“You were with Mercedes last night.”

That was reassuring. I knew that nothing too crazy could have happened if Mercedes was with me. I yawned. “I could sleep like the dead.”

“You can nap in your … we have a room with its own bath, if you don’t mind.”

“Why would I mind?”

Oswald led me to a room on a short hallway off the kitchen. It had a lumpy full-sized bed, an old wooden desk, and a bookshelf with paperbacks.

“You’re sticking the Mexican girl in the maid’s room,” I said.

“You like this room because it faces out to the garden,” he said, and, indeed, the view out the window of the garden was charming except for a dead mock-orange.

“You need to pull out that bush,” I said. “This climate is far too cold for it anyway.”

I peered into a white-tiled bathroom with a claw-foot tub and said, “Sweet.”

Then I caught sight of someone’s awful reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were sunken, her eyes dull and hollow, her skin sallow, and her hair was several inches longer than mine. I stared until I realized the person in the mirror was me.

Oswald came close and said, “Milagro.”

I turned to him and cried, “What day of the month is it? What year?”

When he told me, I turned to the wall and said, “No, no.”

Oswald’s arms were around me, and he pulled me to him while I said, “No, no.”

“It’s temporary. You’ll get your memory back. I’m calling a professional to help.” His lips grazed my forehead in a gentle kiss. “You’ll get better soon. You always do. Come rest now.”

He helped me to the bed and pulled off my stupid shoes. Then he covered me with a comforter and stayed sitting beside me. I kept saying, “No, no,” and crying while he rubbed my back and said, “It will be all right, Mil.”

“What happened to me?” I asked. “Why do I look this way?”

“You’re stressed out. Go to sleep. You’ll be well again soon, I promise.”

I stared at him, waiting for recognition to come. “Oswald, how do I know you?”

He hesitated for a few seconds, and then he said, “You were the gardener here.”

eleven

Countrycide

When I awoke, I looked at the clock by the bed. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon, and I still didn’t remember this place or Oswald. He’d said that this kind of amnesia lasted an average of six hours. I’d paid enough attention in my math course at F.U. to know that the median was more important than the average.