Engracia could see it.
She could see it in their eyes, in the way they interacted, in what was not said. Slowly, she reached into the deep side pocket of her pants, where her cell phone was. She’d had the phone for only a few months; she could still remember the salesman explaining how to call 911, that all she had to do was open the phone and hold down the 9 button, that a chip in the phone would bring help to her.
The salesman had showed her this feature, and Engracia had cried, tears dripping down her face, at how wrong he was, at how little he knew of what phones could or could not do in an emergency.
But this was different.
This was Las Vegas, and her cell phone would work. If she could find a way to press the 9 and hold it, someone would come.
Her fingers fumbled, searching, searching.
“What are you doing?”
His voice was loud and panicky. Sweat ran in rivulets down his face.
Engracia said nothing. No English words would come. She opened her mouth, and nothing, no sound at all, came out.
“Call the police, Engracia.”
“Shut up!” Jimbo turned back to Engracia. “Don’t call anyone. That better not be a phone in your pocket. No one is calling anyone.”
Engracia placed her hands on her lap, still unable to think of a single word in English. Taco came to mind. Taco Bell, Taco Time. Nothing else.
“I never looked for you. I respected your wishes. I thought you were in Manila, or back home. I never looked for you. I never even came back to Vegas. I never tried another woman. I never tried again.”
Ms. Navarro would not look at him. She stared stonily at the floor, ignoring his fingers still buried in her arm, her body trembling, trembling. Finally, he released her arm and stepped away.
What was she thinking? Why was this man here?
“You knew I wanted a family. A wife. A child. How could you hide her from me?”
Now Ms. Navarro’s voice cracked out of her.
“I didn’t hide her. She’s not yours.”
At this, he reared back, looking as if he might slap her. But he stopped, turning his head and gritting his teeth so that his jaw jutted out from the fat fold near his neck.
Engracia put her hand back in the deep pocket of her pants.
“Don’t lie. Please don’t lie.”
“Don’t lie? Why shouldn’t I lie? Who are you to tell me anything? You barge in my house. You show me a gun. You throw me in this room. If I got up now, you would shoot me. You would shoot me! This is respect? This is respecting me?”
Her voice rose hysterically. She stood up, enraged. And the man did not move; he did not make her sit back down. He stood against the wall, several feet from her, and now his shoulders slumped.
Engracia slid the phone from her pocket, and slipped it quietly behind her in the chair.
“Rita.”
“My name is Honorata.”
“Honorata. How could you hate me this much? How could you have done this to me?”
“I do hate you. I hate you! I have always hated you. What do you mean, how could I hate you? I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
Ms. Navarro was screaming, her hands scrunched into fists, her small body leaping closer at him, like a mongoose at a cobra.
Engracia silently opened the lid of her phone and slid her fingers slowly across the face of the phone. She had to be sure of the button.
The man looked at Ms. Navarro, and tears welled in his eyes.
Engracia stopped what she was doing, just for a second, engrossed by what she was witnessing.
“All I wanted was a family.”
“Well, you can’t buy one. You can’t buy a person.”
“I didn’t buy you.”
“You thought you could buy me. You thought your money, your man, your white, these bought me. You took me from everything.”
He looked at her, still crying, and reached out his hand, as if to touch her arm.
“Don’t touch me!” she screamed. “Don’t touch me! Don’t be in my house. Get away from me! Get away from here!”
“No!” he said. “No. She’s my daughter. She’s my daughter too. I will not leave.”
“How do you know of her?”
“How do I know that Malaya is my daughter? That you hid her from me? That it’s you who had no respect for me?”
“This isn’t true.”
“Of course it’s true.”
Ms. Navarro glared at him.
“It was Malaya who found me.”
Engracia heard the shuddery sound of Ms. Navarro breathing. Otherwise silence.
“I got an email from a teenage girl who said she’d found me on the Internet, and she was pretty sure I was her father.”
Ms. Navarro sat motionless, only the unnatural stillness of her face, her body, belying the shock she felt.
“She sent me a photo.”
“Malaya sent you a picture of herself?”
“A photo of you.”
Ms. Navarro’s jaw tightened. Engracia could feel her rage. So could the man.
“You write to me. You ask me to marry you. You live in my home.” He was angry now. His voice was like a knife, and Engracia’s body lurched; the desire to run was so great.
“And then you win money. And I beg you to stay. But you go. And I let you. I never look for you. I leave you alone.”
The man stopped and looked down. His back shook. It was three times wider than Ms. Navarro.
“And all . . . this . . . time.” He drew the words out slowly. “All this time, you have our daughter.”
“She’s not yours.”
“She’s mine.”
“Malaya’s a young girl. She gets big stories in her head. She even has tattoos. She’s not easy. She thinks you’re her father, I don’t know how she found out about you, but you’re not her father. If she had asked me, I would have told her.”
Engracia thought Ms. Navarro was probably lying, but the man was apoplectic.
“Stop lying!”
“I’m not lying. You haven’t even seen her. You see a photo. She looks half white. You think you’re her dad. You’re not the only white man in the world, you know.”
“Stop lying. Please, Rita, stop lying.”
“I’m not lying.”
Engracia was amazed at her defiance. She had started to calm down. She could think more clearly. The man was angry, but he was not paying any attention to her. Engracia waited to push the button on her phone, thinking she might be able to leave the room; that she might get a chance to tell the operator what was happening. If the police barged in right now, anything could happen. The gun was right there. Engracia had already noticed Ms. Navarro looking at it. Ms. Navarro wanted the gun.
“Do you think I flew out here, barged into your home . . . with a gun . . . because a seventeen-year-old girl thinks I’m her father?”
Honorata did not reply.
“We got tests. Malaya and I. We did the tests. She’s my daughter, and you’ve always known this.”
The air came out of the room. Engracia pushed the button.
In one motion, Ms. Navarro turned, screamed, and lunged at Jimbo’s gun. He was a big man, but quick, and he dodged her easily. He clamped his hand on the gun but did not take it out of his waistband. Ms. Navarro slipped, banging her shin on the table and cracking her side into the chair, as she struggled not to fall. Engracia slid off the chair and made a run for the door.
“Stop!”
She kept going.