Chapter 3 - 99.99 PERCENT
I did not sleep.
Neither did Alejandro.
At four in the morning, I sat beside the guest-room window while the woman slept.
I kept studying her face.
Every few minutes, I found something familiar.
The curve of her eyebrow.
The way her left hand rested against her neck.
The tiny crease that appeared between her eyes when she dreamed.
Memory is strange.
For twenty years, I had thought I had forgotten my mother’s face.
Now pieces of it were returning everywhere.
At eight thirty, Dr. Pierce returned.
He brought a phlebotomist and two sealed kits.
They took my blood first.
Then hers.
She watched the needle with no fear.
“You’ve had blood drawn before?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“I think so.”
“Do hospitals seem familiar?”
“No.”
“Doctors?”
She glanced toward Nathan.
“Not him.”
Nathan smiled.
“That’s probably a compliment.”
For the first time, she almost smiled.
It hit me so hard that I looked away.
My mother used to smile exactly like that.
Small at first, as though laughter had to ask permission.
By ten, Alejandro’s investigator had arrived.
His name was Marcus Reed, a former Chicago detective with tired eyes and the habit of studying every doorway before sitting down.
He placed a thick folder on our dining-room table.
“I found your mother’s death certificate,” he said.
I stared at the document.
I had seen copies before.
Elena Maria Vargas.
Date of death: September 21.
Cause: traumatic injuries resulting from motor vehicle fire.
“There’s a problem,” Marcus said.
“What?”
“No body was positively identified through DNA.”
I felt cold.
“How was she identified?”
“Personal effects.”
“What effects?”
“A wedding ring, purse and employee identification card.”
“Who identified them?”
He looked at me.
“Your father.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course.
“Where was the crash?”
“Forty miles outside Chicago.”
“Was the body buried?”
“Yes.”
“In the grave I visit?”
“Presumably.”
“Presumably?”
“The remains are unidentified in the original coroner’s file. The death certificate was amended after your father signed an affidavit.”
My voice shook.
“So I buried a stranger.”
Marcus did not answer.
Alejandro did.
“Maybe.”
I stood so abruptly that my chair scraped the floor.
“I need to talk to my father.”
I had not spoken to Hector Vargas in almost two years.
Our relationship had always been difficult.
After my mother died, he became distant.
He worked constantly.
He drank more.
He remarried when I was nineteen, divorced six years later, and eventually moved to Arizona.
Whenever I asked about my mother, he shut down.
I had mistaken guilt for grief.
I called.
Straight to voicemail.
Again.
Voicemail.
I left one message.
“Dad, call me. It’s about Mom.”
Then I hung up.
At eleven twenty-three, Dr. Pierce called.
I put him on speaker.
“The lab has a preliminary match.”
My hand found Alejandro’s.
I didn’t even realize I had reached for him.
Nathan continued.
“The probability of a biological mother-daughter relationship is greater than 99.99 percent.”
Everything became silent.
No dramatic music.
No scream.
No lightning.
Just the hum of the refrigerator and the faint ticking of a clock.
I looked toward the doorway.
She was standing there.
Clean now.
Rosa had helped cut the worst tangles from her hair and found her soft gray clothes.
She looked smaller without the huge coat.
Older.
Fragile.
Human.
My mother.
I crossed the room.
She watched me.
I stopped one step away.
“The test says you’re my mother.”
Her lips parted.
I had imagined this moment differently throughout the night.
I thought I would collapse into her arms.
Instead we just stood there.
Two strangers.
Mother and daughter.
Separated for twenty years.
Neither of us knowing how to cross the distance.
Then she whispered, “I’m sorry I don’t remember you.”
That broke me.
I wrapped my arms around her.
For one terrible second, she remained stiff.
Then her hands came around my back.
I cried against her shoulder.
“I thought you were dead.”
Her body shook.
“I’m sorry.”
“I hated you sometimes.”
She pulled back.
“What?”
“I thought you left.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes.”
Her answer was immediate.
She touched my face.
