BRUCE AND WILL SAT at Monica’s kitchen table at two in the morning on July fifth. Paige and Marcy were asleep, dueling snores on opposite couches in the living room. Kevin was sleeping upstairs on Monica’s bed, wearing nothing but swimming trunks and someone’s cowboy boots. An unidentified couple was wrapped up in a comforter on her bedroom floor next to the bed. Some of her college pals had cleaned up and skillfully consolidated the food and the guests into an ever-tightening circle. By the time the last guest had left, the party mess was contained to the center of the deck.
For the last hour and a half, Will had been on his mobile phone with various air ambulance companies, with his uncle, who was a New Haven cop, with hospital administrators and his parents. Somewhere amid the back-and-forth he discovered a new message from Sylvia, left over five hours ago but delivered by a slow satellite just minutes before.
She was in El Salvador, at Clinica Caracol. She had cashed out her retirement savings to enable the trip. She was sorry if he had suffered any worry and apologized for going against his wishes, but everything was okay, and he was welcome to join her as long as he promised he wouldn’t interfere with Yvette’s treatment. Yvettte would start her treatments immediately after a day or two of testing.
“Maybe it’ll work, Will,” Monica said tentatively. “Maybe you and Yvette will end up on all the morning shows telling your story.”
Will looked at her but didn’t answer. His mouth was full, he was scarfing down a pile of charred hot dogs and cold baked beans. Bruce looked at Monica, leaned his head toward Will, and said, “Nerves.”
Will shrugged, kept his head down, and kept eating.
“Retirement savings. God-dog,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “Who does Sylvia think is going to pay for her care when she’s old?” He pointed across the table at Will. “You, my friend, that’s who.” Bruce was cupping a mug of black coffee. Earlier, Monica had sent him upstairs to take a shower and wash off the sweat, smoke, salt water, spilled liquor, and lipstick. Now his wet silver hair was parted on the side and he had deep bags under his eyes. His olive-colored tropical-pattern shirt was spotted with barbecue sauce, but he was otherwise back to his old respectable self.
“Sylvia and I agreed that we would never make any decisions without a consensus, but technically, I have the final say. It’s frightening that my wife, whose life is in my hands”—Will raised his palms and looked at them—”a woman for whom I have an awesome responsibility … can be whisked away to a foreign country without my consent. Or her doctor’s.” He banged his fist on the wood table. “How the hell did she do it?”
“It’s kidnapping,” a voice said from across the room. Paige looked at them and rubbed her eyes.
“Thanks for the contribution, Paige,” Monica said. “Now go back to sleep.”
“Anytime.”
“She’s right. It’s kidnapping,” Will said, staring hard at the table. “What Sylvia’s done is illegal.”
“Never mind that,” Bruce said. “Remember that Sylvia feels the same weight of responsibility that you do.”
“Sylvia carried Yvettte in her womb for nine months,” Monica said, her voice suddenly tense. She thumped her index finger against the table for emphasis. “It’s a mother’s duty to protect and care for her child. If she failed to help her child, then she’d be a lousy mother.” She felt her face reddening. Marcy raised an eyebrow at Paige and they exchanged a sideways, knowing look.
“Well, I’m not going to sit here and just wait to hear how it goes,” Will said, his tone softening. “So far, I haven’t been able to find a flight to El Salvador until Friday—on the same flight as Bruce.”
“Excuse me.” Monica peered at her father and cocked her head. “Wasn’t it just last week that you said you were thinking of maybe going at some point maybe next month? How is it that you already have an airline ticket?”
Bruce looked away. “I agreed to get bumped off a flight to L.A. once, and so I have an open ticket. I can use it whenever.”
Monica narrowed her eyes at Bruce. Bruce shook his head and raised his hands. “Hey, I’m traveling for work.”
“I have to go,” she said. “So let’s figure out a way for me to get a ticket in my hands.”
“Why?” Bruce said. “Why do you think you have to go? This has nothing to do with you.”
