No Way Back: Part 2 of 3. Andrew Gross

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.

       CHAPTER ELEVEN

      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 than anything in the world. Sadly, Lauritzia put her textbooks aside on the night table.

      She would not need them anymore.

      When she was done, she dragged her bags out to the foyer and called for a taxi. Roxanne was at exercise class, and that gave her about half an hour. She sat at the kitchen island and tried to put her thoughts down in a note. To all of them. She told them how much she loved them all and how they were like family to her now, her only family, and always would be. But that she had to go back home.

      “Lives here are not like where I come from” was all she said. The words were hard to get out. “There, they are not fully your own. I wish you all the love of God. You will always be in my heart. Each of you. Every day. You treated me with love and made me part of your life and for that it is I who can never repay you enough, not you me.”

      She felt herself starting to cry.

      Mercifully, she was saved by the sound of the cab honking outside. She brought her bags to the step and asked the driver to wait. Just a few moments more. She ran upstairs one last time, to the kids’ rooms, and placed a flower from the kitchen on each of their beds.

      Where she was from it meant someone would always watch over you, no matter where in life you went.

      As she finally went out the front door, carrying her bags to the taxi, she took a final look at the house that had given her a home for a second time.

      Then she went down the stairs, wishing someone had put a flower on her pillow too.

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