The Center of the World (24 page)

CHAPTER 40

 

K
ate didn't know that the fall from grace would be like dropping headlong into Carlsbad Caverns, bouncing off unforgiving rock, slick with years of stalactite untruths, never finding a foothold, just plummeting. Yet there was no denying the twelve years with Sofia, living as mother and daughter. Kate had never imagined the kind of love that grows with a child, that you would lay down your life for a child, that the joys and agonies would be so profound. Now this letter, this rupture sent via Martin.

For two days Sofia spoke only with her grandfather, who served as ambassador, or United Nations negotiator.

“Please inform Kate that I am not going to school today and that the school needs to be called,” Sofia said to Sam as he sipped his morning coffee. Kate was also in the kitchen. The lack of
mommy
or
mom
or any parental reference was noted, as intended.

“Sofia, I am right here! I can hear you—” said Kate. But before she had finished her sentence, Sofia turned her back and left the room.

Sam, caught in the minefield between his daughter and granddaughter, seemed to understand his role as the buffer zone. “She can't keep it up forever,” he said. “But there are times when I wish more than anything that your mother was here. I would much prefer to claim my male status as lawn care expert.”

Sofia would take no probing, no apologies, not anything from Kate. Sofia had taken a box cutter and excised Kate from her existence. Kate understood the primitive intent; she was being shunned. This was punishment.

On one level, the situation was preposterous. Sofia was fifteen, living in the family home, showering in the family shower, walking on the same floorboards and breathing the same sad air as Kate. The girl had to be exhausted by the effort and Kate longed to be the one to soothe her.

On day three, Kate waited for Sofia outside the bathroom door. The pipes clanged when Sofia turned off the shower. Kate knew Sofia's routine by heart: Rub her hair roughly with the towel, brush it out, pull on her running shorts, sports bra, and last year's soccer team shirt.

Maybe she shouldn't hijack her like this, lurking around the bathroom door. Maybe she should take the higher road and wait her out. But Kate wasn't going to last much longer. Her insides were collapsing. She felt like someone was dying, the way she felt when the police had come to her door to let her know that there had been an accident with Martin. Hadn't they lost enough loved ones already? Her heart squeezed until it hurt to breathe.

Sofia pulled open the door and jumped back a bit when faced with Kate. Her dark eyes widened in alarm, her face not yet hardened into the new version of scorn. Kate resisted the urge to step forward, to step back into their old world. She knew not to trap her any more than she already was by her own anger.

“Scream, hit, kick—go ahead,” said Kate. “But I know you want to ask me more things. I'll tell you anything. I promise not to spare you details, not the gruesome parts, not the parts where I was so afraid that I'm not even sure if I remember correctly. But I will not be shunned in my own home. And I won't let you hurt yourself by doing this.”

Sofia's face crumpled and Kate reached for her. Sofia pulled back and a sound rumbled up from her throat.

“No! Don't touch me. I don't believe you. I don't believe anything you say.”

Kate fell backward against the wall of the hallway and slid to the floor. Sofia raced for her bedroom. The air pressure in the house sucked outward as the front door opened and Sam announced, “Anyone home? Kate? Sofia?” He was trying to sound normal.

“Upstairs, Dad,” said Kate, rubbing the bridge of her nose.

The clomp of his size-eleven shoes echoed along the hallway and up the stairs. He stopped at the top of the staircase, one hand on the banister, eyeing Kate, who still sat on the floor.

“I see the morning isn't going so well,” he said. He walked to Kate, extended a hand, and pulled her up.

Kate wiped her eyes. She was surprised that any fluid remained in her tear ducts. “You might say that,” she said. Sam pulled her into a hug.

“Go to work. Sometimes work is the easiest part of life. After your mother died, sorting mail at the post office was the one thing that I knew I was good at. I could count on the mail arriving and leaving. I can't tell you how soothing it was. Go to work, Kate.”

She hadn't thought of going to work. For two days she had called in sick. She was torn between wanting to do something to bring Sofia back again and the relief of going to work.

Sam shook his head, as if he was reading her mind. “Don't worry. Sofia and I have a date to look for another bike. Give her some space. Go on, get dressed and go to work.”

Guilt and relief washed over her as she left the house. It was not until she pulled into the parking lot of the Fish and Wildlife office that her ribs uncurled enough that she could take a full breath. It was true what every flight attendant said before takeoff:
In the event of an emergency, place the oxygen mask over your face and then attend to your child.
Kate's oxygen mask just happened to be the wide expanse of the Connecticut River. As she hopped into her green truck, she knew she could at least take care of the river, and then her daughter.

 

Day four.

Kate was losing her, not to an oppressive military, not to a black market adoption market, but right here in her own house. Sofia had turned away.