Monica stood up, her eyes filling with tears. “I told Sylvia about the Conus furiosus in the first place. That’s what started this whole mess. And I knew she wanted to go down there soon, she swore me to secrecy. But she told me she was going to go with you, Dad. I don’t know why she suddenly skipped over the whole research phase.” Monica covered her chest by crossing her arms and collapsed back into a sofa. “I’m so sorry, Will.”
Will shook his head. “Don’t be. It’s not your fault.”
Monica looked up at Will, then at her father. “Sylvia trusts me. That’s why I have to go.”
Bruce’s shoulders slumped and he exhaled and covered his face with his hands. “Not a good idea, Monica,” he insisted.
“It’s a great idea, and I have a ticket you can have,” said another voice from the darkened side of the room. This time it was Marcy, and she was sitting upright, her face bright and sober as if she hadn’t just been snoring away a hangover. “I think it’s time both of you went back down there. I’m sick of living with Alma’s ghost. …” She put up her hand. “No offense.”
Bruce stared at Marcy, shocked. He opened his mouth, but Marcy spoke first. “I was on the same trip to L.A. with your dad, Monica. You can have my ticket.”
Monica went over to Marcy and hugged her. She felt the crispiness of Marcy’s gelled curls against her cheek.
“Thank you. That’s incredibly nice of you.”
“You’re not offended are you, Monica? You know what I mean about your mom, right?”
“I know exactly what you mean, Marcy.”
Marcy put her hand under Monica’s chin. “Ain’t nothin’, darlin,’ ” she said, then looked at Will, briefly pointing a finger. “Now you go easy on your mother-in-law, young man. Husbands come and go, but a mother is a mother for life.”
Will sighed. “I know.”
Bruce looked pale. He was staring at the floor, hands folded. “You don’t know what you’re talking about Marcy,” he said in a tight, hard voice. He stood and walked out of the room, only to return a few moments later.
“I just hope Sylvia purchased a two-way ticket on that expensive air ambulance,” Paige said. “Otherwise, how are you going to get her home?”
Will ran his fingers through his hair and looked distraught.
Marcy took a deep breath. “This may sound sacrilegious to you, Will, but maybe you should have a little faith. Yvette hasn’t made any progress in two years. What do you have to lose?”
“I was just saying that earlier,” Monica said.
“I say go for it,” Marcy said. “Give it a chance.”
Will cupped his head in his hands. “I’m tired and my head is killing me.”
Monica went to the kitchen and returned with aspirin and a glass of water for Will. He was sitting on a barstool, and he blinked his eyes a few times, hard and quick, and she could see a cloud of fatigue pass over his face. He tossed the aspirin into his mouth and took the water from her. “Thanks,” he said, and gave her a look of complete exhaustion, then closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he said, “Stop looking at me like that, Monica. You didn’t kidnap my wife. Sylvia did.”
“I should have told you what I knew.”
“Yes, you should have.”
“We’ll bring her home, Will. You can count on it.”
“I am,” he said, and stood up.
Monica and Will walked Bruce and Marcy out. After they pulled out of the driveway, Will and Monica were alone in the darkness. Despite their exhaustion and the sense of crisis, she could feel the electricity between them buzzing softly in the thick, phosphorus-scented air. She looked up at the moon. It was still full if
you looked quick. She could feel the body heat radiating off Will’s skin; a faint trace of his cologne triggered the image she had been replaying over and over all night, of her palms massaging his back. Her head felt swimmy again as her mind’s eye shifted back and forth from memory to present.
“I think Yvettte is trying to emerge,” she said, and felt a chill ride up her arms. She rubbed up and down her biceps. “I felt something when I massaged her, Will. I felt life.”
She could feel his eyes straining in the dark to see her face. “You did?”
“Haven’t you?” she asked softly.
“She’s been making some noises, but …” His voice trailed off.
“You might find hope,” she suggested timidly. “In El Salvador.”
