“About four hundred meters east of where we parked. You’ll see a restaurant with a green awning. The trajinera is out front.”

“I’ll be there soon.”

We hung up.

Stuffing the phone back in my pocket, I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see the nut job staring after me.

He was gone.

1950

1

María Diaz was born premature at thirty-two weeks via an emergency caesarian section. She weighed three pounds thirteen ounces. She passed all the typical tests and was deemed a perfectly healthy baby. When she was one week old, however, her heartrate skyrocketed. Her parents rushed her back to the hospital, where she suffered twenty-two seizures over the next twelve hours. As epilepsy was not well understood then, her pediatrician assumed hemorrhaging in the brain and confidently told her parents she wouldn’t survive the night.

María was now four years old. She knew nothing of what happened during that eventful first week of life, of course. Like most four year olds, her knowledge was largely restricted to her immediate environment, which included her house and the street out front of it.

Currently María stood before a shelf in the house’s playroom, deciding which dolls would participate in her morning tea party. Her first choice was Angela, who was dressed in a lacy blue dress and bonnet. She was a Rock-a-bye Baby, which meant at nighty-night time you had to rock her until her eyes closed and she fell asleep. María carried her carefully to the small table and set her in a chair. She flopped forward, her heavy rubber head clonking the tabletop. “No more sleeping,” María told her sternly and sat her upright. She waited to make sure Angela wouldn’t move on her own again. Satisfied, she returned to the shelf. Eight dolls stared back at her, but there were only two available seats at the table. After some contemplation, María decided on Miss Magic Lips. She was wearing her pink dress with glitter-net trim, and she was smiling, showing her three front teeth, which meant she was happy. When she was unhappy she pressed her lips together and cried.

Not wanting to make a third trip to the table, María also grabbed Teddy, who wore nothing but an apricot-colored sweater. He was a bear and not a doll, but he was a friendly bear and got along with everyone.

At the table she sat Miss Magic Lips to the left of Angela, and Teddy to her right. They were better behaved than Angela, and neither of them tried to go to sleep. Pleased, María went to the chest in the corner and mussed through the toys for the necessary saucers, tea-cups, and kettle. She set the table, then said, “Thank you everyone for coming to my tea party. Who wants some tea?”

“I do!” Angela said, though it was really María speaking in a higher pitched voice.