The Barbarian Nurseries A Novel - By Hector Tobar Page 0,109

some drooping like jellyfish, others slithering through the sky like serpents, and finally one forming a large orb that loomed over the towers and the neighborhood like a small planet, causing many oohs and ahhs from the people gathered in the Luján backyard.

The planet fell from the sky and the explosions stopped, suddenly. For ten, twenty, thirty seconds the adults and children looked up at the blank sky and waited for the next burst of light. They saw only a large cloud of smoke, drifting slowly eastward like a white Rorschach test across the dark sky. From beginning to end the sixty-third annual Huntington Park Fireworks Extravaganza was the shortest in city history, having lasted just four minutes and thirty-five seconds, the city having failed to take note of the nationwide fireworks shortage caused by a warehouse explosion in China’s Guangdong Province some months earlier.

“That’s it?” someone said in English.

“¿Se acabó?”

“What a rip-off!”

Standing by the table where the carnitas were being carved, City Councilman Salomón Luján stood with a large serving fork, took in the empty horizon, and uttered a useful English exclamation that had been one of the first to drift into his vocabulary:

“Oh, shit.”

After a harried exchange of shouted questions and answers during their five-minute drive up the hill to Paseo Linda Bonita, Maureen and Scott realized that Brandon and Keenan had been alone with Araceli since Friday morning, and that neither had talked to the boys since calling home on Friday evening. The length of their absence stretched out to unseemly numbers: four days, more than ninety-six hours of blank and unknown chapters in their sons’ lives, ninety-six hours in which they had abdicated their parental responsibilities. When they are small, you are vigilant at the playground, you never allow your eye to stray from them for more than a few seconds, Maureen thought. And if you lose sight of them, for twenty seconds, for a minute, you are transported suddenly into an abyss of guilt and panic, and you scan the surroundings against the idea that your loss will endure forever, until you spot them and your heart returns to that calm place where parents most seek to live. Maureen drove past the guard shack without bothering to acknowledge the pregnant woman on duty, and violated the 25 MPH speed limit signs, flying over speed bumps and making several squealing turns up the sinuous streets of the Laguna Rancho Estates. She pulled into the garage and ran into the house, leaving Samantha still strapped in the car with her father.

Although Maureen had been in the house thirty minutes earlier, and recognized the improbability that her sons might have returned in that short time, she called out their names again: “Brandon! Keenan! Mommy and Daddy are home! Brandon! Keenan!” This maternal reflex became more of a plea and lament with each repetition, until Scott said, “They’re not here,” which caused Maureen to turn and snap at him, “I can see that!”

Scott began looking for a note from Araceli, and for clues about her departure and destination. There was nothing in the kitchen, the place where one might have expected her to leave a message. In the living room he was distracted by the great open space where the shattered coffee table had once been, and thus failed to notice that one of the picture frames on the bookshelves was empty. He moved back to the kitchen, where he informed Maureen of the undeniable conclusion that their children had not been home for a while. “If you look closely you can tell the bathrooms haven’t been used for at least twenty-four hours, if not longer,” he said. “And no one used the kitchen until you got here and made that meal for Samantha. Right?” Before Maureen could answer, Scott headed toward the door that led from the kitchen to the backyard and the guesthouse, and stepped across the open space to Araceli’s door again, and tried turning the handle.

“Do we have a key for this door?”

For the next ten minutes, Maureen and Scott searched their home for a spare guesthouse key, until they found a plastic sandwich bag filled with keys in a drawer in the laundry room. They rushed back to Araceli’s room: neither had set foot in this locked corner of their property for the four years Araceli been their employee, respecting the Mexican woman’s privacy and trusting her to keep it clean. They opened the door and entered a space of unexpected clutter and mystery.