The Heiress of Water: A Novel

by Sandra Rodriguez Barron

  CLAUDIA CREDO estimated that Kevin’s four phone calls would cost him close to two hundred dollars if he didn’t have a special international calling plan. ”Mil seiscientos colones!” Claudia’s elderly mother gasped, quickly computing the exchange rate and placing four bony fingers over her stretched lips. “He must really love you,” she said with a nod of approval, then went back to rocking herself to sleep in her chair.

  Claudia shuffled her houseguests into the dining room, which had been set up with a linen tablecloth and casual china. Will slung one hand over Monica’s back and squeezed her shoulder. “Bruce, what do you think of this guy Kevin for your daughter? Do you see him as your future son-in-law?”

  Monica turned and frowned at Will. “He made a bad first impression, I know.”

  Will raised one eyebrow. “The second impression wasn’t so great either. I really could have lived without seeing his bare ass out on the seawall.”

  “He had too much to drink, like everyone else.”

  Will just smiled, tilting his head and holding one hand out, encouraging her to continue defending.

  “Sit,” Claudia said, pulling out chairs. In the courtyard just outside the window, a huge, chesty parrot prattled incessantly, calling out for someone named Chabela, who turned out to be a housekeeper who had died over ten years ago. “It gives us the creeps at night,” Mama Mercedes confessed.

  The housekeeper rushed about, setting down plates of steaming eggs, tortillas, refried beans, and Mama Mercedes’s sweet tamales. “Adelfa,” Claudia reprimanded. “I told you to serve the orange juice first.”

  Bruce praised Mama Mercedes’s tamales ad nauseam, and they all enjoyed making the old lady’s ancient eyes sparkle with pride. She rang a small silver bell that sat on the table. When the maid failed to appear, she got up and shuffled off, complaining how hard it was to find a good muchacha these days.

  By the time they’d sat down to eat, Monica had forgotten that Will had pressed Bruce about Kevin. But ten minutes later, Bruce extracted a prune pit from his mouth and placed it on the side of his plate and turned to Will. “To answer your question, Will, I think Kevin is a very nice fellow. In fact, I consider him a friend. But I don’t think Monica lets Kevin drive,” he said, his hands gripping an imaginary steering wheel. He turned to his daughter. “Kevin has zero influence over what direction you take.”

  Monica frowned. “Is that what you think love is? A drive down the parkway?”

  “I think you could do better, Monica,” Will said, his voice dropping into a more serious tone. “You are …” He held his hand out flat, as if he were presenting her to an audience of strangers. “You’re beautiful. You’re a smart, professional woman with grace and talent, and Kevin may indeed be ‘nice,’ but he’s not as impressive a man as you are a woman.” He folded his arms over his chest and looked at Bruce. “There. I said it. Not another word or I might get my ass kicked by a pack of naked ex-frat-boys when we get home.” He covered his mouth and looked at Claudia and Monica. “Oops. Pardon my French.” Claudia shook her head, indicating she didn’t understand the expression.

  Monica felt a wave of sadness over the futility of her relationship with Kevin. They were right, it wasn’t it, and she had known it all along. The morning had dawned on the realization that she didn’t love Kevin. But still, she had grown to care about him a great deal, and they knew each other so well; saying good-bye seemed like such a waste. Her eyelids pressed out two thin, hot tears and she hunched one shoulder to catch them with the fabric of her blouse.

  “I’m sorry,” Will said, “I hit a nerve.”

  Claudia got up and put her arms around Monica’s shoulders. “You’ll work it out.”

  ”Gracias,” Will said at the same time, accepting a glass of orange juice from the maid’s tray. He took a sip, closed his eyes, and moaned a little. “Oh … fresh squeezed.” When he opened his eyes, he looked at Monica. Sympathy crossed his face. “Keep it in perspective, Monica. I’d give anything to be back where you are.”

  “And where’s that?” Monica asked, using her cloth napkin to dab at the corners of her eyes.

  “The time in your life where the future is still up to you.”

