The Smallest Part Read online

  “I’ll be back soon, Sadie. Thank you.” Cora hesitated for a heartbeat, and turning, wrapped Mercedes in a fierce hug. She had to stoop to enfold her shorter friend, but laid her head against Mercedes’s dark hair the way she’d done when they were younger.

  “I love you, Sadie. So much,” Cora murmured.

  “I love you too, mama.” Mercedes hugged her back. Cora was affectionate and emotional; she always had been. But it had been a while—years—since she’d told Mercedes she loved her so earnestly, without it being tossed out in passing or parting. She released Mercedes abruptly and walked out the door without a backward glance.

  Hours passed, but Cora didn’t come home. Gia fell asleep just after her mother left but woke an hour and a half later, fussy and hungry. Mercedes fed her a mashed banana and a few bites of the baked potato she’d made herself for lunch. Gia ate happily, and afterward they went for a walk, babbling to each other—Gia in an unknown tongue, Mercedes in Spanish, determined to make her goddaughter bilingual. It was a rare day for April. The sun was shining off the snow and no wind rustled the brittle branches above their heads or nipped at their cheeks. Mercedes was sure when they returned, Cora would be waiting for them. But she wasn’t.

  Mercedes changed Gia’s diaper and coaxed her to walk a few more times before settling her with a pile of toys in the middle of the living room. Doctors were notoriously unreliable—especially OBGYNs. All it took was one patient going into labor to screw up the day’s schedule.

  When Gia began to fuss and rub her eyes, Mercedes gave her a bottle of baby formula Cora left, and when she was finished, laid her back down amid the pillows and toys. Gia fell asleep again, her little bottom in the air, her arms tucked beneath her. Cora had been gone since noon. It was five o’clock. Mercedes called Noah, but the secretary at the Montlake Clinic reported that he was in a counseling session, and she would have him call her back when he was through. The salon where Mercedes worked was closed on Mondays, making it the day she caught up with her life. She typically cleaned, ran errands, watched TV, and baked, but she was too anxious to sit still and watch television. Her house was clean, and any errands would have to wait until Cora came back, so she resorted to her old standby, cooking. She’d just started frying her first batch of empañadas when her phone peeled. She ran to it, certain it was Cora.

  Noah’s name lit up the screen.

  “Hey,” she answered.

  “Is Gia with you?” He sounded panicked, odd, and Mercedes could tell from the sounds bleeding through the receiver, that he was outside or in his car. A horn blared, muted and distant in her ear, and Noah cursed.

  “Yes. She is. But Cora should have been here hours ago, Noah. She had a doctor’s appointment, and she hasn’t come back. Have you heard from her?”

  “Gia’s with you. Gia’s okay,” he panted. “I thought . . . I was afraid . . .”

  “Noah? What’s going on?” Mercedes interrupted.

  “I thought Gia was with Cora. They said the car seat was empty—” He stopped. “Cora’s been in an accident. I’ll call you when I know more. They won’t tell me anything else.”

  “What? Where is she? Tell me where you are.”

  “She’s at the hospital—at Uni. I’m heading there now. I don’t know anything else.”

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  The phone went silent in her hands, and she raced through the house, turning off the oven, gathering her purse and her keys, and banging out the door before remembering the child sleeping in a circle of pillows on her living room floor. She didn’t have Gia’s car seat.

  “Crap. Okay. That’s cool. I’ll strap her in.” It wasn’t cool. It wasn’t okay. It wasn’t safe, and if she got pulled over, she’d get a ticket the size of Texas. But she didn’t have much choice.

  Mercedes bundled Gia up, snagging her diaper bag and a blanket from the floor as she hurried from the house, her mind a tumble, aware of only the next breath and the next step, refusing to tarry on one thought or fear for too long. She wouldn’t think. She would simply do. And all would be well. It would be okay. Everything would be fine.

  Gia didn’t wake on the way to the hospital. Mercedes had decided to lay her in the footwell on the passenger side, tucking her blanket around her and making her as comfortable as possible; she was safer there than rolling around on the seat. Mercedes drove like she had a wedding cake in the trunk, her hands gripping the wheel, her eyes scanning the road and flickering back and forth between the sleeping child and the traffic ahead like a metronome. Tick, tock, tick, tock. She didn’t turn on the radio. She breathed. She drove. And her eyes swung back and forth.

