Jack Haven

"Maria's Gift"

Everything felt real again. I could feel was my heart throbbing in my chest like a Cuban drum. The explosive stings as each raindrop hit my skin. The blunt smell of copper steamed from my bloody upper lip.

I stood in that alleyway with a painful grip over the handle of a .38 caliber. The barrel was firmly lodged between the Fucker's bare gums. My left arm hung limp at my side and a stream of blood poured down to my fingers, slimy with gore and mud.

For just a moment, I was happy.

Maria laughed. "Daddy, stop it!"

"Stop it nothing." I looked up from behind the camera. "You'll thank me when you're older." She was always annoyed that I obstinately taped every special occasion. I had a library of DVDs set up in the living room: her first step, her first time muttering the word "dad-deh," her first scrape when she tried to ride a bike, her first time playing a harmonica—my favorite instrument because no matter how bad you are you can't help but play it well—, her first kiss from a boy in her pre-school, her first date—she said she'd never talk to me again after that one, but she did—, her first totaled car after she backed into a tree.

Maria sighed. "You're totally getting me that new car stereo I asked for."

I just smiled. "Open them."

Maria took a small gift-wrapped box from the pile of presents sitting at her feet. She had just celebrated her quinceañera and was understandably worn out, but this was a birthday celebration, and leaving her presents unopened would have been bad luck for my little girl. She turned the box up and looked at the label. "This is from you." She delicately picked at the Scotch tape and unwrapped the box, revealing its gold-textured surface. She looked up at the camera with her crystalline green eyes and smiled. Then, she opened the box and lifted up a small, silver chain necklace with an emerald in the shape of a heart at the end. "Oh, Daddy."

She quickly pulled her dark brown hair aside and put the necklace on. She put the golden box on the table and ran around to meet me. She threw her arms around my neck and hugged me tightly. "Thank you so much!"

There was a cold, sharp pressure over my shoulder before I felt anything else. The man holding onto the knife bared his teeth in a disgusting smile. He seemed to relish having stabbed me.

Is this what he looked like when he stabbed her? I wondered as I ripped through his windpipe with a piece of broken glass.

The man let go of his knife, stumbled back, and looked at his friend pitifully as he desperately tried to contain the blood streaming from his neck in his slippery hands. He twisted around as if getting ready to run, but he stumbled over the curb and fell prostrate on the cold asphalt.

Then I looked at him. The Fucker. He was white with fear now as he swung around, using the wall of an abandoned porn shop for support. Then he started to run. I tore the knife out of my shoulder and followed him into the alley.

The room was filled with somber people dressed in black. Black-veiled women with black rosaries, black dresses, black suits, and black ties. Some of them walked past me with tears and muffled wails. They put their hands on my shoulder and muttered condolences that were difficult to make out. I thanked them all for caring. I thanked them all for being there. But I didn't believe them. She couldn't be gone. What did that even mean? The priest had finished his services when I saw a girl walk past me shyly. I didn't see who she was, but I saw it. A silver chain necklace with an emerald heart.

I stood up and grabbed her arm. "What are you doing with that?"

I recognized her suddenly. Catalina. She looked at me blankly. She was in shock. A couple of women near the exit gasped at my outburst and shuffled away.

"Cat! Why are you wearing my daughter's necklace?!"

Catalina looked down then back at me. "I..." she stuttered. "Maria gave it to me."

My head swelled. I fell onto a gray, plastic chair. "She gave it to you," I repeated coldly.

Catalina's eyes began to water. She kneeled in front of me apologetically. "I'm sorry. She never told you. She didn't want you to find out. Not this way." She was crying.

I was confused. What couldn't she tell me? Why didn't she—? What was Cat talking about? "She gave it to you," I said again, and I started to move my hand through Catalina's soft brown hair as she wept on my knee.

"You loved her too, didn't you?" I asked, and I knew the answer.

