a lot since I found out. You’re an amazing person. You’re all I can think about. You’re brave. You’re smart. You don’t take shit from anyone. I really like you. And that’s the problem.”
I nod, hating that there’s a problem, worse, hating that I’m the one causing it.
“If we get any closer and then I’m in New York and you’re in Philly, it would just be too hard if you’re with Jesse. Before I thought okay, I’ll be in New Mexico when you leave. We can just have a fling. There’s no future, but now…” Instead of finishing his thought, he gets up, picks up his violin, and starts to play. Impossibly sweet notes slip into the room. “Sometimes music is easier for me than words,” he says when he’s done. “I wrote that song for you. It’s called ‘Friends.’”
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