“She lives in my building,” Raymond said after managing to swallow his huge mouthful. “She doesn’t have anyone. Her husband died a long time ago. She doesn’t have any children. I met her because she was standing out in the hall, asking everybody who came by if they knew Luis Velez, or had seen him. Which was quite a long shot. I guess you know what I mean. But she was desperate. She was down to half a can of soup, and she’d been eating a quarter of it every day. Rationing it. Because Luis wasn’t coming by to walk her to the bank, and his cell phone was out of service, and she just . . . she didn’t have any options to fall back on. She was so hungry I had to give her my granola bar just so she had enough energy to walk to the store with me. You know. To do her shopping. People should have some options, you know? Why do we leave people on their own like that? It doesn’t seem right.”
He looked up to see every face at the table staring at him. Even the toddler. No one was eating cake. They were all watching him, transfixed. As if waiting to see what he would say next.
“Did I say something wrong?”
“Wrong?” Sofia said. “Wrong? No, everything you said was just exactly right. Why do we leave people on their own like that? I ask myself all the time. They’re human beings, they’re our fellow human beings, but we don’t even act like we care. See, this is what I’m always telling you kids.” She looked to the side of the table where her five children sat. Two of the boys had gone back to eating their cake. “Junior! Eduardo! Pay attention when I’m talking to you.” Two forks dropped. One hit its dessert plate with a startling clang. “What this young man is saying is just what I’m always telling you kids. You see someone struggling, you help that person. Doesn’t matter if they’re familia, or even a friend. They’re a person. So you help.”
Luis Junior rolled his eyes. Or maybe it was Eduardo.
The senior Luis slammed one of his palms down on the table. Everyone jumped. But no one jumped higher than Raymond.
“Junior,” Luis said, his voice dense and grave. “You have one more chance to show respect to your mother, and if you can’t, you will leave this table. And the cake will stay here.”
“Sorry, Mom,” Junior mumbled. It sounded sincere.
Everyone went back to eating their cake in silence.
A minute or two later Raymond looked up to see the older girl staring at him. Luisa.
“You shouldn’t feel so discouraged,” she said. “Maybe the next Luis will be the right one. Or the one after that.”
“Maybe,” Raymond said.
“But he had a bad experience this morning,” Sofia said. “A couple of them, and now it’s much harder for him to knock on doors. Am I right, honey?”
She looked directly at Raymond, who cleared his throat and swallowed hard.
“Yeah,” he said. “But there’s more to it than that. There’s even more. I feel like I sort of . . . painted myself into a corner with this. Like . . . I’m not even sure how to say it. Like there’s just no good way this can end now. Mrs. G thinks Luis would never have stopped coming without even telling her why. I guess she thinks the best about people. But I don’t know if she’s right or not. So now I’m trying to think of a good way this can end. And I just don’t see it. Maybe she’s right, and something terrible happened to him. And that would be . . . well . . . terrible. Or maybe he doesn’t care nearly as much as she thinks he does. And that would be a whole different kind of terrible. I keep trying to picture finding out something better than that. But what would it be? Sometimes I think maybe he’s in the hospital, and he can’t come. But he could call, or send somebody. Or I think about what if he had amnesia or something. But that’s one of those silly things that I think only happens in the movies or on TV.”
Raymond paused. Took a deep breath. He poked his remaining cake with his fork. He purposely did not look up at the faces. He plunged on.
“So today I decided to stop. Not knock on any doors anymore. But then I looked at her, and she looked so . . . helpless, kind of. I mean, not literally, because she has a good brain. She can take care of herself in a lot of ways. But she just looked so . . . easy to hurt. And I don’t want the world to keep hurting her. I mean, if I can help it. Even though I know she’s probably pretty strong and she’s been taking care of herself since before I was born. So it’s probably just me, but I get worried about her. So I came and knocked on another door. But I just don’t see any good coming of it at this point. It just all feels so hopeless.”