My Soul to Take

  “We live at 296 Tequesta Road,” she says. “I work for the Miami Sun-News. I’m a reporter. We have a five-year-old daughter named Kira. She’s right here. And so is Mom. My mother is cooking breakfast with Kira right now.”

  Her husband’s jaw clenches with what looks like anger, but in the light she sees it’s pain. “We lost Kira, Jessica,” he says. “We lost your mother.”

  “That’s not true!” Jessica screams.

  Tears water her husband’s cheeks. “I wish it weren’t, Jess. If I could make your dream real and step back into time, I would find a way to spare you all of it.” He swallows a sob. “I would change everything. But I cannot. We cannot. I dream of your memory, too. I wish we could travel back together.”

  For the first time, Jessica remembers her husband’s true name: Dawit.

  “You lied to me,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “You stole everything.”

  “Yes.” A whisper.

  And yet, she loves him. Her love for him is deeper, somehow, than her love when she had known him only as David. But their love was brighter then. Innocent.

  “Then why shouldn’t I stay here?” she says. “Why shouldn’t we be happy?”

  “We will be happy again, Jess,” he says. “We can.”

  “How?”

  She can’t remember everything about her nightmares yet, but she is waking from her dream. Not the cave—somewhere else. An underground temple. Another child.

  Not Kira. Her first daughter is dead.

  Fana. Her second child’s name.

  Fana is where Jessica’s nightmares begin.

  Four

  Los Angeles International Airport

  7:35 a.m.

  Carlos Harris’s forehead beaded with sweat as he made the long walk from the North American Airways terminal, his heavy backpack slung across his shoulder as he passed encamped crowds, bland food courts, wailing toddlers. Blinding white floors. He needed to piss, but a K-9 officer and German shepherd posted near the bathroom changed his mind.

  Tranquilo, he told himself. Don’t draw attention. Slow and easy.

  A flock of Asian flight attendants walked in the opposite direction, dragging flight bags, nearly identical in their purposeful strides, jet-black hair and blue paper face masks stamped with the Korean Air logo. Carlos was sure he saw their eyes study his face, one after the other.

  Come mierda. What now?

  Quickly, Carlos wiped his chin and neck, checking his palm for blood. He found a bright red smudge and wiped it on the seat of his pants. He’d nicked his face during his quick shave in the plane’s bathroom, but he’d rid himself of the patchy facial hair that had drawn stares in San Juan. He didn’t want stares. He didn’t want anyone to notice him, to remember him. Just another guy strolling through LAX. God help him if he caught the eye of lurking paparazzi.

  The letter was in his shoe. After his father had finally gotten through to his old Yale roommate, Ramon Garcia in the governor’s office had promised Carlos he could leave San Juan without delay. That was nearly a week ago, but Carlos had a copy of the letter folded in the sole of his shoe, on Garcia’s official stationery from La Fortaleza. Reasonable deniability. Since then, Carlos had been told by six local officials that he was forbidden to leave—one had even given him admission papers to El Presby Hospital to begin a “voluntary” quarantine—and he had ducked behind a parked taxi to elude his escort. But if anyone challenged him, he would produce Garcia’s letter and claim ignorance. A fugitive? Me?

  Carlos had expected to find police and God knew who else waiting for him in Miami, at Kennedy, and again at LAX. His muscles ached from tensing for capture.

  Carlos melted into the stream of travelers heading downstairs to baggage claim, although he’d left his suitcase behind so he could travel with only his backpack. His computer had been seized by police in San Juan.

  A sign posted in bright red letters warned him that once he crossed the yellow stripe on the floor, he could not return to the terminal. He kept a pleasant look on his face as he approached, although three TSA officials observing the line were staring straight at him.

  Someone tugged on Carlos’s arm from behind.

  “Excuse me, sir?” a woman’s officious voice said. “Where are you flying from?”

  Adrenaline drenched Carlos’s body, a bucket of ice water. He stopped in midstride, frozen while he held his breath. The folded paper in his shoe seemed to pulse.

  A woman’s blond head bobbed into Carlos’s view. She was middle-aged and full-faced, with tired eyes. Sunglasses on top of her head pinned her hair in place. No uniform. No badge. No handcuffs. Just another passenger.

