know about this?” Kate asked. “What the hell is Daddy doing there, Mom? This is in Colombia, not Spain. Look what it says on the gate, behind him.” Her voice grew agitated. “Can you read it, Mom?”
“I know what it says,” Sharon answered, averting her eyes. “I left it for you, Kate.”
Kate stared back at her, stunned.
“I wrote you almost every day,” her mother said, placing the photo back on the table and reaching out for Kate’s hand. “You have to believe me. I tried to tell you a hundred times.… I just could never push that key. It’s been so long, I’d almost forgotten. But it doesn’t help. It doesn’t go away.…”
“Forgotten what, Mom? I don’t understand.” Kate picked up the photo and held it up in front of Sharon’s eyes. “This is my father, Mom! Who the hell is he? What is he doing in front of that sign?”
Sharon nodded and smiled, a bit resignedly. “We have a lot to make up for, honey.”
“I’m here, Mom.”
The wind kicked up, blowing a plastic glass off the table. Instinctively, Kate bent over to grab it.
She never heard the sound.
At least that’s how she always recalled it as she played the moment back in her head a thousand times.
All of a sudden there was this sharp, searing burn on the back of Kate’s shoulder—a molten iron jabbing into her flesh, the impact almost knocking her off the chair.
Kate’s eyes flashed to the spot. The fabric of her jacket was torn. There was a red hole there. No pain. No panic. She knew that something horrible had happened, she just didn’t know what. Blood started to ooze. It took a second for her brain to realize it.
“Jesus Christ, Mom, I think I’ve been shot!”
Sharon was upright, still in her chair, but somehow unresponsive to Kate’s desperation. Her sunglasses were gone, her head was slightly bent and slumped forward. Her pupils were fixed and glazed.
A dark circle spread against the green of her sweater.
“Mom!”
In that instant the haze of the moment cleared and Kate focused in disbelief on the hole in her shoulder and at the ring of blood widening on Sharon’s chest. The bullet had shorn right through her. And into her mom. Kate stared in horror.
“Oh, my God, Mom, no!”
There was the sound of another ping coming in, a woman screaming as a glass exploded at the table next to them, the shot careening off the pavement. By that time Kate had leaped up and thrown herself in front of her mother, covering her slack, unresponsive body, shaking her by the shoulders, screaming, “Mom, Mom!” into the stonelike pallor of Sharon’s face as she fell to the ground.
Shouts rang out from all directions, people grabbing kids, tables upending. “Someone’s shooting! Get down! Everyone get down!”
But Kate just lay there. She knew that her mother was dead. She brushed the hair out of her face. She wiped away a few dots of dark, red spatter from her cheek.
All she could do was hold her close.
“Oh, dear God, Mom …”
The emergency vehicles drove right into the square. Lights flashing. Police pushing the crowd away. A female EMT knelt next to Kate. In a soothing voice, she tried to coax her mother out of Kate’s arms.
Kate wouldn’t let her go. She couldn’t.
Once she let go, it would be like saying it was real.
The police pushed the crowd back to a wide, murmuring arc. Everyone was pointing up at a red building behind them. The Lapierre Hotel. That’s where the shots had come from. Kate didn’t look. She just kept holding her mother. What is it you wanted to tell me, Mom? She looked into the still, green pools of Sharon’s eyes. What is it the bastards wouldn’t let you say?
Her shoulder ached. But she could barely feel it. A female Asian EMT was still trying to coax her mom away.
“You have to lie back, miss, please. We’re here to help you. You’ve been shot. Just let us check you out.”
Kate kept shaking her head, repeating over and over, “I’m okay.…”
It all had the feel of some TV crime show she’d watched a hundred times. Except she was living it. It was her blood pressure they were taking, she they were asking to lie back, her arm now strapped with sensors. It was her mother they were trying to lift from her arms.
“We’re gonna take care of her. You can let us have her now.”
Finally Kate let her mother go. They placed Sharon gently on a gurney. Suddenly Kate felt very alone. And afraid. There was blood all over her sweater. Siren blasts shocked her out of her daze. That’s when she felt tears running down her cheek for the first time.
It was real.
“You’re gonna have to go to the hospital.” The EMT knelt next to her, leaning Kate back. “She’ll be going to the same place. I promise you’ll see her there. What’s your name?”
Kate let them ease her onto a gurney. She looked up at the blue sky. She had a flash of the same blue sky she’d seen from her hotel room.
“Kate.”
Her mind started to drift. To Justin and Emily. Who would tell them? They had to know. Where would they go now? Who would take care of them now? And Greg … Kate suddenly realized she had to call him. Let him know she was okay. “I have to call my husband,” she said. She tried to sit up. She wasn’t sure if anyone had heard.
They started to wheel Kate toward the van. She could no longer fight. She started feeling woozy. She could no longer push back the urge to close her eyes.
Suddenly she was aware she was leaving something—something important—behind.
“Wait!” Kate reached out and grabbed the arm of one of the EMTs.
The gurney stopped. The female medical tech leaned in close.
“There’s something there. A photo. It’s of my father.” She tried to point, but her right arm wouldn’t move. And she no longer knew which direction. “I can’t leave it behind. It’s somewhere over there.”
“Wendy, we have to go,” the EMT’s partner put in curtly.
“Please.” Kate tried to raise herself. She squeezed the EMT’s arm. “I need it. Please …”
“Give it a second, Ray,” the female med tech replied.
Kate
