The halls all looked the same, and when a nurse looked at me questioningly as I hurried down the corridor, I forced myself to slow down and look normal. The end of the ward was ahead, and even though I knew I was unwise to cut through another section of the hospital since I might attract attention, I pushed through the doors and entered the hub of the hospital that housed the elevators and the entrances to other sections.

I crossed to another set of doors. This hall was silent, no bustle, no people. A coughing fit came over me from the sudden movements, and I leaned against the wall, hacking and sucking in breaths. For a moment, spots flashed across my vision, as familiar as my intentional blackouts used to be, but I breathed through it, clutching my chest until it subsided.

There were no nurses, no station here, so no one noticed me. I just wanted a place to sit for a minute, to be alone. I continued walking along the corridor, thinking maybe these were offices, until I passed a partially opened door and stopped dead.

The room held a normal full-sized bed, a sofa, and a little table with two chairs. I pushed inside, my chest so tight I could barely breathe. I knew this room. I knew what it was for.

A family had just been there, I could tell. The covers were rumpled but not pulled back. The impressions of their bodies were still imprinted on the fabric. Had they held a baby? A child? Had he already died or did they stay here with him until he passed?

A pitcher of water sat untouched, the condensation beading on the glass. I walked around the bed, looking at the calming painting on the wall, abstract and soft. The wallpaper was sea green, and the bedspread a matching green with yellow. The room we had stayed in with baby Finn had been done in blues.

Something round and squishy collapsed beneath my nubby-bottomed hospital sock. I lifted my foot.

A pacifier, the hospital kind, with no cute characters or colorful plastic backs. Just the brownish nub firmly attached to a wide flexible ring.

I picked it up and clutched it tight. Finn had never gotten a pacifier. He’d always had tubes in his mouth. This baby must have been bigger, older, and at some point he must have seemed fine.

My legs gave out and I sank to the floor on my knees. Her husband wouldn’t leave her. He’d hold her hand during the funeral. They would cry together. They’d go home and look over the baby’s room. They’d fold up the little burp cloths and put away the tiny onesies. They would sit together in the living room and remember anticipating his arrival. Sometimes, even in their grief, they might smile.

He would not leave her to do all that alone, to never smile.

I couldn’t bear it.

The phone was still tight in my hand, silent and dark. He hadn’t called. He wasn’t calling. He might never call.

The garage had closed an hour ago. He wasn’t at work. No classes today.

Where was he?

He wouldn’t leave me again. He wouldn’t.

Fear rose up that something had happened to him. I pictured his Harley skidding on the freeway, cars coming at him on all sides, running over his chest—

I had to stop this.

But it wouldn’t go. I could see the ambulance coming for him, loading him up. A crew trying to stop the blood streaming out of him. A monitor strapped to him, his heartbeat going in and out on the screen.

The beeps, slowing down. The alarm, going off.

I curled my knees up to my chest and held on tightly. I couldn’t think this way. I had to stay straight. But what other explanation was there? He’d ignored all my calls. Even if his phone was dead, he could have called from work or just come over when he got off. He would know I was worried.

A keening cry tried to work its way up from my belly. I had been so strong for so long. Just a couple weeks with Gavin and I worried about everything. Why was I so weak?

But I knew. For the first time in so long, I had something to lose.

I knew when the hyperventilating started that I shouldn’t do it. It was past. I didn’t need it anymore.

But the darkness seemed so perfect, so easy. I held my breath. I wouldn’t take it all the way. Just flirt with it. Just a moment. I relaxed into the black, waiting for my chest to heave, to force me to breathe.

But it didn’t, instead it burned, and I couldn’t catch my breath at all, and then it was too late.

The ocean stayed to our right the whole ride down to Ensenada. The waves were high, peaking in white froth as they curled against the beach not fifty yards away.

Bright painted lines flew beneath us on the straight, clean highway. The old road, crumbling and black, flowed alongside. Outside Rosarito, the resorts were beautiful and pristine, the English billboards making apparent who they expected to travel there. Normally I would have smiled at a sign boasting “Last Corona for 25 miles,” but I was too intent on our destination to appreciate the journey.

My mind whirred about this boy. What did his birth certificate say? He was a Mexican national. I couldn’t take him across the border if I wasn’t listed. Did Rosa even know my last name? I wasn’t sure.

Rosa wasn’t legal to cross either. I doubted she had a passport. The news always talked about illegal immigrants and dangerous border crossings. But it was so easy for me to get through. Could Rosa? Why would they stop her if I brought her? Surely it was okay for her to visit me. Mario’s family sometimes came over, laughing loud cousins from Mexico City. Yes, it would be fine.

Her head fitted against my back the same way Corabelle’s had when we rode out into the mountains. I didn’t have much cause to bring women places on the Harley. They were the only two.

I wasn’t sure I believed Rosa’s insistence that she wasn’t a prostitute. Her explanations were designed to elicit sympathy, but they were also convenient. Trust didn’t come easy to me, someone who had proven utterly untrustworthy.

I focused on the road, the stripes down the center and the smell of the ocean that reminded me of home. I would get back to Corabelle. I would make this right. We would work it all out, somehow. But I would not keep this from her. I meant it when I said there would be no secrets between us.

I needed to call her. Something. When we stopped, I would do that first thing. Who cared about the rates, or anything? Just do it. Hopefully she’d been busy studying all day. With her parents around, she probably didn’t expect me anyway, just to have her father pull another stunt like last night.

The sign hadn’t lied. The next 25 miles were desolate, just the ocean, random palm trees, and a never-ending stretch of road. But eventually civilization returned, houses and cantinas. Rosa lifted her head and pointed to an exit. We passed a university, beautiful and trim, like anything you would see stateside. I realized I didn’t know Mexico at all. I had judged a whole country by the poor border slums.

She directed me off the main road and into a neighborhood. The houses would have been perfectly suited in parts of California, with neat, even streets lined with cars, stucco walls, and Spanish-tiled roofs. If Manuelito were here, why would Rosa want to take him away?

She pointed to a white adobe house with brown shutters, built into the side of a hill. An enormous clay sun adorned the exterior wall. I parked the bike between an aging but still respectable Taurus and a red Chevy pickup.

When the Harley went silent, I asked her, “Are they expecting you?”

“No.”

“Will she guess who I am?”

“No. She will think you are a boyfriend.”

Rosa stood from the bike and rubbed her thighs. It was a long ride for someone unaccustomed to it. For a second I remembered that I had pretty intimate knowledge of this woman, and yet I knew nothing important, not even her last name.