Without Borders Read Online Free PDF Page B

than it was. Of course, it had been Marisol’s home state too, once upon a time. During that year she had been in and out of the hospital, being trained and retrained on the use of her shiny, new insulin pump. “He probably thought his dreams were coming true.”
    “It was horrible. I can’t even look at him.”
    “It is fine.” Marisol patted her arm. “He has had much worse from the Americans.”
    “Really?” Annie stared at the ceiling. “Worse than getting drunk and mauling him in public?”
    “ Sí . In the last group, one of the American doctors told him he is not a real doctor because he did not go to medical school for enough years. The time before that, someone refused to eat anything but peanut butter.”
    “So?”
    “Felipe is allergic to peanuts.” She shook her head. “He is always trying to tell our mother she should stop with the poverty tours. But she says we need the donations.”
    “We’re here to help. Why wouldn’t he want help?”
    Marisol shrugged and picked at an invisible thread on her plain green bedspread. “I thought you were here for a letter of recommendation?”
    Annie looked at her hands and guilt sneaked its way up her chest. “It’s complicated.”
    • • •
    The door stood open, but Felipe knocked on the frame anyway. Annie lay sprawled across the bed, open mouthed and unmoving on top of the covers. “ Buenas ,” he tried before raising his voice. “Annie? Are you awake?” He took a step into the room and called her name again.
    She shot up, blinking and rubbing her eyes. “I’m awake. I’m awake.” She whipped her head around the room.
    “Do you know where you are?”
    A fleeting moment of silence passed, and she frowned before answering. “Nicaragua?”
    “ Sí. Is everything okay? You have been asleep for a long time.”
    A tangled knot of curls sat on top of her head, twisting in every direction around her face. Her t-shirt rumpled up, exposing her stomach. He knew he should look away, but his eyes wouldn’t budge.
    “Did I miss something important?” she asked.
    “Lunch. And dinner.”
    “Oh.” Her brown eyes were still foggy with sleep. “I have some granola bars. I’ll be okay.”
    Marisol’s voice trickled in from the hallway. “’Lipe, take her to Alma’s with you. She needs real food.”
    He rubbed his temple. “Come.” He gestured toward the stairs. “There is no arguing with my sister.” And even if there were, Felipe wasn’t sure he could bring himself to try. Not with that sliver of Annie’s skin staring back at him.
    Ten minutes later, they walked along the red dirt road in silence. The thin, finger-like leaves of mango trees stirred around them, tossed by the wind wafting in from the ocean. The town was quiet at this time of day—too late for dinner, too early for parties. But Felipe knew soon it would bustle with activity as the locals and a handful of tourists took to the bars lining the main street.
    Within a few minutes, he and Annie arrived at a small restaurant down the block. Felipe took a deep breath as he pulled out her chair, hoping to relax into the smell of garlic and searing hot cooking oil. It seeped from every corner of the narrow dining room. Always had.
    He’d been coming here since he first moved to Puerto as a gangly ten-year-old, still acclimating to his recent adoption, still mourning his biological mother. Even then, Alma always found an extra bottle of Coca-Cola to spare, placing it in front of her sullen young neighbor in exchange for a smile. After the first year or two, the smiles came without prompting, and for a short stint as a teenager he had worked in the back of the restaurant, washing dishes and plucking the feathers from recently decapitated chickens.
    Felipe stared at the painting jutting from the wall above Annie’s head, a formal portrait of Daniel Ortega raising a fist in front of a fading red star. It was the first new painting to dot the walls in years. Across the table, Annie