After another night of sleeping in jagged bits, bookended by nightmares of Jenkins returning from the dead, Kate pulled on a T-shirt and sweat pants, went downstairs, and made a pot of coffee. She waited until seven a.m.

Normally Kate loved the morning, the sun cresting the hill of the farm across the way. Not today. Today she had to turn everything inside out, pull the soles of her feet up through her torso, scramble her brain around and let it drop to the floor.

She stood up from the kitchen table and shook her body like a water dog. She walked through the living room and up the stairs to Sofia's room. She knocked the polite, one-knuckle mother knock and opened the door.

Sofia was already at her computer desk, the blue light of the screen hitting the whites of her eyes in a ghastly glow. She switched off the screen as soon as she saw her mother.

Sofia struggled to rearrange her face into the new mask of scorn. She looked as if someone said to her,
Okay, now show me your mad face
.

Kate put up her hand and said, “Don't. This is what we are going to do. We are going to Guatemala. The peace accord was signed seven years ago. I'll take you to the village where you were born.”

Outside Sofia's window was a tall lilac bush, its spring flowers now just a memory. The wind took a sudden hold and screeched a branch along her windowpane. Two blue jays squabbled about territory with the neighborhood crows. The day was off to a rough start, not a soft day.

Sofia looked shocked. “How can I leave the country? I don't have a passport. What if my birth certificate isn't real?”

Sofia had been thinking about this.

“Your birth certificate is real. I mean, it's the only birth certificate you've ever had. You wouldn't have had one in Santa Teresa. No one did.”

Every mention of the village or Guatemala seemed to push them farther apart. This is not what Kate wanted, and it was exactly what she knew she had to do.

“I'm calling Vincent when his office opens. He doesn't specialize in immigration law, but he has a friend who does. If he can help us, he will. And you're going to school today. And soccer practice.”

This wobbly parental stand felt better, erecting some sort of boundary after the explosion of Martin's letter.

Sofia blinked hard. “What if—”

“No more what-if. You have fifteen minutes to get ready for the bus. And please eat some breakfast. I'll let you know what I find out when you come home.”

“Okay,” said Sofia in a small voice. Some tiny link between them was okay again, but it was as fragile as a spiderweb. Kate feared coming any closer in case she'd become entangled and destroy the filaments that hovered between them.

 

Day five.

Vincent's attorney buddy had trawled through every avenue of possibility. In the final analysis, she had said, “If the CIA had created documents of identity for a hypothetical child in another country and the child was legally adopted as shown on further documents, then those documents are as real as they get. These papers were created prior to the World Trade Center attacks, which also helps.”

Vincent gave the green light for requesting express service for passports, which would take five to seven days at a cost that made Kate cringe. She announced the Guatemalan plan to Sam at dinner time, over a large thin-crust pizza. Sofia had taken a plate to her room.

Sam dropped his slice. “Have you lost your mind? After everything you've told me about Guatemala, now you want to go back? It's dangerous. She's a child. She's my granddaughter. Don't I get any say in this at all? Martin would blow a gasket,” said Sam. He looked like a volcano ready to erupt.

“This is exactly what Martin expected me to do. If he were still alive, his bags would be packed and ready to go,” said Kate.

“Then I'm going with you.” Her father had not been out of the country since he returned from Vietnam. He had married, had a baby, and found a job at the post office. He often said to his family that leaving home was the last thing he ever wanted to do again. When Kate was a child, the three of them had camped in Vermont and New Hampshire and once in Acadia, off the coast of Maine. But Sam saw no reason to ever leave the United States until now.

Three passports arrived five days later. They would make an odd trio: one vet with moments of PTSD who hadn't dipped his toes beyond the border of the United States since the 1960s, a Massachusetts-raised Mayan girl, and Kate leading the group through her past.

P
ART
F
OUR

CHAPTER 41

“W
hat now?” said Sam.

The airport in Guatemala City was framed with dark corners, food vendors selling sandwiches, and a crush of men at the entrance all wanting to be their cabbie. But it also had a hum to it that Kate had not experienced. She felt the pulse of commerce, travel, freedom of movement, and something vibrant like hope.

It had been twelve years since Kate had been at this airport in 1991, and now she felt like a ghost. At any moment she'd see her younger self, gulping back tears with the small child in her arms, stunned by the image of Will in the airport window, the final threat from Jenkins.

“Now we go to Antigua,” said Kate. “Sofia, we're going out into that throng and I need to do a little bargaining to get a van out of the city. Wait with Grandpa.”