I drove over the cobblestone streets of the Universidad Nacional's central plaza and parked in a parallel parking space next to the library. Flowering hibiscus trees lined up against shining brick walls as a number of young students and professors walked down the chalk-colored sidewalks that outlined the plaza. A cool breeze blew past our open windows. I looked at Maria proudly.

She smiled nervously. "So, what do you think?"

"It's beautiful," I said, looking at the campus. I turned to her and moved some of her hair away from her face. "You're beautiful." I paused. "Hold on." I reached over the passenger seat and pulled out my camera. "This is your first day of college. It's worth remembering."

Maria sighed. "Can't you remember it without taking a picture of it?"

I laughed. "You'll thank me when you're my age. Now, come on." I got out of the white Jeep, avoiding the mud-streaked side. I walked around and met Maria on the large sidewalk. I had her stand near a tree with the library behind her, and I took a picture. The lighting was perfect.

"Maria!" Catalina ran up to meet Maria and gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. "I didn't think you of all people would skip your first day of Calculus."

Maria lit up. "Cat, this is my dad."

Catalina turned to meet me. She was a thin, tall girl of seventeen years—about the same age as Maria. She wore tight blue jeans and a beige mesh top. Her brown hair was the same color as Maria's but only reached her shoulders. "Maria's told me a lot about you." She offered her hand. "I'm Catalina."

I gently received her hand and shook it. "It's a pleasure. I haven't heard of you before. You know each other from before college?"

"You've met her. She was over for Christmas dinner last year. Cat's my best friend from bachillerato," Maria announced. "Oh," I stopped. "Well, perfect! Why don't you both get together for a picture?" I put the camera up between us. Maria shook her head and took her previous position next to the tree. Catalina threw her arms around Maria, lifted one leg, and smiled widely at the camera. Click. Flash.

Blood. My mouth filled with it.

"Yeah!" the Fucker yelled. "Teach that son-of-a-bitch to shut the fuck up!"

A tall, dark-skinned man shifted the brass knuckles he'd just smashed into my face. "You should've stayed quiet, stupid. Now you're just gonna die." He swung his fist again and hit me in a gut, and I felt something crack as all the air in my body was expelled at once. I fell on my knees and gasped, trying to force oxygen into my collapsed lungs.

"I wasn't there for you," I muttered.

The man walked up to me and grabbed my hair. He yanked my head back and put up his fist as I fumbled for my pepper spray. I snatched it from my coat pocket and shot it into his eyes before he had a chance to move. The man let go of my hair and covered his eyes, yelling obscenities as he blindly raged at me. I rolled aside, and the man punched through the dirty glass window of the abandoned porn shop. He pulled his bloody hand back out, ripping off the top weldings of two bars over the window that had rusted through.

Squinting, the man clutched one of the bars and tore off the bottom welding that had also rusted through, and he lunged at me swinging. I leaned back, and he missed my head. Then I kicked him in the chest, pushing the man off balance. The man fell back and landed on the other, exposed bar.

He bellowed as the aluminum stake thrust itself out the front of his chest. Its bottom welding snapped under his weight, and the man slumped onto the floor, the bar still jutting out from just under his sternum.

I held her shoulders and looked up at her eyes. I put my hand under the emerald heart and held it tightly in my fist. "This is not your heart forever," I explained. "You have to give it away."

"Daddy?"

"Your mother gave me this necklace before we were married. Now I'm giving it to you." I paused and put my hand on her cheek. "When you meet the man you love more than anything else in this world, give it to him."

She bit her bottom lip and touched the emerald heart. "I will, Daddy. Thank you."

I sat in a small café watching the tinto in front of me, allowing myself to become hypnotized by the small, auburn swirls chasing each other blithely on the surface of the black coffee. I looked up and saw Catalina walk in through the open double doors. I waved, and she began to walk toward me. She looped the strap of her garnet red, leather purse around her chair and sat down.

"Thank you for meeting me," I said solemnly.

