“Whoa, whoa, what’s gotten into you?” Emiliano gives her a couple of little pats on the back. Then, when he manages to pull away, he asks, “Why have you been crying?”
“Who’s been crying?”
“You. Those purple puffy circles under your eyes.” Mami comes out of her bedroom, and Emiliano walks past Sara to give her his usual kiss on her forehead. “You’ve been crying too. What happened?”
“Do we have time to eat?” Mami asks Sara.
“Not much. We need to leave as soon as Ernesto comes.”
“I’ll make something. We can take it with us if we need to. Sit down with your brother and tell him everything.” Mami points at the kitchen table and then walks to the refrigerator.
“Tell me what? Where do we have to go?”
Sara pulls out a chair for Emiliano and waits for him to sit. Then she sits in the chair next to him. Emiliano’s face hardly ever reveals what he is feeling, but as she speaks, she can see the blood in his face slowly ebb away. She doesn’t know how long she talks. It could be five minutes or an hour. She reports all events and all conversations without any editorial comments or conclusions. When Mami puts two plates with eggs and beans in front of them, Emiliano ignores it and continues to listen without asking a single question. Now and then Sara can see his Adam’s apple move quickly, as if he’s having trouble swallowing the significance of her words.
“I’m sorry,” Sara says. “I’m so sorry for doing this to your life.” She puts her hand on Emiliano’s arm. He stares at the untouched food on his plate.
After a few moments of frozen silence, Mami speaks. “There is nothing to be sorry about. What you did had to be done. Do you agree, Emiliano?”
Emiliano pushes his plate away and exhales. He speaks with a sadness Sara has not heard in his voice since the day Papá’s divorce papers arrived at their house. “Do you think all of our lives are in danger?”
Sara answers as gently as she can. “I think we should all lay low for a couple of days. We’ll see what happens. All I know for sure is that it’s not safe for you and Mami to be in this house right now.”
She waits for him to reply, but Emiliano only stares at the plate of cold food.
“We’ll figure something out,” she says, trying to console him. “We should all go pack for a couple of days. I’ll call the woman that Alejandro Durand told me to call.”
He snaps his head upright and looks at her with a burning intensity she hasn’t seen before. He starts to say something and then stops himself.
“What?” Sara says.
Emiliano’s eyes are slowly turning red and his nose begins to run. Sara reaches for a napkin and hands it to him.
“Tell us,” Mami says softly.
He puts his elbows on the table and grabs his head. “What’s there to figure out? We can’t stay here anymore. You can’t work at El Sol. Mami can’t work at the bakery. Where are we going to live? What about my school?”
Sara wants to reach out and touch him, to tell him somehow that she understands all he’s losing, but there’s nothing she can say. She looks at Mami, hoping she might have words that can help her brother.
“Emiliano.” Mami’s voice is firm and strong. Whenever she uses that voice, Sara and Emiliano know that whatever she says is the final word on the subject. “What your sister did was right. Do you understand? I’m talking to you.” He lifts his head and looks at her. “What Sara did was what God wanted her to do. It’s what God would want you to do, or me if we were in her place. Whatever sacrifice we need to make, we make as one. Now we all need to go pack some things.”
Mami lifts herself slowly from the table. Emiliano and Sara stand as well. Sara gives Mami her arm and together they walk to Mami’s bedroom. Sara does not look at Emiliano. She’s afraid of the heartbreak she will see in his face.
At the door to her bedroom, Mami asks if Sara will lend her her phone. “I want to call my sister Tencha. She’s closer to God than anyone I know. She needs to pray for us.”
Sara brings her the phone and shows her Aunt Tencha’s number. “Just press that,” she tells her.
“Sara,” Mami says, grabbing her arm and pulling her back. “I’m proud of you.”
“Yes, Mami.” Sara kisses her mother’s forehead and closes the door. She takes a deep breath and returns to the kitchen, where Emiliano is standing over the sink, deep in thought. Sara puts her arm around his shoulders.
“We’re in this together, Emiliano, don’t forget. The one thing we have to do through all this is stay together. Right?”
“Right,” he says, not looking at her.
“Sit for a second.” She sits at the table, hoping he’ll do the same.
He rubs his eyes but stays standing. “I don’t want to lose all I have,” he says, exhaling.
Sara supposes that by “all,” he mostly means Perla Rubi. “Call her,” she says gently. “Tell her you won’t be in school for a couple of days, that you need to help your stupid sister who got some threats for something she wrote. Buy a little time. We need to figure out a way so all this doesn’t mean the end of your life as you know it.” He nods and smiles—a very small smile, but it’s something. Sara changes the subject. “What’s with the new transportation?” She points at the backyard.
“I’m expanding my folk art business. A friend loaned me the scooter.”
“Is this related to the fancy car you were driving last night?”
He turns to look at her with a how did you know expression.
“Mrs. Cardenas called Mami.”
“Kind of,” he says.
Sara has a bad feeling that his “kind of” is more complicated than he’s letting on. “Emiliano, maybe what’s happening is good for all of us, for you too, in a way that we can’t see at the moment.”
He reflects on her words for a few seconds. Finally, he says, “What’s Mami doing?”
“She’s calling Aunt Tencha, getting the prayers started. You know, of course, that the reason all this is happening to us is because you turned agnostic.” She smiles. The agnosticism is an old battle in their house.
“I’m about to start believing again,” Emiliano says, another small smile on his face. He stands. “I think I better call Perla Rubi.”
“And pack some things.”
“And pack some things. We’ll figure it out,” he says, touching the top of her head. She knows that’s Emiliano’s way of letting her know he still loves her. He walks into his room and closes the door behind him.
We’ll figure it out, we’ll figure it out, Sara repeats to herself.
What exactly they need to figure out, other than where and how to live the rest of their lives, she has no idea.
Emiliano closes the door to his room, leans back against a wall, and slides down to the floor. He feels as if someone snatched something precious from his grasp just as he was about to grab it.
Would he do what Sara did? It’s the right thing to do; it is. It’s just, why him? Why now? He spent hours last night thinking about the choice he had to make. He made the choice that was best for everyone, and he was at peace with it. Javier was on board. He sealed the deal with Armando not more than an hour ago. He rode the Vespa home, pushing it to 110 kilometers per hour, the wind whipping his face and the future open before him. And now? Why does he feel like the whole damn thing is unfair?