Page 63 of The Deepest Lake

Barbara is an actual accountant. She oversees all this. She knows better. Eva could get in trouble if someone doesn’t clean this up and do right before it’s too late.

Then I stop and realize. None of this is my problem, technically. I’m not a long-term employee, not an ally or a whistleblower. I’m just a girl who worked a handful of days and will be moving on, soon.

On top of all that, tomorrow is my birthday. It would be nice to spend just one day not thinking about Eva, her plans or problems or moods. I’ve got no way to celebrate it, but maybe something will come to mind.

I try to corral my thoughts in that one practical direction, leaving the hot little office behind me and forcing some bounce in my step as I head up the alley, into the heart of San Felipe. When I pass the pizzeria, I stop short. Mauricio’s inside, at one of the front tables with an Indigenous man whose bowl-cut hair and woven shirt mark him as more traditional than most San Felipe men. My grin spreads from ear to ear.

When I get to the table, they’re just getting up to leave. The man, who has the deepest wrinkles I’ve ever seen and one eye covered with a bluish-white film, smiles at me, but Mauricio doesn’t introduce us. “Have a seat. He needs to catch a water taxi. Let me walk him to the dock, then I’ll be back.”

Giacomo brings me some breadsticks, on the house.

A few minutes later, Mauricio returns, alone.

“I’m sorry,” he says, dropping into the booth next to me. “I just didn’t expect to see you. My father and I were having a difficult discussion.”

“Your father?” It seems like everyone I’ve met at Casa Eva has an odd relationship with the truth. “First, I find out you have an uncle. Then you have a father. So, you’re not an orphan?”

“I never call myself that. Eva calls me that.”

“But you lived in the orfanato.”

“So did lots of kids whose parents were missing or just far away. A million people were kicked off their land during the civil war. Some fathers had to flee or be killed. Some mothers were left behind. When my mother was murdered, my father had too many enemies to stay. Then I had a cousin who got a tourism job in Pana. He brought me to the orphanage and left me there.”

“You were born three years after the war ended, Mauricio.”

“The death squads didn’t go away. Some things are worse now than when I was born.”

Mauricio focuses on the knots he’s been tying in a straw, looking down to evade my face, which I’m sure looks childishly furious. What the hell am I doing, needling him about his life in a war-torn country, something I know nothing about?

“I just want to know why you didn’t tell me. I showed you photos of my parents. I read you my mom’s texts. Meanwhile, your dad is walking around San Felipe and I think you’re an orphan. So, he lives here, or not?”

“He lives in a village, six hours away by boat and bus. He only came because he heard through cousins that my uncle was bringing me to Guate. My father doesn’t want that.”

“Is bringing you to Guate? You said it would never happen.”

“Jules,” he says, resting his chin in his hands. “It’s so easy for you.”

“I want you to be safe.”

“That’s what Eva always says. But you know? I’m tired of being her project.” He clears his throat. Another confession is coming, I can tell. “Eva wants her daughter to marry me so I can move to the US and get a green card.”

“Isn’t Adarsha, like, thirty now?”

“Thirty-six.”

“Have you ever met her?”

“No.”

“That seems like a problem. What does Adarsha think about all this?”

“She was considering, but I think Eva pushed too hard. Now they aren’t talking again.”

“Good,” I say, not that it solves the problem. “I don’t think you want to get that deeply involved with them.”

“It’s not that easy. I live at Casa Eva. It’s a job.”

“Well, you won’t have a job for long if she keeps this up.”