She glances at me like she’s forgotten I’m here. When she nods, I find the network on my phone. I dial the memory care facility number I was given and wander off into a small room filled with tables, each wearing a bright cotton tablecloth.
When a face swims into view on my screen, I blink. The person on the other end is nothing more than a set of eyes above a mask, and that’s behind a plastic face shield. She has a paper cap covering her hair, too. “It’s Verna,” the woman says, and she gives a little wave. I recognize her name; she is one of the aides who takes care of the residents there. “We were starting to wonder if you were ever going to call back.”
“Technical difficulties,” I say.
“Well, your mom’s tired and she has a fever, but she’s holding her own.”
She holds up whatever device she’s on and the view changes; from a distance I see my mother sitting on her couch with the television on, just like normal. My heart, which was racing, slows a little.
I let myself wonder, for the first time, what I was so afraid to see. Maybe vulnerability. My mother has been a gale force wind that blows in and out of my life before I can reorient myself. If she were still and silent in a bed, then I would know something is terribly wrong.
“Hi, Hannah,” the aide says. “Can you look over here! Can you give me a little wave?”
My mother turns. She doesn’t wave. “Did you take my camera?” she accuses.
“We’ll find it later,” Verna soothes, although I know my mother does not have a camera in her residence. “I have your daughter here. Can you say hello?”
“No time. We need to jump on the press convoy to the Kurdish village,” my mother says. “If it leaves without us …” She coughs. “Without …” She dissolves into a fit of coughing, and the phone tumbles dizzily before coming to rest on a flat surface. The image goes black; I can still hear my mother hacking away. Then Verna’s masked face reappears. “I have to settle her,” she says, “but we’re taking good care of her. Don’t you worry.”
The line goes dead.
I stare at the blank screen. There really isn’t any way to tell if my mother’s delirious, or if it is just her dementia.
Okay. Well. If she gets worse, they will call our apartment again. And if that happens, Finn will—somehow—update me.
Finn.
Immediately I try to video-chat him, too, making the most of the internet service. But it rings and rings and he doesn’t pick up. I imagine him bent over a patient, feeling the buzzing in his pocket, unable to answer.
My mother has Covid, I type into a text. So far she’s stable.
I tried to call you while I still had Wi-Fi but you were probably working.
I wish you were here with me.
I tuck my phone into my pocket and make my way back to the front desk. Everything about Elena’s body language suggests she is trying to pin Gabriel against any wall she can. Everything about Gabriel’s body language resists it. When he sees me, relief washes over his features. “Gracias, Elena,” he says. He leans in to give her a quick kiss on the cheek, but she turns at the last minute and presses her mouth against his.
“Hasta luego, Gabriel,” she says.
As soon as we are out the door, he turns to me. “Your mother?”
“She’s sick,” I tell him. “She has a cough.”
His brows pinch together, then smooth. “So, that’s not too bad, right? I bet she was happy to see you.”
She had no idea who I was. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but instead I ask, “Is Elena your ex?”
“Elena was one night of extremely poor decision making,” Gabriel says. “I don’t have very good luck with relationships.”
“Well, I’m ninety-nine percent sure my boyfriend was going to propose to me here on our vacation, so there’s that.”
He winces. “You win.”
“More like both of us lose,” I correct.
Gabriel misses the turn to Abuela’s, heading further into town toward the docks.
I say, “Far be it from me to tell you you’re going the wrong way, but …”
“I know. I just thought … ?maybe you didn’t want to spend today worrying about your mother.” We stop on the pier, near a string of small pangas, the little metal boats fishermen use.
“What about Beatriz?”
“I already texted her. My grandmother is watching her.” He shields his eyes, looking up at me. “I did promise I’d show you my island.” He steps into a boat and holds out his hand so I can follow.
“Where are we going?”
“The lava túneles,” Gabriel says. “They’re on the western side of the island, about forty-five minutes out.”
“We’ll break curfew.”
He scrabbles for a key under the plank seat and turns over the engine. Then he glances up, one side of his mouth quirked. “That’s not all. Where we’re going is closed even to locals,” he says. “What is it you americanos say? Go big or go home.”
I laugh. But I think: I wish.
Fishing, Gabriel tells me, is dangerous here.