chapter 16 AGUARDIENTE.

Bruce was standing in the lobby of Caracol when he heard a van pull up to the carport. He walked over to a stained-gla.s.s window and looked out, sighing with relief at the sight of his daughter. Sylvia told him that they had gone to a village festival, but Bruce didn't like the idea of those two running around El Salvador unescorted, for a variety of reasons, only one of which was safety. Will could barely take his eyes off Monica, and she had been uncharacteristically guarded lately. As much as he liked and perhaps even admired Will Lucero, he didn't want to see his daughter ensnared in a dead-end relationship with him. Perhaps, as a father, he was jumping the gun by worrying about the possibility of romance between those two, but he figured it was his parental right. Will's load of emotional and financial baggage was simply unacceptable.

Bruce looked at his watch. The two had been gone for four hours. Not such a long time, really, but he knew that one could change the course of one's life in less than five minutes. He frowned as they walked in.

"Hi, Daddy," Monica said, looking surprised to see him as she walked in the entrance of the lobby. (When was the last time she had called him "Daddy"?) "Sorry I didn't catch you before I left-we just had to get out of here," Monica said, cinching her fingers around her neck. "Will's gonna ask Sylvia to get ready for dinner. The driver will take us somewhere to eat, then he'll drop us off at the guesthouse and return Sylvia back here. Sound okay with you?"

Bruce nodded, his mood lightening at the mention of food. "I'm tired of pupusas pupusas every night. I heard there's a nice little seafood place down the way." every night. I heard there's a nice little seafood place down the way."

"Back in about twenty," Will called out as he disappeared in the direction of the infirmary.

Bruce turned to his daughter and said, "So where was this festival?"

Monica gave him a long look, took his arm, and tugged, leading him outside. "We have to talk," she whispered. "Let's go out on the beach."

They flung their shoes onto the empty sunning patio and headed out to the wide, empty strip of beach. Bruce felt a tightening in his diaphragm, so he took a deep breath to dislodge his tension. He tipped his head from side to side, making an audible crunching sound as he tried to loosen the tightness around his neck. "I'm due for a neck ma.s.sage," he said, looking for an excuse to delay a discussion that for some reason he was already instinctively dreading. "You've been neglecting your old man."

"Then sit," she said.

The words hadn't left her mouth before Bruce plopped himself down on the sand and took his shirt off, bowing his head forward in antic.i.p.ation of a ma.s.sage. As Monica began to rub his neck, he marveled, as he always did, at her talent for such a thing. She truly had a gift for healing. It felt as if she were plucking tightly strung strips of muscle, like guitar chords- there was pain, release, then a music-like rush of blood flooding the soreness. Pain, release, rush. Pain, release, rush. Ah, she was an artist.

"I'm so glad I sent you to college to study therapy," he mumbled. "Well worth it."

Ten minutes later, when she had relaxed the fierce grip that his sore muscles had on his withering skeleton, she said, "Now lie flat on the sand." He obeyed. She sat down next to him, her legs folded. She faced the water. He was waiting for some kind of bonus scalp or shoulder ma.s.sage. After a moment, he looked up and saw that her eyes were closed.

"Is that it?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"So what did you want to tell me?"

Monica opened her eyes. She pursed her lips and looked down at her hands for a moment before she spoke. "I didn't go to a festival today, Dad. I visited Francisca Campos." She took a deep breath and said, softly, "Mom's not dead." She opened her eyes and looked at him. They stared at each other for a moment. "Did you know this?"

He looked away, not having a clue what words should be coming out of his mouth. He was glad to be lying down. "No," he said finally. "I know no such thing."

"I asked Paige to do some research on a seash.e.l.l discovery, an uninteresting little murex found off the coast of Costa Rica last year. The discoverer was listed as 'Borrero.' Paige followed the trail of professional memberships and found an Alma Borrero, born in 1949, now a marine biologist working for the University of Costa Rica. Francisca just confirmed it, Mom's alive."

He sat up and said, "That's ridiculous," even as the idea was already settling into his bones, fizzing up like a hard, white tablet plunked into his bloodstream. Alma had told him, the first time he'd ever been to Negrarena, that she both loathed and craved her parents' moneyed world. She had said that she wished she could start anew somewhere else, somewhere where she wasn't a Borrero and where she wasn't expected to be someone she wasn't and would never be. And if Francisca said Alma was alive, then it was true.

"Dad, you never buried a body."

