Afterlife - Julia Alvarez Page 0,26

those plastic toys. Then, her next-door neighbor, Roger.

As she drives by the farm, Antonia wonders how the Estela-Mario reunion has gone. On and off, she has thought of them. Did Estela catch the bus east? Who did Mario enlist to pick her up at the Burlington bus station? What is the living situation like? Has Roger relented? Antonia could turn into his place, park in front of the trailer, knock and ask, ?Cómo están? But this would be to encourage an ongoing dependency, which, like Officer Morgan with his reading, Antonia just doesn’t have the energy for right now.

Remember to take care of the caretaker, Outpost for Hope included on its downloadable checklist for families of missing persons. You’re entitled to a little TLC yourself. Antonia is missing two of the people she most loved in the world. Still, she dislikes these back-patting encouragements, entitled, deserve. You need a little me-time, a former colleague had recommended to Antonia when they bumped into each other in town. It smacks of a privileged mindset that believes itself exempt from the ills the rest of the world has to contend with. Antonia recalls the reporter in front of a devastated neighborhood in post-Katrina New Orleans noting with astonishment: We’re used to scenes like this in Haiti or Africa, but this isn’t supposed to happen here. Antonia played the clip to her classes. Does suffering hurt less if you’re poor? she asked the room full of young students.

Only the silent dark looks of her two minority students signaled to Professor Vega that they got what she was talking about.

But even though she disapproves of the attitude, Antonia finds herself partaking of that same privileged prerogative. Why should so much be heaped on her? I’m not Job, she reminds the God she only consults when she is feeling overwrought. Shades of Mami. So many promesas made and broken once it was clear God was not going to cede control. Maybe the only difference between Antonia and the blithe partakers is that she recognizes what she is doing.

And what good does that do anyone? She imagines Sam dismissing her easy exonerations. And maybe that is how he will keep coming back: periodically breaking through the firewalls of her narrow path with his insights, suggestions, questions.

And there it is, perched on top of the hill, the dream house Sam built on a small subdivision of their former lot, now left for her to inhabit alone, every detail something he researched: the awning windows that never allow rain to blow in; the doorknobs with levers instead of knobs, easier for them to handle as they grew old; the slate from a local quarry; the heated concrete floors; the CERV unit—she has no idea how it works. What normally brought pleasure, the sight of it there, quickening her heart as she approached, now brings on that ache in her chest. She recalls friends consoling her after Sam’s service, saying that the hole in her heart would heal with time. But Antonia suspects this is not quite what will happen. More likely she will learn to live with a hole in her heart.

She pulls into her driveway, hits the button for the garage door on her side, avoiding the sight of the empty space to the left of her car where Sam’s pickup used to be parked, now given away to the Good News garage up in Burlington that refurbishes used cars to donate to the needy, something she knows Sam would approve of—again, how he lives on, in her choices and in the vehicle’s afterlife. As she turns off the car, she notices the back door of the garage is ajar. In her avoidance of looking over to his side, she must have forgotten to lock it before she left home over a week ago. A burglar could have come in, walked across the space where Sam’s pickup used to be, and entered the house through the mudroom. What a good laugh Sam would have, pointing out how all her caution and precaution have again come to naught.

You never know, she always remarked, while also envying him his role as the trusting guy, the good cop. It’s not just the sisters with assigned roles. Maybe it’s part and parcel of being connected to others whom you have to discriminate a self from.

Now she hears a rustling sound from Sam’s side of the garage; an arrow of fear hits a bull’s-eye in her heart. Here it is at last: the