“I’m sorry,” I called out to her. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
Isadora harrumphed, tossing and turning until finally becoming still and quiet.
“What did you want to say to me?” I asked in an almost inaudible whisper.
“It was nothing,” he said after a moment. “Sleep well.”
It was a nice sentiment, but I couldn’t fall back asleep, no matter how much I wished for it, no matter how much I tried. All I could think about was the despairing note in Whit’s voice and the way he had seemed to pull away from me, wall erected in place. This was what I wanted. He didn’t deserve my smiles or my friendship, or any of my thoughts.
But it didn’t stop me from wanting to know what he had been about to say. Nor did it stop the twinge of sadness that I’d never come to know it, either.
I planned for the trip to Alexandria. Of course, talking about going to Alexandria was much easier than actually doing it. For one thing, when my aunt found out my plans, she had promptly burst into tears and fled the seating area in favor of sobbing alone in her bedroom.
“Would it kill you to think before you speak?” Amaranta demanded. “I’m tired of cleaning up your messes,prima.”
She said the wordcousinas if it were a dirty one, a robust curse, and I suddenly remembered that she only called me prima when I was in trouble. Which I had been ever since I had accidentally splashed tea onto the pages of one of her favorite books eleven years ago. Amaranta really knew how to hold a grudge.
“I’m trying to make things right,” I said. “I’m trying to put the right person in jail, so that Ricardo and Abdullah can go free.”
What had happened to my uncle and Abdullah had also sent my aunt into hysterics. She had calmed down by the time we visited the prison, but I knew she suffered to see him locked away in a tiny room.
“And going to another city after we’ve only just arrived is the way to do it?” Amaranta asked, one brow arched skeptically. “Afterwe crossed an ocean to get here?Afterwe learned that Elvira was murdered? This is your best idea?” she scoffed. “I ought to have known you’d run away.”
I bristled. “I’m not running away. Mamá is in Alexandria, and if I have any hope of her spending the rest of her miserable life in prison, that’s where I need to be, too.”
“And what?” Amaranta asked, her voice rising. “You’ll ask her nicely to lock herself up? I know you’re reckless, and stubborn, and too curious for your own good,” she said scathingly, “but I honestly believed you to be smarter than this.”
No one infuriated me more than my cousin did.
“I’m building a case against her,” I yelled. “Wherever she goes, she leaves behind a trail of damning evidence.”
“Enough, both of you,” Tía Lorena said. She was pale and drawn, half supported by the doorframe opening up to her room. “For years I’ve watched the pair of you squabble like children. And you arenotchildren anymore. One day, and I praysoon, you both will have husbands and households to manage and babies to raise.”
My stomach did an odd little flip. I had forgotten to tell my aunt of my doomed marriage. No doubt the learning of it would send her back inside her bedroom in a fit of tears. Perhaps it’d be best if she never found out that particular secret.
She raised a trembling hand to her lips. “Do you really believe Lourdes is in Alexandria, Inez?”
I nodded.
“And there’s been no word about—” Her voice cracked. She inhaled deeply, visibly fighting to control herself. “About my brother?” she asked.
Shame rose up my throat, hot and tasting like acid. It killed me that I had no new information about my father. Mamá had lied to me the first time, but I refused to accept anything but the truth from her now. I would make her tell me, by any means necessary. If I was forced to, I’d sic my violent husband on her while I still could.
I shook my head. “Nothing. Only Mamá knows the truth at this point.”
My aunt’s face hardened. “Then go and find her. Amaranta and I will care for Ricardo and his business partner while you’re gone.”
Amaranta’s lips parted in surprise. “But Mamá—”
“If it wereyouin prison, hijita,” she said, “wouldn’t you want your family to visit every day? To deliver food? Blankets? To keep you company?”
“I’m not against visiting,” Amaranta snapped. “I’m furious Inez is leaving us to bear the brunt of the responsibility.”
“Amaranta, enough,” Tía Lorena said. “Basta. Ya no puedo más.”
My cousin fell silent, jaw locked. I couldn’t help feeling that my uncle would rather spend his days alone than have my aunt and cousin descending upon him like clucking chickens, but I refrained from saying so. That revelation might turn my aunt into a puddle of tears. Truthfully, I was moved that she wanted to help me at all.
“I would never be in prison to begin with,” Amaranta muttered.