  “Where you flying from?” the woman said again. She looked harried.

  Maricao, Carlos wanted to say. “JFK.”

  “I thought so! Where’d they say our bags are?”

  “I … don’t know.” He hadn’t checked a bag, and he’d run out of things he could say.

  She waded ahead without a smile or a thank-you.

  No alarms went off, no shouts were raised, as Carlos excused himself past LAX’s cell phones, sunglasses, long hair, tattoos, body piercings, and self-conscious clothes. Carlos stayed hidden in their shadows. Life with Phoenix had taught him the art of invisibility.

  Carlos could barely believe it when he walked through the glass automatic doors to the curb outside, immersed in cold morning air faintly scented by exhaust. He had done it! Home.

  The red Orbit hydro pulled up to the designated spot at the curb within five minutes, headlights flashing, before Carlos had a chance to panic. The car barely came to a stop before Carlos jumped in, slamming the door behind him. He hiked up the collar of his leather bomber jacket, obscuring his profile.

  Carlos’s cousin, who called himself Mo Profit, was an indie filmmaker living off residuals from a sitcom he’d directed in the 1990s, and he was the only person Carlos trusted to pick him up in L.A. Mo lived in Culver City, only fifteen minutes from the airport. It was 3:00 a.m. Cali time when Carlos had called him from New York to ask the favor.

  “Son of a bitch, you know I must love you, right?” his cousin said. He looked sleepy, his gray-streaked ’fro standing as high as Cornel West’s.

  “Drive, okay?” Carlos said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Mo squealed in front of a hotel shuttle, racing for the road that would take them to the freedom of the 105. As the car lurched, Carlos remembered an earlier variation of this drive, when Mo had been stranded during a shoot and called Carlos desperate for a rescue from Simi Valley. Police had been involved. Then, as now, no further explanation was required.

  “Sorry about Auntie Rosa, man,” Mo said, backhanding Carlos across the kneecap.

  Carlos only nodded, mute. For the past two weeks, his consolation had been the odd muting of his grief brought on by constant fear. Only self-survival mattered, in the end. When he rented a car a safe distance from LAX, he would have a four-hour drive to remember why he had flown to Puerto Rico. To remember the police and health departments.

  And what he had seen behind the glass.

  Carlos closed his eyes. Mami.

  “You look like shit, Carl-i-to,” Mo said, emphasizing his accent on his name. Mo was from the Harris side of the family, rooted in Florida, but Mami’s nickname for him was a family novelty that followed Carlos across cultures. “Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Carlos nodded. “Almost,” he muttered. The memory of his last glimpse of his mother’s face withered Carlos’s blood, shrinking him in Mo’s car seat.

  Carlos’s stomach gurgled, and he cradled his midsection like an expectant mother. He tried not to think about the stories linking the infection to stomachaches.

  “Pick up a li’l bug down there?” Mo said, glancing him over.

  There was only concern, not accusation or fear, in Mo’s voice. Poor Mo had no idea.

  “Nah, I’m just in a hurry to get home to Phee,” Carlos said. “I’m fine.”


  Carlos Harris prayed that he was right.

  Sarge had told Phoenix about Vietnam and how men looked after going to war, but she’d never seen it so clearly until she met her husband’s glassy eyes in their doorway.

  “Anybody come looking for me?” Carlos said, trying to sound casual while Marcus shrieked and climbed into his arms. Carlos wasn’t an actor, so his terror was plain to Phoenix. She just hoped Marcus couldn’t see it.

  “No one for you,” Phoenix said. “A promoter came by yesterday for me.”

  Relief softened some of the hard lines on Carlos’s face, but he had aged in Puerto Rico. She could see where his father’s crow’s-feet would grow soon.

  When Carlos closed the door, he locked both deadbolts and checked the security panel to make sure all the cameras were on. Six cameras monitored their property, and nothing was moving except the Kinseys’ pickup pulling into their driveway below them.

