“Thank you.”
Coral didn’t speak for a while then, and Malaya held her hand, squeezing her fingers ever so gently, and Coral struggled with the lump rising in her throat. She was supposed to be the one helping Malaya.
“I found him on the Internet,” the girl said.
“Yeah,” Coral managed to reply. “That makes sense . . . How did you know where to look?”
“I didn’t. I just looked up my mom, and there was a thing about how she changed my name when I was little. I used to be Malaya Navarro, but now my name is Begtang.”
“I knew that.”
“You did? Well, I thought my dad must be named Begtang all the time, but the notice was for my father, to tell him my mom was changing my name. So that made me think she was trying to hide me.”
“Hmmm. Okay. Then what?”
“Well, it was kind of an accident. I was looking in these old newspapers, and I couldn’t find anything about my mom, so I was just looking for anything about someone from the Philippines. Which was sort of stupid. But there was an article about a woman who had won all this money. She won it at a casino, and she had only been in this country for like ten months. So it was a big story. And I just read it, because it was kind of interesting, even though it was too old. It was before I was born.”
Coral was really interested now. This Malaya was surprising in so many ways.
“You found this on the Internet?”
“Well, it wasn’t easy. Because the search engine in the paper isn’t very good. So I went to the library on Flamingo, and the librarian helped me.”
Coral thought of her own trips to that library, straining her eyes to see the faded microfiche records of Del Dibb’s life.
“That was smart.”
“Anyway, this article about the Filipina who won the money, I just read it for fun, because I wasn’t finding anything. But there was a picture of her.”
Coral knew what she was going to say.
“It was my mom.”
Unbelievable. Incredible story.
“Her name was Rita Wohlmann. And she was married to this guy James. From Chicago. It was really easy after that. I just Googled him. He runs a big company, and I sent him an email.”
“Wow. Wow! That’s really an amazing story.”
“Yeah. Like, did you know my mom won more than a million dollars?”
“No.” She felt almost giddy listening to the girl. Malaya had done it. She’d found her dad. It made Coral want to jump up and cheer, even in the middle of this—what?—incident.
“And she was married. I mean, like, I’ve spent my whole life trying to explain to people why I don’t have a dad. And there was this real asshole kid in fifth grade; he said I was a bastard. Which is stupid. Because half the kids I know are bastards. Just not the ones at my school.”
Coral reached over and hugged Malaya awkwardly in her chair. She was so proud of her, and she was sorry about the fifth grader who had called her a name.
It was unbelievable that Malaya had actually found some record of her mom in the paper. With a different name. That’s what it took. Some luck. At one point when Coral had been hunting for her mother, when she’d been doing research yet again, she had gone into some chat rooms and talked with other people looking for their parents. Usually straight-up adoptees, whose records were sealed. And the ones that found them—the mothers who found their babies or the children who found their parents—they almost always got lucky. There was one stray detail that turned out to be true, wasn’t part of the standard story, and that detail led to everything else. My mother had eight siblings and was over six feet tall. My mother was an identical twin, and her brothers were identical twins too. Stuff like that.
And with genetic testing, all you had to know was that it was possible you had the right person. From there, if everybody agreed, you could actually be sure. She wondered if James Wohlmann really was Malaya’s father. The girl was young. Honorata could have been married, but that didn’t mean he was Malaya’s father.
“What did your father say when you emailed him?”
“He asked me for a photo. Of my mom.”
“And you sent it?”
“Yeah. And then he asked me if I was willing to do a test. To prove it. He sent me a kit, and then I sent it back to the company, with my blood and stuff.”
“So, you’re sure.”
“Yeah. He’s definitely my dad.”
“Did he know about you?”
“No. He didn’t even know my mom had a baby.”
“You were a big surprise.”
“Yeah. I guess so.”
“Does he have a family? Kids?”
“No.”
“You’re the only one?”
“Yes.”
Coral saw Tom walking toward them again, and he signaled her to meet him.
“Malaya, I see my friend Tom. I’m going to ask him if he knows anything. Okay?”
“Sure.”
“I see a cooler over there. I think you can probably have a Coke if you want it.”
“Okay.”
Coral walked to the back of the canopy and then over to the next yard, where Malaya could not see her talking with Tom.
“Tom, what’s going on?”
“We’re not sure. We think there’s a situation, and we’ve got a visual, but we haven’t seen a gun. Nobody seems to be being held.”
“Have you knocked on the door?”
“Not yet. That’s the next step. We called, and a man answered once, but he hung up pretty quickly. We’re just taking our time. No need kicking it up a notch too early.”
“It’s her father.”
“Yeah? What’s the story?”
“Malaya found her father online. He didn’t know she existed. He had her confirm it with tests, and then he told her he was coming to see her.”
“Okay. That’s helpful. Know anything about the relationship? With the mom?”
“Not much. They were married. She’s from the Philippines. He’s from Chicago. They came out here, and she hit a jackpot. Malaya says she won a million dollars. So I’m guessing that was the end of the marriage. And he never knew she was pregnant.”
Tom whistled.
“Yeah. That’s a bombshell.”
“Only in Vegas, right?”
Coral glanced over at Malaya, who was talking to a police officer who looked barely older than she was. “Any idea how long?”
“Not really. I mean, I’d like to talk to him on the phone first. Get a sense of the guy before I knock on the door. But if he won’t answer, that’s the next step.”
“You haven’t heard anything in there? Is something happening?”
“So 911 got a call. Couldn’t make out much, except some woman who said ‘gun’ and ‘man.’ We sent a patrol over, and he got a visual just from the neighbor’s yard. Two women. One man. No visible gun. No ropes. Looks like a tense conversation. It’s not a lot to go on. But your information helps.”
“The other woman is her grandmother. She lives with them.”
“I don’t think so. She’s young. Looks Hispanic. Maybe the housekeeper?”
“Oh.” Coral was surprised that Honorata had a housekeeper. “Well, I’ve seen someone get off the bus before. But the grandmother lives there too. You haven’t seen her?”
“No. Damn. I have to ask the girl about her. Where the grandmother’s room is. I don’t want to scare her, though.”