Chapter 67
The dance had finished. The meal was finally ready. We sat at the table, Ida perched across from me in her white dress attempting to cut the piece of meat Allan had placed before her, Allan prompting me, “Mia, why don’t you help her?”
It was only a table knife. Still, I weighed it in my hand before I began to slowly cut the meat into bite-sized pieces. I’d not finished the task when the first knock came at the front door. Maybe I’d imagined it, the sound immediately subsumed by the percussive rhythms of the flamenco.
But the second was sharp, startling the dog, who had been sleeping in a chair beside the back window.
In the interval between knocks, no one moved.
At the next insistent rap, the dog erupting into barks, Allan pushed his chair back, saying, “What’s this?
” directing his question to Louise, me. I felt Louise’s gaze on me as he moved off, calling, “?Quien está aquí?”
“La policía. Abra la puerta, por favor.”
Briefly then, my eyes met Louise’s. She was still seated, her cane leaned against the edge of the table, regarding me with a cold, lacerating hatred.
“You stupid girl,” she said lowly. “What the fuck have you done?”
But I was now looking only at my daughter: her hands clasped before her, the pooling white satin of her dress hanging from her slender shoulders.
We could hear Allan arguing in the hallway, the contained chaos of men being men, refusing to stand down, issuing commands.
There was something implacable and resigned in the police officers’ tone and demeanor that struck me, with a twinge of longing, as distinctly Mexican.
“Venimos a llevarnos a la nina,” one of them said. We’ve come to take the girl.
At that, Ida’s eyes grew wide. Her hands unclasped and pressed the table, and I made a quieting gesture with my palm, Stay calm, this will soon be resolved.
Allan was speaking with exasperation, his voice rising, “What’s the meaning of this?
She’s my granddaughter!” Calling to me, “Mia, come explain to them!”
I didn’t answer. Only smiled at Ida, nodding to her, All is well, we’re fine, in the way mothers do when a flight hits rough air and the jet lurches and drops.
“Mia, come tell these men I’m your father!”
Seeing my refusal, with an ugly smirk, Louise got to her feet and began hobbling over to them, spewing her absurd lies, perhaps already understanding it was over.
“Ida,” I said softly, “Ida, my sweet, let’s go get some shoes on, what do you say?” I half rose from my chair, then froze, not wanting to spook her. Her eyes were as large and black as a deer’s paused at the edge of the field, head raised, every nerve tuned to listening.
The sounds in the hallway had swollen and become less legible: short huffs of breath, scuffling noises, something clattering to the ground. Then Allan scolding furiously, “This is Carol, my wife, the grandmother of the little girl!”
His emphatic tone told me he’d begun to understand. The police were still speaking in their imperturbable Spanish, Allan saying to Louise in desperation, “Explain to them, why don’t you?” A beat. Then a longer pause as the realization arrived. “You bitch.”
“Be quiet, Allan.”
“Lying bitch—”
“I said shut your mouth!” Louise hissed, the dog barking shrilly above her.
Her reverie finally broken, Ida sprang from the table, running blindly for the door.
I followed, both of us momentarily arrested by the sight of Allan gripping Louise’s oversized shirt in two fists.
Louise was clawing at his face, her nails contorting it, the uniformed officers ineffectually trying to pry them apart, seemingly cowed by the sight of two old people fighting violently.
With a shove, Allan wrenched free of Louise, redirecting his rage at the police, “Don’t touch me, I’ve done nothing wrong,” raising his hands, the dog leaping and snapping.
In the confusion, Ida shot past the tangle of bodies and was gone.
Somehow, in the chaos, I managed to follow.
I remember being through the door, my legs taking a moment to find purchase, to navigate the night’s darkness; how frantic I was in my slowness to catch and contain her, hollering her name in a voice I didn’t recognize.
I saw the police car turned sideways where the overgrown lane met the road, a few townspeople gathered there straining to see.
And then Tom, towering beside Officer Díaz.
At the sight of them, Ida pivoted, darting through the cypresses that edged the overgrown road, sprinting nimbly between the branches and into the fields.
I took after her, leaning into my stride, pumping my fists.
Ida was pumping her fists also, her dress a strange white blossom floating in the dusk.
She had seemed to acquire a different kind of motion, to hover within the white satin that billowed behind her, to fly rather than run.
Then I, too, was airborne. I felt the ground tilt and lift away, and for seconds, the earth become sky, and just as suddenly, my face and shoulder struck the ground, my body skidding and somersaulting.
I lay gasping, the wind knocked out of me.
“I’ve got her!”
I searched toward the sound, seeing the tall figure of Tom wading back through the grass. His strong arms held Ida aloft, her white dress like a cloud he’d somehow caught between his hands.
“I’ve got her,” he bellowed again, up to the great, fathomless dome of stars. “I’ve got my daughter!”
He was calling to Officer Díaz, I realized. I heard the triumph ringing through Tom’s voice. An odd calm fell over me, a numb relief that I felt as a kind of dying, as I watched him carry Ida, her limbs still kicking, toward the waiting car.