Louis was quiet.
“I met Emilio del Bosque at the grocery store. I was only fifteen. He offered me a candy bar. I was afraid to take it because I figured he wanted sex in return.”
“Mrs. del Bosque —- ” Louis began.
“Let me finish. We met every week for six weeks. He would buy me sandwiches and sodas, things I couldn’t afford. He never asked a thing of me, not once.” Emma took a breath, looking at the other two women.
Paula was staring at the table, and Cindy had her eyes closed.
Emma looked back at Louis. “Then one day he took me to the island for lunch. His brother Edmundo, his uncle Alfonso, Ana, they were all kind to me. They had something...something I never knew existed. They had family, love, traditions. They were normal.”
Emma paused again, glancing back at Paula. “When Emilio said it was time for me to go home I begged him to let me stay. I told him I would do anything he wanted. I was sixteen when we were married.”
Louis put a hand to his brow.
“A year or so later, I gave birth to Carlos,” Emma went on. “Emilio was so proud and for a few years we were really happy. Emilio and his brother opened the restaurant and we had money coming in. We had everything we needed there on the island and life was good.”
Emma paused. “Then I became pregnant again,” she said. “When the time came, Abuela Ana took me to the birthing house and I had a little girl. I heard her cry but Ana told me later she just stopped breathing. For months, I cried. Then one day Emilio told me he couldn’t stand my tears anymore and he told me that our baby had been smothered.”
Emma paused again. Her face was empty, her eyes still dry.
“I was only told that was the way it was done,” she said. “To this day, I don’t know why.”
“When you get back to the island ask Frank,” Louis said. “He knows.”
Emma blinked in surprise and glanced at the other women. “He knows? Is that why he took Sophie away?”
“Like I said, ask him,” Louis said.
The scrape of a chair made Louis look at Cindy. She had gone to stand at the window, her back to them. Emma watched her, her expression suddenly tender, almost maternal. Then she turned back to Louis.
“You probably want to know why we didn’t leave,” Emma said. “I thought about it. We all did at one point. But there was nowhere to go. I had a son and a husband. Where was I going to go?”
Louis heard Cindy crying softly.
“When you finally have something good,” Emma said, “when you finally feel connected to someone, you’ll do anything to keep from being alone again.”
Louis shook his head.
“I know you want us to somehow pay,” Emma said. “My husband and son are dead. Paula’s son, Tomas, is dead. The only thing I have left is my grandson, Roberto, and he isn’t coming back.” She paused. “How much more do you want to punish us?”
Louis felt a pull in his chest, and it bothered him because it felt like a pang of sympathy and they didn’t deserve his sympathy.
“I need to ask you something now,” Emma said. She was looking straight into his eyes. “What would you have done?”
Suddenly, he wanted out of here. He didn’t want to deal with the women, their pathetic stories or their dead children. He rose and went to the door.
“I answered your questions,” Emma said. “I think you should answer mine. What would you have done?”
Louis looked at the other two women. Cindy was staring out the window. Paula’s head was down, her cheeks streaked with tears.
“I can’t put myself in your place,” Louis said. “I’m sorry.”
He left, closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER 54
Louis leaned back against the closed door and let out a long, slow breath then he started down the hall. At the top of the stairs, he stopped.
At the bottom was a heavyset woman dressed in a dark blue suit, carrying a briefcase. She had Roberto by the hand. His head was down as he trudged up the stairs, a half step behind her.
“Come on, Robert,” she said, “we don’t have all day.”
The boy’s eyes shot to her face. “It’s Roberto.”
Someone had found him some clean clothes -- jeans, a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles T-shirt and new Nikes. He looked stunned, like someone wandering alone in a foreign country where he couldn’t understand the language.
Halfway up the stairs, Roberto spotted Louis and froze. His dark eyes were locked on Louis and in them Louis could read all the questions: Why am I here? Why is my father dead? What’s going to happen to me? Why did you do this to me?
The woman started tugging his hand again, pulling him up the remaining steps. Louis stepped aside to let them pass, and Roberto shuffled by him silently.