“He said something else.”
Mother Caridad took it.
The note contained a sentence Paloma had written during the telephone call.
Elena Valdés has spent the last three years trying to prevent another pregnancy.
Mother Caridad read it twice.
“That does not fit what we assumed.”
“No.”
“Did he explain?”
“He said the explanation belonged to Elena.”
“Convenient.”
“Perhaps. But he did not sound evasive.”
Mother Caridad folded the note.
“How did he sound?”
“Tired.”
The answer unsettled her more than defensiveness would have.
A dishonest person might be frightened, angry, or careful.
A tired person was often someone who had been carrying the truth too long.
They left at sunrise.
Sister Lucía stood at the convent gate with Miguel in her arms and Tomás beside her. The boy had insisted on giving Esperanza a small cloth pouch filled with smooth stones from the garden.
“For the road,” he explained.
Esperanza crouched and kissed his forehead.
“What should I do with them?”
“Keep them.”
“All of them?”
He nodded seriously.
“So you come back.”
She hugged him.
“I will come back.”
Miguel stretched both arms toward her.
Esperanza held him for a long moment, breathing in the warm, clean scent of his hair. Then she returned him to Lucía.
“His cough is almost gone,” Lucía said. “I will keep him away from the morning chill.”
“I know.”
“And Tomás has promised not to climb the fig tree.”
Tomás looked away.
Lucía raised an eyebrow.
“He has promised to consider not climbing the fig tree.”
Despite herself, Esperanza laughed.
Mother Caridad watched the exchange from beside the motorcar.
The children were safe. They were loved. The convent would continue around them as it always had.
Still, when Esperanza stepped into the car, she looked back until the gate disappeared behind the bend in the road.
The journey to San Aurelio passed through low hills and farming villages.
Doctor Paloma drove. Mother Caridad sat beside her, while Esperanza rested in the back seat with the folder of documents on her lap.
For the first hour, no one spoke much.
Morning mist lifted from the fields. Farmers guided carts along the roadside. Small houses appeared and vanished behind rows of poplars.
Esperanza opened the pouch Tomás had given her.
Five gray stones and one white one lay inside.
She held the white stone between her fingers.
