“Emiliano, I know you’re not serious. I know you don’t really want to hear me try to convince you. But …”
“But?”
“I’ll take the hour you give me. We’ll talk about it for an hour and then that will be it. I won’t mention it again during our trip.”
“But?”
“But there’s one condition.”
“What?”
“If I ask you a question, you have to tell me the truth. You need to follow the Jipari code of honesty for one hour. Can you do that?”
Emiliano stares long and hard at Sara. Why would Sara ask him that? She’s very clever, his sister. And when is he going to tell her that it’s his fault the men in the black car are after them?
Sara holds Emiliano’s gaze and restrains herself from saying anything. The fact that Emiliano is taking so long and thinking so hard about her request means she’s hit a nerve. He’s hiding something.
“Okay,” Emiliano finally says. “I will answer truthfully, whatever you ask.”
Sara closes her notebook. “Let me see, where do I start?” She needs to remember all she’s learned about interviewing people at El Sol. “Tell me about the party last Friday at Perla Rubi’s.”
The question takes Emiliano by surprise. He anticipated the first question would be Why do you hate Papá so much? “What does the party have to do with anything?”
“Something happened at that party. You were one Emiliano before and a different one after.”
“Nothing happened.”
“Emiliano. Remember. The truth.”
Emiliano reaches out and breaks a twig from the bush next to him. The shadow of gloom that passes over his face tells Sara that her instinct to start with the party was the right one. “Emiliano, not answering a question that needs to be answered is the same as not telling the truth. What happened at that party?”
“Does it really matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because whatever happened at that party is what you’ll be going back to when you return. I know your conscience is bothering you about something that happened to you that night. You wouldn’t have been up all night reading Papá’s letters otherwise. What’s the real story behind the Mercedes and the Vespa? What kind of life is waiting for you in Juárez? How did the men in the black car find us?”
Emiliano exhales, shakes his head. He’s got to hand it to Sara. She’s good. Why did he ever think he could hide the truth from her? A force inside him is pushing him to speak, if only to avoid the agonizing loneliness of the truth. And what is the truth? The truth seems so complicated and difficult to untangle. Or else the truth is so very simple: I told Perla Rubi where we were going to cross. She told her father and he told Hinojosa. Oh, and when I go back, I’ll be stuffing drugs in Javier’s piñatas.
That’s it. That’s all he has to say to Sara. A few words. Is it so hard?
“Tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“Something’s tearing you up inside. I can tell.”
He wants to speak. He wants to let his sister in. But if he does, if he tells her, then she will be burdened by worry and concern.
“You want to know what I think?” Sara says. “I think you’re torn between being who you really are and who Perla Rubi and her family want you to be. It doesn’t seem like the two are the same. You know, it’s possible to be in love with someone and realize that you can’t be happy with them.”
“You’re really going to give me advice on love?”
Sara blushes. It’s true. Her credentials in this area are not stellar. “I know a little.”
“Joel.”
“Yes, Joel. He and I were not meant to be more than good friends. We found that out pretty soon after we started dating and we were both grateful we did. But most of what I know about love and relationships, I learned from Mami.”
“Mami?”
“And Papá too, I guess.”
“Papá?” Emiliano chuckles.
“The two of them. They gradually came to understand and accept that even though they loved each other, neither one of them was happy with the other. Not truly and deeply happy, the way a man and wife should be. They saw life so differently. He wanted things she didn’t want and vice versa.”
“And he didn’t want things he should have wanted,” Emiliano says pointedly.
Sara ignores his remark. “They admired each other. I mean, they liked the qualities the other person had. Mami liked Papá’s energy, his drive and ambition, and his never wanting to be bored in a job, and Papá liked how solid and steadfast and calm Mami was. But the reality was that it was hard for them to be together day by day. I mean, it was hard for each of them to be themselves with each other. When they were together, they each had to pretend to be what they thought the other person wanted them to be.”
Sara stops to look at a neon lizard that crawled from a bush nearby. The lizard twists his neck for a better look at Emiliano. When the lizard scampers away, he says, “I heard Mami cry in her room the day the divorce papers came.”
“Yes,” Sara responds. She remembers Mami’s tears too. “Letting go of a person you love, even one who is not right for you, still hurts.”
What Emiliano is thinking but doesn’t say is this: A father doesn’t abandon his son … or his daughter. He has an obligation to make a marriage work, to keep the promises of a father, even if keeping the promises of a husband make him unhappy.
“It wasn’t just Papá who ended the marriage,” Sara continues. “They ended it together. Papá took the first step, yes, but Mami came to accept the decision as correct. At that point, the divorce became mutual. Mami now believes that what they felt for each other, as beautiful as it was, was not enough. She loved him so much. But she wanted him to be happy, so she let him go. And I think the same goes for how Papá feels about Mami.” She waits a few moments, then continues, “And you’re wrong about Papá not wanting the things he should have wanted. He loves you and wants to be with you. He always has. Someday you’ll need to find a way to forgive him for wanting to be happy. You would prefer he’d stay in Mexico and be some kind of martyr. So, anyway, that’s what I learned from Mami and Papá about loving someone. Whoever you love also has to be the right person for you.”
Emiliano has to keep his eyes away from Sara for a few seconds. He looks down toward the roots of the bush, searching for the lizard. Finally, he turns back to his sister. The look of anguish on her face reflects exactly what he’s feeling.
“It’s not just Perla Rubi,” he says. “It’s the world she lives in. It’s the world I wanted for all of us. I wanted Mami to not have to work anymore and for you not to take those stupid buses everyday. I don’t know if I can let go of that.”
Sara wishes she could find words of comfort. But there aren’t any words that will make Emiliano feel better. The only words he needs to hear are ones that will increase the hurt. But she must say them, because he is her brother, and telling him the truth is how she loves him.
“But there are conditions to living in that world, aren’t there?” she says softly. “It’s those conditions that are bothering you. It’s like it says in the Bible, ‘What use is it to gain the whole world if you lose your soul?’ ”