  The afternoon was vibrant and bold, detailed and undeniable. Not surreal. Not separate. She was living it. Wholly. Irrefutably. And her fear burned every scene and segment into her memory. When it was all over, she remembered exactly where she parked in the crowded lot, grateful she’d found a spot. She remembered breathing a prayer of thanks to the Madonna that she’d arrived without Gia waking. She remembered staring down at her feet, realizing she was wearing stilettos. Red stilettos and socks. They’d been right next to her front door, and she’d shoved her feet into them before running to her car. Red stilettos, jeggings, and a bright purple top. Purple and red. Not a great combination. She kicked off the shoes, pulled off her socks, and then put the heels back on. Her hair was in a tight knot on the top of her head, and she was wearing the earrings she’d made herself—dangling hoops strung with beads in a dozen colors. The earrings made the red and purple work. Why was she thinking about her outfit?

  Her makeup was done—it was always done—and when she pulled the mirrored visor down, searching for her sunglasses, her face looked the same as it always did. She needed sunglasses. She needed to cover her eyes. She needed to shield herself from what was coming. Something terrible was coming. She was suddenly shaking, so afraid that she considered not going inside at all. She hated hospitals. She would wait with Gia in the parking lot until Noah called her again or until the baby woke. She slid the glasses over her nose and felt for her lipstick in her purse. She found it, the tube sleek and small in her hand. She uncapped it and tried to slick it over her lips, but it fell from her trembling fingers and rolled beneath the seat. She opened the car door and stepped out, so she could more easily retrieve it. Crouching down, she felt for it, found it, and pulled it free. A long crimson hair clung to the waxy stick.

  Mercedes stared at the red strand. It wasn’t her hair. It was Cora’s, and Cora was inside. Cora needed her. She pulled the hair free and re-capped the lipstick, resolute. Without allowing herself to hesitate a moment longer, she collected her things, walked around to the passenger side of her old Corolla, and lifted Gia into her arms. Locking the door from the fob in her hand, she strode toward the hospital, eyes covered, lips painted, arms full.

  Everything would be all right. Everything would be fine. She would make it okay.

  * * *

  She called Noah. He didn’t answer. The phone buzzed and buzzed in her hand until his voice mail picked up. She left a message and told him she was in the ER waiting room.

  She found a seat in a quiet corner, easing her purse and Gia’s bag to the ground, her eyes scanning the area for Noah. Gia stared up at her, bleary-eyed, her pale hair standing up in a tufty halo around her head.

  “Hi, baby girl. You’re awake. We’re going to see Daddy,” Mercedes murmured feebly. Gia didn’t cry or seem alarmed to find herself in a strange place. She sat on Mercedes’s lap, looking around the crowded waiting room with calm curiosity. Mercedes called Noah again. And again.

  After fifteen minutes of waiting, Mercedes walked to Admitting and asked the woman behind the desk for help.

  “My friend was brought here. She was in an accident. This is her daughter. Her husband was on his way. Can you page him or . . . direct me to her?” Mercedes asked.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Cora Andelin.”

  The woman’s hands froz
e for a half second before she typed the name into the computer. She didn’t verify the spelling or ask Mercedes anything else. She picked up the phone and made a call, not looking up.

  “Has Dr. Andelin arrived?” she said into the receiver. Mercedes realized the woman must know Noah. He’d practically grown up there, and a hospital was like a small town. Noah said everyone knew everyone else, and gossip was served daily—hot, cold, or leftover from the day before. “I have a woman here . . . a friend of the family. With his little girl.” The woman pressed her fingers to her mouth, like she didn’t want to speak in front of Mercedes. She nodded, said “Okay,” to the person on the other end of the call, and nodded again.

  “Have a seat. Dr. Andelin’s on his way out,” she said, setting the phone in its cradle. She spoke matter-of-factly but didn’t quite meet Mercedes’s gaze.

  “Thank you for your help,” Mercedes said and turned away.

