In the next ten minutes, I ate seven pieces. When I was finished, I sat back—my stomach taut like a melon—and marveled. “Best bread ever. Hands down.”

Leaning against the back of the house, soaring on a sugar high from which I was soon to descend like a rock, I was once again struck by the simplicity and matter-of-factness of life around here.

Leena chuckled at my heavy eyelids and motioned toward the hammock. “Best thing to do is sleep it off.”

I fell into the hammock and don’t remember closing my eyes. Three hours later, when I woke and forced my head up, one eye half open, Leena was sitting next to me in a plastic chair sewing a patch onto a piece of clothing. I pulled myself up, sat upright, then decided that was too much too fast, so I lay back down and hung one foot out of the hammock, dragging my toes on the ground. She pointed her needle at me, smiled, and squinted one eye. “Nicaragua looks good on you.”

*  *  *

The second week, Zaul felt strong enough to venture up the mountain where Leena held her medical clinic. Paulo held the rope, I held the dull remains of a shovel, and Isabella held everyone’s attention. In between naps in the back of his dad’s truck, Zaul assisted Leena, talked with Paulo, sent me funny notes attached to the bucket, and played his makeshift drum while Isabella danced with the other kids. Digging that hole was a constant process of moving in a tight circle while squatting and digging out the ground beneath my feet. It was maddening. My feet were constantly shuffling, never stood on anything even, and were always covered in dirt and mud. I seldom saw my toes. And to say my lower back ached would have been an understatement. The more I dug, the more I became convinced that this well had been plugged. Maybe intentionally. Based on the stories I’d heard about this well and the amount of water it used to put out, I kept thinking, if I could just break through the blockage, the spring would shoot up like a geyser and clear water would fill this nearly four-hundred-foot cylinder and carry me to the surface.

By Wednesday evening I was digging ankle-deep in mud and growing more and more convinced that I was standing on top of a water rocket that was poised to shoot me to the surface as soon as my shovel struck the trigger that held it cocked. I dug gently and moved slowly. As I was digging what I promised myself would be my last bucket of the day, my headlamp crossed my feet, and for one brief second I saw something shiny. When I poked around, I turned up nothing, and I’d grown so tired that I had not the patience to look. But as Paulo tightened the rope, pulling me earthward while I scaled the wall of the well, I knew that I’d seen something below my feet. My trouble was that while most would have been excited at finding something of possible value, I had a feeling that I didn’t want to find whatever it was, and I was secretly hopeful that it would either be nothing—a figment of a tired imagination—or it would disappear by tomorrow morning.

When I crawled out of my hole, I found Zaul dancing—​Isabella in one hand and Anna Julia in the other. Leena and an audience of forty or fifty people were clapping and singing a song whose words I’d not heard, but whose melody I’d known my entire life. Paulo lifted me out, dusted me off, and then pointed to the rope with a wide smile. Not much remained. We were close. I could barely lift my arms. He squeezed my biceps. Then squeezed it again. “You good dig. You good gringo.”

That night as we sat quietly beneath the mango tree, Leena asked me, “You okay? You seem…distant.”

“Sorry. Just tired.”

She smirked. “You’re lying to me.”

I nodded. “Well, I’m also tired.”

She let it go, but she was right. Something was bugging me, and I was pretty sure I knew what it was. Like it or not, I’d find out in a few hours. To be certain, I replaced the batteries in my headlamp and stuck a small penlight in my pocket.

*  *  *

The next morning, as Paulo checked the rope and then steadied himself against the side of the well, I turned to Leena. “You be around?”

She looked at me strangely and sort of shook her head. “Need to go check on some kids up in the barns. Might need to treat them for parasites.”

“You mind hanging around till I’ve been down there a few minutes?”

Her complexion changed from hope to concern. She placed the back of her hand gently on my cheek. “You okay?”

“Yeah, no, I’m good.” I waved her off. “I’ll come up for lunch. Forget it.”

I dropped into the hole, but the look on her face and the one raised eyebrow told me I’d not convinced her. Which was good.

When I got to the bottom, it didn’t take long. It was right where I’d left it and it was exactly what I thought. A polished stone wrapped in a gold fitting connected to a gold chain—the match to the one Leena wore. I held the stone in my hand, digging gently to loosen the chain when my shovel hit something hard beneath the surface of the water. Digging with my fingers, I lifted the obstruction and held it before my eyes. It was a bone. Shining the light below me, I realized I was standing in bones.

I held the chain in my hand, making sure it matched Leena’s. It did. I wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but I had a feeling that I’d just found Leena’s mom, and if I dug around enough, I’d probably find her dad, too. I squatted in the hole, leaned against the wall, and considered what to do. It wasn’t like I could just mix everything in the bucket and send it to the top without her knowing. I had to climb up and tell her. I had to climb up and give her the stone.

I tugged on the rope and Paulo immediately began lifting me to the surface. Something was stuck in my throat and it would not budge. The closer it got, the more it threatened to cut off my air supply. I exited the hole and Leena was there waiting. The crowd hushed because this was unusual. Previously, I’d come out only at lunch and at evening, but this morning, I’d been down there only a few minutes. Everyone knew this meant something. They didn’t know what it meant but they knew it was significant. They inched closer, prompting Paulo to spread his arms and force them back.

I motioned Paulo and Leena a few feet away. I tried to speak, but what could I say? What words could I offer that would not hurt her? Not knowing what else to do, I gently placed the stone in Leena’s hand. At first, she just stared at it, not making sense of it. Then, when the image in her hand matched the memory in her mind, her mouth opened and she sucked in an uncontrolled breath. She touched the stone with her fingertips as the tears rolled down her cheeks.

Soon she was shaking uncontrollably and sobbing. The crowd around us, normally joyous at our presence and the possibility that the well might one day produce water, fell to silence. No one spoke. No one moved. No one made a sound. Everyone just watched Leena cry. And after almost a minute of no breath being inhaled or exhaled, the cry and wail that she’d stuffed and held for a decade exited her body and echoed down and across the mountain. And when it did, old and young alike began to cry as well—a testimony to how they carried her and wanted so badly to share in, even carry, her pain.

Leena, the necklace woven through her fingers and the polished stone dangling beneath her hand, pressed it to her lips and kissed it, then clutched it to her chest. Finally, head bowed, she lifted it before the crowd. An offering that needed no explanation, and when she did, the older women untied the scarves from around their necks and began to cover their heads.

Paulo held Isabella, who clutched his neck, while Zaul and I stood helpless. After a moment, Leena fell on me and soaked my shoulder, clutching me. I wrapped my arms around her and offered what I could but I fear I was little consolation. The wound was deep and my friendship only reached so far. The wounds of the mudslide, the loss of so many friends and family, the loss of her parents, the loss of the plantation, the loss of her husband—all of it landed in her hand when I set that stone in it. She was inconsolable. When she collapsed, I caught her. We slid together down onto the ground and leaned against the well. Mango tree above us. Her parents entombed below us. Surrounded by a quiet and rapidly growing community, Leena cried.