  WHEN CLAUDIA’S DRIVER pulled into the circular driveway of Clinica Caracol, Monica could feel Bruce, Will, and Claudia searching her face for a reaction. She bulged her eyes out and said, “What?” She had to admit it did feel odd, but not overwhelmingly so. In fact, what she was beginning to feel was a giddy sense of happiness at approaching Negrarena, still the mother of all beaches. Even though she lived near the sea in Connecticut, the feeling of approaching the coast in El Salvador was far more perceptible, since the contrast between land and sea was so much more pronounced. Its presence called upon all the senses. First, the sudden thickening of the air, followed by quick glimpses of blue that appeared between the surrounding mountains, the feeling of descending into an expanse of magic. Then the soothing sound, the smell of salt and fish. Will said, “My God, it’s gorgeous.”

  They drove up to the great gates of Villa Caracol and the driver honked his horn. A man came out and took their information and let them in. The exterior of the sprawling beach villa was the same as Monica remembered, only it had been freshly painted a warm, sunrise pink with terra-cotta brown detailing. The row of coconut palms still lined the entrance and led to an old marble fountain upon which a mermaid blew into a conch shell. The trees and lush, flowering shrubbery that Monica remembered had been cut down. The driver parked the van under the carport, turned around, and looked at Claudia, waiting for his instructions. “Hang around, Santos,” she said. “We’ll be about two hours.”

  Monica kept her head down as they stepped from the bright sunshine into the deep shade of the foyer. She welcomed the familiar cool air, like stepping into a library or a museum on a hot summer day. The ancient smells of the thick stone walls blasted her with a rush of memories, and she looked around with wonder at the vaulted ceilings and large, Italian terrazzo tiles. All of it was somewhat smaller than she remembered, but it still made for an impressive entrance. Monica closed her eyes and filled her lungs with the fragrance of time, the antique furniture and tobacco and coffee, all of it laced with undertones of sea smells. Tears sprang up in her eyes for the second time that day. She felt a smile spread across her lips as she imagined Abuelo smoking his pipe and reading the morning paper. She remembered him sitting in a huge, Mexican wood chair, under the sun beaming through an arched window with pink and indigo blue stained-glass edges. She opened her eyes and the scene evaporated into what was now the lobby of a medical clinic.

  Abuela’s heavy, baroque wood-and-glass display cabinet now housed a collection of seashells from all over the world. The other monstrous dark-wood armoires and overwrought chairs had been replaced by shiny glass cases, illuminated from within. Monica rushed up to them and pressed her hands against the glass until the edges rattled in their tracks. Each specimen was labeled with both its common and scientific name, its country of origin, its discoverer, and the year it was discovered. They were grouped by species—cowries, scallops, murexes, limpets, slit shells, lightning whelks, cones. At the center of the room was the star—a single cone shell in its own case, polished to a high, beige, blood-speckled gloss.

  “The molluskan hall of fame,” Bruce mumbled in Claudia’s ear.

  Claudia nodded and said, “They’re beautiful. I never paid much notice to seashells. I had no idea there were so many varieties.”

  “This doesn’t even come close,” Monica whispered breathlessly. “She had more than this.”

  “Who?”

  “Mami. This is her collection.” Monica said, smiling hugely. She could feel herself tremble with excitement. “They’re so … beautiful. I’d forgotten … to see so many of them together. … They’re like works of art.”

  Bruce said, “You can’t possibly say with certainty that she owned these specific shells.”

  “Yes, I can,” Monica said, speaking quickly now,
authority strengthening her voice. “The fingerprint of a collector is in the choices she makes in what to collect. The furiosus species,” she said, tapping the glass with her fingernail, “was registered over a century ago, and this particular specimen was collected by my great-grandfather.” She took a few steps along the front of the case. “That Conus gloriamaris was a birthday gift to my mom from Abuela. It’s the one I told you she spent thousands of dollars for back in the 1960s.”

  “Alma kept her shells in smelly boxes in a room at her parents’ house,” Bruce said to Will and Claudia. “This is all news to me.”