  She felt the woman watching her as she retreated, but forgot all about her when she saw Noah push through a pair of swinging doors. He walked like he wasn’t aware he was moving, like his legs had been programmed to propel him forward, but his mind was standing still. And she knew then, without him saying a word, what she’d known the night Papi died.

  “Noah?” Mercedes asked as he neared. “Where’s Cora?”

  He started to shake, and his legs buckled. Mercedes grabbed his arm and pushed him toward a chair. People were watching them, their faces full of curiosity and concern. Noah sat for a millisecond then rose again, like movement kept his anguish from settling. He took Gia from Mercedes and began striding toward the entrance doors, his long legs eating up the distance.

  “Noah?” Mercedes scrambled after him, expecting him to take her to Cora, wherever she was. But once he was outside, facing the brilliant sunset that infused his pale face with false hope, he halted abruptly. Turning blindly, he began walking this way and that, searching for an escape hatch, a sink hole to swallow him up. He held Gia like a newborn, cradling her like he was holding her for the first time, and Gia let him, staring up at him, happy and content. She smiled and reached for his beard.

  “Da da da da,” she gurgled.

  “Where is Cora, Noah?” Mercedes demanded. She was inexplicably angry with him. He wouldn’t dare tell her something she didn’t want to hear. He wouldn’t dare. But Mercedes knew, and each breath was laced with arsenic.

  “She’s gone,” he choked. Mercedes watched his countenance crack, his eyes flutter closed, and his arms tighten around Gia as he sank down on an empty bench. Noah cried the day he and Cora were married. He’d waited at the end of the aisle in his dress blues, the jacket a little too small in the shoulders and the sleeves, the trousers an inch too short. He’d grown since he was fitted for the uniform. Tears had streamed down his face as Cora had walked toward him on the arm of her mother.

  The tears he cried now were very different. They scurried down his cheeks and hid in his beard, terrified and heavy, desperate to escape the deluge.

  “What do you mean . . . gone?” Mercedes gasped.

  “She’s . . . dead, Mer,” he cried.

  She reeled back, swinging her purse and the diaper bag in a wide arc, attempting to protect herself—too little, too late—from a direct hit.

  It was freshman year again. Third period PE. The only one left in a game of dodge ball. She hated getting hit. She avoided it at all cost. She would slide and shimmy and squirm away. But she was the only available target, and there were too many balls coming at her to avoid them all. She tried to catch one only to have another hit her in the face. She staggered, the sting and the insult of the impact almost as great as the pain. Chest burning, face screaming, she’d been too stunned to react.

  Mercedes stood, looking down at Noah, and felt the same affront, the same agony, the same biting disbelief as she struggled to draw breath through seizing lungs.

  Gia began to wail, her father’s distress scaring her, and Noah attempted to hide his tears, running his large hand over his face, his shoulders shaking as he wept.

  “Someone saw her go over the edge and called it in. They found her c-car at the bottom of a ravine in Emigration Canyon, up-s-side down in the c-creek,” he stammered, choking back sobs. “The water’s high—higher than it’s been in years. They don’t know if she drowned . . . or if she was d-dead before her car stopped.”

  “Why was she in the canyon? She had a doctor’s appointment,” Mercedes whispered, still standing. Still stunned. But a scream was growing in her belly and bubbling in her chest. Her hands were hot. Her chest was cold. Noah said something about the sun glaring off the snow that still lined the roads and covered the mountains, about the heavy run-off from the spring melt. Emigration Canyon was ten minutes away, if that. They lived at the base of the foothills on Salt Lake City’s east bench. But Mercedes could only see Cora’s face, the way she looked standing in her living room, weary and worn.

  You’ll take care of them if something happens to me, won’t you Sadie?

  * * *

  Mercedes wanted to go to Cora, but Noah didn’t want Gia to see her lifeless mother. He stood outside the enclosure where his wife was pronounced dead, clutching his child, giving Mercedes a moment. His tears had not abated. He was walking and talking on the phone, bouncing his daughter, trying to soothe his mother-in-law, who was en route, while tears continued to collect in his beard. Mercedes stepped through the curtain that created a partition between Cora and the rest of the emergency room.

