“I’m not surprised. You must’ve been, what? Four? Maybe five years old when he was busted for trying to blackmail a town official.”
Ant grimaces. “The jails in Mexico aren’t great.”
“True. He died in a prison fight over a cigarette, right around your ninth birthday.”
“That’s when Abuelita Allende died, too. Me and my mother stayed, but I can’t remember why. I sometimes wish I remembered more, but then something fires off a memory and…” He pauses, looking down at his fingers, then up at me. “Then I regret making that wish.”
His wide-eyed sincerity reminds me of him as a child, and I can’t believe that part of him survived.
“Gigi said it was because someone had to stay and take care of him, but he was only in his mid-fifties. She withdrew from us even further, but Yaya continued to visit. After a while, Yaya was convinced something was going on between them.”
Ant wrinkles his nose, then nods. “I remember seeing them in the courtyard. He was palming her belly.”
“I don’t know if you remember this about your Tía Yaya, but she’s stubborn when she has to be. She kept pressing your mom for the truth, and finally, Gigi told her they were in love and going to get married.”
Ant’s expression saddens and he looks to Levy, who rubs his shoulders. I want to know what’s making him feel that way, but I suspect it’s better if I let him tell me in his own time.
“Yaya tried to reason with your mother, but that didn’t go anywhere. She was afraid Gigi would cut her off from visiting, so she kept her mouth shut after that. A couple of months later, however, Gigi stopped answering Yaya’s texts.”
Ant’s expression darkens further and his jaw tightens. “She was already dead by then. And I was already gone.”
Guilt pierces my heart and I push it down.
I nod. “After weeks of no contact, Yaya showed up and was told to leave. Your grandfather said Gigi didn’t want anything to do with her. We knew it was a lie because Yaya was her best friend. At that point, we were convinced something awful had happened, but we didn’t know what.”
Ant’s lower lip quivers. “I wish I had better memories of her.”
I wonder what he saw of her last moments. When I verified that she died, I put in a request for the police report on her death. The judge warned me I wouldn’t be able to unsee the contents of the report.
He was right.
I dare not ask Ant about it now, unwilling to tug on that loose thread just yet, as much for me as for him.
I rub his back. “We’ll help you remember the good things.”
We break for sandwiches, then Ant asks me to continue. I silently check in with Levy, then take a deep breath and honor Ant’s request.
“I only got involved months later when my mother asked me to intervene. I was a rougher guy then, so I forced my way into the Allende family compound, looking for answers. The place was like an old ghost town, the kind you see in American movies about the Wild West. You and your mother were nowhere to be found and your grandfather was like a ghost, living in a dark bedroom near the back of the compound. I put a gun to his head until he showed me Gigi’s death certificate and admitted she’d been killed by a gang and they’d kidnapped you.”
Antonio snarls. “He was a fucking liar. He’s probably told that lie so many times now he thinks it’s the truth.”
I nod. “Like every good liar, he told a partial truth. I could smell a lie hidden in his confessions, but I wasn’t smart enough to figure out where it was. All I knew for sure was that Gigi was dead and you were missing.”
“That must’ve made you so sad,” Levy says, grabbing my hand.
I grind my teeth, shoving down the regret. “I shouldn’t have let him live.” By the time I understood that he’d sold Ant, Señor Allende had surrounded himself with enough security to make it impossible to kill him myself. Shaking my head, I continue, “The worst part was when I had to tell my mother her youngest daughter was dead and her grandson was missing. She made a sound I can’t…I’ve never heard a human being make that sound.”
It hurts my chest to think of it even now. The rest of us were quietly, horrifically shocked. Even little Gael was eerily quiet that night.
Ant puts his head on my shoulder again. I wrap my arm around him, kissing his head, reminding myself this story has a happy ending.
“I promised my mother I would track you down if it was the last thing I did.” I pause and look down at my hands. Speaking of believing one’s own lies… “I told her you’d most likely been sold to a rich family.”
Ant snorts, shaking his head. “Rich families only buy newborns. The most any family would have paid for an eleven-year-old boy would’ve been ten thousand. Maybe.”
Breathing heavily, I dip my chin. That had been my estimation as well.
Speaking casually, as though discussing stock prices, Ant continues, “I made them more than that every week, especially at the beginning. Hell, the first guy paid fifty thousand for one night with me. Then, when I got too old for celebrity island, they shipped me back to Mexico. That’s when I was sold to a ring in the United States.”
