Statute of Limitations

Chapter Seven

“Did you two solve all the world’s problems?” Even though her husband’s voice was no more than a breathy whisper, it startled Estelle. So lost was she in her own thoughts that she had never felt him shift his position in bed, never sensed his waking. Her eyes ached from staring into the dark void overhead, the inky depths broken only by the single red eye of the smoke alarm on the opposite bedroom wall.

“Not even close,” she murmured. She and Sofía had talked for another hour, and afterward, when she’d made her way into bed, she had fallen instantly asleep…for an hour. She turned now and squinted at the clock on the dresser. In another few minutes, the boys would be awake, excited about whatever might await them out under the Christmas tree.

Francis shifted and Estelle could feel his breath on her neck. “I don’t think we’re big-city people,” he whispered.

“She talked to you, too?”

“‘Cornered’ might be more accurate,” Francis said. “She’s worried.”

“Y yo también,” Estelle said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Maybe nothing is the appropriate thing right now,” her husband whispered.

She twisted onto her side so that she faced him, then reached up and found the side of his face, stroking the silky beard that he now kept clipped short, just enough to soften his square jaw line. “Is that the right thing, oso?”

A long moment of silence followed, but she knew that Francis had heard the question. She felt his touch, light and delicate, as his wrist crossed hers. With a single finger, he traced the outline of her lips.

“The right thing is for them to grow up healthy and happy,” he said finally. “Anything else is gravy.”

Estelle drew in a long, deep breath that trembled when she exhaled. “When she talked about Veracruz, it made me remember Andy Browers. That’s not fair, but that’s what it made me think of. I didn’t tell Sofía that, of course.”

Her husband’s finger hesitated, then moved from her lips and tapped the end of her nose, his only comment.

“I know,” she replied to the unspoken comment. “I know it’s not the same.” She knew that there was no logic to the emotions that tied her stomach in knots. Andy Browers had been an opportunistic punk who three years before had tried to kidnap two area children-his own stepchild and little Francisco Guzman, then three years old-with the notion of selling the children in Mexico. The memory of those moments had lost some sharpness around the edges, but they still haunted her.

“I couldn’t send Francisco away, even if it was to live with Sofía,” Estelle said. Her husband didn’t respond. “Could you do that?”

He tapped the end of her nose again, and then she felt his heavy arm settle around her shoulders, drawing her closer. “Nope,” he said. “And all we can do is hope that it’s that simple, querida.”

“Tell me why it isn’t that simple,” she said.

“Because,” Francis said, as if that was that.

“Oh, sí.” She managed to grip a few beard hairs and twisted, wagging them from side to side.

“Because Sofía would argue that a genius belongs to the world,” he said, and the words came out with such finality, such measured conviction, that it startled Estelle. When she had assumed that he was sound asleep, perhaps in truth he had been staring at the ceiling, too, wrestling with his own thoughts.

“Do you believe that, too?”

“In a way, sure. That’s just the way it works. I think that’s what Sofía is trying to say.”

“What’s that mean?” she whispered, knowing perfectly well what it meant.

Francis drew in a deep breath. “It means that we’re responsible for helping him find his way,” he said. “Whatever that takes.”

“You think this is his way, then?”

“I don’t know, querida. I’m not exactly practiced in this.”

“Ni yo. But he’s only six, oso. Tomorrow he might decide that he’s going to collect toys out of cereal boxes. The world’s largest collection.”

“Don’t we wish life was that simple,” Francis whispered. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen. He’s been consumed with that piano since the moment the store delivered it. Anybody can see that. And before that, he sneaked off and practiced on the piano at school. I don’t think this is a passing fancy.”

“I don’t think so either.”

“All I know is what Sofía says,” Francis said. “And what I see and hear myself…not that I’m much of a judge. My musical ability is limited to playing about four chords. I think Francisco inherited it all from you.”

“Ay,” Estelle said. “Two musical duds, and look what we produce.”