Had she lost her mind? Within two weeks she had gone from her isolated holding pattern, containing all the lies from long ago, to flying to Guatemala with her daughter and her father. Since Martin's letter to Sofia arrived, Kate had been buffeted by the extremes of relief and then full-out terror. A breeze might blow through her hair and she'd feel the weightless freedom of honesty lift her nearly off her feet. The burden of elaborate lies was no longer hers to hold. The next moment, she'd shatter from Sofia's icy glare, her hand brushed away from her daughter's arm.

What could they find here? For two days she had listened to Spanish tapes from the library to jumpstart what had never been a brilliant facility with the language. But she had gotten by.

Kate negotiated with a cabdriver and she waved Sam and Sofia over from the curb.

“We'll spend the night in Antigua and then head to the highlands tomorrow or the next day,” she said as the driver put their luggage into the back of the van.

Two of their flights had been canceled and rescheduled and they arrived far later than Kate planned. It would be 10 p.m. by the time they pulled into Antigua. They could at least catch their breath by sleeping in. Sam stood back until Sofia stepped into the van. Sofia headed straight for the back and put on headphones. Anything to block out Kate. Kate absorbed the intended slight and slid into the bench seat, followed by Sam.

Because it was dark, they could have been anywhere sitting in the back of the van. An hour later when the van turned abruptly to the right and she felt the familiar thump of cobblestones, Kate felt dread rise up to meet her with a skeletal grip. Would she see Will and his wife strolling about Antigua? Would she be able to look at him and pretend that she was glad for him? And she was happy for him; he deserved every happiness.

The van pulled over and stopped, hoisting the right wheels on the edge of the sidewalk. It was almost midnight. Her eyes burned, her stomach curdled from too much airline coffee. The old sense of dread of being in Antigua with Sofia found an easy access point and swept in like oily fog. The driver pulled their bags out while Kate rang a buzzer on the immense door. A sleepy night clerk slid open the viewing slate.

“We have a reservation. Malloy,” said Kate.

With each word that she spoke, her stale Spanish came back, jagged at first, hesitant, the language unlocked from a forbidden fortress. Sam and Sofia stood behind her as she took their room keys.

She was shocked at the relative ease of calling ahead to get a room. In 1990, finding a phone, never mind connecting to the United States, was nearly impossible. Now there were guidebooks to Guatemala. She selected a guesthouse several blocks from the central park.

Sofia insisted on separate rooms.

“We don't sleep in the same bedroom at home—why should we start now?”

After two weeks of being shunned by Sofia, Kate was still not accustomed to the hollowness of her new role. This was part of the new landscape with Sofia, part of pulling away with disdain, part of her rage. Kate felt each rejection, eye roll, and carefully aimed missile.

The rooms were on the ground floor, along a brown tile walkway, surrounding a garden. Even in the dim light, the bougainvillea stood out in their papery magenta glory. Sam walked the perimeter of the inner courtyard, an awkward show of bravado in a country that he knew nothing about, peeking into Sofia's room, then Kate's, then settling into his own like a Bernese mountain dog. Kate heard his familiar snore within minutes.

Refusing to give in to Sofia's emotional campaign, Kate said, “Goodnight. See you in the morning.”

Kate stood in the doorway of her room, waiting for something, a reply, a nod, a grunt, but Sofia closed her door in wordless reply. Kate wanted to kick something, punch a wall, scream, curse. She had all but groveled, explaining what she had done years ago, cried, apologized. Kate arranged the trip so that Sofia could see her homeland, seeking a nugget of connectedness.

She rolled her suitcase into her room and sat on the bed. She was done asking for forgiveness and imploring. Inside a well-guarded cavern of her chest, a flint was struck, catching fire, warming her. Clusters of light urged her spine long again. She stretched out on the bed, relaxed for the first time since Martin's terrible letter. There was a soft knock at her door and her stomach muscles contracted.

“Mommy?”

Sofia? Kate sat up. Was Kate Mommy again?

Kate opened the door. Sofia wore her sleepwear. No one seemed to wear pajamas anymore. She had on a tank top and jersey shorts.

“Can I come in?” She sounded like her daughter again. Kate was cautious, not ready to take another strike to the heart.

“Of course you can come in.”

Sofia sat on the bed, legs crossed. Kate sat next to her. “I just want you to know, I mean, thank you for bringing me here.” She reached across the bed and hugged Kate.

Kate was shocked at the sudden departure from aggrieved teenager to thankful daughter. But she took the moment, having been starved for connection with Sofia. Kate inhaled her daughter's essential fresh water scent beneath the shampoo and the conditioner.

“I want to sleep in tomorrow morning. Okay? You're the big early bird. Grandpa is too. But just let me sleep, please. I haven't slept for a couple of nights.”

Kate said yes, of course.