“Okay,” he began. “Here’s the question. Do you know Millie G? The ninety-two-year-old blind woman who lives over on the west side? Are you the one who used to come and help her do her banking and shop for groceries?”
Luis Velez opened his mouth to speak. But Raymond already knew the answer. He could see it in the man’s eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know her.”
Raymond felt as though he were falling. Maybe off a tall building, or down a deep well. For a brief moment, he had allowed himself to believe that in this friendly, safe environment he had found his Luis Velez. That he would have to go no further. He’d had no idea how much he’d set himself up for a fall. He thought he’d known how deeply he wanted to be done with this project, but there was more to that well of dread than he’d imagined.
“Okay, thanks anyway,” Raymond said. “I’ll let you get back to your meal.”
He turned to walk out of the dining room.
“Wait,” Luis Velez said. “Take a seat with us for a minute. You look so tired.”
“I don’t want to bother you while you’re eating.”
“We’re almost done. There’s cake coming. You can join us for dessert.”
Raymond stood still a moment, feeling stunned. He had no idea why anyone would choose to be so nice to him, or what had possessed this Luis Velez to want to add Raymond to the one meal his family could enjoy together every week.
But he was tired. So he sat.
The cake was dark chocolate, with gobs of chocolate frosting. It was hard to imagine putting anything more in his stomach. But Raymond’s mouth wanted it. His psyche wanted it. He wanted to eat sugar until he was nearly in a coma. Until he could feel nothing. He wanted to disappear.
He lifted his fork and took a huge bite. His eyes rolled back as if to scan the ceiling. It was that good.
He looked up to the head of the table to see the big, rotund Luis Velez watching him and smiling.
“She makes a hell of a cake, my wife,” he said. “Am I right?”
“Luis!” the wife said. “Language!”
“Sorry. She makes a mean cake. That’s what I meant to say.”
“It’s really, really good,” Raymond said. “I really appreciate it. I have no idea why you invited me to sit down and eat cake.” He wanted to ask straight out: “Why?” But he could not think of a way to say it that did not risk sounding ungrateful. “But I really appreciate it. I just don’t know why,” he added, poking at the question again.
Luis looked to his wife, Sofia, and she looked back. Everybody else seemed lost in dessert.
Raymond had been introduced to everyone while Luis was cutting the cake. But he could remember only that the wife was Sofia, the teenage girl was Luisa, and the toddler girl was Karina. The rest had refused to stick. There was a Luis Jr. in there somewhere, but Raymond couldn’t remember which of the boys bore that name.
He waited to see if they would answer the question he could not quite bring himself to ask. At least, not directly.
“You just looked so . . . ,” Luis began.
“Dispirited,” Sofia added.
Apparently they finished each other’s sentences.
“I was going to say discouraged, but yeah. You looked so sad. We couldn’t send you back out into the world like that.”
Raymond took another huge bite of cake. Because he couldn’t stop himself. It was too good. But now he couldn’t answer until he had chewed and swallowed. Which he did as quickly as he could.
“I guess it’s just . . . ,” he began. “I had this really terrible morning. I went to look for a Luis Velez in Brooklyn. And he was . . . scary. Maybe he was just playing with my head, but I thought he was going to hurt me. It scared me a lot. And before that, I got into this thing with another family where I kept saying they didn’t know for a fact that he wasn’t the right Luis Velez. They wouldn’t let me ask him, and I just wanted to ask him. And then it turned out he’s been in a wheelchair for nineteen years and doesn’t even seem to know what’s going on around him.”
“That’s not your fault,” Sofia said. “You couldn’t have known.”
“I felt bad about it, though.”
He took another huge bite of cake.
“And you wanted this to be your last stop,” Luis said.
Raymond nodded, his mouth full. He felt himself fall a little deeper. Yes. He had so wanted this to be his last stop.
“How do you know this Millie?”