The Book of Unknown Americans(67)

I was quiet, catching sight of the flakes and then losing them again, feeling myself burrow further into fear. Where was she? I didn’t want to think what I was thinking. Had that boy come for her again? Had he taken her somewhere? And what was he doing to her if he had? I felt it, then, the full weight of my terror. I felt it low and round in my belly, thin and quivering through my chest. An anguished sound escaped my lips.

“Alma!” Celia said, startled.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have to relax. I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe the bus is stuck in traffic.”

I nodded, unconvinced.

And then the two of us just stood there until finally Celia dropped her shoulders and looked at me with sympathy. “Come inside,” she said.

“I thought you were on your way out.”

“Come inside,” she said again, “I’ll make coffee. We’ll wait for her together.”

Once we were in the apartment, Celia tried to call Mayor, but she only got his voice mail. “He must have turned his phone off in the movie,” she said. “He’ll check it when he comes out.”

I sat on the couch and stared through the window at the white sky, the empty parking lot, the faded asphalt, while Celia brewed a pot of coffee. I forced myself to imagine scenarios in which Maribel was fine: She was sitting on the bus, twisting her hair between her fingers, staring out the window at the traffic on the street; she was asleep in the bus seat, oblivious to the delay; she was only a block from our apartment, pulling her backpack onto her shoulders, preparing to get off. I said to myself: You didn’t have a bad feeling before the accident, and then she wasn’t fine. Maybe because you have a bad feeling now, it means she is fine. I didn’t care that it made no sense.

“I need to call Arturo,” I said suddenly, reaching for the phone in my coat pocket. But when I looked at it, the screen was black, out of minutes. How long had it been like that? I dropped the phone back in my pocket and asked Celia if I could use her house line instead.

“Of course,” she said, handing me the receiver.

“Bueno,” Arturo said when he answered. He was out, as he had been for forever it seemed, still looking for a job.

“It’s me, Arturo. You need to come home,” I said.

“Why? What happened?”

“It’s Maribel.”

“What happened?” he said again.

“She didn’t come home from school.”

“What do you mean? Did you call the school?”

I was embarrassed to realize that I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to admit it to him now.

“Come home, Arturo. Please.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

I did call the school as soon as we hung up, but no one answered, and when I passed the phone to Celia so that she could listen to the recording that started playing, she reported that it simply gave the school hours and said that there were no after-school programs that day. I thought of calling Phyllis, too, but her number was in my dead cell phone.

By the time Arturo arrived, not more than ten minutes later, I was pacing outside, knotted with worry, every knot pulled so tight that it had begun to fray. The snow fell lightly, like weightless kisses, although I barely noticed it. I ran to him as soon as I saw him. His face clouded and he put his hands on my shoulders.

“Her bus didn’t come,” I said. My lips felt numb, but not because of the cold.

“Was there an accident?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you call the police?”

“The police?”

“She was supposed to be home half an hour ago! Who knows what could have happened?”

“I didn’t know if I was allowed—”

“To call the police? Why?”

I stared at him. I didn’t want to say.

“Alma! Use your head! Let them deport us if they want.”

He stormed past me, toward our apartment.

“Arturo!” I yelled after him.

He stopped and turned.

“I need to tell you something.” Tears were forming in my eyes, but I had to say it. I had no choice now. What did it matter, my instinct to protect him, my misguided idea that somehow by keeping all of this from him, I could prove that I was capable, I could prove that I could take care of our daughter even though I had failed her so terribly before? If she was missing, what did any of it matter?

“There’s a boy …”

Arturo looked like he was annoyed that I was changing the subject. “What are you talking about?”

“He lives in Capitol Oaks.”

“Who?”

“You saw him. A long time ago when we went to the gas station. He was there.”

“Who was there?”

“I don’t know his name. But he came here one day.”

Arturo shook his head as if he were giving up on trying to understand me.

“I found him with her,” I said, and pointed to the side of the building. “Over there. I think he’d been after her since the beginning. He had her against the wall.”

A darkness settled over Arturo’s face. “What do you mean? What was he doing?”

“He had her shirt up.”

“When?”

I didn’t answer.