He took a deep breath. "I don't even know what to say, Monica. All I can say is that I need proof. Besides, why would she ...?" His voice trailed off, the sentence severed by the weight of the questions bearing down. He pulled himself up and sat next to Monica, keeping his eyes focused on one house in the distance, with its giant slanted roof. A bird, brown with a white breast, landed a few feet away on the sand and looked at them as if fascinated by their conversation.

Monica said, "If you made her go away, let's say by reporting her and Max to the militates militates &" She turned and looked at him, and it took him a moment to understand that this was in fact a question. He felt a sickness rising in his stomach, a tiny spot, shiny and round like a black olive, gleaming and burning in the sponginess of his entrails. &" She turned and looked at him, and it took him a moment to understand that this was in fact a question. He felt a sickness rising in his stomach, a tiny spot, shiny and round like a black olive, gleaming and burning in the sponginess of his entrails.

He didn't have a chance to process his answer. She dove upon him in a fierce embrace, a gesture so sudden and unexpected that she knocked him off-balance and he had to put an arm out to support his torso. He opened his arms-the great, broken wings of a raven, flimsy shields of armor that encircled his daughter's shoulders. "I didn't turn them into the militares militares, Monica," he said. "That would have been murder."

Monica dug at the sand with a finger. "Then she just left us?" She looked at him, and he saw that her eyes were filling with tears, begging him to come up with a plausible excuse for her mother.

"If it's true she's alive, then, yes, Monica, she just left us."

The bird cawed as if in response and continued to watch them. "She didn't love us, then," Monica whispered.

Bruce grabbed her shoulder and looked into the eyes that were so like his own. "She loved you you."

"Not enough," Monica said, pretending to smile. She wiped her tears and hopped onto her feet, folding her arms at her chest. Will appeared in the distance. "We're over here," she shouted, then turned to Bruce. "Will knows. And now he has a stake in finding Mom because Francisca told us that Mom is trying to shut down Caracol." She pointed behind her, toward the building. "I'm starting to think that everyone in that clinic is in danger."

THE RESTAURANT was up on a second story, built on stilts over an inlet of water. It was rustic, with wood picnic tables and benches. Beefy, torpid black flies circled the colorful plastic baskets of food left behind at another table. The sole decoration was a hand-painted map of El Salvador on the far wall. was up on a second story, built on stilts over an inlet of water. It was rustic, with wood picnic tables and benches. Beefy, torpid black flies circled the colorful plastic baskets of food left behind at another table. The sole decoration was a hand-painted map of El Salvador on the far wall.

Will, Monica, and Bruce picked at their grilled red snapper. Will draped a paper napkin over his fish head because, he said, he couldn't "perform surgery with the patient staring back." Sylvia, on the other hand, ate with the delicate, methodical appet.i.te of a cat, pulling up the spine structure like the separator in a metal ice-cube tray.

"Two patients were aroused out of their comas in the last week," Sylvia announced cheerfully. "One of them is a questionable success-a young woman who was already reacting to music and voices when she was admitted. But the other was out cold for a year."

"How did the treatment go this morning?" Bruce asked.

"Incredible," Sylvia said, smiling and opening her eyes wide. "Yvettte's Glasgow score has gone up two points."

Will put down his fork and cleared his throat. "We're suspending the treatments and starting the arrangements to take her home. I have reason to believe-"

"We're not suspending anything," Sylvia said, chuckling falsely. "I'm not going to listen to rumors. The treatment is working." She thumped her index finger down on the table. "Working, working, working."

"A man staying at the inn told us one patient woke up a raving lunatic," Will said, his face bright red. "Is that what you want? To trade one altered state for another? Better to let her body continue to reconstruct itself naturally. That place is really beginning to scare me."

"We heard some bad things about it today," Monica said, looking at Sylvia. "Maybe it's prudent to hold off until we know more."

"And how long do you think I can afford to stay here?" Sylvia snapped back. "I have bills stacking up back home. It's now or never." She put down her fork and looked at Will defiantly.

"I'm not backing down."

Will closed his eyes and looked away, apparently counting silently. After ten seconds he turned and looked at his mother-in-law. "Sylvia, it's not your decision to make."

Bruce and Monica shared a worried look.

"I have the airline tickets," Sylvia said softly. "Unless you have five thousand dollars in your pocket ..."

"We're gambling with Yvette's health," Will said. "Dr. Mendez is playing with people's lives. If the enterprise fails, there are no consequences, no accountability. The patients die or go crazy, oh, well. Dr. Mendez doesn't have to worry about being sued in this country because she's not doing anything illegal. And no consequences means the freedom and ability to take high medical risks for high rewards."

Sylvia slurped her bottled water, avoiding Will's gaze.