  The east camera was the one that had shocked Phoenix six months earlier, when the coyotes came. A pack. She and Carlos had seen the attack, knowing from the frenzied image that it was too late to intervene on sweet old Graygirl’s behalf. The coyotes were emboldened by hunger and thirst, the guy from animal control said when he came to the house.

  None of them, even Marcus, wanted another dog soon. Especially Marcus. He’d stopped wetting his bed two years ago, but he had accidents most nights since Graygirl had died. While Carlos was gone, he’d peed in his bed nightly. Marcus was so excited to be riding in his father’s arms, he didn’t seem to notice what Carlos was hiding. But how could even a child miss it?

  With a loud grunt, Carlos lowered their squirming son back to the floor.

  “Jeez, man, you’re killin’ me,” Carlos said. “You grew like a hundred inches!”

  “A hundred thousand inches, Dad,” Marcus corrected him.

  “Yeah—feels like it!” Carlos said.

  Phoenix wondered about a strange clicking sound from Carlos, moving her ear closer to his chest. With a weak smile, Carlos reached into his inside jacket pocket just as John Wright had the day before. Phoenix noticed his hand’s tremor as he brought out three small, clear plastic boxes and gave them to Marcus. The boxes were filled with tiny brown beans.

  Clickclickclickclick.

  “They’re moving!” Marcus said.

  “Mexican jumping beans,” Carlos said. “I got them in Miami. Happy birthday, kiddo.”

  Through it all, Carlos had remembered missing Marcus’s seventh birthday two days after he got the call about his mother’s death. During a tearful goodbye at LAX, Carlos had promised to bring him a special present.

  Carlos shared a brief, private look with Phoenix: Best I could do. She smiled to let him know he’d made the perfect choice, but his eyes stared straight through her. Phoenix didn’t see visible bruises, but Carlos’s tightly drawn shoulders made her wonder if he’d suffered a beating, or worse. Had he been jailed? Phoenix turned her face away from Marcus to hide her tears as she and Carlos tried to preserve their son’s happy reunion.

  “These are awesome!” Marcus said, already on his knees, scattering the beans to the wooden floor. “How do they do that?”

  Carlos didn’t answer, dropping his backpack and scanning the living room as if he expected to find something out of place. He went to the mail pile on the table, quickly flipping through the letters. Most of it was unopened fan mail, addressed to her. She’d barely noticed the mail while Carlos was gone. Carlos had once faced down a spirit to save her life, but Phoenix had never seen him look so overmatched.

  Surviving had mated them before they knew a thing about love.

  Phoenix wiped her eyes dry. “Worms inside,” she answered Marcus, remembering a lesson from R. R. Moton Elementary school in Miami. “They live in the beans, and they jump when they’re too warm. They like to be cold.”

  “Do they stay there forever?” Marcus said.

  “Pretty close,” Phoenix said. “They turn into moths sooner or later, but they only live a couple of days as moths. They spend most of their lives tucked inside their beans.”

  “Sucks for them,” Marcus said, trying on his favorite new phrase from Ronny’s older brother. No matter how much Phoenix tried to shelter him, the outside world intruded. Phoenix was thinking the exact opposite: Lucky them. A hard shell and all of life’s needs within touch? Wasn’t that her new dream?

  Carlos manfully spent as much time as he could playing on the GamePort with Marcus before he told his son he was tired and retreated to the bedroom. Phoenix spent two hours struggling to finish the day’s lessons despite Marcus’s excitement.

  It was a long afternoon.

  Phoenix peeked in on Carlos while Marcus finished his math assignment. He was lying on top of the bed fully clothed, staring at the door with unblinking eyes. Waiting.

  “Carlos, what happened?” she said, sitting beside him. She held his hand.

  Gently, Carlos pulled his hand away. Instead, he laid his palm across her fuzzy scalp. “Later,” he said. “After Marcus is in bed. I don’t want to tell it in pieces.”

  Daylight lingered like his two-week absence, but night finally came. Phoenix brought Carlos a plate of chicken and rice, but he ate only a few bites and said he had an upset stomach, maybe later. He pushed the plate far away.

  They heard Marcus’s music from down the hall, the African lullabies they had played him since he was in his crib. Otherwise, the house was quiet.

  “Tell me, baby,” she said.

