I lowered my head to my forearms on the table and sobbed.
Ignacio would never believe me.
And worse, maybe, neither would his parents.
Nearly an hour later, the door opened, and Edward and Jesse stepped in along with a police officer. They both looked down at me in disbelief.
“He’s alive?” Edward began. “All this time, he’s been alive, and you knew?”
I took a deep breath and nodded.
“And you got us to make this trip just so you could meet up with him?”
“No, not just—”
“You used us,” he said.
“No, Edward. Do not think that.”
“What else should we think, Delia? All this deception. This is very, very serious.”
I started to cry.
“Why didn’t you trust us with the truth, Delia?”
“I…was afraid you would get into trouble, too, Edward, both of you.”
“What do you think we’re in now?” He nodded at the policemen. “They think we knew and that we brought you specifically to meet him.”
I didn’t know what else to say. I just lowered my gaze to the floor and cried.
“You know what’s the worst thing about all this, Delia?” Edward said.
I looked up and shook my head. What was worse than any of this so far?
“The worst thing,” he said, “is we’re going to have to call on my mother to help us.”
It was as if a flag had been lowered to the ground, and there was truly nothing else left to do but surrender.
17
Surrender
The journey back resembled a funeral procession. Even when we sat in the airplane, there was a heavy cloak of morbid silence draped over the three of us. Before we boarded the plane, I tried once again to explain to Edward and Jesse why I had kept Ignacio’s existence a secret from them, but I could see they were still so hurt that my words were like bubbles bursting in their ears.
“Let’s just not talk about it, Delia,” Edward said, sounding totally emotionally exhausted. He sighed deeply. “Let’s just not talk at all.”
I closed my eyes, swallowed back my tears, and waited for the horrible journey to end.
I did learn some things from them. Tía Isabela had to get Señor Bovio to contact the Mexican ambassador to intercede on our behalf. I couldn’t imagine how Adan might be reacting to all the news. We had been told that the Mexican legal authorities were being cooperative and sending Ignacio back to be tried in the United States. Bradley Whitfield’s father still had a great deal of influence. The fact that Ignacio’s death was faked and the secret kept not only by his family but by friends in Mexico and the United States proved to be too great an embarrassment. No one could defend such a thing. We heard the local newspapers and television and radio stations, as well as some of the state and national newspapers, were reporting it all in great detail.
I felt like running away again and might have, but the police and government people were all around us, making sure we were quickly sent off. No one wanted me here, and certainly no one wanted me now in America, either. I hadn’t even had the chance to visit my parents’ and my grandmother’s graves. I wished I could disappear, form a shell around myself, and crawl into it. I had even disappointed the dead.
Despite the newspaper accounts and television stories directing the spotlights toward us, however, Tía Isabela and her influential friends were able to keep the cameras away when we arrived at the airport. Señor Garman greeted us and led us to a different automobile in order to keep us incognito. In minutes, Edward and I were on our way to the hacienda. Jesse’s parents had made separate arrangements for him. They scooped him up so quickly we didn’t even say good-bye.
If I had ever felt I was entering a courtroom to face an unmerciful, cruel judge, I felt it again when Edward and I, both entering the hacienda with our heads lowered like flags of surrender, confronted Tía Isabela. She sat in the heavy cushioned chair facing the entryway and waited for us to walk into the living room. Sophia was nowhere in sight, which I thought was a little blessing.
“Now, before you start, Mother,” Edward began, holding his hand up like a traffic cop, “I think you should know—”