There was a moment when no one spoke, and Monica guessed they were all too emotionally exhausted to argue any more. "Did they hire a new therapist yet?" Monica asked, trying to redirect the conversation.

"Not yet, darling," Sylvia said, patting Monica's hand. "G.o.d will repay you for your hard work. They don't need to be ma.s.saged every day. Every other day is fine. And if you're really tired, you can ma.s.sage just Yvette." Sylvia quickly glanced at Will, or rather, at his neck, and said, "Yvette knows when you're in the room. Maybe you should spend the nights with her at Caracol. I can go stay at the guesthouse with Monica. Will, you can take my bed." In a low voice she said, "I'm sure Yvette would appreciate some attention from her husband." And with that, she cut the head off her red snapper and got back to eating its delicate white flesh.

Bruce looked at Will, who was staring unhappily out at the water, looking trapped.

Without looking up, Sylvia said, "So shall we make the swap tonight?"

Monica stole a glance at Will for a second, then she quickly returned to the task of stirring her Cola Champan with a straw, as if cream soda needed to be stirred.

"Maybe tomorrow night," he mumbled.

"It's a great idea, Sylvia," Bruce said, suddenly recognizing the benefits of her plan. "I don't know why we didn't think of it before."

AFTER DINNER, Monica sat with her father in the hallway facing the courtyard. "Leticia," Monica said, "was Maximiliano's wife. Did you pick up on that?" Monica sat with her father in the hallway facing the courtyard. "Leticia," Monica said, "was Maximiliano's wife. Did you pick up on that?"

"No," Bruce said, suddenly arresting the agitated rocking of his chair on the long corridor of the guesthouse. "I never met Maximiliano's wife."

Monica put her hand out. "Weren't you listening? Dr. Mendez said her grandmother was the nanny-that's Francisca."

"I didn't make the connection."

Monica shook her head. "You're an award-winning journalist. You're either lying or the old German's coming to get you."

"What old German?"

"Alzheimer."

Bruce eyed his daughter. "Okay, Nancy Drew, then why do mother and soon-to-be-married daughter have different surnames?"

Monica shrugged. "Dunno. Marriages. Lack of marriages. Divorces. Death. Take your pick."

Bruce stopped rocking. "Would you consider not going to find out about your mother?" He leaned over and crunched a beetle with his shoe, then kicked it away.

"Do you honestly think that's a fair thing to ask? Put yourself in my shoes."

He took a deep breath, raised his fingers to his mouth, and began to pull gently on his lower lip. "Then I guess there's something you should know."

Finally, Monica thought. Cough it up Cough it up.

He took a deep breath and said, "The day you told me about your mother and Max," he said, looking out to the garden, "I was angry and confused to say the least. ... So ... I did tell one person of Alma and Max's whereabouts that day."

Monica turned, looked at his profile. "Who?"

He took a deep breath and exhaled, "Dona Magnolia."

"You told Abuela," Monica said flatly, sitting back. "That pretty much explains the rest."

"I always wondered if she got word out to her friends in the high military as to where Max could be found."

"Of course she did, Dad," Monica said. "She was h.e.l.l-bent on breaking them up. She was furious at both of them."

Bruce folded his hands on his lap. "You were right about one thing out on the beach today, Monica. I was very jealous and very angry. So I lashed back by informing the most powerful person I knew."

"Abuela."

"Abuela," he repeated softly. "I figured she wouldn't do anything to hurt Alma, just punish her somehow, put an end to her disgusting behavior."

"Francisca said several others died with Max," Monica said. "What really happened at El Trovador, Dad, what?"

"I don't know. I have a headache." Bruce put his hand over his eyes. "I don't even know what to think anymore."

"Are you coming with me to meet her boat?" Monica asked. "We'd have to stay a few more days."

He let his hand drop to his lap. "I don't want to go, but I don't want you to go alone. I'll think about it overnight."

She nodded, then looked up to see Will coming down the hall. She waved without smiling. It was no surprise to either of them that he was defying Sylvia's earlier proclamation that they would swap quarters.

"You're getting a little too close to him," Bruce said in a low voice. The words rolled into a forced smile as Will approached. He was freshly showered, but Monica could see sweat was already beading up along his upper lip and his forehead.

"What's your take on what happened today at the factory, Will?" Bruce said. The question surprised Monica, since Bruce normally avoided the subject of Alma at all costs. Perhaps her father was experiencing his own version of hot and cold when it came to Will.