Catalina nodded. "I was surprised you wanted to speak to me at all."

"I've had a lot to think about." I looked down. "I'm sorry."

"No, I'm sorry." Catalina put her hands over mine. "She didn't want you to find out that way. She was going to tell you, but she wasn't sure when. And then you were always recording everything she said, and she never felt she really open up to you like she wanted to."

I froze. "Okay," I was finally able to say.

Catalina looked at the table and mouthed the word "shit." She looked up. "I'm sorry. You should know how much I like to put my foot in my mouth." She chuckled nervously. "Listen," Catalina pulled her dark brown hair aside and began to remove the necklace with the emerald heart. "You can have this back—"

I suddenly remembered when Maria pulled her hair aside to put the necklace on when I first gave it to her.

"—if you want. It was Maria's after all."

I put my hand on Catalina's elbow and pulled her hand back from behind her hair. "She gave it to you. She wanted you to have it." I smiled sadly.

Catalina nodded. "None of this is your fault. I know for a fact she wouldn't want you to think that."

"Yes," I said. "Would you like something to eat? It's on me."

I stood behind the camera. I always stood behind the camera. Maria ran up to me and displayed her diploma proudly. Behind her, a large group of students filed out of a auditorium onto a paved courtyard replete with family members, photographers, and piping hot arepa vendors. "It's over! We did it!" She laughed.

"Cat, get in the picture," I urged. "So, Doctor, now that you've survived five years of undergraduate school, what are you going to do next?"

Maria looked at Catalina and smiled, then she turned back to the camera. "Well," she announced matter-of-factly, "I plan to survive another two years of posgrado. I can't very well be expected to save the rainforest without my master's, you know." She reached forward and pushed my camera aside. "Now, congratulate me like a proud father would."

I smiled and stopped recording. Maria reached around me and kissed me on the cheek. I lifted her up and swung her around. "I'm so proud of you."

Maria giggled as I put her down. She held me tightly. "I love you, Daddy."

"Hiraldo! You son-of-a—kill him, Pete!" the Fucker yelled. Hiraldo had just been gored by a bar, and his two older brothers had the gall to be upset about it.

I lifted the rod Hiraldo had attacked me with earlier. Pete reached into his back pocket and revealed a switchblade knife as I swung the bar at Pete's side, hitting him in the ribs. He didn't budge. Instead, he gnarled at me as he held the bar against his ribs with his arm. He wrested it from my hand and threw it harmlessly aside. I tried to move from in front of the broken window, but Pete caught me by the neck. I struggled trying to pry myself free from his grasp, but he stabbed me in the shoulder.

Pete's lips bared his teeth, and I could smell his beer-drenched breath. I reached feebly along the window sill behind me for something to use against him.

I pressed play on the remote. The screen on my television set immediately lit up to a bright day on the slopes of the Andes just outside of Bogotá. I had taken Maria and Catalina out of town for the weekend. We had been hiking all day, and Maria had convinced me to stop the Jeep near a bridge. A small stream flowed under the bridge from a tiny waterfall. On either the side bright orange and yellow heliconias hung from shrubs growing between the wet rocks along the waterfall's side. Behind the waterfall, the locals had dug a small cavern with a shrine for the Virgin of Chiquinquirá. Maria and Catalina were playing and giggling in the stream, splashing water at each other.

I smiled as I watched the video, as I must have smiled watching two twenty-year-olds play so innocently in the clear water. Catalina ran over to the heliconias and picked a couple. She put one in her hair and carefully affixed another to Maria's. Catalina and Maria stood admiring each other as I filmed their experience.

Maria turned to the camera. The heliconias matched her eyes. "Daddy, come into the water! It's warm!"

My hand snuck into the upper left portion of the frame. I was waving. "You girls go ahead!"

Maria looked down. She wasn't smiling. Then Catalina jumped on Maria's back from behind. Maria yelped as she held Catalina's legs and tried to keep her balance. Catalina beamed as Maria ran down the stream with Catalina on her back. They were laughing. Just laughing.

