Shall I Stay (Los Morales #1)

7. Rico

This is definitely not the pace at which genealogy research usually moves. At least in my experience.

It involves thoughtful, deliberate tracing, intentional scouring, leisurely scrolling through documents upon documents with lots of resigned trial and error and time. One gets to savor the deep dive into history and the lives of people long gone and have a good geek-out. I don’t make the rules.

But one is not usually working with an impatiently ambitious Spaniard who at most has two weeks for in-the-field investigation before she jets right back home.

Which is why—after Lena decided to follow the theory that Alonso might have disappeared by boarding another ship—I had to call in a favor.

A history professor friend at the Universidad de Puerto Rico agreed to meet with us about a resource she has. And, when I say “friend,” I mean we’ve been in the same archiving virtual workshop and had a good chuckle over sixteenth-century baby names. Also, I earned my tombstone-locator award in her service.

She extended the favor of not commenting on how crazy I sounded when I insisted on a next-day, urgent meeting over a guy that’s been missing for almost five hundred years. When she meets Lena, the good doctor of history will understand.

And Lena’s sure to cause an impression today. When I picked her up, she was ready, on the dot, in her rolled-up sleeves, tailored blazer, pinstriped shirt (of course buttoned all the way up), sleek ankle pants, and flats. Finished off with a high bun and small, chunky earrings—she means business. Ancestry business. Like a stylish, academia-vibe bounty hunter with a research binder.

Quite a contrast to myself with my favorite cargo shorts, second-favorite polo shirt, and third-favorite ball cap. It might be quintessential “Rolled-Out-of-Bed Tour Guide,” but I like to call it “No Office Dress Code and Nothing to Prove.”

After the ever-delightful parking nightmare, we find a spot and walk over to the main building. I adjust my stride to match Lena’s and notice she’s a little lopsided as she lugs a very full tote. Abuela’s grandson kicks in, and I reach to grab it for her. She startles but does let go without complaint.

I was not prepared to move up a weight set with this bag. “What is in this thing?” I ask as I get a better grip on it.

“You never know when you’ll need your research binders to cross-reference.”

“You sure it’s not the emotional baggage of generations in here?”

Lena scoffs. I lift the bag’s straps further up my shoulder and hope my spine can handle it. There’s some kind of lettering design on the front of the tote.

“‘Genealogists Love Life in the Past Lane,’” I read aloud.

“Eh? Oh. It was a gift from a faculty exchange.”

“Cute.”

“It serves its purpose.”

Hopefully, its purpose doesn’t give me scoliosis.

We’re on our way to the humanities building, walking toward the emblematic clock tower that’s at the heart of the university. The structure’s main entrance has its own arc de triomphe of Spanish Gothic carvings and tiles.

Lena stops and stares up at it. “I did not expect this kind of architecture. It is so ornate, almost Moorish.”

“I don’t bring many tour patrons this way. I know the university was founded in 1903, but they built the carillon tower in the 1930s to symbolize the institution’s future of long-standing eclectic tradition.”

She catalogues every detail, but then shakes her head and chuckles.

“What?”

“It’s fascinating what you New Worlders consider ‘long-standing’ tradition. Our University of Salamanca was founded in 1208. So,”—she mimics a calculation—“almost seven hundred more years of tradition?”

I drop my jaw in mock awe. “It’s so— so fascinating how your snobbery knows no bounds.”

“I am simply stating a fact.” Lena shrugs, unfazed. Then she walks through the entrance like she knows where she’s going.

She doesn’t and so, after a few steps, she pauses to look back at me. As she stands in the bright, vaulted foyer that leads to a long hall of columned arches and vivid green shuttered windows, the classical, scholarly backdrop frames her perfectly. How can she look as immutable as these columns and yet . . . defiantly restless? Vibrating with something-to-prove frenetic energy—in a blazer.

I shake off my reflective gaping enough to notice she’s glaring and that those knives in her eyes are urging me to pick up the pace.

Speed-walking right past her even with this hefty tote, I call back, “Sorry! I thought we were at our leisure for your architectural assessment and condescending commentary.” I walk backward to face her. “Should I assume there’s always time for that?”

Lena tamps down a smirk and shakes her head. I grin at the tiny victory and turn.

She follows me down the hall amid the bustle of students and up the stairs to the second level, where Dr. Marcia Soler’s office is located.

I knock on the slightly ajar door and call out, “ Doctora Soler?”

As I push the door open, a raspy voice calls out, “ Mira y que ‘doctora .’ Don’t be funny with me, Rico.”

I unceremoniously drop the ten-ton bag of binders by the door. We walk over to her desk as she stands and peck each other’s cheek as greeting. “I can’t help it, Marcia. I exist to make you smile.”

That gets me a motherly slap on the arm. “ Graciosito.”

Stepping aside to gesture to Lena, I introduce them to each other. Marcia stands barely higher than my elbow with her heavy-knit, long yellow cardigan (faculty essential for the unpredictable air conditioning) covering her magenta mumu. A matching headband holds back riotous, salt-and-pepper curls.

“You must be Professor Martín.” Marcia takes the initiative and extends a hand to Lena.

I’m not surprised Lena has a firm handshake, but the smile in her eyes glows warm. “Yes. Hello. Mucho gusto, Doctor Soler .”

“Now don’t you start with that, too. My Afro-Caribbean skin may ward off more wrinkles than most, but being called ‘Marcia’ also keeps me young.”

Lena chuckles and submits with a smile. “Thank you for meeting with us on such short notice, Marcia.”

Will you look at la profesora being graciousness personified? All I’ve had from her are a few begrudged thank-you’s and plenty of eye-rolls. She does have it in her then.

