Finally, finally, there is a great commotion, dust pluming around the curved backs of the mother and the men, and then a vast, disbelieving cheer rises up. When the mother stands, she is cradling her son like a baby, his skinny toddler legs dangling, and then she shifts him so that his arms wind around her neck, and for a few glorious moments, they are all a part of the miracle.
Andres and the mother walk back to Lore together. The mother is thanking him, turning back to the others, thanking them, but already they are digging again, and Lore thinks this is faith, men’s hands against thousands of pounds of rubble, searching, believing. The mother adjusts the boy so that he sits on her hip, and he’s dirty and scuffed, but his tearstained face is bright as he looks around with uninjured curiosity.
The baby has drifted into sleep again, and Lore and the mother giggle as they shuffle her into the mother’s waiting arm. The toddler looks at his sister with casual indifference, starting a stream of chatter: “How did you know where to find me? Mami, I was buried! I couldn’t move!”
The mother looks at Lore, her dark eyes brimming. “Ya sé, mijo,” she says. “I know. It must have been so scary.” To Lore, she says: “Madre a madre: gracias.” And Lore leans forward to embrace the three of them, the one unwieldy body they have become, the way mothers always become with their children.
“Que Dios te bendiga,” Lore whispers.
Cassie, 2017
The Saturday after the earthquake, Duke convinced me to leave my work on the book for brunch at La Condesa—market research. We sat in a saddle-leather booth beneath a bright mural that looked like a decoupage of Mexican street signs. In my mind, I saw kaleidoscopic flashes of toppled buildings, Lore and Andres running in bare feet. Her story was alive inside me, practically writing itself now.
“So I was thinking,” Duke said. “For the wedding, instead of a sit-down dinner, why don’t we do hors d’oeuvres? And we could make custom cocktails or even infusions—like, vodka infused with fresh citruses—to pair with them. Maybe something like mini flights.”
“Sure.” I was only half listening as I poured coffee from the small French press on the table. “That all sounds great. Expensive, probably, though. The food and drinks, I mean.”
A shadow crossed his face, deepening when my phone rang. He probably thought it was Lore-related. The book had been an unspoken source of tension between us since we’d watched Fabian’s police tapes together. But it was Andrew. Normally I wouldn’t answer around Duke, just in case. But it had been so long since we talked.
“Hey!” I answered. “I was going to FaceTime you later!”
“Wouldn’t have worked.” Andrew’s voice was changing—not yet a teenager’s but no longer a little boy’s. An in-between phase I hardly recognized. “The internet got cut off.”
The first flicker of alarm. “What? Why?”
“I guess Dad didn’t pay the bill.”
My mouth went dry. I whispered to Duke, “Be right back,” before slipping out the patio doors onto Second Street.
“Andrew, what’s going on?” I asked.
All I heard was breathing, shallow and raspy. A quicksand feeling in my chest, slow sinking. I knew, somehow, that these were the final moments of pretending.
“Andrew?”
“He’s drinking again.” Andrew said it so matter-of-factly that bile rushed up my throat.
I turned away from the patio diners. “What do you mean?” I said, almost a gasp. Sun like a spotlight. “Again. What do you mean?”
“Dad’s an alcoholic,” he said. “You didn’t know?”
I sank to the curb, elbows on my knees.
“When did it start?” I managed, instead of answering his question. “This time, I mean.”
“I don’t know. June, July. He forgot me at karate last night. My sensei took me home. Dad was passed out on the porch. He’d locked himself out. My sensei had to call a locksmith.” The sentences came quickly, stacked like coins. “It was so embarrassing. And, Cassie, he’s gotten—” Andrew stopped.
“What, Andrew?”
“Mean.”
The sidewalk seemed to tilt beneath me, knocking me off balance, even though I was already on the ground. This was it, the reckoning some part of me had been expecting for the past twelve years. I saw myself handing Andrew to my father in the driveway after months of wearing him like an extra appendage, nights of setting him on the mattress beside me after a feeding, pushing pillows and blankets away so there was nothing that could smother him, my face so near his that I breathed in the air he breathed out. It smelled like nothing. I kept thinking of the flower, baby’s breath. I finally understood why it was called that.
An infant passed from one set of arms to another in an ordinary suburban driveway. The chance I had taken with his life, in exchange for mine.
“What do you need?” I asked. “What can I do?”
“I don’t know.” He sounded exhausted, a child hoping I could solve a problem he’d been dealing with in secret for God knew how long. He was braver than I was, asking for help. But he’d come to the wrong person.
“Okay,” I said. “Does Dad still have his job?”
My father had lost it when I was nine, right before getting shit-faced at a bar and coming home to hit my mother in front of me for the first time. He could’ve been fired again, triggering a relapse, or maybe the relapse had gotten him fired, and now he had no money to pay the internet bill. I could feel myself spiraling.
“I guess,” Andrew said. “He still leaves in the morning and comes back at six.”
“Okay. Is he behind on any other bills that you know of? Do you need money? I can Venmo you . . .”
I trailed off, thinking of my account. No, I couldn’t. Not any sum that would make a difference, anyway.
“I don’t know.” Andrew sounded frustrated. “How am I supposed to know that? He pays everything online.”
“Right. Okay. Well, if nothing’s gotten turned off besides the internet, that’s a good sign.”
He didn’t say anything. I could almost hear him wondering why he’d told me, realizing just how pathetic and useless to him I was.
“I’m going to talk to him. Okay? I’ll call him tonight.” The idea made my gut twist. I took a slow, steadying breath. “Andrew. Are you—do you feel safe? With Dad?”
A beat passed. “I guess.”
I closed my eyes. Of course, over the years, I’d thought about what I’d do if I found out my dad was violent with Andrew. I’d imagined myself flying into Enid on wings of righteous fury, spiriting my little brother away. But then what? I barely made enough to support myself, let alone a kid. And preparing meals, doing school drop-offs and pickups, helping with homework, seeing him through puberty, dating, SATs, college applications, his needs before mine, always. If Andrew needed to live with us, what would happen to the book? To my career? What would happen when Duke found out the truth?
None of that mattered. I told myself to push harder, to make Andrew tell me. But the words that came out were: “If you ever don’t feel safe, go straight to a neighbor’s house and call me. Okay?”
He let out a sound that was almost a laugh. “Yeah. Sure.”
“I’ll call Dad tonight. We’ll get this figured out.”
He sighed. Then, softer, younger: “Thanks, Cassie.”
Inside, our waiter appeared before Duke could ask any questions. After a hasty glance at the cocktail list, I ordered La Bruja: tequila and gin, lemon, and angostura and fresh Fresno pepper. Make it hurt, I wanted to say.
“Everything okay?” Duke asked. His blond curls were springy, freshly washed. His green button-down brought out the hazel in his eyes. He looked wholesome, untarnished.
Tell him, I thought.
“My dad forgot to pay the internet bill.” I managed a weak shrug. “Andrew was upset.”
Duke stared at the light installation that looked like hanging vines. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what we talked about a couple of months ago, about meeting your family.” He met my gaze again. “Maybe we should go out there soon—maybe for Thanksgiving? Doesn’t your dad at least want to meet the guy you’re marrying?”