“You’re starting to sound like Sylvia.” He tilted his head up and looked at the sky. “I know that centuries of science and medicine have a thing or two to say about it.” He placed his hand over his heart and bent forward slightly. “Sylvia thinks she’s the only one who has intuition. But I have a brain and a heart, and they’re both telling me that Yvette is not going to recover. Not as the old Yvette, not even as a fraction of herself. She’ll never speak or look up at the sky and say, ‘Wow, what a pretty moon.’ I’ve already made peace with that. And I don’t want to add any more damage to her condition.”
Monica looked down and kicked at some dirt with the edge of her flip-flops. “It’s a long shot, huh?”
“Like trying to sink a golf ball from here to a hole in Boston.” He stepped in closer and put his hands on her shoulders. “Get ready. I have a feeling this is going to be a hell of a fight.”
His skin was warm and fragrant, and she froze with the overwhelming temptation to touch him, to press her fingers into the hard wall of his waist. She nodded but didn’t hug him back. Her arms hung wooden at her side.
“I’m glad you’re coming,” he said. “Your history with the place is going to help.” He turned and looked down the road, where Bruce’s Lincoln had disappeared. He leaned down, kissed her politely on the forehead, turned around, and walked to his truck. As he opened the door, he stopped and pointed up at a window of her house. “Kick those monkeys out and get some rest. You’ll need it.”
Monica cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow. His truck turned the corner and left a fading comet tail of red light in the darkness. She heard a noise from above. She looked up and saw someone’s figure standing in the window frame.
“Need some rest for what?” It was Kevin, slurring his words.
“We’re going to El Salvador,” Monica said calmly. Someone spoke to him from inside the room, and Monica saw Kevin step back from the window and turn his head. Kevin had been working a lot of hours over the past week, and she had the feeling he’d only been half listening when she had explained the progression of events prior to tonight. She wasn’t about to explain it all now.
She found a beach blanket in the trunk of her car and took it to a hammock she had set up between two trees in the small strip of yard next to her house. She hopped in and looked out to the water and the lights of Long Island. She could hear Kevin inside the house, searching for her; Paige’s protest at being woken up, then the crunch of his footsteps on the gravel of the driveway. Kevin didn’t know that Monica had found a nook under a tree for a hammock. Veiled from view behind the skirts of an elm tree, Monica rocked herself, impervious to his calling. He went back upstairs. She listened to the agitated murmurs upstairs until they quieted down and the house went dark and silent.
The Connecticut coast was quiet, placid, foggy, civilized; a world away from the pounding waves that smashed the ancient volcanic boulders of Negrarena. She had always known that there was an immense difference between this crowded, domesticated seashore and the majestic ocean of her childhood. She imagined that the difference in character of those two bodies of water was like the difference between contentment and awe.
part TWO
chapter 9 THE FIRST DOSE
No one noticed that Yvette Lucero mashed her jaw as the needle injected a tiny amount of clear fluid into her spine. Had anyone noticed, it would have counted as a pain response and would have represented a bump of two whole points on her Glasgow Coma Score. The pain was cold, dazzling, and pure as a plunge into ice water. She felt a stunting and weighty rage. But the pain passed as quickly as it began, followed by a blinding deluge of snow that pattered on the roof of her brain and pulled her down into the emptiness of sleep.
Yvette squeezed through a hatch that led to unconsciousness—three levels below sleep—and hunkered down to weather the storm. She got back to the daily task of digging her way out of her prison with fingernails that were beginning to turn the bruised color of denim. No one knew that she was here. She sensed that the outside world had set sail without her, and she was alone on this island, with no way to get home. She could only feel and smell the existence of an external world. And she could think, of course. The outside world had changed, she was sure of it. The air smelled unfamiliar—like wood varnish, sea weed, and coffee. She could feel the shifting tide of the sea nearby in the movement of air, tasted it on the spongy fibers of her tongue every time she took a breath.
