Free The Indigo Notebook by Laura Resau Page B

just
want
her to be your birth mother.”
    Wendell plays with a loose thread at his shirt hem. “I bet we’ll find something out when we come back tomorrow.”
    I’m doubtful. “We could just try another village.”
    “I have to give back the poncho. And there’s that mystery woman.”
    Right. Let’s not forget the ranting of an incoherent drunk man. Carefully, I say, “Remember, we have limited time and lots more villages.”
    “I have a feeling about this place, Zeeta. A few more days. If nothing shows up by then, we’ll move on.”
    Although this whole thing is rapidly turning into a waste of time, we did have a fun day together in this village, and the girls are very cute, and I wouldn’t mind some more of Mamita Luz’s bread, so I say, “All right.”
    We stay silent for another song, and then he says, “Zeeta, I have some letters.” He hesitates. “Can you translate them into Spanish?”
    I get the feeling this is something big he’s asking me. “Sure.”
    “No one’s ever seen them before.”
    “What are they?”
    “Since I was eight years old, I’ve been writing letters to my birth parents. Mostly on birthdays and holidays. I have about twenty now. I want to give them to my birth parents.”
    A large woman toting huge bags squeezes past us in the aisle. I lean close to Wendell to avoid being bumped. Ever notice how the touch of certain people, even accidental, can send tingles through your whole body? For a second, Wendell’s arm grazes mine, and a warmth floods into me. Layla would probably boil it down to chi. She went through aphase a few years back in Morocco where all she wanted to do was sit around holding hands and sending chi back and forth.
    After the woman passes, I say, “It would be an honor to translate your letters,” and I keep my head close to his, nearly touching, feeling the chi flow in the dark, lemony-sweet air.
    We stop at Wendell’s hotel room for the letters. It’s Colonial, painted buttery yellow with white trim around tall French windows. A doorman with a gold tooth greets Wendell by name on the way in. Inside, from behind a desk, a pudgy middle-aged woman in a suit shoots him a giant smile. “Wendell! Good to see you!”
    “Hey, Dalia.” He gives a quick wave and keeps walking.
    “You’re popular here,” I say as we enter the lobby, a huge pillared space with an indoor garden bursting with orange bird-of-paradise flowers. The wooden floors shine with pine wax and smell like a forest.
    “She’s the owner. The friend of a friend of my mom I told you about.”
    “
Que pleno
. You’re lucky.”
    “Not really. She’s basically my babysitter.”
    I raise an eyebrow.
    “When I told my parents I was going to Ecuador, they were excited. They thought they’d come along, too. Then I said I wanted to go alone. At first they said no, but then my mom e-mailed all their old Peace Corps friends and found someone who knew someone who ran a hotel here. And hereI am. On the condition that I tell Dalia the babysitter everywhere I go. That and call home every day. A little oppressive.”
    “I still say you’re lucky.”
    While he runs up the polished marble stairs to his room, I wait in the lobby on a worn velvet chair, watching a tiny bird flit around the garden. I try to imagine Layla going to all that trouble to make me safe.
    During my childhood, regardless of the country, I ran wild after school. The only rule—recommendation, really—was that I had to be home by dark. In the evenings, when Layla was feeling too mellow for dancing under the full moon or forming an impromptu drum circle, she read me her favorite books of poetry over and over. Mostly Rumi, but also Thich Nhat Hanh and Khalil Gibran. One night, I asked her why I didn’t have rules like the other kids. Why didn’t I have to do my homework right when I came home from school? Why didn’t I have to change out of my school uniform to keep it clean? She kissed my cheek. “That’s why we read together,