“Benson will be around,” he says. “If you need something, tell him. Promise?”
“Promise.” I melt to his chest.
To my surprise, he tilts my face up and kisses me hard. This kiss is hungry like the one this morning. And it sweeps me off my feet like our first one. I fist my fingers in his hair but he releases me too soon.
“I love you,” he says with unblinking eyes.
“I love you too.”
He kisses my forehead and tears himself from my grip. With an odd, stern look at Benson, he climbs agilely inside the Bell 430.
“Semper fidelis, Aiden,” I call as Benson closes the door and signs to the pilot—a Jean-Luc Picard look-alike—some aviation gesture.
As the Bell lifts Aiden to the heavens, a warm gust of air floats from my mouth as though chasing after him. Biologically, I know it’s just a breath but the instant it leaves me, I feel empty. Adrift. So maybe it’s not just breath. Maybe it’s the soul.
Chapter Fifty-One
The Free and The Brave
They say it takes the soul time to catch up with the body. It lags behind motions, schedules, intents, means. Mine is still chasing after Aiden as I burst through the door of my apartment to pick up my passport for Bob.
Reagan comes running down the hall in her LONDON CALLING T-shirt.
“Isa, what the hell are you doing here?”
I launch myself at her. “Oh, Reg, I tried calling you. Bob’s finished! We’re clear!”
It takes a moment to sink in. Then she squeals in a way that is dangerous for eardrums and pulls me into a tight hug. We start jumping on the spot, breaking into a dance, until we run out of breath and simply hold each other.
Eventually, we skip arm in arm to my room so that I can pick up my passport and go back to Benson, who is waiting outside, looking rather tense.
“What about Javier? Can you sign after you see him?”
“I tried calling him, too, but he didn’t pick up. I’ll go there right after.” I start wondering whether I should tell her about the whole Feign mess but she yanks my elbow.
“What did you say?” Her voice is low, as though she heard blasphemy.
“I tried calling him. He’s probably working. What, Reagan?”
Reagan’s face drains of color.
“You don’t know.” Her whisper trembles and her hands start shaking.
“Know what?” But suddenly, I don’t want to hear her answer. My spine shivers and I want to cover my ears. She takes my hand.
“Isa.” She swallows hard. “They caught him.”
My body dissolves at her words. No ears left to puncture or heart to implode. Only my mind as it delivers a blow.
Are you Elisa Snow? Daughter of Peter and Clare Snow?… There’s been an accident…an accident…an accident…
“Isa!” Reagan’s arms break my fall. “Sweetie, how did you not know?”
Miss Snow?… No, catch her…her head… Miss Snow? Look at me… In the ambulance. Now… She’s bleeding.
“Isa? No! Look at me. Not that look. It’s not the same. Isa, listen to me.” Someone is shaking me. I try to see past the ambulance lights and the January night but the sirens blast a crack in reality. The shaking gets worse. Something sharp strikes across my cheek. The biting sting brings Reagan into focus, as I realize she just slapped me.
“Reagan!” I grip her soft hands.
“I know, sweetie. He was caught early Friday morning. Maria and I tried calling you at Aiden’s. He said you knew about it. How is that possible?”
Sirens blare. Red lights spin. Dark, light, dark… Reagan’s hands are a vise around my fingers. She repeats slowly. Friday morning. Aiden said we knew. Another sound joins the sirens. Aiden talking on the phone,“yes we know about it”. An earlier unknown phone call in the backyard. A 253 area code. Aiden’s answer as he darts away from me.
I have no senses left so whatever is still alive finds a sixth one. A sort of see-feel, more conscious than instinct and more subliminal than thought. It mutes the sirens.
“Reagan, where’s Javier right now?”
“At the Tacoma Northwest Detention Center. His bond hearing is at one thirty. I was just about to head over there. That’s why I was shocked you were here.”
“What is Tacoma’s area code?” Of all the questions that will never be answered, and the ones that will, this is the threshold that decides my next step. Did Aiden really know and why did he lie?
“Two five three,” Reagan reads from her phone.
The room tilts and the sirens wail again. I dial Javier from Reagan’s phone, hoping against all evidence that this is all a mistake. A huge, terrible mistake.
You’ve reached Harvey. Leave a message.
“Maria said they take away their phones.” Reagan’s voice is hushed as she caresses my hair.
“They get one phone call when they’re caught. Sometimes, a second if they can’t get through.”
“That’s all?” Reagan’s horror doesn’t touch me. I’ve lived this reality for four years.“What about lawyers? Visitation rights?”
“No right to a lawyer. Undocumented families can’t visit because they’re afraid they’ll get deported.” Of course, ICE doesn’t tell them that. This is communal wisdom from broken families.
“So he’s all alone? That’s why Maria can’t go to the hearing?” Reagan covers her mouth with her hand.
“He’s alone.”
The words erase my bedroom. A sterile endless corridor reeking of ethanol, formaldehyde and something putrid stretches before me.
You can’t see them, Miss Snow…stop her…she hit her head on the pavement, fainted.
“Is it like jail?”
“Yes.”
“But it’s not a crime.” Reagan has no volume. Her face is white and her lips thin.
“I know.”
“What are the conditions like?”
I shake my head. Should she know the stories? Suddenly, although she’s holding me, I’m protecting her. She’ll see the dark soon enough. I grip her hand as I ring Casa Solis.
Maria answers but she doesn’t sound like Maria. Her voice is a shadow of sound too ephemeral to be called a whisper. “¡Amorcita! You in Tacoma? Tell him I’m there corazón y alma. Tell him I’ll set a plate at dinner every night.”
“I’ll tell him, Maria. Did someone turn him in?” Is this the DOJ? Feign? But why?
“I don’t know. The guard said they were waiting down the street around six in the morning as he headed to work.”
Someone must have reported him. That’s too exact a time and location for ICE to be there accidentally. “And the girls?”
“They don’t know.”
“Good. Don’t tell them. Today is his bond hearing, he may still be released until the removal trial.”
It’s highly unlikely. For Javier to be released on bond, the judge needs to decide he’s not a flight risk. With a paralyzed father and four sisters, Javier looks exactly like someone who would leave and not return for his trial. But Maria doesn’t need that reminder.
When she hangs up, I turn to Reagan. “Let’s go.”
“What about your signing?”
“I have until four. Tacoma is an hour away. Drive like hell, Reagan.”
“Maybe we should call Aiden? Maybe he can get him a lawyer or be a witness or something? I still don’t understand why you didn’t know.”
I do. Aiden got the call Friday morning and didn’t tell me. I’m sickened to think of the reasons. To protect me? Or to make me hate him and leave him? You’ll get over it in a couple of hours, he said.
We sprint out of the apartment, the door slamming behind us. Benson is leaning against the Rover. When he sees me, he straightens in a rigid way. Is this why Aiden gave him a stern look earlier?
“Did he know?” I ask, hoping I’m missing something. I cannot hear my voice but Benson must because he hesitates and purses his lips. Reluctantly, he nods.