I didn’t need to ask the question. I knew the answer.

I might not be in league with other evil men, but over my life, I’d looked away, gone on my merry way, done nothing to prevent or hinder—or rescue. While not an active instigator, I’d been passive. An accomplice even. That passivity had only served to multiply. Maybe that was the toughest thought to swallow. The effect of my life had been to multiply evil, not fight it. Not eradicate it.

If my life had been spent sifting through a fog that did not allow me to see, there in the back of that truck, it lifted and daylight cracked the skyline. I could define me in one word.

I was “indifferent.”

Staring at Zaul, at the crimson stain of my decisions, I knew I could no longer claim ignorance and manifest indifference. My sins were many. I glanced at my watch to check the time, but the face was smeared and the time covered over.

As I looked at Leena and felt in my heart an ache for something more than what I’d known and maybe what I hoped for what remained of my life, I was left with only one question and I had no answer to it.

When we reached the cathedral in León, Leena ran inside, leaving me alone with Zaul. With no movement, his eyes popped open and he stared at his hands. He shook his head. “What a mess I’ve made.”

My words were an attempt to take his mind off the pain. Anything to divert his mind from the moment. I said, “You really went out of your way to follow in your dad’s footsteps.”

His head swayed, and eyes rolled around. Forcing himself to return, he focused on me and tugged on my shirt, pulling me toward him. Through gritted teeth and a growing gurgle, he spoke, “Wasn’t trying to be my dad.” A single shake. He tapped me on the chest. “Was trying to be you.” He laid back, exhausted from the effort of pulling himself up. He whispered through closed eyes, “Like you.”

I did not bother to palm away the tears as Leena returned with two priests in flowing brown robes tied with white rope. I lifted Zaul from the back of the truck, carried him inside and down a tile-covered walkway into the medical clinic full of stainless implements where a bed had been prepared. Leena immediately prepped Zaul’s left arm, inserted a needle, and handed me the bag of fluids. “Squeeze this. Force them in.” As she began cutting off his clothes, she said, “The doctor will be here shortly. They have an outdated X-ray machine, but it works well enough. He’s bringing some film. Between now and then, we need to get him clean and start stitching him up.”

An hour later, she and I had bathed and scrubbed most every square inch of Zaul—who was sleeping peacefully under a haze of morphine. Once clean and disinfected, she began stitching, starting with his side. Doing so required her to stitch both internally and externally. Her hand was steady and her stitches near perfect. She worked like an experienced surgeon. “Your husband teach you that?” I asked.

She shook her head but kept her eyes on her work. “No. Necessity.”

From there she worked her way up to his face, eye, and his arm. She set his broken finger and worked his dislocated shoulder back into its socket. When it popped back in, I said, “Necessity teach you that?”

She almost smiled. “No.” She massaged his shoulder to manipulate the bloodflow. “My husband did.”

When the doctor showed with the unexposed film, the priests rolled in the X-ray machine, flipped the camera head horizontally, and I helped position Zaul to get the best pictures, of which they took several. Once developed, she and the doctor examined them and determined he had four broken ribs, but they had cracked along the line of the rib and not across, which meant that while painful, they weren’t poking into his lungs and demanded no treatment other than rest. The doctor also felt rather certain that Zaul did not appear to have multiple internal injuries other than severe contusions, but time would be a better indicator. At first, given the sight of his torso, he feared a burst spleen but that did not materialize. For the next hour, she and the doctor gave Zaul a rather thorough exam from head to toe, which was made all the more difficult by his being asleep, preventing him from answering the “Does this hurt?” line of questioning.

By 10:00 a.m., Leena and the doctor had done what they could. Zaul needed rest, fluids, antibiotics, and freedom from the fear of further harm. “And make no mistake,” the doctor said, holding a finger in the air. “Someone has caused him great bodily harm.” The doctor lifted the sheet off Zaul’s stomach, exposing deep blue-and-purple contusions. He waved his hand across Zaul. “Grey Turner’s and Cullen’s sign.”

“I’m not familiar with either of—”

“Intra-abdominal bleeding caused from blunt trauma. May indicate hemorrhage.” He turned to Leena. “Monitor carefully.”

Leena nodded as if she understood. The doctor returned to the hospital, promising to check on Zaul later that evening. Walking out, he turned and cautioned us that Zaul would be laid up a while. And that we should make plans for an extended recuperation.

I stood over the sink, scrubbing my arms and watch. Trying to get the blood out of the cracks in the bezel where it had caked and dried. Again. While we’d found him, things had gone from bad to worse.

Time to check in.

Chapter Twenty-Six

I put in the call, said “George,” and waited a few seconds for the return call. When he did, I answered, “We found him. Or rather, he found us. Anyway, he’s here.”

“How is he?”

“Well…he’s alive and he’ll recover, but he’s in pretty bad shape.”

“I’ll send the plane. I can be there—”

“I don’t think that would be helpful.”

He was quiet a moment. “You need money?”

“No. I’m good. The doctor just left. Leena is taking care of him. We’re probably looking at a week or two of bed rest. Somebody really worked him over. He’s in a bad way.”

“You talked with him?”

“Not much. He’s been in and out. Sleeping now. Doc gave him a pretty heavy dose of something to help him sleep.” I swallowed. “He’s got a bit of a recovery ahead of him so rest easy. I’ll take some pics with my phone and send them your way over the next few days. Give you something to have hope in.”

“That’d be good. That’d be good.”

“I’ll be in touch.”

He cleared his throat. “You know that other matter?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“You can get it, but I’m not sure you’re going to want to go where you’re going to have to go to get it. Or, that you can afford it.”

As Colin explained, I sat quietly listening while the ramifications of his explanation settled in me and the ripple effects spread out across my mind.

When he finished, he said, “Send us some pics if you think about it. Marguerite will like that.”

Colin hung up and I sat there with my head in my hands, certain that I’d never felt so empty in my entire life.

*  *  *

Leena spent the day by Zaul’s bed, charting his progress—​temperature, blood pressure, medications administered, and any change in his condition. Paulo, seeing he could do nothing here, took Isabella home, leaving the two of us at the cathedral, where we would spend the night before trying to move him tomorrow.

Toward evening, my stomach reminded me that we hadn’t eaten all day. I stuck my head in the room where she was listening to Zaul’s heartbeat with a stethoscope. “I’m going to get some dinner. You want anything?”

She nodded, smiled, and said, “Yes, but stay away from fresh salsa.”

I held up a finger. “Note to self.”

She laughed.

I struck out, walked the streets of León, bought two to-go plates at Meson Real and a couple bottles of water, and then returned to the dark clinic. Paulina was asleep in a cot next to Zaul’s bed. I left a plate on a table next to her and covered her with a blanket. From there, I walked into the cavernous cathedral. I picked a pew that lined the back wall and sat, staring at all the stained glass, and picked at my dinner.