Still shaking and in tears, Jamie and Taylor sat in their parents’ arms and told them how Lauritzia had pulled them to the elevator floor before they even realized what was happening, and how she had covered them with her body as the shooting broke out, shielding them from harm, and then got them out of there.
“It must have been so horrible,” Roxanne said over and over, tears in her own eyes, unable to let them out of her arms.
“It was. It was,” Taylor said, her face buried in the crook of her mother’s arm. “Mommy, I saw this woman and she was—”
“Don’t talk about it. Don’t talk about it, honey.” Roxanne pressed her daughter to her cheek, stroking her hair.
Jamie, still white as a ghost, could barely speak at all.
“Maybe we should contact the police,” Mr. Bachman said. He had rushed home from his law office in Stamford as soon as his wife called. “You got a look at him, didn’t you?”
“Not a good one,” Lauritzia said. “I was on the ground. No, please, no police. That is not a good idea.”
“Maybe later, Harold,” Roxanne said. “You can see how they’re all still rattled.”
“Yes.” Lauritzia nodded. “Maybe later. If they need me.”
“Anyway, there were witnesses all over,” Roxanne Bachman said. “We don’t have to involve the kids.”
Mrs. B was tall and pretty, and usually wore her shoulder-length blonde hair in a short ponytail. And she was very smart; Lauritzia knew she had once been in the financial investment business. That was how she and Mr. B first met. Now she did a lot of charity work for the school. And did yoga and ran marathons. And was the president of the neighborhood in Old Greenwich, where they lived.
“It’s just all so horrible.” Roxanne couldn’t stop squeezing her kids.
“They’re saying it was some kind of drug thing,” Harold said. His prematurely gray hair always gave him an air of importance, and Lauritzia knew he was important; he was a senior partner in a big law firm. “There was no immediate connection to any of the victims, but one of the people who was wounded has a record for selling drugs or something …”
“Sí, it was horrible,” Lauritzia agreed. They would never know how horrible. Yes, those poor people, Lauritzia knew, feeling ashamed.
“You ought to get that looked at,” Roxanne said of her wound. “I can take you to the emergency room—”
“No, the blood has stopped. It’s nothing.”
“Anyway, you should lie down. You’re still in shock. I’ll look in my medicine cabinet. I might have something.”
“Yes, I think that would be good.” Lauritzia nodded.
Roxanne put her hand to Lauritzia’s cheek. “Look how close this came … We can never make up to you what you did for us today.”
Soon the phones began to ring.
Mrs. B’s parents. Judy and Arn. Roxanne had called them, having told them the kids were heading to the mall, and knowing they would hear about it on the news. And then their friends. Then Jamie and Taylor’s friends. Soon it would be chatter on Facebook. After that, maybe local reporters. They’d want to hear their story.
And maybe hers too—the one who saved the kids!
Next it would be the police.
In her room, Lauritzia lay on her bed. She was growing more sad than she was afraid. Sad that it had come to this. That she had never been completely truthful with them. Or told them anything of her past. Except a made-up story, about how her father was a cook in the village where she came from. That had once been true. And how she had come here to visit her sister. That was partially true as well.
Before the nightmare began.
Now she knew she could no longer stay. They knew. They knew where she was. She could not put the family in any more danger than she already had. She could not do that to them. People she had grown to love. Anyway, once the truth came out, they would lose all trust in her. They would ask her to leave.
A drug thing. That’s what Mr. B claimed that it was …
It is always a drug thing, Lauritzia knew.
La cuota. That which is owed. To the familia, the cartel. A tax to the grave.
For her, what she owed was clear.
She had seen them. Through the maze of people. Before dragging Jamie and Taylor to the ground and burying her face in their trembling bodies. She had seen the shooter’s face and the dull, businesslike indifference in his eyes. The tattoo that ran down his neck. There was no attempt to hide it. The skeleton’s head that brought back all the terror and fear she had prayed she had forever left behind.
She knew who they were and where they were from.
And worse, Lauritzia thought, pressing the photo of her dead brothers and sisters to her pained heart, she knew exactly why they were here.
Lauritzia knew she had to leave. Leave now. She could not put them in danger another time.
There was just nowhere in the world for her to go.
Only back home, she realized, though that would be a fate of certain death for her. The day she left, she knew she could never return. She no longer had a home. Except here, while it had lasted. The Bachmans had given so much to her. She would miss Taylor and Jamie as if they were her own. But she could not put them at risk. She had lived two years in the fantasy that she had somehow escaped her fate. Part of a new family. Going to school. Pretending there was an outcome for her except that which she knew would ultimately find her.
Maybe that was someone else’s dream. Like the one of her own store. And surrounding herself with happy things. She perfectly understood this, as she took her bags from the closet.
La cuota.
It had found her. And it would have to be paid.
Two mornings later she made breakfast for the kids, as she did most every weekday. She had waited for them to feel fit and ready to go back to school. Mrs. B had met with the principal the day before and decided it was okay for them to return. The two were strangely quiet and withdrawn on their ride there, as if they somehow suspected something. Maybe they were just nervous to face the many questions about what had happened and have to recount their frightening tale. Maybe it was something deeper—the violence always did that to children. Why would they understand? As she drove up to the school and they were about to run out, Lauritzia reached over and held them.
“Wait a minute,” she said. “I want a hug. An extra-special hug this morning. For friends forever.”
They looked at her as if it seemed a bit peculiar.
“I think I’ve earned it,” Lauritzia said, flashing them her happiest smile, trying not to show her sadness, which was killing her inside.
“Okay,” Jamie mumbled, and tilted his head against her arm. Taylor gave her a real hug, which Lauritzia put her whole soul into in return.
“I’ll see you soon,” she called after them. Then quietly to herself: “Quizá un día.”
Perhaps one day.
Back at the house, she hastily packed her belongings into her bags. Her clothes, many of them the fine things Mrs. B had given her. The pictures she had kept of her family. And ones with her new family too. A wooden carving of Santa Bessette that her sister Maria had given her, which now meant more to her