She had also been working on the reconstruction of the past. Her mind did the backbreaking work of a chain gang with its incessant digging. She had a few tattered fragments of her life, three bright strips of living material that didn’t fit together or suggest anything useful. The first was an image of the yellow chiffon sleeves of an anemone, waving through the thick and distorting glass of a public aquarium tank. The second was an image of a man’s leg, muscled and flexing back and forth with the effort of lifting something. And finally, there was the memory of standing in a magnificent rose garden. In this frame, a man holds a camera. The sun behind him is bright and all she can see is the outline of his figure. She is about to tell him that it’s not a good angle, that she’s going to look overexposed and squinting, when he shouts, “Smile!”
Flash!
As always, those three strips of footage were stilled and mounted against the gray cinder-block walls of her mind, loud and bright as graffiti on a subway wall. But this time, something was different. She blinked with disbelief.
Yvette was standing before an explosion of new, living, moving strips of imagery. She didn’t know which to look at first, with all of them moving at the same time, in different directions, skateboarding across her vision faster than she could study them. She had the impression that she was looking through the eyepiece of a pair of binoculars, peering out at a distant shore from the bouncing position of a boat. She was excited and happy and devoured the explosion of colors and shapes. She got to work trying to group them together, comparing them to each other like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, keeping some, rejecting others. She was elated to find that each memory contained irrefutable evidence of her own existence in the world.
chapter 10 UNDULATIONS
Bruce, Monica, and Will arrived in El Salvador three full days after Sylvia’s departure, due to the unavailability of seats on flights headed into San Salvador. They eventually picked up separate connections, Will and Bruce through Miami and Monica through Atlanta. His old friend Claudia Credo came through on her offer and ended up making two separate runs out to the airport on the same day to scoop all the travelers.
They were to spend the first night with Claudia and her parents in San Salvador. Within an hour of her arrival, the phone rang for Monica. It was Kevin. He was jealous of Will, he admitted, and equally hurt that Will was now “in” with Bruce. Not that Kevin wanted to be included in the trip—he just didn’t want Will near Monica. “Give me a break,” Monica said. “He’s here because of his wife.”
“Time can tear down anything,” Kevin warned.
“If two years hasn’t done it, then two weeks certainly won’t.”
“How can a man love someone who can’t talk, laugh, have sex, or cook a meal? He can’t even get yelled at for leaving his clothes on th
e floor. Nothing. Nada.”
Outside, it was beginning to get dark. A small, lime-green parakeet landed on the sill of her window, scratched at something, and flew away. Monica said, “Kevin, you should see her. The unfairness of it makes you want to drop to your knees and scream.”
She heard him take a deep breath. “I bet.” But he persisted with his rivalry. “Will must see you as a possible escape.”
Annoyed at the conversation, Monica said, “Maybe he already has someone on the side. What do we know? It’s none of our business, anyway.”
“Be very careful, Monica.”
Monica felt her face get hot with embarrassment at the thought that someone might overhear this conversation—it presumed so much. She felt vain just entertaining the concept that Will might have felt the same flicker of attraction as she did, which at the moment seemed horribly crass even to her secret self. Was she that transparent?
“Point taken, Kevin. I’ll be home in two weeks. You’ve been so busy lately, you won’t even miss me.”
“Monica,” he said, in a long, drawn-out breath that made Monica anxious to get off the phone. “I wasn’t expecting someone like Will to come along or for you to run off to El Salvador, but it did force me to stop and appreciate what I’ve got. I haven’t been putting in a lot of effort lately. I’m sorry about that.”
“Please, no need to apologize. You helped me with the new deck and you do all kinds of nice stuff for me.” Between yawns, she added, “What we’re looking at is called territoriality. Sociology 101. Remember?”
“It’s called love. I miss you.”
She looked up at the old-fashioned alarm clock on the night table. “It’s eleven o’clock here, sweetie. One in the morning your time. I’m exhausted. I’ll call you when I have some news.”
In bed ten minutes later, Monica realized that she had not told him that she loved him too. Its significance hunkered in the darkness long after she had hung up the phone. Monica kicked off the sheets and stared up at the blades of the ceiling fan, her arms extended at her sides as she waited for the sweet refuge of sleep.
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