Rosa was wondering if she’d made a mistake. Cars were different from feet. Obviously. She was too removed from the ground. The car’s muffler was sort of broken, making huff-huff sounds. Being a cautious driver with only his recently acquired learner’s permit, Walter was diligent about using his turn signals, so in the background there were always these little click-clacks. The radio was on, playing the doo-wop oldies his mom liked. It was low-volume, but still. Rosa didn’t like those kinds of sounds.
“Why do you want to find this hyena so badly?” Walter asked.
“It might need my help.” Rosa was looking out the open window. She’d trained her eyes to see in the dark. She could make out distinctions in black shades and shapes and could tell a possum from a cat from a football field away.
“How can you help it?” Walter asked.
“I don’t know,” Rosa replied. “I’ll know when I find it.”
She’d had Walter drive her up and down the streets closest to her house first, and they’d fanned out from there. Closer to downtown, just a few streets away from hers, things were changing. Where, a few weeks ago, a small house had sat, there was now an empty lot. Where, a few weeks ago, an empty lot had sat, there was now a new, bigger house, or a small row of condos, or a bar with a cute, cursive neon sign above the door. Several of the houses that were still there had For Sale signs out front, even though those houses were occupied and Rosa could see lights on inside.
“I think it has something to do with my sister,” Rosa said. “The hyena, I mean.”
“Which sister?”
“Ana.”
“Oh. As in, her spirit?”
“Yes.” Rosa swiveled in her seat. “You think that makes sense?”
“I know a thing or two about spirits,” Walter replied. “I spend a lot of time in an old church, remember?”
Rosa turned again to face the window. “Father Mendoza spends a lot of time in an old church, too, but he hasn’t been particularly helpful or encouraging.”
“To clarify,” Walter said, “I spend a lot of time in the basements and abandoned rooms of an old church. I have a different perspective.”
Rosa smiled out into the night. Maybe, she thought, this trip wasn’t a mistake after all.
“Let’s try the park again,” she said.
Walter clicked on his turn signal.
For almost an hour, Rosa and Walter walked through Concepcion Park. The night wasn’t hot, but the air was thick. Rosa was sweating inside her rubber boots, and her dress was sticking to her skin. It turned out to be not a very good night for searching. There were too many distractions. People were out late, playing baseball under the harsh lights. Cars took up almost all of the spaces in the lots. Some of those cars had windows that were steamed up—or smoked up, Rosa couldn’t tell. Walter wasn’t a distraction, though. Sometimes he tagged along beside Rosa, and sometimes he went his own way. Whenever she looked, Rosa noticed a firefly flash above Walter’s right shoulder. She was sure this was a sign, a good omen. She needed a good omen.
“Are you scared?” Walter asked. “About your sister?”
“No,” Rosa replied. “I just want to know what she wants. Are you scared? Of the spirits in the church?”
“Oh yeah.” Walter laughed. “But not enough to quit my job, right? It’s funny. I sort of like being scared.”
Rosa didn’t think it was funny at all. She thought it was wonderful.
They were making their way across a field when Walter stopped and went into a crouch. He’d found something. Rosa squinted, but she couldn’t see what it was. Walter straightened, and there, pinched between his fingers, was the tiniest snail shell. It was a perfect coil, and without a single chip. As he turned it, its iridescence gleamed in the moonlight.
“Do you want this?” Walter asked, holding the shell out to Rosa.
“Yes,” Rosa replied.
She knew exactly where she’d keep it.
Iridian
(Saturday, June 15th)
On this night, when Iridian wrote, she was alone in a dark house. The first thing she did was turn the television back on so she could take comfort in the glow of other people’s fake lives, and the second thing she did was grab her new notebook. Using a blue pen Rosa had fetched from upstairs earlier, Iridian filled all the lines of the first page with two words: I’m sorry.
They were, of course, for Ana—for what Iridian had said a year and a week ago. Apologies and forgiveness were rare and did not come easy in the Torres house, because rarely did anyone deserve them.
Iridian hated emotions because the one she felt the most was shame. It never left, or when she thought it was gone, there it was again, like a hard tap on her shoulder or a sudden stomach cramp or the sound of her name being called when she was sure no one was around. Iridian knew she didn’t deserve forgiveness, but Ana deserved apologies. And Iridian would give them to her until her fingers bled. Ana would see them because she had eyes enough to read and then write on walls.
Jessica
(Saturday, June 15th)
After dropping John back at his house, Jessica sat in her car in her driveway. It was late, but she still didn’t want to go back into her complicated house. Remnants of the block party littered the street. A red plastic cup was wedged in the opening of a storm drain. Several napkins were half stuck to the asphalt, waving feebly in the dull breeze.
Jessica’s left arm was draped out her driver’s-side window, and she was tapping a beat on her car door. Across the street, the light was on in Hector’s bedroom, and she wondered if the boys knew she was out there. Finally, close to midnight, she saw Peter’s truck round the corner and pull to a stop in front of Hector’s. As Peter killed his engine and opened his door, Jessica whisper-shouted his name and climbed out of her car.
Peter stopped, his eyes narrowed. He looked up and down the darkened street and tossed his keys in his hand, as if he was testing their weight and was ready to use them as a weapon.
“It’s just me,” Jessica said. “I swear it.”
Peter came forward, and Jessica saw the short, neat cut between his left eye and his brow. Aside from that, the eye didn’t look so bad. It wasn’t swollen shut and oozing fluid, though the white part was shot through with streaks of red, like some capillaries had burst. She quickly scanned the rest of his face. The light from the street lamps was dim and hazy orange, but she couldn’t see any swelling at his jaw or bruising at his temple. Jessica wished he would smile one of his easy smiles so she could check if he’d chipped any teeth.
“Here to survey the damage?” Peter’s question was an icy snap in the warm night.