imagine how you felt, having to put th-this off.”
Agnes shook her head, the sadness in her eyes deepening. “Mel was already beyond our reach, and coming sooner would have served no purpose. You were the one who needed Rodrigo’s full attention so he could pull you through.”
“He did. And while everyone says he’s phenomenal with all his patients, I’m sure he’s gone above and beyond even by his standards. I’m as sure it’s because I was Mel’s wife. It’s clear what a close friend of the whole family he is.”
The woman looked at her as if she’d said Rodrigo was in reality a reptile. “But Rodrigo isn’t just a friend of the family. He’s our son. He’s Mel’s brother.”
Cybele felt she’d stared at Agnes for ages, feeling her words reverberating in her mind in shock waves.
Rodrigo. Wasn’t Mel’s best friend. Was his brother. How?
“You didn’t know?” Agnes stopped, tutted to herself. “What am I asking. Rodrigo told us of your memory loss. You’ve forgotten.”
She hadn’t. She was positive. This was a brand-new revelation.
Questions heaved and pitched in her mind, splashed against the confines of her skull until she felt they’d shatter it.
Before she could relieve the pressure, launch the first few dozen, Rodrigo and Steven closed in on them. Rodrigo stood back as Steven mirrored his wife’s actions and sentiments.
“We’ve kept Cybele on her feet long enough,” Rodrigo addressed the couple who claimed to be his parents. “Why don’t you go back to the car with her, Agnes, while Steven and I arrange everything.”
Agnes? Steven? He didn’t call them mother and father?
She would have asked to be involved if she wasn’t burning for the chance to be alone with Agnes, to get to the bottom of this.
As soon as they settled into the car, Cybele turned to Agnes. And all the questions jammed in her mind.
What would she ask? How? This woman was here to claim her son’s body. What would she think, feel, if said son’s widow showed no interest in talking about him and was instead panting to know all about the man who’d turned out to be his brother?
She sat there, feeling at a deeper loss than she had since she’d woken up in this new life. Rodrigo’s chauffeur offered them refreshments. She parroted what Agnes settled on, mechanically sipped her mint tea every time Agnes did hers.
Suddenly Agnes started to talk, the sorrow that coated her face mingling with other things. Love. Pride.
“Rodrigo was six, living in an exclusively Hispanic community in Southern California, when his mother died in a factory accident and he was taken into the system. Two years later, when Mel was six, we decided that he needed a sibling, one we’d realized we’d never be able to give him.”
So that was it. Rodrigo was adopted.
Agnes went on. “We took Mel with us while we searched, since our one criteria for the child we’d adopt was that he get along with Mel. But Mel antagonized every child we thought was suited to our situation, got them to turn nasty. Then Rodrigo was suggested to us. We were told he was everything Mel wasn’t—responsible, resourceful, respectful, with a steady temperament and a brilliant mind. But we’d been told so many good things about other children and we’d given up hope that any child would pass the test of interaction with Mel. Then Rodrigo walked in.
“After he introduced himself in the little English he knew, enquired politely why we were looking for another child, he asked to be left alone with Mel. Unknown to both boys, we were taken to where children’s meetings with prospective parents were monitored. Mel was at his nastiest, calling Rodrigo names, making fun of his accent, insulting his parentage and situation. We were mortified that he even knew those …words, and would use them so viciously. Steven thought he felt threatened by Rodrigo, as he had by any child we sought. I told him whatever the reason, I couldn’t let Mel abuse the poor boy, that we’d been wrong and Mel didn’t need a sibling but firmer treatment until he outgrew his sullenness and nastiness. He hushed me, asked me to watch. And I watched.
“Rodrigo had so far shown no reaction. By then, other boys had lashed out, verbally and physically, at Mel’s bullying. But Rodrigo sat there, watching him in what appeared to be deep contemplation. Then he stood up and calmly motioned him closer. Mel rained more abuse on him, but when he still didn’t get the usual reaction, he seemed to be intrigued. I was certain Rodrigo would deck him and sneer gotcha or something. I bet Mel thought the same.
“We all held our breath as Rodrigo put a hand in his pocket. My mind streaked with worst-case scenarios. Steven surged up, too. But the director of the boys’ home detained us. Then Rodrigo took out a butterfly. It was made of cardboard and elastic and metal springs and beautifully hand-painted. He wound it up and let it fly. And suddenly Mel was a child again, giggling and jumping after the butterfly as if it were real.
“We knew then that Rodrigo had won him over, that our search for a new son was over. I was shaking as we walked in to ask Rodrigo if he’d like to come live with us. He was stunned. He said no one wanted older children. We assured him that we did want him, but that he could try us out first. He insisted it was he who would prove himself to us. He turned and shook Mel’s hand, told him he’d made other toys and promised to teach him how to make his own.”
The images Agnes had weaved were overwhelming. The vision of Rodrigo as a child was painfully vivid. Self-possessed in the face of humiliation and adversity, stoic in a world where he had no one, determined as he proved himself worthy of respect.
“And did he teach him?” she asked.
Agnes sighed. “He tried. But Mel was short-fused, impatient, never staying with anything long enough for it to bear fruit. Rodrigo never stopped trying to involve him, get him to experience the pleasures of achievement. We loved him with all our hearts from the first day, but loved him more for how hard he tried.”
“So your plan that a sibling would help Mel didn’t work?”
“Oh, no, it did. Rodrigo did absorb a great deal of Mel’s angst and instability. He became the older brother Mel emulated in everything. It was how Mel ended up in medicine.”
“Then he must have grown out of his impatience. It takes a lot of perseverance to become a doctor.”
“You really don’t remember a thing about him, do you?” Now what did that mean? Before she pressed for an elaboration, Agnes sighed again. “Mel was brilliant, could do anything if only he set his mind to it. But only Rodrigo knew how to motivate him, to keep him in line. And when Rodrigo turned eighteen, he moved out.”
“Why? Wasn’t he happy with you?”
“He assured us that his need for independence had nothing to do with not loving us or not wanting to be with us. He confessed that he’d always felt the need to find his roots.”
“And you feared he was only placating you?”
Agnes’s soft features, which showed a once-great beauty lined by a life of emotional upheavals, spasmed with recalled anxiety. “We tried to help as he searched for his biological family, but his methods were far more effective, his instincts of where to look far sharper. He found his maternal relatives three years later and his grandparents were beside themselves with joy. Their whole extended family welcomed him with open arms.”
Cybele couldn’t think how anyone wouldn’t. “Did he learn the identity of his father?”
“His grandparents didn’t know. They had had a huge quarrel with his mother when she got pregnant and she wouldn’t reveal the father’s identity. She left home, saying she’d never return to their narrow-minded world. Once they had calmed down, they searched for her everywhere, kept hoping she’d come home. But they never heard from her again. They were devastated to learn their daughter was long dead, but ecstatic that Rodrigo had found them.”