Do Not Become Alarmed(72)

Isabel’s throat seemed to be closing up again. “I was so afraid.”

The detective nodded.

There was a pounding on the bathroom door. “Isabel?” her father’s voice called. “Are you in there?”

“Mija!” her mother’s voice said.

Isabel remembered Marcus whispering in her ear, his hot breath. He’d said they didn’t have to tell. They didn’t have to say anything about the man in the woods, from the train, or what had happened to him.

The door was shoved open from the other side, and her father was in the women’s bathroom, then her mother.

“Mami!” Isabel said. She fell into her mother’s arms.

“I’m taking my children home, right now,” her father said.

“We just have a few questions,” the detective said.

Her mother held Isabel by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Isabel,” she said. “Where’s your brother?”

“He’s not with you?” Isabel said.

“Where’s our son?” her father asked. “Where’s Hector?”

“That’s one of the questions I’m trying to answer,” the detective said.

“He swam back,” Isabel said. “He swam back to find you!”

There was a stunned silence.

“Hector!” her mother cried.

Detective Rivera was already on her phone in the hallway, holding her hand over her other ear. Isabel heard a low moaning and realized it was coming from her body. The social worker tried to guide them into a room with blue plastic chairs and stuffed animals.

“No!” Isabel cried. “I won’t go in there! I want my brother!”

No one had done anything to help, from the very beginning. They hadn’t found her, they hadn’t saved her. They hadn’t found Hector.

“Stop looking at me like that!” she screamed at the social worker. She kept thinking of Hector directing the game on the inner tubes, Hector swimming away for help. How many days ago had that been? Five? Six? “Go find my brother!” she screamed.





51.



A YOUNG DOCTOR who introduced himself as Dr. Patel told Nora she was dehydrated and in shock. He wanted to put her on IV fluids. But she was not letting them put anything into her body, not after what they’d done to Sebastian. She locked her hands over her elbows in the hospital bed. “You’re not putting any needles in me.”

“You need fluid.”

“I’ll drink water. I’m fine. I fainted because I’m allergic to medical error. I want to see my kids.”

“We have to treat your head.”

She seemed to have split her forehead when she hit the floor. Or had she hit the bench? She wasn’t sure. She reached for it.

“Please don’t touch the wound,” the doctor said.

“How’s Sebastian?” she asked. “The kid you almost killed?”

Dr. Patel frowned. “He’s much better.”

A nurse came to dress her head and brought Nora an electrolyte drink. “Donde están mis ni?os?” Nora asked her. The nurse said they were coming.

And then, like something from a dream, Raymond steered Marcus into the room. Dianne was carrying June, who dived to the bed and latched on to Nora’s side. Nora felt joy knocking her senseless.

“Don’t cry, Mama,” June said.

“I can’t help it,” she said, laughing. “I’m so happy.”

June’s braids were coming undone. They both wore strange, ill-fitting clothes. Had Penny looked like this when she arrived? Had she been cleaned up before Nora saw her? She’d seemed so sleek and triumphant, where Marcus and June were a mess. Marcus wouldn’t come close to the bed.

“What happened?” he asked, his eyes on the bandage on her forehead.

“I bumped my head, that’s all,” she said. “Come here. I’m so happy to see you.”

Marcus accepted a quick hug, then slipped away to pace the room. June remained at Nora’s side, sucking her thumb—a habit she had given up years ago—and curling a lock of loose hair around her finger. Nora would have gently dislodged the thumb under normal circumstances. They’d been gone for six days and she felt as if she’d woken up on a strange planet. She wasn’t sure it had breathable air.

Marcus circled the periphery of the room with his elbow bent, his fingers tracing the molding, the doorjamb, the glossy paint. “I’m hungry,” he said, his eyes sliding to his grandmother.

“All right,” Dianne said. “I’ll go get some food.”

“Can you go with her?” Marcus asked his father.

“I’d rather stay here,” Raymond said.

“We’re okay,” Marcus said.

“I know,” Raymond said.

“You don’t have to worry,” Marcus said.

Raymond gave Nora a look over their son’s head, but she remembered that the detective said sometimes it was easier for children to talk to their mothers first. “Come right back,” she told him.

Raymond reluctantly followed his mother out the door.

“C’mere, baby,” Nora said, patting the bed. “Talk to me.”

“I’m not a baby,” Marcus said.