Pork sizzles in the frying pan.
The sound alone makes my stomach grumble with pleasure.
Yolanda stands over the stove with a pair of tongs, turning each cubed piece of pork over so that all sides become browned. She already has the spices set aside, ready to add when the time is right.
Gabriela and I stand in the kitchen watching her. We offered to help, but she kept waving us away, saying that she was fine, despite the fact she moves slowly around the kitchen with her cane.
Dorado sits in the doorway, his tail flicking back and forth, watching patiently.
It’s been two hours since we kicked the narcos out of town. Two hours since the realization of what the townspeople had done began to sink in. I could tell from some of their faces that a few were already beginning to regret it, but others hadn’t. They’d looked proud. Relieved. Triumphant.
At the same time, they knew that this wasn’t the end of it. That eventually more narcos would come, seeking revenge. The townspeople needed to work on burying their loved ones from yesterday, but at the same time they needed to ensure that the town remained safe. So while a few worked on burial plans, the others were waiting with every weapon they had. We’d found several guns and rifles the narcos had stashed in their house, but it wasn’t an arsenal. There was a chance that when more narcos came, the townspeople would be outgunned and outnumbered. They acknowledged this, and they still wanted to fight.
As Yolanda browns the pork, she glances at us over her shoulder.
“How do you two know each other?”
Gabriela and I trade glances. We stare at each other for a long moment, and then I shrug.
“It’s a long story.”
Yolanda laughs, gestures at the stove.
“We have time.”
Neither one of us speaks.
Yolanda chuckles to herself, shaking her head as she keeps browning the pork.
“You can keep your secrets. Gabriela, are you really a journalist?”
“Yes.”
“Who do you write for?”
Gabriela hesitates, then says, “La Baliza.”
“That is noble work, I imagine. Also dangerous. What do your parents think of it?”
“They’re dead.”
Yolanda sighs, shaking her head.
“Much too young. Much, much too young.”
She peers at me.
“What about your parents?”
“I’d rather not talk about my parents.”
Yolanda nods, focusing again on the frying pan.
“Very well. Then we will not talk about anything. We will stay silent here in the kitchen while our food cooks.”
Dorado moves from his spot in the doorway. He slinks over to me and starts rubbing his face up against my leg. When I don’t give him any attention, he drifts over to Gabriela, who bends down and strokes his back.
I ask Yolanda, “What about you?”
She doesn’t bother to look back at me when she answers.
“What about me?”
“Tell us about your family.”
She stares down at the frying pan, moving the cubes of pork around as they sizzle.
“My parents, as you can imagine, have long since left this earth. As for children … I only ever had one child. A son. He grew up a good boy. Always listened. Always followed the rules. He was ambitious. He wanted to go to Mexico City and become a lawyer. I never understood why he wanted to become a lawyer. One day I asked him, and he said it was because lawyers made a lot of money. He said that was his goal—to make a lot of money. He always told me that one day he would make enough money so that he could buy me a place to live along the ocean. He was a sweet boy who meant well, but …”
She lets it hang there and doesn’t complete the thought.
I say, “Was a sweet boy. Does that mean he passed away, too?”
“Yes, but not in the way you might think. All his talk about becoming a lawyer was when he was just a boy. My son meant well, but he was not smart. At least not smart enough to become a lawyer. To get into the right schools. I think he realized this as he got older. When he became a teenager, he realized that if he wanted to make money, he would need to find something else to do. He did not want to become a farmer and work in the fields all day. He did not want to leave me by myself either, so he decided to stay in town, but …”
She pauses again, turning to look at us.
“Fernando Sanchez Morales did not always own that house up on the hill. His father lived there before him. His father also worked for the cartel, but he wasn’t so awful.”
Another pause. Yolanda shakes her head again, wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“I know that sounds strange, but he was good to the people here. Morales would never have allowed those narcos to terrorize the town. He understood that towns like ours were just part of life. We were here to stay. When he became older, I worried something might happen to him. I worried somebody worse would take his place. As they say, better the devil you know than the devil you do not. I suppose Fernando could be even worse than he is, but he is bad. He is ruthless. And he was just a boy at the time, too, and my son knew this, and somehow he managed to meet Fernando somewhere and convinced Fernando to let him work for the cartel.”
“Your son was a narco.”
The old woman nods. The cubes of pork keep sizzling in the pan. They’ve been on much too long, and Yolanda suddenly realizes this. She takes the pan off the stove, turns to a large bowl, and drops them in.
“As I told you, my son was not very smart. He thought being a narco would pay a lot of money. And yes, it did bring him more money than he would have gotten working the fields, but it was dangerous work, too. I told him that. I pleaded with him. Begged him. He knew how I felt about the narcos, especially after what they did to me. But he did not care.”
“What happened to him?”
Yolanda covers the pork. She grabs another frying pan, sets it over the stove, and begins sautéing the onions.
“I do not know. I finally had enough. I told him that if he wanted to continue living in this house—if he wanted to continue being my son—then he needed to quit being a narco. He left that night, and I never saw him again.”
“How long ago was this?”
She pauses for a beat, thinking about it. Then she shrugs, shakes her head, as she keeps moving the onions around in the frying pan.
“I cannot remember. It has been at least thirty years. Maybe thirty-five years.”
“Maybe he’s still out there somewhere. Maybe he’s just been saving enough money to buy you that place by the ocean.”
Yolanda wipes the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand again.
“No, he is dead. He has been dead for some time now. A mother knows. She feels it.”
Before I can say anything to this, the front door bangs open.
The Glock has been in my right hand this entire time. I raise it as I turn toward the front of the house, ready to shoot whoever’s burst inside, but it’s the boy from earlier, who had found me and Gabriela standing outside and took us to the town meeting.
He stops short when he sees the gun, his eyes widening. He’s breathing fast, like he just sprinted a mile, and his face is flush from the exertion.
I lower the gun to my side.
“What’s wrong?”
He pauses to catch his breath and blurts out the two words I’ve been waiting to hear since the moment the townspeople agreed to kick out the narcos.
“They’re coming.”