Page 111 of The Deepest Lake

I’m stunned speechless.

Dead and gone.

“Does Eva know my mother’s here?”

“She didn’t tell me at first. I think she’s trying to find her own way out of this fucking mess she’s made.”

That you also made, I want to say. But Barbara’s version was simpler. She wanted me dead, at the bottom of Lake Atitlán. It was Eva who wanted more than that. It’s always Eva who wants more, time after time, constructing her fragile houses of cards that can be toppled with the lightest puff—like someone arriving to ask questions, finally.

I set my forehead against the door. I want to wail. Bad enough, my mother thinks I’m dead. Worse, she’s here, with no idea what she’s walked into.

“Barbara,” I say. “Help me. And warn my mother. I’ll make sure no one presses charges.”

When she doesn’t answer, I pound my fist against the door. It makes no sense to appeal to a violent and impulsive woman, but I have no other choice. Barbara’s adoration of Eva seems to have faded. I know the feeling. Why would she have come at all, why would she have told me, unless she wanted to help?

“Barbara, at the very least, don’t tell Eva you told me. She’ll feel cornered.”

When Barbara doesn’t answer, it occurs to me that maybe Barbara wants Eva to feel cornered. Maybe Barbara wants Eva to take care of her own dirty work, for once. I’m all too afraid that Eva will.

“Please, Barbara!”

But then I hear the steps, the second door, the second latch. Somehow I know, Barbara is never coming back.

I’m woken by the sound of the door, a flashlight swinging in my face. No one has ever come at night, and although I am momentarily blinded, this arrival gives me hope. It could be anyone—Mauricio, a remorseful Barbara, the police. My mom.

A voice from behind the white light says, “You’re not feeling well?”

Then the light clicks off and she’s at my side. Only Eva.

My gut clenches. She never comes this late. It can’t be a good thing.

I tell her that I’ve started vomiting. I can’t keep anything down. It feels like morning sickness again.

“Well, you’re still at the right time for that—three months, give or take.”

“But I’m getting dehydrated. It’s really bad.” My brain goes searching for likely details. “My mother was like this during her pregnancy with me. She actually had to be hospitalized or she would have lost me.”

I wait for Eva to suggest something, but she doesn’t.

“A doctor, maybe?”

“No. Absolutely not.”

The mattress shifts as she stands. My audience is almost over.

“Tea,” I say. “Not the Mayan medicinal kind. When I was a kid and couldn’t stop vomiting, I always had special ginger tea.”

“Okay,” Eva says, sounding tired. “Hans makes something like that.”

“Thank you.”

“And Jules, I brought you a fresh journal.”

Maybe I went too far in the last pages I wrote. Maybe I didn’t go far enough.

“Thank you,” I say, without asking for any explanation.

“This way, you can start fresh and write about Aadhya.”

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