But it’s a good thing Mariana’s giant sat up front, where he’s using a very odd, very loud, very slow brand of English to point out to Don Pedro that it is a nice day, sunny, and the sky, it is blue, and the houses of this town, they are so pretty, because from up there he can’t see Ninexin frantically waving the envelope at me, stabbing at the note Mariana left across the sealed back in her abominable penmanship. “She did look a bit suffocated, surrounded by all those people,” I say to Ninexin, once I finally make out the words Mariana had written. “She’ll probably sit at that café she loves so much, the one with the deaf people, pobrecitos, until the lunch is over, and then she’ll come find us before we’re ready to drive back to Managua.” The real mystery isn’t where Mariana has gone; my granddaughter is a wanderer, she loves to set out for someplace unexpected, but she always comes back to me. The question that interests me is what is this letter she’s being so mysterious about, what could Cristian Hidalgo have to say to me after all these years?
