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“What’d he say?” Sofia asks with the pinched, anxious expression that makes me want to go to the city jail and beat the shit out of her ex-husband.
I give her the gist without saying anything that’ll make her more afraid than she already is. “He said your list will be very helpful.”
“Glad I could do something, although if they find out I gave the cops their names, that could make everything worse.”
“They won’t find out it was you. Miguel would never let that happen, and besides, he said they’re very well known to the police, long before now.” I go to her and put my arms around her. “Try not to worry. We’re doing everything we can.”
She relaxes into my embrace and loops her arms around my back. “It’s hard not to worry. Never in my life would I have expected him to do the things he’s already done.”
“Miguel said he’s been bad news for a long time. I think maybe he’s gotten lucky evading serious trouble before now, but he’s been on their radar for years.”
“I had no idea. I guess that makes me naïve, but I really didn’t know. When we were first together, we had so many plans and dreams. He wanted to open an auto body repair shop, and we were going to buy a house and have more kids. I was going to take some classes and work toward my degree and maybe help him run the business. None of it happened. It just became this daily struggle to get by, and the harder things got, the meaner he was to me, as if it was my fault that nothing was working out the way we thought it would.”
“I’m sorry you went through that.”
“I should’ve left him years ago when I started noticing long absences that he couldn’t explain. I thought he had another woman, but now I see he was probably doing stuff with his cousins and friends that could’ve gotten him into big trouble if he’d gotten caught.” She straightens suddenly. “There was one time, about two years ago, when he disappeared for a whole week. No one knew where he was. I was convinced he was probably dead. I bet he was in jail.”
“We could find out.”
She ponders that for a second. “I think I’d like to know.”
I send a text to Miguel, who writes back quickly.
He was locked up for eight days two years ago for suspected auto theft. We held him due to outstanding warrants while we investigated the car thing. We suspected he and his boys were running a chop shop, but in the end, we couldn’t prove it and had to let him go. But he was on probation for failing to appear on several other misdemeanor charges.
I read Miguel’s response to Sofia.
“I knew nothing about any of that. He came back home after the week he was missing like it was no big deal and said he’d gone out of town to pick up some parts he needed for a job he was doing. I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t about to ask any questions. After that… That’s when I started seriously saving up to leave. It took almost a year to save enough for my own place and then another six months to work up the courage to leave.”
“What happened when he figured out you guys were gone?”
“He lost his mind. I had friends who kept me in the loop. They told me he went crazy trying to find me and called the police to say I’d taken off with his kid. Now I get why they didn’t take him seriously. They already knew who and what he was and probably thought it was a good thing that I’d gotten his son away from him. But I was so scared he was going to find me and kill me for taking Mateo.”
“God, I hate that you went through that alone.”
“I wasn’t entirely alone. I had Gladys, who’s been like a mother to me and a grandmother to Mateo, and some good friends who still took my call even years after I’d last talked to them. Some of them had been with guys like Joaquín and knew how they operated, isolating us from our support networks so they could control everything we said and did.”
“I’m glad Gladys and your friends were there for you.”
“They did what they could, but I was still afraid all the time. And then he took me to court, trying to get custody of Mateo. That’s when I really got scared that he might win. But it didn’t really go anywhere, and I couldn’t figure out why, but now I know it was because he’d been in jail and was on probation. However, the judge gave him one overnight with Mateo a week, which forced me to have to see him. That was terrifying. I worried all the time whether he was going to take off with Mateo, and I’d never see him again.”
I lead her to the sofa and sit next to her, continuing to hold her hand. “I can’t imagine how scary that must’ve been.”
“It was horrible, and then Mateo got sick. That was the scariest thing of all.”
“Tell me about that.” I want to hear all her secrets, all her stories, all her dreams. I’ve never wanted to know another person the way I do her.
“I thought he had the flu. He was lethargic and didn’t want to do anything but lie around and watch TV, which was so not like him. He was always begging me to go to the park to play on the swings, to play chase with him or to ride the Big Wheel we got him for Christmas one year. But for like two weeks, he was just so tired all the time. It just got worse and worse, and I was so, so scared that something terrible was wrong with him.”
“You knew.”
“I think I did, even before Jason said it was something bad. That day at the clinic… I’ll never forget how scared Jason was. I could see it in his face even though he was calm for me. Everything happened so fast. They took us by ambulance to Miami-Dade. Jason did some tests, found the tumor and operated all within an hour or two of us first seeing him. That sense of… What do you call it?”
“Urgency?”
“Yes, urgency… It was very scary. My hands… They were shaking so bad, I could barely fill out the forms. I was terrified for Mateo and wondering how I’d ever pay for him to have surgery.” Her eyes shine with tears when she looks up at me. “Jason… He donated his services. We owe him everything.”
“He’s incredibly talented.”