But where was I? I had scanned through most of the DVDs the first few days after her death. Maria was in all of them, and I was always a floating hand on the side of the screen.

"So you're graduating this December, aren't you?" I asked Catalina as we walked through the throng of pigeons in the Plaza de Bolivar.

She nodded. "Yeah. I got accepted to an internship in Peru. I was supposed to fly down in January."

"What happened?"

"My parents found out about Maria and me. They've essentially disowned me. I'm going to have to get down to Peru on my own money. The program director said she'd postpone my internship until the summer, but I'll have to find a job here first so I can pay for the trip."

Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man buying some seeds from a street vendor. He paid the vendor and handed the small plastic bag to his daughter. The girl jumped up gleefully. Her father helped her open the bag and gave her a handful of seeds. The girl skipped away and began sprinkling seeds on the ground. Before long a number of pigeons flew past her and attacked the seeds. The girl squealed and looked at her father with large green eyes.

"I wish she were still here. She always knew what to do," Catalina said softly. She looked at the girl with the seeds, but she didn't see what I saw.

I sat down on a bench overlooking the capitol. "That's part of the reason I called you out here." I waited for Catalina to sit next to me before continuing. "You were there, right? When...it happened?"

Catalina took a deep breath that almost sounded like a gasp. "Yeah."

"You didn't see anything, did you?"

"Why?" She hesitated. "You should just let the poli—"

"They closed the case," I interrupted.

"What?"

"The police. They closed the case. So I need to know what you saw."

Catalina stood up. "I can't—"

I grabbed her wrist. "Please," I begged. "Don't let it end this way."

Catalina looked down at me as if begging me not to ask. She looked deep into my eyes, shook her head, and sat down, defeated. "We were coming out of a club she and I used to go to a lot in Borough Siete de Agosto. We usually walk two blocks down and catch a cab with some friends. We were together, and I was feeling sick so I asked her if we could leave early. Then three guys came out of nowhere and started following us. We started walking faster, and I sprained my ankle, so Maria pulled me into an alley next to an abandoned shop." She stopped. "She pushed me into a dumpster and told me to stay quiet. I don't know what happened next. I don't..." She started crying.

I had heard the story once before, but I hadn't been listening. "Did you hear anything? Anything at all? Can you describe the guys who attacked you?"

Catalina was having trouble breathing. "I... There was screaming. It was so dark. Two of the guys kept chanting some guy's name. I just...I just stayed in the dumpster until the police pulled me out. And she was just there..." Catalina looked away. A crow had joined the pigeons and was having its fill of the girl's seeds. "She just laid there under a yellow tarp. And I called out to her, but she didn't move."

So many bodies. Not bodies. These things... They're not human.

The doctor led me to an aluminum slab. He stood over a silhouette covered by a white blanket. I looked over the thing. Two feet stuck out from the blanket at the bottom of the slab. There was a tag hanging from the right big toe.

I didn't read the name.

"Are you ready?" the doctor asked.

No.

I looked up at the doctor blankly.

The doctor nodded. I couldn't see his face. He pulled the blanket off the thing that lay on the slab. "Is this your daughter?"

I looked at it. The inanimate doll lay there with its eyes wide open. They hadn't even bothered to close its eyes when they brought it in.

Brown eyes. "No," I answered. "My daughter had green eyes."

The doctor was perplexed at first. "Your daughter's name was Maria—"

No. It's not Maria. Maria had green eyes. She had an emerald heart.

"—was it not?"

"Yes, but she's not Maria." I looked around the room. Silhouettes like this one, all laying on aluminum slabs, all covered with white blankets, littered the room. The all had tags on their right toes.

The doctor raised a brow. "Are you sure she's not your daughter? We checked the ID and dental records before we contacted you. They all match."

The room started to spin.

Maria didn't... She didn't have brown eyes.