I grin at Marcia as I add, “Yes, we are in need of someone that is as beautiful as she is competent in Spanish Golden Age and Early Colonization history.”

Marcia huffs. “You can turn it off now, Rico.” She walks over to her desk and indicates for us to sit in the two chairs across from her. “Happy to help, happy to help. Tell me about this conde’ s son.”

Lena quickly catches her up to the point where the research has taken her.

Marcia nods along and then says, “Ah, yes, well, it makes sense you would want to rule out if this Alonso sailed off to somewhere else. But, even with Spanish colonial emigration records, some researchers believe the ship manifests might reflect as low as twenty percent of those that actually voyaged.” She pauses for our expected reaction of research woe before she continues, “So it’s not surprising these inter-Caribbean passenger lists weren’t very well documented in the young colonies, especially because they were usually records for the port of arrival. And what does exist has not been digitized going so far back.”

I can’t help it. I have to sigh and say, “We are so lucky you have both beauty and competence.”

Marcia waves me off. “Hah, what is lucky is that, at my age and level of book hoarding, I happen to have a treasure trove of out- of-print document collections that may be useful.” She bends and pulls up a weathered briefcase onto her desk. “We might not have had fancy scanners in the seventies, but these babies still got published.” She lovingly pats her briefcase.

Lena jumps up to help Marcia take the yellowed volumes out. Crowded around the desk, we each grab one and search among all the passenger lists in these books. Did Alonso just use San Juan as his connecting stop to somewhere else?

After I look through one fourth of the volume I’m holding, I comment, “These are amazing. Voyages to Cuba, La Espanola, San Juan. How long do you have for us, Marcia? This might take a minute.”

“Oh, I freed up my afternoon for you, Rico, querido . If this third son did get on a boat, and it was recorded, it likely would be on here.”

You never find a more content, companionable silence than among a group of historians on an hours-long search into dusty tomes. That is, the silence after Marcia interviewed Lena at length about her career trajectory and research resources in Spain. Also about her thoughts on gazpacho. It seems all it takes for Lena to happily chat away with you is to be a no-nonsense elderly woman with a doctorate degree.

But now, as the sunlight fades through the office windows, and we’re running out of books to look through, the silence turns from companionable to heavy. No sign of Alonso in any of these ship manifests.

“Well—” Lena shrugs. “It was worth the attempt.” She helps pack the books away, all her restless energy returning.

“You’re just sad you didn’t find an excuse to visit the Dominican Republic.” I nudge her as I place a book in the briefcase. Marcia observes us with a slight raise of her brow.

Lena lets out a dejected sigh. “I have heard they have better beaches.”

Now she got both me and Marcia riled up.

Marcia blurts out in disbelief, “Oh no, mi amor , you might feel frustrated, but no need to turn to slander.”

Lena chuckles and lifts her hands in surrender. “I will have to see for myself someday, but for now, I’ll take your word for it. I cannot thank you enough for these resources and your time, Marcia.”

Marcia waves off. “Bah, I haven’t come across such a good scavenger hunt in a while. It was fun—though I’m sorry we could not locate your Alonso.”

The sun is almost gone as we walk down the long, palm-tree-lined lane in front of the university’s main entrance toward the parking lot. Lena has added frustration to her restlessness. Her shoulders are tense as she watches her feet shuffle on the asphalt. My shoulders are tense too but mostly because of the burdensome binder bag.

“You can say ‘I told you so,’” she mutters.

That would be redundant, so I ask what I’ve been wondering. “Did you honestly want to find him on one of those passenger lists?”

She throws her hands up. “Yes and no. At least it would have been an answer. Something to break down the wall. But it would have opened up to an even more complicated, almost impossible trail.”

“You have to know that even an inconclusive research angle is never time wasted. We knew odds were he stayed in San Juan; now we have more reason to think he did.”

Lena nods distractedly and is quiet for a moment. At this time of evening, the campus is pretty silent too. I glance over at her, and it amazes me once again how there’s not a hair out of place or a wrinkle on her blazer after so many hours.

It’s her brow that’s increasingly furrowed as she wonders, “Or . . . as you pointed out, maybe he stayed and then unexpectedly died? But, if that was the case, what would lead to the family not being notified, eventually?”

Ah, the questions that haunt a historian. “You also know that missive could be floating at the bottom of the Atlantic. Well, the parchment particles anyway.”

She stops us as we near the parking lot and turns to me. “His name could be entered into parish burial records.” Shaking her head with a tsk, she goes on, “Ay , but the Catholic church did not have formalized record-keeping strictures for their parochial registers until the Council of Trent twenty years later.”

I nod. “One can only hope the priest liked a good ledger entry.” I consider for a moment and shrug. “I think our best bet would be that, if Alonso died shortly after he arrived and was laid to rest near here, it was registered in what at the time was the Diocese of Puerto Rico. The San Juan Bautista cathedral might want to be our next stop. You can walk over from your rental. We can also pay a visit to our buddy Ponce de León, who’s resting there.”

We won’t go into how my chest swells as Lena looks up at me. Her brows shoot up, the lost look in her dark brown eyes replaced by the expectation of another avenue to pursue. Her half smile does not help matters for said heart-swelling.

Lena nudges me like I did her back in Marcia’s office and walks on. When she’s several steps ahead, she turns. Walking backwards toward the car, she narrows her eyes as if studying me, and muses, “Definitely more useful than just a driver.”

Welp. That just made it worse. I stop in my tracks as my puffed-up heart soars from her reluctant validation.

Lena turns her back to me, and I stare as she reaches the car first.

Guess now I have to bother a Roman Catholic priest about an urgent meeting.