Page 50 of The Deepest Lake

“No entienden,” Concha says. They don’t understand.

“¿No entienden?”

Or they don’t want to understand, especially given Concha’s warning glare? Rose recalls there are several Indigenous tongues used in the Atitlán villages alone. Kaqchikel? Tz’utujil? She’s looked up the names of the languages several times, unable to memorize them and pronounce them, much less speak them. Point is, she’s heard fluid, frequent Spanish from less than half the staff. She tucks away the thought and holds her ground, thrusting the phone closer to the women’s faces, begging them to see.

Only one woman keeps looking. At the opening party, the lady bartender had frequently called out to her, asking for more bags of ice. Her name is Mercedes, Rose remembers. She has heavy-lidded eyes. She chops more slowly than the others, lips parted in concentration.

“La conoces a ella?” Do you know her?

Mercedes stares back.

Chef Hans calls from his post, near the ovens. “Ladies, I’m not seeing the calabaza soup out here. Concha, where are the tortillas?”

Rose thrusts out her phone. “La conocía a ella?” Did you know her?

Mercedes looks at Rose, back at Concha, then at Rose again. Her mouth is slightly open. Rose can see her tongue. Maybe she has Down syndrome. Maybe something else.

Concha drops her knife and hustles in response to the chef’s request. Mercedes tracks the other women’s progress across the room. She slices, waiting, until Concha is around the corner. Then Mercedes stops slicing, hand still on the black handle of her knife, squeezing it. She looks Rose in the eye. She dips her head just once: Yes.

16

JULES

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It’s great to feel needed this afternoon. The workshop participants are already in Antigua or en route, soon to rendezvous for their dinner, and I’m busy bouncing between emails and texts from anxious ladies, several with delayed flights.

I feel like a grown-up, an asset. Even when I have to check in with Eva, she seems to realize that our social media feeds can pause and breathe. There are real human beings en route. The staff are excited, with the opening party just twenty-four hours away. Mauricio doesn’t mind being told to run into town again for yet more wine, and even Hans chats with me, if only to ask whether the salsa is too spicy.

In the evening, I’m shocked to find I have nothing to do at eight o’clock. The Antigua dinner, hundreds of miles away, is going well. No incoming participant has been involved in a mugging, as happened one year, just outside the airport. No one is canceling, freaking out and demanding a refund.

I’m about to head to my cabin and stop first in the kitchen, refilling my water bottle from the big purified water garrafón, when my phone starts dinging with texts. I’m relieved to see they’re personal, from Ulyana.

I don’t like to interfere but your mom mentioned you haven’t been texting as often. I told her it means you’re having fun, but she keeps talking about mother’s intuition. I thought she’d retired her psychic’s hat once you graduated college. Text her?

I love Ulyana. She’s part stepmom, part older sister. As usual, she’s right, and yet her message pushes too many buttons all at once. First, there’s guilt: I shouldn’t worry Mom. It’s my fault she’s such a worrier, because at least once in my life, I gave her something to worry about.

Then I check in with another voice in my head. No, it insists. My mother worried about me before college, before kindergarten, even. She worried because I was born early—“slightly undercooked” as Dad likes to say. She probably worried about me before I was conceived. That long a history requires some serious retraining. How will I stop reinforcing her tendency to catastrophize if I keep answering every text? How will I convince her that I actually can have my own life for several weeks at a time, without it meaning something has gone wrong?

I’m just starting to respond to Ulyana’s text message when Ulyana follows up. Please don’t tell your mom I texted you. Our secret.

Secrets.

Ulyana and I have lots of them. I knew about her fertility problems a year before anyone else, and about Dad’s financial problems due to the IVF. Thanks to Ulyana, I also knew what Mom told her, one boozy night when they were both trying their hardest to bond, about the bad case of baby blues she had when I was a newborn.

I don’t know why Mom wants to hide the fact that she was depressed. Her generation has more mental health hang-ups than mine does—one reason of many I didn’t want to tell her the first time I got severely depressed in college.

The fact is, she survived her postpartum depression, if that’s what it was, and I’d be the last person to blame her for it. If there’s anything worse than temporarily losing your marbles, it must be losing them while you’re responsible for another living, breathing thing. When I was going through my freshman-year crisis, I wouldn’t have been able to take care of a hamster.

She also got over divorcing Dad. Much as I love him, I don’t think they were ever well-matched. In the end, I ended up with three great parents. Even when I’ve felt desperate for my own apartment and my own life, I’ve never wished Mom were a different person.

But I still have a deadline for Eva. I know my audience. Eva loves stories about secrets, difficult pregnancies and mother-daughter conflicts. It’s time to apply what little I know about my mother’s postpartum depression—with some embellishment, if necessary.

You are so creative. Even Mom said it.

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