"Did she have a necklace?" I demanded. "Maria had a necklace. Silver chain with an emerald—"

The doctor shook his head. "If it was silver, as you say, it would have been stolen by the time the body arrived. I'm sorry."

The heliconias matched her eyes. What color were the heliconias?

The doctor covered the doll. "If you're having a difficult time, we can try this another time. Can I offer you some tea? My secretary makes a splendid hierbabuena."

I didn't answer.

The doctor touched my arm gently. "Please come with me."

I sat on the curb wrapped in a dirty rag I'd bought from a bum for twenty thousand pesos. It smelled like it had been sown from the skins of dead rats. Borough Siete de Agosto was dismal place. At night, some parts of the borough lit up, but it was still a cesspool of waste and disease. The sidewalk was stained with urine and blood, which fed ravenous weeds that reached out through cracks in the concrete. On the opposite side of the street, two men staggered out of a nightclub marked only by a dim light overlooking a slate grey door. They whispered erotically to each other and slipped into a side street.

This was the Carretilla Rosada, an underground dance club for gays and lesbians in the heart of the Colombian nightlife circuit. For those seeking anonymity from the farce of the daylight world—the world of cameras and videos and fucking DVDs—, Siete de Agosto's shadows provided the perfect outlet. And the perfect deathtrap.

Snakes hid behind every corner. Waiting for that drunk, rich lawyer who didn't want his firm to know. Or that foreign ambassador who didn't want his office shamed by his private affairs. Or that married CEO who dutifully calls home each night to let his wife know that he'll have to work late again.

Or two innocent girls, one of whom was afraid her father might find out they weren't just friends. Fuck.

I'd only been on a stakeout like this once before. I had been working for the Guardia Nacional in Medellín, and we had been tailing a group of paramilitaries who had gone to a local bar to get a few drinks. Once they came out, we followed them to their hideout and called in for reinforcements. Unfortunately, they discovered us before our backup could arrive, so we had to take a few of them out ourselves.

There's a certain walk that people do when they're up to no good. I recognized them immediately because of that walk. Three men. They had been standing a block away from me, watching the nightclub from across the street. A boy dressed in a mesh shirt; skin-tight, black leather pants; and high-heeled, black leather boots walked out of the club with two girls, both in punk garb. One of the girls wore a bright red beanie. The three men standing across the street from them said a few things to each other and began to cross the street. That's when I knew. They walked at a cautious amble. It was quick-paced but calculated, and the care taken to adopt it gives it an uneasy stride. Paramilitaries walk that way when they're on a job, and the three men were walking that way at the time. They walked past the slate grey door and the dim light, following the three children.

The children didn't even realize they were being followed. They were laughing.

Just laughing.

Catalina was sobbing now. She kept her eyes turned away from me.

I shook her, and she looked into my eyes. The emerald heart sparkled under her sky blue blouse. "You said you heard a name. What was the name?"

"Name?" Catalina stammered. "I don't...I...

I paced up and down the waiting room in a crowded maternity wing. I looked up at the black and white clock on the wall above the reception desk.

Fifteen hours. What could be taking so long?

I stood there, looking at the clock. My hand reached through the buttons of my sweat-soaked dress shirt. I fingered the emerald heart hanging from my neck. Maria, please be okay, I pleaded. This part is fuzzy. It's been a long time since I remembered this. I didn't bring my camera.

The receptionist called my name. "Your wife is out of surgery. The doctor is headed here now."

I looked to my right to see the doctor walking out of the operation room at the end of the hall. He signaled for me. I ran down the hallway as fast as I could, but I slowed down as I reached him. I could see his face. He was grave. Before I could reach the doctor a nurse walked out of the operation room. There was a small, wet newborn baby in her arms. I ran to the nurse. "Is that—?"

The nurse smiled and rocked her arms delicately. "Yes!" she whispered. "This is your baby girl!" She handed her to me with the utmost care. "There she goes." She tickled the baby's tummy. "Yes, there you go. Yes!"

