Eartheater by Dolores Reyes

Author:Dolores Reyes
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperVia
Published: 2020-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

I hadn’t thought he was armed, but the last thing I saw was Ezequiel on his cell phone with a gun in his hand. For days, I’d been driving around with a guy and his piece, oblivious to it. I clasped the bag of towels so hard the ribbon dropped to the ground. I trampled it, the muck from my shoes turning the pink bow the color of mud. I took a few steps back and glanced at Ezequiel. He wasn’t looking at me, as though I had stopped existing the moment I gave him what he wanted. And right in front of the house of the old man who had stolen the girl.

I took a couple more steps back, enough to get off the sidewalk. I wanted to go home. Ezequiel raised his voice on the phone. The hand that held his cell moved with the same ease as the one holding his piece.

I rarely left my barrio, so I didn’t know my way home from there. I’d let myself be swept along to help a man who was armed and a woman I didn’t know. I turned around and started walking. I walked faster and faster. Hearing Ezequiel call me, I bolted. I covered the ten blocks from the corner of the street to María’s house as though I was running on air. I wasn’t thinking about Ezequiel or the other yokes, or of what was about to happen. Just about my house and wanting to go home.

María’s mother opened the door and, seeing me like that, clammy and breathless, rushed toward me. She frightened me. I opened my mouth. I tried to speak and say something, to explain the impossible to her, but in the end there was no need. Sirens from a fleet of patrol cars zoomed past her house and drowned out my voice, which never sounded. Seconds later, María’s mother was no longer in front of me, shaking me to get me to say something. She was sprinting down the sidewalk after the patrol cars.

The neighbors’ doors creaked open as they each came outside to see what was going on. I went in through the door left wide open by María’s mamá.

It was night by the time Ezequiel got back. His faced was bruised. He had bled and his blood was now dry. I saw him come in and said nothing. He came alone, without María’s mamá. I’d been waiting for hours. Restless from nerves. Head aching and stomach on fire. He came to me quietly, and his closeness surprised me. He hugged me. I felt the jolt of his body against mine.

“Thank you,” Ezequiel said. “María’s alive.”

He held me a long time. I couldn’t move without saying something. And I didn’t want to. Everything was perfect. His embrace healed my body. My stomach and my head stopped aching. I no longer felt fear. I felt nothing. I don’t know how long this lasted. Ezequiel said thank you again and, before letting me go, I thought I felt him breathe in the smell of my hair.

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