Glancing up at that question, Ildaria realized she’d broken off the story. She gave her head a shake to clear out her other worries and nodded. “Si. There was no more bouncing from boyfriends to my abuela’s. It was just Abuela and I.” Her mouth curved into a soft smile. “The next ten years were wonderful. She was an amazing woman and I was nothing like my mother. Probably by choice. I didn’t want to be like her.”
“Understandable,” G.G. murmured.
“So I was a dutiful granddaughter, always doing what I was told, and spending a lot of time with Abuela, rather than with children my own age. She used to walk me to school on the way to work, and then I would go to her employer’s after school and do my homework in the kitchen until she was done and then walk home with her.”
“What about friends?” G.G. asked when she paused to take a breath.
“Oh, I had school friends,” she said with a shrug. “But I never saw them after school. Abuela worked late enough that my friends were inside when we got home.” Ildaria smiled faintly. “I know most people would consider that abnormal or unhealthy, but I didn’t really miss not having friends my own age. I had my abuela and she was always doing things with me. Teaching me to cook and clean, helping with my homework. We played board games and cards and laughed a lot. I loved my abuela. She was wonderful.”
G.G. nodded, but pointed out, “You said the next ten years were wonderful. What happened after that?”
Ildaria was silent for a minute, her mind going back to that time. “My abuela usually finished work around dinnertime when the night staff took over, and then we’d walk home to make our own meal. But if her employer was having a party, she’d stay late to help and send me home alone. It only happened perhaps once or twice a year over those first ten years, but then Señorita Ana got engaged. She was rich and from an important family, so the engagement meant a lot more parties, two or three a week. My abuela was getting older, and I knew she found these parties exhausting after working all day. I wanted to stay and help, but she refused to even consider it. She wanted me nowhere near these parties. She’d send me home every time.
“It was as I left before one of these parties that a man approached me at the end of the driveway. He introduced himself as Juan, a friend of my abuela’s employer, assured me I was safe with him, and insisted on walking me home. I wasn’t completely comfortable with him, but I didn’t want to offend my abuela’s employer by offending him. So, not knowing how to make him go away, I let him walk me home, thinking it would be a one-off. But a couple days later there was another party, and again my abuela sent me home alone, and there he was, appearing at the end of the drive to accompany me.
“As I say, I wasn’t comfortable with him, but couldn’t have told you why at the time,” she said unhappily. “Juan never did anything wrong, never touched me or said anything untoward. He was very polite and even charming, but I—” she hesitated and then tried to explain, “I was very naïve, but even so I think I sensed that he wanted . . . something,” she said helplessly, unable to better describe the creeping sense of discomfort he’d caused her when he hadn’t done anything that she could point to as being threatening. Grimacing, she gave it up and said, “I began to loathe the nights my abuela had to stay late for parties.”
Her gaze slid to G.G. and she paused briefly as she noted the grim expression on his face. He knew something was coming and was mentally preparing himself. It was part of the reason he didn’t gasp in horror or outrage at things he was told. Which, she suspected, was also part of the reason women liked to talk to him. He was a good listener, really listening . . . with interest and caring and calm. G.G. was a good listener in the way that a good driver kept an eye on the traffic ahead, not just on the car ahead. The driver who watched only the car ahead didn’t know there was