And then the two of us just stood there until finally Celia dropped her shoulders and looked at me with sympathy. “Come inside,” she said.
“I thought you were on your way out.”
“Come inside,” she said again, “I’ll make coffee. We’ll wait for her together.”
Once we were in the apartment, Celia tried to call Mayor, but she only got his voice mail. “He must have turned his phone off in the movie,” she said. “He’ll check it when he comes out.”
I sat on the couch and stared through the window at the white sky, the empty parking lot, the faded asphalt, while Celia brewed a pot of coffee. I forced myself to imagine scenarios in which Maribel was fine: She was sitting on the bus, twisting her hair between her fingers, staring out the window at the traffic on the street; she was asleep in the bus seat, oblivious to the delay; she was only a block from our apartment, pulling her backpack onto her shoulders, preparing to get off. I said to myself: You didn’t have a bad feeling before the accident, and then she wasn’t fine. Maybe because you have a bad feeling now, it means she is fine. I didn’t care that it made no sense.
“I need to call Arturo,” I said suddenly, reaching for the phone in my coat pocket. But when I looked at it, the screen was black, out of minutes. How long had it been like that? I dropped the phone back in my pocket and asked Celia if I could use her house line instead.
“Of course,” she said, handing me the receiver.
“Bueno,” Arturo said when he answered. He was out, as he had been for forever it seemed, still looking for a job.
“It’s me, Arturo. You need to come home,” I said.
“Why? What happened?”
“It’s Maribel.”
“What happened?” he said again.
“She didn’t come home from school.”
“What do you mean? Did you call the school?”
I was embarrassed to realize that I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to admit it to him now.
“Come home, Arturo. Please.”
“I’ll be right there,” he said.
I did call the school as soon as we hung up, but no one answered, and when I passed the phone to Celia so that she could listen to the recording that started playing, she reported that it simply gave the school hours and said that there were no after-school programs that day. I thought of calling Phyllis, too, but her number was in my dead cell phone.
By the time Arturo arrived, not more than ten minutes later, I was pacing outside, knotted with worry, every knot pulled so tight that it had begun to fray. The snow fell lightly, like weightless kisses, although I barely noticed it. I ran to him as soon as I saw him. His face clouded and he put his hands on my shoulders.
“Her bus didn’t come,” I said. My lips felt numb, but not because of the cold.
“Was there an accident?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you call the police?”
“The police?”
“She was supposed to be home half an hour ago! Who knows what could have happened?”
“I didn’t know if I was allowed—”
“To call the police? Why?”
I stared at him. I didn’t want to say.
“Alma! Use your head! Let them deport us if they want.”
He stormed past me, toward our apartment.
“Arturo!” I yelled after him.
He stopped and turned.
“I need to tell you something.” Tears were forming in my eyes, but I had to say it. I had no choice now. What did it matter, my instinct to protect him, my misguided idea that somehow by keeping all of this from him, I could prove that I was capable, I could prove that I could take care of our daughter even though I had failed her so terribly before? If she was missing, what did any of it matter?
“There’s a boy …”
Arturo looked like he was annoyed that I was changing the subject. “What are you talking about?”
“He lives in Capitol Oaks.”
“Who?”
“You saw him. A long time ago when we went to the gas station. He was there.”
“Who was there?”
“I don’t know his name. But he came here one day.”
Arturo shook his head as if he were giving up on trying to understand me.
“I found him with her,” I said, and pointed to the side of the building. “Over there. I think he’d been after her since the beginning. He had her against the wall.”
A darkness settled over Arturo’s face. “What do you mean? What was he doing?”
“He had her shirt up.”
“When?”
I didn’t answer.
“When, Alma? When did this happen?”
“I told him to stay away from her.”
“When?”
“A few months ago.”
“And you’re just telling me now?”
“I thought I could handle it.”
“Handle it? Alma!”
“I went over to his house. I told him to leave her alone.”
Arturo stared at me with such incredulity it was almost horror. As if I were someone he didn’t recognize. “Did he hurt her?” he asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“But you said—”
“I got here in time.”
“But where were you? Why weren’t you with her?”
There was nothing I could say to that. I had no defense.
“You lied to me,” Arturo said.
“I was trying not to worry you.”
He sputtered, a sound that verged on laughter, and tipped his head back, gazing at the faded gray sky. The snow was falling steadily now and flakes the size of postage stamps landed on his face, on his hair.
“I wanted to make it up to you,” I said.
I waited, but he just kept his eyes trained on the faraway sky.
“I was the one holding the ladder.”
Arturo lowered his head and looked at me. “What?”
“That day. I was the one who let her go up there. One second she was on the ladder and she was our perfect daughter, and the next second—”
“She wasn’t perfect,” Arturo said.
“But I knew you didn’t want her up there—you told her not to go up there—and I let her go anyway.”
“So?”
“So she fell, Arturo! And it was my fault.”
“That’s what you think?”
“That’s what you told me! In the hospital. Afterwards.”
Arturo looked confused.
“You said I was supposed to be holding the ladder. You accused me of letting it go.”
“You think I blame you for what happened?”
“We both know it was because of me.”
“Well, I’m the one who told you both to come with me that day.”
“You didn’t know what would happen.”
“Neither did you. That’s what I’m saying!”
“But it’s different.”
“No, it’s not different. You say you let her go up there, but how could you have known she would fall?”
“But I was the one holding the ladder.”
“Did you take your hands off it? Did you move it on purpose?”
I shook my head.
“It wasn’t your fault, Alma.”
“Everything changed because of me,” I said.
He looked at me with sadness, maybe even mercy. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said again. “You have to let it go.”
“But—”