  A sheet covered Cora from her shoulders to her feet, but she was missing one shoe, and a slim foot in a heavily-soiled striped sock peeked out at the very bottom. There was no blood or visible trauma. Her hair was a stringy, damp mass around her face. Mercedes smoothed it back, combing out the tangles with her fingers while she stared down at her long-time friend in disbelief. The woman on the gurney looked like Cora. But it wasn’t Cora. Cora of the ephemeral smile and the little-girl-lost appeal was no longer there, and Mercedes withdrew her hand, frightened. There were tears in her chest, but her heart was so heavy and horrified that she couldn’t release them. She was angry. Outraged. And she could not cry.

  A scream tore through the ER, and Mercedes flinched, backing away from Cora’s body. She’d heard that sound once before. It made the hair rise on her neck and a shudder steal down her back beneath her clothes. Cora’s mother had arrived.

  “Noah! Oh no, no, no. Where is she?” Heather McKinney mourned, already crying, already hysterical. Heather McKinney had lost her husband to suicide. Now her daughter was gone too.

  Mercedes walked out of the partition and wrapped Heather in her arms as Noah was forced to repeat the story all over again. The nurse that had escorted Heather shot an apologetic look at Noah’s face before informing him quietly that he should tell her when they were through so Cora could be moved from the ER. Noah blanched, as though the next steps had not even occurred to him. He wasn’t a medical doctor. He was a psychologist. He didn’t heal bodies, he eased hearts and untangled emotions. He unraveled dangerous thoughts and unscrambled psychoses. What happened next? Where would they take Cora? What arrangements would need to be made? For a moment, Mercedes thought she would be sick but bore down against it, willing her stomach to settle and her head to clear.

  Heather was distraught and unwilling to part the curtain and face what was on the other side by herself. Gia began fussing, and Mercedes reached for her, taking her from Noah so he could take Heather in to see her daughter before they took her away. Gia had to be hungry, and her diaper was soaked. Mercedes slipped into a nearby bathroom, the space almost comforting in its silent sterility. No messy emotions, no death, nothing to do but see to the immediate needs of a small child. Long bars bracketed the walls so the sick or unsteady could cling to them as they navigated the room. There was no changing table, and Mercedes reached out and grasped one of the bars as she eased herself down, wishing something as simple as an iron rod could restore her emotional equilibrium. She spread Gia’s bla
nket on the tile and laid her down, changing her pants with numb efficiency. In the diaper bag, she found a package of raisins and one of the long, thick teething cookies that Gia loved and that made such a mess. Gia squealed with delight when she saw it, and her innocent oblivion anchored Mercedes. The child was not suffering—not yet. Mercedes washed and dried her hands before unwrapping the cookie and handing it to Gia. Then she picked up the child, rose to her feet, and left the small bathroom for the horror beyond.

  * * *

  Mercedes knew there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t grieve. She couldn’t sleep either. But it was the lack of tears that worried her. The days after Cora’s death were a strange blend of muted colors and black emotions. People repeated the same things—there were only so many things to say—and everyone cried. Everyone cried but Mercedes.

  She spoke at Cora’s funeral service, recounting the days of their lives and the nights of their days. She spoke honestly of her love for her friend, of Cora’s love for her family, and the ways she had made the world a better place. The small congregation regarded her with tear-stained cheeks and smeary eyes when Mercedes told them about the time Cora had protected her during a dog attack. Cora had wrapped her arms around Mercedes and screamed until Noah and Papi came running. Cora had shallow bites and scratches all over her back, but Mercedes had survived unscathed. When Mercedes asked Cora why she’d done it, Cora had looked at her oddly and said, “Because you’re smaller than me. And I love you.”

  Mercedes recalled the way Cora never said an unkind word—which was good because Mercedes said enough for both of them. The people laughed—the sound a hiccuping chorus of relief—and Mercedes smiled too. But her smile was false, even if her words were not. She didn’t tell the mourners how Cora had stood in her living room, tired and depressed, and how Cora had walked out of Mercedes’s house and drove her car off a cliff. Mercedes didn’t tell them that. She didn’t tell anyone that. She didn’t know for sure if it was true, but in her heart, she believed it.