  Carlos was nearly hoarse by the time he told her how he’d found his mother in the observation room in the facility outside Maricao. Phoenix covered her mouth with her open palm, afraid she might scream. Mami had been one of her favorite people left in the world.

  “I was in a lab coat, so it took a while for someone to figure out I didn’t belong,” Carlos said. “They were Americans, Germans, I think … an Asian man. They were talking about the infection. Something about the family from Hong Kong. They had all seen cases like Mami’s. All of them. The Asian man said there’d been riots in North Korea. They talked about how fast it spreads, maybe in the air. There’s already a name for it in Puerto Rico: La Enfermidad de Rezo. The Praying Disease. Because of the hands. The body seizes up—it makes them look like they’re praying.”

  All the words Carlos had been saving for her spilled from him.

  “Then I slipped out. No one checked my ID on the way out of the gate. The guard was just a kid. I knew it would be a mistake, but I blogged about it. Not everything, but enough. That was the night I called you, before I changed my mind and deleted the page. But the internet is forever. The history was there. By morning, police were knocking on my door. Cameras had caught me at the facility. I thought I was going to prison.

  “My father knew someone in the governor’s office. That’s the only thing that kept me from being locked up. But they said I had to be quarantined because I’d been exposed. I didn’t buy it. The ‘quarantine’ was just a way to try to keep me quiet. If I had admitted myself to a hospital, I might not have been free to go for a lot longer than thirty days. They’re hiding a plague, Phee. Worse than the flu strains. Right in Puerto Rico!”

  Carlos went silent, emptied.

  A low wind flurried against the house, setting off the cacophony of wind chimes outside their bedroom window. Phoenix wondered if the coyotes were out hunting.

  “I know, Carlito,” Phoenix said in the hushed voice she saved for ballads. “I know.”

  That night, she told her husband about the visit from John Jamal Wright. And the websites he had led her to, and the stories being told. And the Glow she had refused, but now wished she had kept.

  Phoenix and Carlos talked all night long.

  Five

  Los Angeles

  One Week Later

  Black roads roll beneath a blind-eyed sky, Phoenix thought, trying out infant lyrics as John Wright’s SUV ferried her and her family high up narrow, darkened Mulholland Drive, past the secluded mansio
ns hidden behind gates, sentries, and jungles. Occasional lights twinkled through the foliage to remind her that they were passing homes instead of journeying through wilderness, although roadside signs at every other house proclaimed that the neighborhood was for sale. Armored in marble, we can’t hear the children cry.

  It had been a long time since lyrics appeared spontaneously, and rarer still that lyrics came without chords, so maybe Carlos was right about the gig: once she was on the stage, it would all come back. Like a trained dog. Thatta girl—sing! Play! Roll over!

  “I must be crazy,” she muttered.

  Carlos gave her a baleful look, shaking his head. “You’re fine. Just breathe.”

  After she’d vowed to retire from performing, she was doing a corporate gig? Even if Clarion World Health was doing the work it claimed, how could she have convinced herself that singing for eight hundred of Clarion’s handpicked faithful would have any impact outside Beverly Hills? She would reach more people plugging in her amp at Times Square, if she could get security clearance. At least that would have some integrity.

  “Why did I agree to do this again?” Phoenix said.

  “You committed,” Carlos said. “Ride it out, baby.” Slipping into their familiar roles already. Phoenix the fragile artist; Carlos her patient wrangler.

  Wright was driving. The young white woman in the passenger seat beside him was stoic, and had barely moved except to tap the keys on her wristphone’s keyboard. Her smile when she had introduced herself in Paso had been tight, forced, as if she was as reluctant to take Phoenix to L.A. as Phoenix was to go. Like Wright, she looked like she was barely old enough to be out of college. Was the company run by kids?

  Phoenix’s mind went back to her new lyrics, which were still missing music. Waking up is easy if you never go to sleep / Have you seen the soul you promised you would keep?

  Phoenix made a sour face. Those weren’t true lyrics, only self-judgment. Damn, maybe that Vibe critic had been right when he called her the “self-proclaimed prophetess of self-righteousness.” No wonder those kids in Chicago—