  “Abuela must have created this display after Mom died,” Monica said, “because I remember Mom kept them in smelly boxes too.” The mention of the odor of rotting snail flesh released a brief recollection of her mother’s clever use of black ants to eat the carcass of the dead snail lodged inside a difficult-to-clean shell interior.

  “Have you added any new ones?” Monica asked the receptionist as she approached them and greeted them in Spanish. The young woman shook her head, but said that she had been charged with ordering more from a catalog. She rolled her eyes and said, “I’ve been putting it off. Like I know anything about buying shells.”

  Monica almost jumped out of her shoes. “I can help,” she said, sounding more like an excited child than she meant to. The woman looked at her as if she were the biggest nerd ever born, then recomposed herself and asked who they were. She got their names and returned with the office manager—a tiny, rotund matron named Soledad Mayo. They all rushed to the center of the room and began speaking at once, Bruce and Monica in Spanish and Will in English.

  Soledad held up a hand, then folded her arms behind her back, as if to force her own body language to appear friendly. She spoke to them in heavily accented English. “La Señora Sylvia told me that you would be arriving, Señor Lucero. We are here to serve you and honor your wishes, whatever they might be, and would like you to feel comfortable with whatever treatment you elect for your wife,” she said, all the while giving Will a cautious sideways look. “All we ask, before we take you to see her, is to consider our treatment before making your final decision.”

  “I did make a final decision, and it was to keep her in the States,” Will said, his voice echoing off the tile floor. “My mother-in-law betrayed my wishes and the doctor’s recommendations. I’m here to take my wife home.”

  The woman looked at the other three for support and, not finding it, turned back to Will with large kohl-rimmed eyes. “La Señora Sylvia told us that her financial and medical platform of support is being gradually withdrawn because Yvette has made little progress since her accident.”

  “That’s not the point,” Will said, raising his voice, his face turning bright red.

  Bruce put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, man. Let’s take the tour, become informed, then we’ll get Yvette out of here,” he said, winking at Soledad and pulling a notepad and a pen out of his hip pocket. “I’m the reporter who spoke to you on behalf of Urban Science.”

  Soledad’s face brightened, then clouded, as she shifted her eyes to Will. “Oh, yes, Mr. Winters. I … didn’t know you were together.”

  “Originally we weren’t, but then Sylvia …” Bruce’s voice trailed off and he pointed toward the door. “It’s a long story.”

  Nothing in the ensuing rooms reminded Monica of her ancestral beach home. The vaulted ceilings had been dropped with acoustical ceiling tile; it could be an outpatient facility anywhere. The staff moved about their business, looking up with occasional curiosity, but otherwise, the labs, administrative offices, and conference rooms were both professional and unremarkable. Monica kept glancing at Bruce, trying to read his face as he sized up the new construction against what he remembered of the old floor plan.

  “Who owns this property?” Monica asked Soledad.

  “This property is privately owned by a family and is on loan to the venture. Caracol was completely decrepit and abandoned for a long time. It all came together when Dr. Mendez secured funding from a British company named BioSource to study the effects of cone shell venom on humans.”

  “Back in the States, we begin with mice,” Will barked.

  Soledad closed her eyes as she spoke. “This treatment is beyond that point.”

  “How did the Borreros get involved?” Bruce asked, putting his hands on his hips.

  The woman looked surprised that he knew the name. “The Borreros have a long history of expertise with mollusks. It began with Reinaldo Mármol, a doctor who used the venom of a local cone species as an anesthetic upon the request of Indians who distrusted Western medicine. His daughter, Magnolia Mármol, was a collector of rare and beautiful seashells. She married the wealthy industrialist Adolfo Borrero. Their daughter, Alma Borrero, was the one who took that interest to the level of passion. She collected most of the specimens you saw in the lobby.”

  Monica almost burst out with triumph, but managed to restrain herself and settled for clearing her throat and giving her father a quick glance. He pretended not to notice, underlining what he had told her back home—that he didn’t want the staff to know their connection to the family. He claimed that it could compromise his access to information. Fortunately for him, so far they had only run into the clinic’s staff, none of whom would recognize them or link them to Alma.

