One Grave Less

Maria.
    Maria arranged the best bedding for the two of them she could under the circumstances. She was leaning against the back of the seat with her long legs stretched out to the passenger side propped up on the box of edible supplies they had moved to the cab. She used some of the bolt of fabric for a pillow. Rosetta curled up next to her holding the backpack like a teddy bear and with some of the fabric folded into a pillow under her head on Maria’s lap.
    “I’ll stay awake while you sleep,” said Rosetta.
    “I think we’ll be fine here,” answered Maria.
    “I’ll still stay awake.”
    “Wake me if you hear anything you don’t like. Don’t go off by yourself.” Maria caressed her hair.
    “I won’t,” she said.
    Rosetta was silent. Maria listened to the sounds of the jungle. She thought she heard the cry of a jaguar. She closed her eyes.
    “They came in the morning,” said Rosetta. Her voice was small and came with a tremor. “It was still dark and I was asleep in my room. When I heard the screaming and guns I hid in the closet. I was so scared. I kept thinking, what if Mama came back early and they got her.”
    Maria stroked her cheek and hair. She said nothing, but reached and held her hand.
    “The bad men searched all the rooms. They found me in the closet. I thought they were going to shoot me, but they grabbed me and took me outside with the other kids. I heard someone ask if he should kill us. That was when I heard the voice. I had heard it before . . . when he came to the mission before. He said it would be a waste. He had on a big hat and I couldn’t see his face, but I knew his voice. He had an accent like this.” Rosetta gave Maria a pretty good imitation of a British accent.
    “He asked which one was Fallon’s stray cat. I didn’t know what he meant—then. I thought he was looking for a cat. We didn’t have one. One of the older kids pushed me toward them. The other kids began hitting on that kid for doing it and the bad men fired their guns in the air.”
    Rosetta stopped talking. Maria heard her uneven breathing and felt a tear as she caressed Rosetta’s cheek.
    “Did you know who the man was?” asked Maria.
    “No. A lot of people visited the mission. But he was with an embassy man, I remember. Father Joe talked with him. So did Mama, and Uncle David and Uncle Greg—that’s what I called Mama’s friends. The bad man was tall, really tall, but I don’t think as tall as you, and he had blond hair. That’s all I remember about what he looked like. I was just a little kid. He took my shoes and my CD player. I guess he got it from my room. He said he was going to make a surprise for Mama with it. He told a man to cut my arm and put the blood on my shoes.” Rosetta rubbed her arm and whimpered. “It hurt and I cried. I wanted Mama. I want her so bad now.” Rosetta started crying.
    Maria shifted her position and pulled Rosetta up into her arms, holding her tight.
    “We’ll get you home to your mama, I promise.” She caressed her hair and kissed the top of her head. “You don’t have to talk about this anymore.”
    Rosetta sniffed and Maria gave her one of the squares of fabric to blow her nose.
    “I want to tell you all of it,” she said after a moment. “You said you need to know.”
    Rosetta told Maria about the long truck ride with the other kids and how scared they all were. She told her about escaping at one of the stops. She was so small she rolled away from them into the brush when she was using the bathroom. She wasn’t sure they even knew she was gone. Rosetta told Maria about finding her way to a native village, where she was taken in by an old woman who knew jungle herbs and medicine plants. The old woman hid Rosetta when the men came looking. The villagers didn’t like the bad men and they didn’t give her away.
    During the time with the old woman, Rosetta hatched the idea of finding her mother. The men had told her that Diane Fallon didn’t want her anymore, but she hadn’t believed them. Not really. The old woman died the next year and Rosetta finagled a trip to a large village where she got a job working for a couple. A place to stay for her. Cheap labor for them.
    That was when Ariel became Rosetta to make herself disappear. She told Maria that she went from family to family, running away when she discovered that a family couldn’t help her, always looking for someone who could take her to Georgia, United States. She found that if she