Will shook his head, was about to say something, then paused and sat down next to Bruce. "I have to admit, Bruce, I encouraged Monica to pursue her suspicions for my own selfish purposes. I hope you understand that I'm very, very worried about Yvette. If it's true that your wife knows something about the treatments at Caracol ..." He wrinkled his brow. "Wife? Ex-wife?"

"Wife," Monica said. "Technically, they're still married."

"I have a certificate that says she's missing and presumed dead." Bruce shook his head. "That makes her my ex." He rubbed his razor stubble and pulled at an imaginary beard. "As for Yvette and the treatment, I don't blame you for taking a hard look at the program. You two are one step ahead of my own research; I would have stumbled upon Alma's publications on the subject eventually. I just don't know how I would have handled it."

Will sat forward, folded his hands together, elbows resting on his knees. "And she just left one day," Will said, as if Monica and Bruce were hearing the story for the first time. "She divorced her own kid," he whispered, shaking his head. "An intelligent, beautiful woman from a powerful family, who could hire ten full-time nannies if she wanted ... and yet she walked away from everything. I don't get it."

Monica looked down at her hands, at the fingers that were once small and pudgy and fragrant with innocence, hands that had become strong and competent with the skill of healing. She turned them over and looked at her narrow fingernail beds, painted pale pink like seash.e.l.ls. Her hands folded onto one another, tenderly and without being willed, as if they were comforting one another.

Monica wondered, what kind of woman could walk away from the same arms that reached out to her every morning from inside the crib? And how could she bear to see her twelve-year-old wave good-bye for the last time from a bedroom window? When she felt her eyes well up, Monica took a deep breath, then cleared her throat and straightened up. She gave Bruce and Will a fake smile and looked at her watch. "It's nine o'clock. Anyone feel like taking a walk to the little store with me? I need a shot of something strong."

"AGUARDIENTE," Monica p.r.o.nounced, as she held up a capful of Tic Tack, El Salvador's national brand of moonshine, "is made out of fermented sugarcane. The campesinos buy it because it packs a punch and is cheaper than dirt." Monica p.r.o.nounced, as she held up a capful of Tic Tack, El Salvador's national brand of moonshine, "is made out of fermented sugarcane. The campesinos buy it because it packs a punch and is cheaper than dirt."

Bruce had accompanied Monica and Will to the store to buy the liquor, complaining all the way that decent people didn't drink moonshine. "We're in the middle of nowhere," Monica said. "If you want me to drink something cla.s.sy, then show me a place within a hundred miles where I can buy a nice bottle of chardonnay. I need something to take the edge off."

"Given the day's occurrences and the fact that there's nothing but moonshine in this little town, I'd say moonshine is perfect," Will said. "Now do we drink it straight up, on the rocks, or with c.o.ke?"

Bruce made a face but held out his plastic cup. "On the rocks I suppose," he said. By eleven, after several shots of Tic Tack, his face was in his hands. He had meant to stay up as long as Monica and Will wanted, mostly to prevent them from being alone together. But by eleven thirty he couldn't stand it and went to bed. He left them sitting at a small, round cement picnic table at the center of the courtyard, surrounded by moonlight and palm fronds and stinking of insect repellent and moonshine.

Will took another shot of aguardiente aguardiente, coughed, and said, "It sure tastes horrible, but I feel like my grandma just wrapped me in a warm blanket."

Monica traced a line from her neck to her belly. "You can feel it burning its way down. ... Hand me that bottle, will you? I'll have another one."

Will moved the bottle away, placed it behind him on the ground. "I think a ma.s.sage is a far more healthy sleep aid," he said, taking away the plastic tumbler in her hand and placing it on the table. He stood up, walked around the table, and sat on the bench next to her. "Turn around," he said, pointing at the foliage. Before she could move, he grabbed her shoulders and spun her around on the bench. He pushed his thumbs into her shoulder blades and began rubbing. Even with the shots of moonshine in her, she was still so tense he could barely get his fingers into the crook of her neck. "Relax," he said. "Take your own advice and let it go."

"Easy for you to say. Your mom is probably home baking cookies right now."

He laughed, then got to work rubbing out the knots, noticing a long bar of tension running up along her spine. She pulled away when he pressed his thumbs along it. He worked in silence for a while, then, he dropped his hands onto his lap. His ears were buzzing with the pounding rush of blood as he explored the geography of the bones and muscles along her back. "Monica," he whispered, allowing his lips to graze the velvet of her earlobe. "It's taking all my strength not to turn you around and kiss you."

Monica twisted at the waist to look up at him. Will suspended his breathing, hoping that she was offering her mouth to him. But what he saw in her eyes was a tired melancholy. "We couldn't do that to Yvette," she said, and looked away.