  Soledad continued, “The Conus furiosus variety that was used so successfully by Dr. Reinaldo Mármol in his medical practice disappeared from sight for a half century. It was his granddaughter who inspired the search for the elusive species by her family members, friends, and local entrepreneurs who saw it as an opportunity to re-create it synthetically—in a lab—and manufacture it primarily as a far superior substitute for morphine.”

  “Really?” Monica said playfully. “That’s just remarkable. So what happened next?”

  “Alma died tragically before she ever found the cone. A few reappeared two and a half years ago, in Mexico, El Salvador, then Guatemala, and they seem to be coming back strong in Panamic waters near Costa Rica.”

  “So who grabbed the brass ring?” Bruce asked, and Monica knew him well enough to know that her father was straining to appear cool and only mildly interested. Soledad looked down at her own ring finger, confused.

  “It’s an expression,” Bruce said. “Who created this clinic? Who made it a reality?”

  “Oh,” she said. “Mostly a woman by the name of Dr. Mendez.”

  “And who is Leticia Ramos?” Monica pressed. “I know she’s the one that Sylvia spoke with initially.”

  “She’s a friend of the Borrero family. She doesn’t get involved with the day-to-day of this clinic. We report the results to the trials committee in San Salvador via phone conference and e-mail because Negrarena is such a remote location. But most of the emphasis is on the chronic-pain trials. The brain-trauma application is brand-new.”

  “You might have a better chance of winning Mr. Lucero’s confidence if we can meet the wizard,” Monica said. “We want to make sure we’re not dealing with a tiny man and a dog behind a curtain.”

  The woman laughed politely, making it clear that once again she didn’t understand the expression, but grasped the underlying meaning. “Fair enough, I’ll see what I can do. I have no idea if Dr. Mendez and Ms. Ramos are even in the country, but I can call when we get back to the office.”

  “I want to see my wife,” Will said. “Is that the door to the infirmary?”

  “One last thing, Señor Lucero.” Soledad held up a finger. “There’s the presentation.”

  Will’s face grew white and he pointed a finger at Soledad, then at himself. “I don’t like the way you’re imposing your priorities above mine. My right to see my wife stands above your right to show me your propaganda.”

  Soledad pursed her lips and glared at him. “I’m just following procedure, señor.”

  “Is it procedure for your clinic to prey on desperate people? Is it procedure to encourage them to cash in their lif
e’s savings? Is it procedure to facilitate kidnapping?”

  Soledad didn’t say anything, but her eyes roamed over Monica’s and Will’s faces in search of validation once more. Finding none, she turned and said, “Follow me.”

  WHEN SYLVIA SAW the Winterses walking behind her son-in-law, her face brightened as she stood to hug them. She was dressed in a short-sleeved, crisp apricot linen suit with matching sandals and smelled of Jean Naté. Claudia clutched Sylvia’s hands like an old friend’s and said, “I’m Claudia, a friend of Bruce and Monica. At your service.”

  Monica watched from behind Bruce’s shoulder as Will bent down over Yvette’s bed. He scrutinized her for damage, resting the palm of his hand on her forehead for a few seconds, then pulled back her eyelids to inspect the whites of her eyes. She was hooked up to some kind of monitor, and he leaned forward to examine the various digital displays, apparently familiar with each one. When he was satisfied, he kissed his wife on the lips and whispered something into her ear.

  Monica experienced a perverse sense of jealousy followed by an immediate sense of relief that her growing attraction to him was just her silly little secret. This served as a firm and much-needed reminder that Will Lucero still belonged to this motionless, silent woman. When Monica had massaged Will, his stress and loneliness were as unmistakable to her touch as rocks hidden in a bowl of thick, corded dough. And yet, still he remained a devoted and faithful husband. Monica instantly recognized the paradox of her admiration. There was no impending ethical dilemma. She was completely safe because Will would step into an unflattering light if he ever abandoned his heroic post. His devotion to Yvette was the battery power of his beauty, and her attraction to him would always remain a blessedly secret, entirely temporary, full-moon crush. Nothing more.