“We need Donna here first,” she said. “Is Donna in the kitchen?”
Vega started to panic. He’d never been good with people who suffered from cognitive issues. Even as a cop. He wanted to do the right thing but he was never sure what that was. Did he play along? Did he tell Martha the truth that her daughter had died in a fall from their apartment window more than two years ago? He had no idea what the playbook for this sort of thing was. Clearly, some part of Martha’s brain still believed Donna was alive. Vega didn’t want to be the one to break it to her all over again.
“We can talk without Donna,” Vega offered. Martha nodded, appeased for the moment. He felt relieved.
She leaned forward as if someone might overhear them. “I know Donna can be difficult.” Martha patted Vega’s knee. “But you must not be angry with her. She doesn’t understand.”
“I always liked Donna,” Vega insisted. “I used to give her candy when we were kids, remember?”
“You and Jackie always used to steal it from her.”
Vega stared at Martha, stunned. It wasn’t true! Bad enough that he had to deal with some witness telling the world that he’d shot an unarmed suspect point-blank. But now, his mother’s oldest friend was accusing him of stealing candy from a little girl with Down syndrome?
Vega went to defend himself. Martha shook a finger at him. “You know what you did, yes? So does Luisa. That’s why she wants to talk to you.”
Martha had told his mother this? Vega was dumbfounded.
“I don’t know what you’re remembering. But I swear, I always tried to be nice to Donna.”
Martha’s voice quaked. She was growing more agitated. “You need to say you’re sorry. You need to get your head right with God.”
Ay, caray! This was not going well. Martha couldn’t know about the shooting. And yet she was talking like she did. “Okay. I’m sorry,” said Vega. He was sorry for so many things, he couldn’t even choose between them anymore.
“Where is your sister? Where is she?”
“My sister? Donna’s not—” And then it hit him. Martha was confusing Vega with Freddy. She had no idea who he was.
He grasped what was happening, but it saddened him all the same. He wanted so much for Martha to remember him—or at least, to remember his mother. He noticed a photo album on a shelf above the television. He walked over and pointed to it.
“May I look through this album?”
Martha’s face had gone blank again. She smiled at Vega as if he’d just walked into the room for the first time, like there was a reset button in her head and it had just gone back to “start.”
Vega pulled out the album and sat down next to Martha. He slowly turned the pages. The laminated inserts crackled like a cheap shower curtain. Inside were the usual yellowed assortment of communion shots, weddings, christenings, and holiday celebrations, the gray concrete symmetry of the Bronx contrasting sharply with the verdant chaotic hillsides of Puerto Rico. Some of the people in the pictures Vega recognized. Some, he didn’t. He picked out Martha as a young schoolteacher. He saw her brutish husband grimacing for the camera. Other pictures showed sweet Donna who never seemed to age, Freddy with his sober, serious expression, and Jackie who, even then, looked like she wanted to be somewhere else.
Vega turned a page and ran his hand over a picture of his mother, looking firm-faced and impossibly young in a bright red dress. She was posed in front of a Christmas tree with a trim, good-looking, dark-skinned man. Vega’s father, Orlando. Vega was a toddler, flopped on his father’s shoulders, looking sleepy-eyed like he couldn’t wait to be poured into bed. Vega went to turn the page. Martha grabbed his hand to stop him. Something flashed across her face.
“I remember the onions,” she whispered. “I remember. She cried when she dropped them in the snow.”
Vega straightened. He stared at Martha. Her face, so blank a minute ago, flooded with light, like a piece of stained glass lit from behind. She knew who Vega was. She knew who his mother was. He swallowed back the dizzying sensation. The scent of her musk cologne. The picture of his mother in that red dress. The memory of those dropped onions. For one tiny moment, everything in the world was right again. His mother was here. With them. In this room. Alive.
“That’s how you and Luisa met,” Vega said softly. He squeezed her hand. “You remember, Do?a Martha. You remember.”
Martha’s soft cheeks suddenly grew taut. Her mouth pressed in. “Luisa is dead.” Her eyes registered the moment like it had just happened.
Vega nodded. “Yes. But she is still alive in us.”
Martha dropped Vega’s hand. She looked suddenly distressed. “It was terrible. So terrible. She cared about him. How could he do that?”
“Do?a Martha, do you know who killed my mother?”