Just a few months ago, Diego had asked her about a gun.
“Mama, have you ever held a gun?”
“No, Diego. Why are you asking me this?”
“Mateo says his brother has a gun, and he got to hold it.”
“Diego, you must not go near that gun. Mateo shouldn’t be touching a gun.”
“I didn’t touch it. I didn’t even see it.”
“Guns are very dangerous. Where does Mateo live? Who’s this brother?”
“Forget it, Mama.”
“I will not forget it. I’m very serious. You mustn’t go near that gun. If Mateo has it, you go away. You leave. Entiendes?”
“Sí, Mama.”
That conversation had kept her awake for weeks. Diego walked home from school with Mateo. She didn’t know the boy’s mother. How could she have moved her son into this neighborhood? To Vegas? Juan would have known they should not live on this street.
Juan.
She had called him from the hospital, because he was still in Mexico.
“It’s Diego,” she sobbed. “He’s hurt.”
“Where are you? I’m coming. I’m coming now.”
She didn’t know how Juan had done it, how he had crossed the border, how he had gotten to Vegas so fast. But the next morning he was there, in the lobby of the Children’s Hospital, and when she went down to get him, to explain to the receptionist that he was Diego’s father, that he could come with her to the special room for family, he had started to cry, and his tears came so fast they soaked the collar of his shirt, and he could not speak, and she could not speak, and they had stood in the middle of the room, with people everywhere, some silently engrossed in their phones and others rushing by, wearing pale blue scrubs. She and Juan had stood there, collapsed in each other’s arms, and sobbed.
The phone rang again.
It rang and rang, and finally, Jimbo answered.
“Hello?”
His face was alert. Then surprised. He looked out the window and moved closer to the wall, peering up the street.
Engracia looked too. She saw the red glow against the stucco wall of the neighbor’s house. There was a police car out there. Someone had heard her say gun and man after all.
Her heart quickened its already skittery beat.
She looked at Jimbo’s face. Was he angry?
He looked startled more than anything. Startled, and strangely vulnerable.
“I . . . I don’t know what to say. It’s not what you think. That’s not what’s happening.”
The man was listening to someone on the line. Ms. Navarro stirred, and he looked over at her abruptly.
“Help!” she called. “Help!”
The man cracked the phone into the receiver and whipped around toward Ms. Navarro.
“Stop it!”
Ms. Navarro stood up, enraged now. She scared Engracia. She might do anything. Anything could happen now. Anyone might live or die in the next seconds and Engracia, who knew what would happen to her, was having trouble concentrating. She thought of Juan, sobbing at the hospital, and she remembered the doctor asking them about the organs, and then, the night after the burial, when Juan drank glass after glass of whiskey.
Diego had gotten hurt in Engracia’s care.
Juan had drank all that whiskey.
“Ms. Navarro.”
Her voice came out small, and at first, Ms. Navarro did not look at her.
“Please sit with me?”
Ms. Navarro looked confused, and even Jimbo seemed unclear about what Engracia had asked. He started to say something, but stopped. Engracia motioned to the seat beside her, and Ms. Navarro stood a moment there, looking from Jimbo to Engracia, looking at the spot where the gun was hidden beneath his shirt, looking at the phone behind him. Then, awkwardly, as if she had not quite committed herself to the act, she stumbled toward Engracia and sat where the younger woman had indicated.
Engracia took her hand. Her bones were small, smaller than Engracia’s, smaller even than Diego’s, and Engracia could feel the beat, beat, beat of Honorata’s heart through her skin.
Taking Ms. Navarro’s hand helped Engracia.
At almost the same moment, she and Honorata looked up at Jimbo.
He looked back at them, and for a moment, Engracia saw it in his eyes: he was wondering what the hell he was doing. How had he gotten here, in this room, with a gun, and two women cowering beneath him?
“I’m sorry, Honorata.”
She did not reply.
Engracia could still see the red glow of the police cruiser against the stucco of the house next door, and she noticed that the man stayed near the wall, out of reach of the window.
“Where’s Malaya?” Jimbo asked. “I’d like to see her.”
He did not say it, but Engracia thought that even Ms. Navarro must be thinking it: he wanted to see her before he died.
Silence.
Ms. Navarro was silent, and Engracia was silent, and the man did not ask again. Instead, he leaned against the wall and lowered himself slowly to the floor.
“Why didn’t you read my letter, Honorata? Why didn’t you give me a chance?”
He sounded sad, and resigned. Engracia wondered if he would kill himself there in front of her, and, for a moment, she closed her eyes, not wanting to see.
Ms. Navarro made a startled noise. Engracia opened her eyes, and Jimbo looked up.
“Is it Malaya?” he asked. “Is she here?”
Ms. Navarro glanced out the window, to the street. Engracia wondered if she could see the police car; if she knew what the red glow meant.
“Is she outside?”
The man stood up, peering toward the window. “I just want to see her once. Please.”
Ms. Navarro said nothing. She pulled her hand away from Engracia’s, sat up straighter on the couch, perched, alert and waiting and without speaking.
“I could have seen her, you know. She wanted to meet. I came here today to tell you I knew; to tell you we would be meeting. I didn’t want to go behind your back.”
Honorata stared at him then, her face a mask.
“I don’t know why I have this gun. I don’t know why I came in this way. I got so worked up. Waiting. I was so mad.”
His voice trailed off, the enormity of the error he had made—of the consequences it would bring—becoming clearer.
“Did you call the police?”
“Yes,” said Engracia.
“You were right. Of course. You should’ve called the police.”
The man sounded sad more than anything else, and his fingers reached inside his jacket. He touched the handle of the gun, reassuring himself it was there, or wondering if it was, or deciding, perhaps, what he should do now.
The phone rang again.
31
Coral grabbed her phone and her keys, and raced out the door. She heard someone yell, “Hey, lady. Stop!” But she did not stop. She ran straight for Tom Darling, her eye on the school bus, and the girl who was just now getting off it.
“Tom, it’s me, Coral.”
“Coral?”
“This is my street. I live here.”
“Well, this isn’t a good time. If you just go back inside, everything will be fine.”
“No, Tom. The girl over there. She lives in that house. She’s coming home from school.”
“Shit.”
Tom radioed to a patrolman at the end of the street.