“Yep. Of course, you might have some great conductor in your past, for all we know. Maybe your real last name is Bach. Didn’t old Johann have about twenty kids, or something like that? Maybe some of them made it to the hinterlands of Mexico. I mean, when they were carrying those virgins up the steps of those Aztec temples to rip their hearts out, someone had to play the march music.”

She ground a knuckle into his ribs. “That’s it,” Estelle agreed. She could have counted on one hand the times when it might have mattered to her who her parents had been. Teresa Reyes, childless and a widow, had adopted her through the church in Tres Santos when Estelle was not yet two years old.

Francis locked a hand over hers to prevent more damage. “But I think he has to go sometime. I trust Sofía’s judgment about his genius, mi corazón. If Francisco had just a little bit of talent…a little proficiency, maybe, she wouldn’t be making such a big deal out of all this. She’d suggest that we make sure hijo got into band in school, that he took lessons, all that stuff that kids do. She was adamant that we buy the piano, and thank God we did that.”

“And when’s that ‘sometime’? Now what?”

“That’s exactly right. Now what? I don’t know.”

“He’s too young to go anywhere.”

“Of course he’s too young, querida. He’s six. And I can hear what Sofía would say. She’d say that at age six, he’s getting a late start. After all, Mozart was composing and performing in public when he was, what…four? Five?”

“And dead at thirty something, oso.”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” Francis said. “For all this medical stuff that keeps me off the street corners, we don’t know, do we?” He pulled her touch closer. “But Mozart was a couple centuries ago, back when they thought that the heart pumped air. I probably could have kept him alive with a good does of amoxicillin. He might have lived long enough to write Don Giovanni, Part Six.”

“I’m serious, querido. I don’t care about Mozart. I care about Francisco. There has to be some other answer,” Estelle said.

“Sure. We could send hijo to New York City.”

“Caramba. I don’t think so. Anyway, he’s too young for Juilliard.”

“But not for the Conservatorio de Veracruz,” Francis said.

“Ay.”

“Yep. I know exactly what she’s thinking. Sofía could walk Francisco the two blocks to the conservatory and back. From her condo. Every day.” Her husband said it so easily, as if he could actually imagine such a thing. No doubt Sofía could, and as much as Estelle dearly loved her aunt-in-law and Sofía’s wisdom, she felt a pang of jealousy.

“Carlos would be a sad little saquito,” Estelle said.

“Not if he went, too.”

She pulled his beard very hard, enough to make him gasp.

“Maybe we just moved the wrong way last time,” he said, referring to their half-year in Minnesota. “And you could get a job working for the judiciales.”

She smoothed his kinked beard, and her lips found his in the darkness. After a long moment, she pulled just far enough away that she could whisper, “I don’t want to think that far ahead yet, oso.”

“Me neither. And I like what we’re doing right here in the backwaters. It’s the kind of medicine I want to practice, where I want to practice it. I can’t picture living in one of the busiest cities on earth. And I look at it this way…when Francisco is eighty-five and venerated around the world, with a bazillion recordings and honors to his credit, will it matter whether he began at age six or sixteen?”

“I don’t think so. I tell myself that it won’t.”

“I don’t think it will matter either. I think our job is to keep him eager, querida. Keep him fueled. We don’t need to send him to some fancy labor camp to twist the last little bit of music out of him before he’s seven.” He stroked her cheek, fingers drawing down the side of her neck, “Besides, if need be, we can bring the world to him. If there’s some great maestro that he needs to study under, we’ll import the guy. If we have to add a music room out back, we’ll do that. He can go to music camps for two weeks at a shot in the summer.”

“I like the sound of that,” Estelle whispered. For a long moment, they lay in each other’s arms, breath matching breath.

“It’s Christmas morning, you know. The boys will be up in a few minutes,” her husband said.

“Then we’d better not waste time,” she replied, snuggling deeper into the curve of his body.