“I don’t know my address. I don’t know my wedding. I don’t know where I worked.”
Her voice cracked.
“But when I look at you, everything inside me knows I would never leave you.”
I buried my face against her again.
Alejandro turned away, giving us privacy.
For several minutes, there was no investigation.
No Catalina.
No dead security man.
No money.
Just my mother and me.
Then my phone rang.
My father.
I answered.
“Dad.”
Silence.
Then Hector spoke.
His voice sounded older than I remembered.
“You said this was about your mother.”
“She’s alive.”
Nothing.
Not surprise.
Not confusion.
Silence.
My stomach dropped.
“Dad?”
He whispered, “Where?”
I stepped away from my mother.
“You knew?”
“Mariana—”
“You knew she might be alive?”
“Listen to me.”
“No. You listen to me. She is standing in my dining room.”
He inhaled sharply.
My mother heard his voice.
She froze.
I watched recognition hit her like a physical blow.
“Hector.”
My father heard her.
He began crying.
Not quietly.
A grown man sobbing through the phone.
“Elena?”
She took the phone from my hand.
For ten seconds, neither spoke.
Then my mother asked one question.
“Why didn’t you come back for me?”
My father made a broken sound.
“I thought you were dead.”
“You took money.”
His breathing changed.
“I can explain.”
“Then explain.”
“I can’t do this on the phone.”
I grabbed the phone.
“You had twenty years.”
“Mariana, please.”
“Tell me now.”
He was silent.
Then he said, “Catalina Salazar paid me.”
Alejandro’s jaw tightened.
“How much?”
My father did not answer.
“How much, Dad?”
“Two hundred thousand dollars.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because the number was obscene.
“You sold Mom for two hundred thousand dollars?”
“No!”
“You signed her death papers!”
“They showed me a body!”
“You couldn’t identify it.”
“They showed me her things. Her ring. Her bag. There had been a fire. I believed them.”
“Then why did Catalina pay you?”
My father began breathing heavily.
“To leave Chicago.”
My mother closed her eyes.
“Why?”
“Because she said you were next.”
My anger hesitated.
“What?”
“She came to the house two days after Elena disappeared. She told me Rafael Salazar was dead and that Elena had stolen records connected to the company. She said dangerous men believed Elena had given copies to me.”
“Had she?”
“No.”
He paused.
“At least I didn’t know it then.”
“What did Catalina want?”
“She wanted me to stop asking questions and take you somewhere safe.”
“And you accepted money.”
“I was terrified.”
My mother whispered, “You left me.”
“I thought you were dead!”
“You didn’t even look.”
My father broke down again.
Then he said something I never expected.
“I did look.”
We all went still.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Six months after the funeral, someone called the house.”
My mother stared at the phone.
“A woman.”
“What woman?”
“She sounded confused.”
My father’s voice shook.
“She asked for Mari.”
I nearly dropped the phone.
“What did you do?”
“I thought someone was tormenting us.”
“Dad.”
“She kept saying she didn’t know where she was.”
“Dad.”
“I hung up.”
My mother covered her mouth.
I felt rage rise through me.
“Did she call again?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Three.”
“And you never told me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because after the third call, Victor Hale came to my workplace.”
Alejandro leaned closer.
“What did he say?”
“He put a photograph of Mariana walking home from school on my desk.”
Ice filled my veins.
“He said if I wanted my daughter to reach seventeen, I would forget the calls.”
Nobody spoke.
Finally Alejandro asked, “Do you still have anything from that time?”
My father hesitated.
“One thing.”
“What?”
“A letter.”
My mother’s eyes widened.
“A letter from who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Dad.”
“It arrived eight months after Elena disappeared. No return address. I was too scared to open it.”
My anger became disbelief.
“You kept an unopened letter for twenty years?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In a safe-deposit box in Phoenix.”
My mother gripped the table.
I closed my eyes.
“What does the envelope say?”
My father whispered the answer.
My name.
May you like
Handwritten.
For Mariana when she is old enough to know what really happened.
