Thirty-One
Fulgencio Ramirez had never been woken up by anyone other than his mother. And that had been a rare childhood occurrence at 1448 Garfield. No, no señor. He was always first to rise, except for maybe El Chotay, who would often sit out in the pickup with coffee and donuts, waiting for Fulgencio to emerge from his hut in the wee hours of the rising day. But that fateful morning in Houston, Carolina roused him with an eager phone call. She was ready to go.
After a quick breakfast, over which Fulgencio recounted his vivid dream to a rapt Carolina, they headed to the County Records Depository.
In the car on the way to their destination, Carolina wondered, “What if the Paloma you dreamt is our daughter, Fully?”
“That’s what it felt like, but our daughter would be a grown woman by now,” he reasoned. “It doesn’t make sense. It felt so real,” he murmured, cautiously navigating the dense Houston traffic.
“Maybe we’ve gotten our hopes up too high,” Carolina worried.
Fulgencio frowned. The last thing he wanted to do was inflict more disappointment and pain on Carolina.
As they approached the low-slung, beige-colored governmental building, Carolina asked, “How are we going to gain access to those records?”
“Leave this one to me,” Fulgencio answered, a determined expression steeling his face.
The front desk guard, a handsome African-American man in uniform, scrutinized them as they approached, all clad in black, Fulgencio brooding beneath his black Stetson.
“Y’all ain’t from around these parts, are ya?” The guard smiled broadly.
“Not at all, sir,” Fulgencio answered, firmly shaking his hand. “We’ve come a long way.” Longer and farther than the man could imagine, Fulgencio thought to himself.
“How can I be of help then?”
“My wife and I are searching from some adoption records,” Fulgencio replied.
The guard’s eyes shifted to Carolina, who smiled back at him.
“Y’all can find those on the second floor, all the way to the end of the hall. Talk to Mercedes. Tell her Henry sent you up. But unless you have some sort of order from a judge, you and your lovely lady might be plain outta luck.”
“Thank you for the information, Henry. Don’t you worry, sir. We’ve got justice on our side,” Fulgencio winked back as the guard watched them head up the stairs.
“We’ll never make it past this next gatekeeper,” Carolina whispered nervously as they approached a high counter at the end of the sterile corridor.
“Have a little faith, amor,” Fulgencio squeezed her hand.
They waited at the vacant counter for a couple of minutes until a middle-aged woman with gray hair and stylish black glasses appeared from behind a row of shelves crammed with files. The tag on her blouse announced her name as “Mercedes Treviño.”
“Señora Treviño,” Fulgencio spoke in Spanish.
“Señorita,” Mercedes corrected him.
Fulgencio glanced sideways at Carolina, cocking an eyebrow mischievously. “Señorita Treviño, we come on behalf of Henry downstairs. He sends you this . . .” Reaching into his coat pocket he produced a red rose. “. . . and he asks that you come talk to him.”
Beaming, Mercedes removed her eyeglasses. In a moment, she seemed transformed, as if she had spontaneously shed ten years due to the pleasant surprise.
Taking the rose from Fulgencio’s hand, she quickly maneuvered around the counter, smiling back at them as she fixed her hair. “And who are you?”
“Somos mensajeros del amor,” Fulgencio answered. “Buena suerte.”
“I’ll be right back,” Mercedes promised. “Do you mind waiting?”
“Not at all.” Fulgencio smiled. “Take your time.”
As she vanished around a corner, Fulgencio and Carolina swept past the desk and ran down a metal staircase.
“How’d you manage that little miracle?” Carolina asked as they descended deep into the bowels of the adoption records.
“A magician never reveals his secrets,” Fulgencio grinned, pulling her along.
Organized like stacks in a library, each shelf was numbered by year. It was not long before they found 1962. From there, the files were categorized alphabetically according to mothers’ names. Moving hastily, they scanned the archives until they found her name.
In a dank aisle lined by towering shelves bursting with dust-laden files, they rifled through the yellowed papers in the manila folder.
“There!” Carolina exclaimed, pointing at the typed names of the adoptive parents. “Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Johnson,” she read slowly in the dim light. “Here’s the address. But what if they don’t live there anymore? It’s been a very long time.”
Fulgencio scribbled it down on a piece of folder and tore it off, replying, “One step at a time.”
“This is very illegal,” she whispered, stuffing the file back into its place.
“I make my own law,” Fulgencio answered as they hurried toward the staircase.
“Still as dramatic as ever.”
As they neared the stairs, they heard voices approaching, a man and a woman.
“It’s Mercedes and Henry,” Carolina hissed.
“They make a good couple,” Fulgencio whispered, grabbing her hand and pulling her in the opposite direction.
“Where are we going?” she asked as they broke into a run.
He pointed at the end of the stacks to a red exit sign.
“Hello? Is there anyone down here?” Henry called.
As they reached the exit, Carolina pointed at a sign next to the door. It read, “Open only in case of emergency.”
“I think this qualifies.” Fulgencio gritted his teeth, pushing the metal bar across the door open.
Fire alarms rang inside the building as Fulgencio and Carolina stepped out into the blinding sun.
***
Robert Johnson squinted as the bright light of day poured in through the door to his home in a featureless subdivision on the outskirts of Houston. He was an elderly man, grayed and stooped by his age. It took him a moment to focus his eyes. But as his faded wife hobbled to his side, an expression of recognition spread across their raisined faces. They smiled knowingly at the couple standing on their doorstep. The large man in the Stetson hat with a mustache. The slender woman with the golden curls and eyes to match. Their hands clasped together, knuckle-white.
“Come on in, chil’ren,” Mrs. Johnson coughed. “We’ve been waitin’ for y’all.”