Chapters (41)
- PART ONE
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- PART TWO
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- PART THREE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
He’d held her shoulders and said she had to consider the possibility of being without him.
She couldn’t do it. She’d squared her shoulders, shaken her head. There had to be another way. She’d be too frenzied, make a mistake, endanger Phoenix.
I have faith in you, he’d said.
Maybe she’d believed him then, but now that he was gone, she didn’t know what she believed. She held Phoenix’s baby blanket to her face.
Tía’s hacienda. Were Andres, Phoenix, and her mom already on their way down? Had they mistaken Calliope as disappeared? Never mind their cars in the driveway. They could’ve hitched a ride with neighbors. They could’ve walked. She couldn’t allow reason to kick in, couldn’t handle the possibilities.
She stuffed the blanket along with pajamas into a bag, stoppering her tears with packing. In her own bag, her mother’s rosary and a bottle of holy water. She’d allowed her mother to sprinkle the stuff on Phoenix’s head whenever he was ill and to pray over him. Calliope’s throat tightened. Was she praying over him now? Bisabuela had taught her the prayers of her people. Before Calliope had broken Bisabuela’s heart.
Calliope crouched to face the girl she’d just met, who beneath the filtered gleam of the flashlight appeared as a tiny, pearlescent waif disappearing into a gloss of blue-black braids. “Let’s find you something to take, chica.”
Eunjoo didn’t ask where they were going, only peeled herself from the couch as a shellfish dislocating from the seawall, bracing the flashlight in one hand and sliding her free hand into Calliope’s. The soft skin of the little girl’s palm reminded her of Phoenix, which both comforted and disturbed her. She resisted the urge to pull away.
Together the pair descended the stairs, a tug of war within Calliope, at once grateful for the child’s presence and resentful she’d been spared while Phoenix had gone missing. She felt almost repelled by the quiet girl. It occurred to Calliope that she knew nothing about her.
“How old are you?”
Eunjoo unclutched Calliope’s hand and held out her fingers. Six. Same as Phoenix.