A Small Fortune Read Online Free PDF Page A

would Jonathon go into his room this time of morning when Oliver always slept in? And even if he did find him unconscious, wouldn’t Jonathon have rushed him to the hospital?
    “Where are we?” I ask. “I don’t recognize anything.”
    “It’s a faster way. I cut around the outside so I don’t have to stop so much.” He wipes the sweat from his forehead while repeatedly checking the rearview mirror.
    I glance back. A dingy white car like the one we’re in follows at the same breakneck speed. There are three, maybe four men inside.
    My whole body heats from the inside out. A memory shoots up of the time Oliver broke away from me and darted into the middle of Twenty-third Avenue. He was two years old, convinced it was a game. I screamed for him to stop. He laughed over his shoulder and headed straight into the oncoming cars. The sound of horns and screeching brakes finally brought him to a halt. He looked around and smiled at all the sudden attention. I was furious. I jerked him by the arm to the sidewalk and spanked him, hard, three times on the rear, something I had never done before or since. He howled, and I grabbed his shoulders and shouted in his face. That wasn’t funny! You could have died! Do you know what that means? Of course he didn’t know, but it would take another twenty minutes for me to realize this, for me to calm down, let go of the terror, allow my rational mind to catch up: he’s safe, he’s safe, he’s safe.
    I roll the window all the way down and tell myself that everyone drives this way here. I tell myself that if something is wrong with Oliver, I’ll know deep down inside the way mothers know things. In fact, something inside does feel terribly wrong. But only in the sense that if I don’t get out of this car right now, Oliver will never see me again.
    “Stop the car.”
    “What?”
    “Stop the car!”
    “Why? Don’t you want to get back?” The look of confusion on his face nearly makes me lose my resolve.
    “Now!”
    He hits the brake, and I brace against the dash to keep from pitching forward.
    “Sorry,” he says. “I’m not used to driving this car.” He pulls to the curb and stops. An emaciated dog skitters out of the way. “What’s wrong?” Benicio asks.
    I don’t answer.
    “I don’t think you should…” Again he searches the mirror.
    I look behind us. The white car is gone.
    He fidgets in his seat. “You’re obviously a runner. Are you fast?”
    I narrow my eyes at him. I open the door and realize I don’t know how to find the condo from there.
    “You sure you don’t want me to drive you?”
    I jump out.
    “OK,” he says. “Take that street right there, follow it back down toward the ocean, and go left at Badillo Street. You’ll see the condo on the left.”
    I feel a wave of foolishness for being so untrusting, while at the same time I’m too uneasy to get back in. I hesitate, and my nose fills with exhaust and dog piss and the piles of garbage rotting in the heat. Flies buzz the car.
    I’m about to shut the door when a commotion breaks out behind me. Brakes screech, car doors fly open, shoes trample cobblestones, someone yells orders in Spanish. From the corner of my eye I see the white car, and then the men who’d been inside.
    There’s no time to run. My mouth’s already covered by a thick hand smelling of onions and soil, my own hands twisted at my back. Another man presses a sweet-smelling cloth over my nose. No! I scream, but barely make a sound. Everything happens so quickly. No! I struggle to breathe, fiercely sucking air, an instinct beyond the realization that this is what they want, for me to breathe as deeply as I can. No. I’m already woozy. My hearing fading away.
    I’ve been an ungrateful, neglectful wife to Jonathon. A resentful mother to Oliver. They’ll never know how sorry I am, how much I wish I could make it up to them. I’ll never be able to tell them how in that moment, my love for them wrenches my insides more violently