The Replacement Child - By Christine Barber Page 0,83
fix the washing machine?”
“Oh, yes. He called about an hour or so before he showed up.”
“Did Melissa answer the phone when he called?”
Mrs. Baca thought, then said, “She talked to him for a few minutes, then handed the phone to me.”
“Do you know what they talked about?” Gil thought that maybe Melissa had told him to meet her in Oñate Park to talk more about the Sandra Paine photos.
“I was in the kitchen. I couldn’t hear them.”
She was starting to fade. He didn’t want to leave her until she was safely in bed. He started going around the house, turning off lights. They got to her room. He looked around. It wasn’t very big; in fact, it was much smaller than Melissa’s room. Gil wondered why Melissa had had the master bedroom while Mrs. Baca stayed in a child’s bedroom. One entire wall of Mrs. Baca’s bedroom was taken up in a shrine with a large crucifix over it. An altar table had candles on it with an assortment of pictures—all of the same person in various stages of life. As a baby, as a boy, and then as a man. Gil guessed that it was Daniel. And he wondered where the shrine to her husband was.
He had Mrs. Baca lie down fully clothed in her tiny twin-size bed. He turned the light in her room off and cracked her door, leaving the hallway light on. Just as he did for his girls. To keep the boogeyman away. He didn’t want to leave Mrs. Baca like this. He thought about calling Mrs. Cordova, but it was late. In the end, he wandered around the house, peeking in on Mrs. Baca until he was sure that she was asleep.
He went out and sat in his car, watching the house, not sure what else to do. He called his mother. She answered on the fourth ring.
“Mom, I’m not going to be able to make it over there tonight. I’ve got some work to finish up.”
“Whatever you think is best, hito,” she said. “Your work comes first.”
They hung up and he slouched down in the seat, knowing that he was going to be there for a while.
Lucy opened her front door quietly for the sake of her neighbors, then tripped on a stray shoe and fell to the floor with a loud crash. Damn. Hell. Great entrance. And she wasn’t even drunk. For a change.
The copy editors had invited her out again and she’d gone with them to the bar. She’d quietly sipped a Sprite while they got louder and louder on their beer. She had wanted to drink. Badly. There were a thousand things she wanted to forget. Time might heal all wounds, but alcohol makes you forget you have wounds. But she was strong. Hear me roar. She had worked out at the gym today and not had any alcohol. Being this healthy was bound to be bad for you.
She had been careful to sit a few seats away from the sports reporter she had kissed two nights ago. She was nice to him. Said “hi” and “how are you?” with true sincerity. But she didn’t want him to get the impression that she was overly interested. He kept giving her goofy drunken stares. Lord, help me. After an hour, she pretended to go to the bathroom and slipped out of the bar.
She picked herself up off the floor of her apartment and flipped on her answering machine. First message from Mom. Second one from Mom. Third one from Gerald Trujillo: “Lucy, I missed you at the fire station this afternoon.” She erased the rest of the message without listening to it. She sighed and plopped onto the couch.
She stretched her arms over her head to release some of the tension in her shoulders. She needed to talk to Gerald. To really talk to him. She needed to ease her guilt.
She turned the television on and started watching an old Cosby Show.
The phone rang. She looked at her watch. Just after two A.M. Who would be calling this late? She let the answering machine pick it up. It was the sports reporter she had been indecent with. Damn. “Hey, Lucy, you left the bar tonight without saying good-bye.” She went to bed without listening to the rest of the message.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Saturday Morning
L ucy tried to roll over in her sleep, but the movement made her back muscles cut with pain, jarring her awake. She had overdone it with the weights yesterday,