The baby wriggled and tried to smile.

For just a moment, I was happy. But it didn't last.

The doctor asked me to sit down. He sat next to me in a cushioned blue-green chair. "There was a complication during labor. Your wife, Maria..." He hesitated. "She began to hemorrhage. There was nothing we could do."

Maria. "What are you saying?" I urged.

The crowded hallway stopped all at once. No one moved. No one was there. Even the doctor vanished. But the nurse stayed with me as I rocked my baby. The nurse stood over me, watching me. She wanted to say something. The mother of my child was dead, and all she could do was stand there. Watching.

Then she thought of something to say. "She has her father's eyes."

But my eyes aren't green. I have brown eyes.

Hundreds of pigeons all took flight at one time. The sky filled with pigeons. The girl with the seeds looked up at the pigeons. Her eyes weren't green either. The girl with the seeds had black eyes.

I remember now.

I turned to Catalina. She was shaking. Her brown eyes were red and streaming tears. I put my arms around her. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I never saw her eyes."

Catalina shook as I held her in my arms.

I looked up at the nurse. "Maria. Did she suffer?"

The nurse tried to smile. "The last thing she saw was her baby."

I laughed and sobbed at the same time. The baby in my arms gurgled. "She must have been proud." My voice broke.

"Yes. I think so." The nurse tickled my daughter's chin. "What will you name her?"

"Román." Catalina had stopped shaking.

Román. The Fucker.

"Román!" I yelled at the three men in front of the abandoned porn shop next to the Carretilla Rosada. The three men stopped and looked at me. I threw off the rat skin rag and walked across the street. I glanced to my side. The boy and the two girls had crossed over to a main street. They were safe now.

Román lifted his palm at his two brothers as if telling them to standby. Román was a tanned, hairy man in his late thirties. He had some scars on his arms and face and coarse, black hair. His eyes were black. He wore a torn denim shirt and khakis. He had a tattoo on his left arm of a nude woman being smothered by a snake. "Who the fuck are you?"

I shrugged. "Me? I don't know, but you! Román!" I laughed out loud. I felt like ripping his throat out. Maybe I'd get the chance. "I was watching you boys from the corner there the other night. It was, you know, a couple of weeks ago." I made a face. "The two girls? You Fucker, you!"

Román tilted his head. Hiraldo, the younger one, grabbed the lapels of my vest and hurled me around. He pushed me against the bars of the porn shop window.

Román was shaking his head. "Look, man! You ain't seen nothing. You got that?"

Hiraldo pulled a set of brass knuckles from his shirt pocket and slipped them onto his fingers.

I laughed. "That was you, wasn't it?! You were the boys who got that girl in the alleyway! You fucked her good, huh?!"

Román raised his arms in desperation. "Shit! Shit! Shit!"

Pete clenched his fist around Román's shirt. "I told you someone was gonna see us kill that bitch! All that screaming—"

"Shut up, Mano!" Román smacked Pete's hand away and turned to Hiraldo. "Take care of this comemierda."

Hiraldo raised his upper lip. His chipped teeth were filled with tar. I looked up to see a brass fist come crashing down on my face.

Catalina pushed away from me. She looked at me with pained green eyes.

"What are you going to do?" she asked me in a whisper.

"I don't know," I lied.

"She wouldn't want this."

"No." I held her cheeks and looked into her eyes. "She wouldn't."

Catalina only looked at me. "Don't."

I closed my eyes and touched the emerald heart under Catalina's neck. It felt warm. "Take care of her." When I opened my eyes, Catalina's eyes were still looking into mine.

Catalina sniffled and another teardrop made its way down her face. "I will."

I stood up and walked away from the bench. I had to set things right.

