Thirty Nights (American Beauty #1)(119)

It takes a moment to sink in. Then she squeals in a way that is dangerous for eardrums and pulls me into a tight hug. We start jumping on the spot, breaking into a dance, until we run out of breath and simply hold each other.

Eventually, we skip arm in arm to my room so that I can pick up my passport and go back to Benson, who is waiting outside, looking rather tense.

“What about Javier? Can you sign after you see him?”

“I tried calling him, too, but he didn’t pick up. I’ll go there right after.” I start wondering whether I should tell her about the whole Feign mess but she yanks my elbow.

“What did you say?” Her voice is low, as though she heard blasphemy.

“I tried calling him. He’s probably working. What, Reagan?”

Reagan’s face drains of color.

“You don’t know.” Her whisper trembles and her hands start shaking.

“Know what?” But suddenly, I don’t want to hear her answer. My spine shivers and I want to cover my ears. She takes my hand.

“Isa.” She swallows hard. “They caught him.”

My body dissolves at her words. No ears left to puncture or heart to implode. Only my mind as it delivers a blow.

Are you Elisa Snow? Daughter of Peter and Clare Snow?… There’s been an accident…an accident…an accident…

“Isa!” Reagan’s arms break my fall. “Sweetie, how did you not know?”

Miss Snow?… No, catch her…her head… Miss Snow? Look at me… In the ambulance. Now… She’s bleeding.

“Isa? No! Look at me. Not that look. It’s not the same. Isa, listen to me.” Someone is shaking me. I try to see past the ambulance lights and the January night but the sirens blast a crack in reality. The shaking gets worse. Something sharp strikes across my cheek. The biting sting brings Reagan into focus, as I realize she just slapped me.

“Reagan!” I grip her soft hands.

“I know, sweetie. He was caught early Friday morning. Maria and I tried calling you at Aiden’s. He said you knew about it. How is that possible?”

Sirens blare. Red lights spin. Dark, light, dark… Reagan’s hands are a vise around my fingers. She repeats slowly. Friday morning. Aiden said we knew. Another sound joins the sirens. Aiden talking on the phone,“yes we know about it”. An earlier unknown phone call in the backyard. A 253 area code. Aiden’s answer as he darts away from me.

I have no senses left so whatever is still alive finds a sixth one. A sort of see-feel, more conscious than instinct and more subliminal than thought. It mutes the sirens.

“Reagan, where’s Javier right now?”

“At the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center. His bond hearing is at one thirty. I was just about to head over there. That’s why I was shocked you were here.”

“What is Tacoma’s area code?” Of all the questions that will never be answered, and the ones that will, this is the threshold that decides my next step. Did Aiden really know and why did he lie?

“Two five three,” Reagan reads from her phone.

The room tilts and the sirens wail again. I dial Javier from Reagan’s phone, hoping against all evidence that this is all a mistake. A huge, terrible mistake.

You’ve reached Harvey. Leave a message.

“Maria said they take away their phones.” Reagan’s voice is hushed as she caresses my hair.

“They get one phone call when they’re caught. Sometimes, a second if they can’t get through.”

“That’s all?” Reagan’s horror doesn’t touch me. I’ve lived this reality for four years.“What about lawyers? Visitation rights?”

“No right to a lawyer. Undocumented families can’t visit because they’re afraid they’ll get deported.” Of course, ICE doesn’t tell them that. This is communal wisdom from broken families.

“So he’s all alone? That’s why Maria can’t go to the hearing?” Reagan covers her mouth with her hand.

“He’s alone.”

The words erase my bedroom. A sterile endless corridor reeking of ethanol, formaldehyde and something putrid stretches before me.

You can’t see them, Miss Snow…stop her…she hit her head on the pavement, fainted.

“Is it like jail?”

“Yes.”

“But it’s not a crime.” Reagan has no volume. Her face is white and her lips thin.

“I know.”

“What are the conditions like?”

I shake my head. Should she know the stories? Suddenly, although she’s holding me, I’m protecting her. She’ll see the dark soon enough. I grip her hand as I ring Casa Solis.

Maria answers but she doesn’t sound like Maria. Her voice is a shadow of sound too ephemeral to be called a whisper. “?Amorcita! You in Tacoma? Tell him I’m there corazón y alma. Tell him I’ll set a plate at dinner every night.”

“I’ll tell him, Maria. Did someone turn him in?” Is this the DOJ? Feign? But why?

“I don’t know. The guard said they were waiting down the street around six in the morning as he headed to work.”

Someone must have reported him. That’s too exact a time and location for ICE to be there accidentally. “And the girls?”