ISABEL WAS NOT tracking time well. She kept losing chunks of it. Somehow she was in her bed downstairs in the house, but she didn’t remember getting there. She could see Marcus and June in the other bed, their heads sticking out over the covers. Isabel felt protected by their presence, even though that was stupid.
She fell asleep and dreamed of the river, of floating on the inner tube. In her dream, she tried to swim back upstream after Hector, but the current was too strong. It was impossible to make headway.
Then someone was shaking her awake. She scrambled back in fear, but it was only the housekeeper, Maria, whispering urgently in Spanish. Then Maria moved to shake Marcus and June in the other bed, whispering to them to be very quiet, to follow her. Isabel tried to stand. She could feel the pain between her legs. It stung.
Penny and Sebastian were in the entryway, rubbing their eyes.
“Where are we going?” Penny asked.
“A mi casa,” Maria whispered. She unlocked the deadbolt with the key around her neck and guided the little ones outside.
Then June’s high, piercing voice cried, “The bunny!”
Isabel froze. So did Maria. They stood listening to the quiet night. But no footsteps came running.
“I’ll go get it,” Isabel whispered, and she stepped back in and closed the door, in case June made any more noise. This was a moment for decision. Was it smart to run off with the housekeeper? George was supposed to be her rescuer, her protector. He had beaten his brother in the fight for them. He had a plan. And now Maria was going to mess it up.
Barefoot, she climbed the stairs to the main floor, then climbed the second flight to the third floor, where the brothers slept. Everything was quiet. She tiptoed past the old man’s empty bedroom.
She listened at the next door, then pushed it open. There was the big framed baseball poster on the wall. George’s cap hung on a chair. His head was dark on the pillow. If she woke him and told him Maria was stealing the children, he would be grateful.
But what would he do to Maria? And what was his plan? Maybe Maria stealing the children was his plan, and Isabel was messing it up. She was back on the third floor, when she shouldn’t be.
She would count to ten, and if George woke up, it would be a sign that she should stay. She began to count silently. One, two, three—
She got to ten and he slept on.
She would count to ten one more time. Just in case. One, two three—
He didn’t wake up.
She tiptoed back down the two flights to her room and found the bunny huddled between the pillows of June’s bed, in the tumbled covers. She scooped it up and went outside, to find Maria actually wringing her hands.
“Oh, mija,” Maria breathed.
“What took you so long?” June whispered, taking the bunny.
They followed Maria in bare feet over the unpaved driveway. Her car was parked a long way from the house, down by the security gate. As they walked, Isabel felt unsteady and thought the trembling in her legs was getting worse, but then she realized the earth was actually moving.
“Earthquake,” Marcus whispered.
They all looked at each other, then looked back at the house. Isabel hoped it would collapse. She hoped a huge chasm would open in the ground and swallow the house and the sleeping brothers. But the shaking stopped. No lights went on in the windows. No one burst out after them.
They hurried to the car. Penny took the front seat. Isabel slid in back with Marcus and the little ones, closing the door as silently as she could.
Maria started the engine, peering up at the house. They drove down the rest of the driveway with the headlights off, to the gate.
“Push it open,” Maria said in Spanish. “The power is off.”
Isabel got out and ran to the gate, which opened. The car rolled past her and through. Isabel closed the gate quietly and ran to the car.
Then they were on the paved road down the hill. Maria kept checking the rearview mirror, but no one followed them. Isabel lost some more time, but then the car stopped outside a small white house. They all got out. They were on a quiet street, with one streetlight at the end of the block. Maria jangled her keychain, looking for the key in the dark.
There was a sticker beside the front door that said, “En este lugar, creemos en Dios,” with a little drawing of praying hands. Maria led them inside, to a crowded living room with two mismatched couches and an armchair.
Maria knocked at a door, and called, “Oscar!”
After a minute, a teenage boy came out of the room in a T-shirt and boxer shorts, with his hair messy from sleep. There was a picture of him on the wall, as a little boy with his arm around an older girl. A sister somewhere.
“This is Oscar, my son,” Maria said.
He was trying to put his glasses on. When he did, he saw the children all standing there in their matching clothes. He put his hand to his forehead. “Ay, Mamá,” he said.
She spoke to him in rapid Spanish, saying, “You have to drive them to the American embassy, right now.”
“Me?”
“Yes. Get dressed. I have to go back to work.”
“You can’t go back!”
“I have to,” Maria said. “If they see me gone, they’ll come straight here.”
He looked frightened. “I don’t even know where the embassy is.”
“In the capital. Ask someone. Take your uncle’s car.”
“That piece of shit?” he said. “You’re not giving me yours?”
“I can’t.” Maria went to a closet and pulled out five pairs of flip-flops in different sizes.
Oscar stared at the shoes. “When did you buy those?”
June pulled at Isabel’s arm. “What are they saying?” she asked.
“We’re going to the embassy,” Isabel said.
Maria handed Oscar a set of car keys. Then she gave him a small paper bag. “Insulina,” she said. “For the little boy.”
“I’ll keep that,” Penny said in English, and she snatched the bag away.
“What do I tell the Americans?” Oscar asked.
“Say these are los ni?os del barco and you need protection.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll be fine, mijo.” She kissed his sweaty forehead and cupped his cheek with her hand. “This is the thing we have to do.”
25.
PENNY SORTED THROUGH the flip-flops Maria had pulled from the closet and found her size. Maria had done a good job guessing. It was nice to have shoes again. The boy, Oscar, came back out of his room in jeans and a T-shirt.
“Hijo de puta,” he said, rubbing his hair. “Qué hizo mi mamá.”
June, in her new flip-flops, put her hands on her hips. “Do you speak English?” she asked.
“Yes,” Oscar said.
“I’m hungry,” June said.
“No time.”
“Can you bring something?”
He handed her a banana from a wire basket.
June made a face. “It has brown spots.”
“So don’t eat it.” He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a block of cheese and some apples. He put the food in a nylon backpack and added a jacket and a flashlight.
June peeled the banana, grimaced, and took a bite.
Oscar opened the front door and waited for them to file out. The other houses were dark. It was strange to be outside, and free.
Oscar unlocked a very old car parked on the street, and they all got in. Penny had never been in a car so old. It was even older than her dad’s Volvo. There was dust all over the windshield and the windows. When she pulled the passenger door shut, the handle felt sticky, like the plastic was breaking down. “Whose car is this?”
“My tío’s,” Oscar said.
“Will he care?” she asked.
“He’s dead.”
“Oh.”
Oscar turned the key in the ignition and there was a straining, chugging noise. Then it stopped.
“What was that?” Penny asked.
“We don’t drive it,” he said. “It doesn’t have the right papers.” He tried to start the car again: the click, the tinny chug, chug, chug, and then nothing. “Hijo de puta,” he said, and put his head on the steering wheel.