Do Not Become Alarmed(73)

“I know. You’ve been so brave. Just come talk to me.”

He moved to stand beside the bed, staring at the blanket. June, still sucking her thumb, watched him.

“Sweetheart,” she said. “Did anyone hurt you?”

“No,” he whispered.

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Everything.”

“Do you want to start at the beginning?”

June took her thumb out of her mouth. “I want my bunny!”

“Of course,” Nora said. “Where is it?”

“In Oscar’s backpack,” Marcus said.

“Is it a real bunny?”

June started to wail, a high, keening, mournful cry. “I want Oscar! I want my bunny!”

“Shhh,” Nora said. “Shhh. We’ll get the bunny. We’ll get him right away. I promise.”

June stuck her thumb back in her mouth like a plug, silencing her own crying.

Marcus said, “Something bad happened. Isabel went upstairs. At the house.”

Nora covered June’s ears with her hands, which was maybe pointless, but June let her do it. “Then what?” she whispered.

Marcus hesitated.

“Sweetheart?”

“Raúl went upstairs,” he whispered. “I should have st-st-st-st-stopped him.”

Nora had never heard Marcus stutter before. “That wasn’t your job, baby,” she said. “It wasn’t your fault. What did Hector do?”

June pushed Nora’s hands away from her ears. “What did you say?” she asked.

“I asked about Isabel’s brother,” Nora said. “Hector.”

They stared at her. “He wasn’t there,” June said.

“Where was he?”

“He swam back to you,” Marcus said.

“In the river?”

They nodded.

There was a commotion in the hall, a voice screaming, “I want my brother! Go find my brother!” Marcus recognized Isabel’s voice and his eyes widened.

“He swam back to you!” June said.

Raymond and his mother returned with orange trays of food. Nora felt her heart reach for her husband. She had not felt that way in such a long time. But she didn’t want to be alone on this strange planet. She wanted Raymond here with her, trying out the weird gravity, breathing the possibly poisonous air.





52.



OSCAR GAZED AT his mother’s lawyer, who’d turned up out of nowhere and told the doctors not to give him any pain medication. She said they needed to talk before he got all dopey. But his knee throbbed in a way he could see when he closed his eyes: a pulsing light. He’d been hobbling and running and carrying children since the car rolled over. He wished his sister were here, and not dead. Ofelia would’ve had great pills. He concentrated on the lawyer’s eyebrows, with all the hair plucked out. Why was the penciled line supposed to be an improvement?

“Did you see the Argentinian boy?” the lawyer asked.

“No.”

“Did the children talk about him?”

“Not that I remember.”

“Do you find that strange?”

How exactly was she defining strange? Raúl had shot at them from the Jeep, then had half his head scraped off. Oscar had jumped into a moving boxcar with five children and a bunny. No one had told him he was supposed to have six kids, not five. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think they thought he was with his parents.”

“You didn’t see his picture on the news?”

“No. I wasn’t watching the news.”

“And your mother didn’t tell you about him?”

“I think she was worried about the kids she had.”

“All right,” the lawyer said, making a note.

“So where is he?” he asked.

“That’s the question.”

“Did Sebastian get insulin? Is he okay?”

“He will be,” the lawyer said. “You’re accused of kidnapping, you know.”

He closed his eyes, his knee throbbing. “I didn’t kidnap the kids.”

“You did take them.”

“I was taking them to the embassy.”

“You chose a roundabout route.”

He opened his eyes. “I was trying to help them. I did the best I could.”

“By climbing on a freight train?”

“My knee hurt. The kids were so tired and hungry. How’s the little girl, Noemi?”

“She’s still in a fever.”

He didn’t know whether to tell the lawyer about Chuy, about Isabel killing Chuy. Should he tell her? Would they arrest Isabel?

But the lawyer had moved on. “A woman was murdered at the Herrera house,” she said. “The widow of the Colombian man whose grave the children found.”

“Jesus.”

“Your mother says Raúl shot her. And Raúl’s brother seems to have left the country.”

“I wish I could leave the country.”

“Don’t even think about it,” she said. “You don’t have his resources. There’s also the car theft for them to charge you with.”