Page 51 of The Deepest Lake

Time to find out.

Three hours after emailing the essay in the middle of the night, I wake to the sound of roosters and the ding of my phone: a text from Eva.

Brava.

I stare at those five letters, feeling a warm flush of pride. Finally, I’ve done something right.

My thumb hovers over various emojis. None of them will do. I keep my response brief. I’m glad you liked it.

Her reply is swift.

Liked it. I loved it!

Another ding. And sorry for yelling at you after my bad phone call with Richard.

For a moment, Eva’s apology feels great, like she gets it. And gets me.

That feeling, in turn, makes we want to apologize and hastily explain: “I’m so glad you read and enjoyed my pages, but I may have exaggerated just a little.” Or: “The essay doesn’t quite capture how I feel about my mother, but revision will fix that. Thanks so much!”

And that would be stupid. You don’t respond to praise with a confession that makes the person doing the praising seem less perceptive. You don’t respond to possibility with reflexive self-sabotage. Right, Jules?

My thumbs hover. Last night, I felt boldly inventive. This morning I feel sheepish and fake. That impostor feeling? It never goes away, whether you are writing with all your heart or only with half of it.

Take the praise, I tell myself. If you’re lucky, this isn’t the only thing you’ll write for Eva. They’re just words on the page. A third ding. Get ready. I’m taking you into town. Breakfast and mud facials.

I squeal, loud enough to wake Gaby in the twin bed across the room.

Gaby mumbles, “La señora? Does she need something?”

“No, she wants to take me out.”

“She never goes out the day of the big party.”

“Today she is.”

Mercedes, who rarely speaks more than a word at a time, sits up in bed. “Imagínate,” she says.

Imagine that.

When Eva walks through the door, the spa receptionist claps her hands and presses them to her cheeks, giddy with joy.

“Paulina!” Eva calls. A tiny girl with long black braids bursts through a pink curtain and runs to Eva, burying her face in the side of Eva’s leg.

“Oh, darling! How’s my favorite little girl? And how’s your brother?”

The girl keeps rubbing her face against Eva, too shy to answer.

“Now go up the street. You know what to get,” orders the receptionist, who barely looks old enough to be the little girl’s mother. Paulina breaks away, darting through the open door, just as I have my camera out, tempted to take a photo of the cuteness and slightly ashamed I’m already picturing exactly where I’d post it, which isn’t like me—not the old me, anyway.

Eva flaps her hands in protest at whatever errand the barefoot little girl has been made to run, but she’s clearly elated. “You don’t have to do anything special. Our spa time is special enough!”

“No, no. Come. To the back. Hold on. Please wait, Miss Eva. I’m so sorry. Just a moment. You like the bigger room, with the volcano pictures.”

“Don’t make anyone leave before their time’s up. Please!”

“And here, special for Mercedes,” the receptionist says, ready with another gift. It’s a repurposed cooking oil jug filled with a brown liquid, with small twigs and leaves floating inside.

“Perfect,” Eva says.