Román ran into the empty alleyway. He jumped onto a brown dumpster and reached for the fire escape ladder. I walked toward him slowly, my left arm limp at my side dripping blood. My right hand held Pete's switchblade knife. Román grabbed the ladder and managed to pull it down. He jumped onto the ladder as I reached the dumpster. I climbed onto the dumpster and pulled myself up the ladder. I put the knife in my left hand and used my right hand to climb.

Román reached the first level as I reached his feet. Twisting my whole body I was able to swing my left arm around and slit his ankle. Román slipped and jumped off the ladder onto the first level with a loud, metallic thump. The knife landed in the small space between the dumpster and the brick wall. No longer able to walk, Román began to crawl toward the staircase that led to the second level. I reached the first level and overtook him. He was covered in sweat.

"Look, bro, I didn't mean to kill her, okay?" Román rambled as I grabbed his greasy hair with my right hand. "The little dyke looked like she needed a real man, all right. She just started fighting back and scratching. I wasn't trying to kill her. We was just trying to have a little fun, you know, bro?"

"Sure." I pulled his head back and hurled it against the metal rim of the staircase.

"Fuck! My nose!" He reached for his crushed nose and upper lip with his hands, but I pulled his head back before he could reach them and smashed his face against the staircase again. "God!" he wailed and gargled blood.

I ripped his head back, and Román flew back against the railing. I threw a clump of Román's black hair aside and grabbed him by the lapels, pulling him to his feet. He could barely stand on his own with a slit ankle.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" Román cried.

"I forgive you," I said. "But this isn't about you." I threw him over the railing. Román fell on his back against the side of the dumpster, his body flipped over, and he landed face first in the dirt of the alleyway. He could still move his left arm and was using it to drag himself away. I jumped down from the fire escape and onto the dumpster, then down onto the dirt.

It started to rain. I opened my arms. "Maria! Honey, don't cry!" I yelled into the night sky.

"You're insane!" Román whimpered.

I marched toward Román, grabbed him with both hands, and flung him against the brick wall next to the dumpster. I felt the tendons in my left shoulder shred, and my arm went completely lame. I reached into my vest and pulled out a .38 caliber revolver. Before Román could slump back down to the floor, I rammed the revolver into his mouth, and the revolver tore through his front teeth, lodging firmly between his gums.

The rain began to pour. Each drop exploded on my skin. My skin was steaming, and my heart was pounding in my chest.

This, I believe, is where I began. And it is where I end.

My wife, Maria, knelt at the bank of a stream. She stretched her arms out as her daughter ran to her from the side of a small waterfall. Beyond the waterfall, from a small shrine, the Virgin of Chiquinquirá stood watching. Just watching. The virgin's green eyes were as clear as the stream.

I never recorded this.

The little girl reached her mother and fell into her lap. "Look at what I found!" She held up a bouquet of heliconias. "I've been keeping these for you." She looked at her mother tenderly with her deep brown eyes.

Maria smiled. She took the flowers and put some in her hair. She put the rest in her daughter's. "I love them. They bring out your eyes."

The little girl looked around. "Where's Daddy?"

I'm here, Maria.

Maria smiled. "He's not done yet. Daddy still has a lot to do, but he'll be with us before you know it."

The little girl smiled. "I gave him the heart like you said."

Maria nodded. "That's my girl." She held her daughter in her arms. "My sweet, sweet girl."

I wasn't burning anymore. The pain was gone. With my dislocated left arm I reached just under my neck. It was warm.

She gave it to me.

And for just a moment, I was happy.

Then, I pulled the trigger.

Catalina looked down at the city of Bogotá from the window seat of a Boeing 757. She smiled as she played with a small envelope that had arrived through her door two weeks before. It had come attached to an itinerary and a one-way ticket to Pucallpa with a layover in Lima. Catalina stared at the envelope and tilted her head. She finally tore open the side and pulled out the small note.

Go save the rainforest for her. Good luck in Peru.

Catalina tapped the emerald heart with her other hand and smiled. "Thank you," she whispered.