"Esta el medico? "
A young girl had stepped into the clinic but spoke to Lindsay from the door.
"No." Lindsay spoke Spanish. "But he should be back soon. Can I help you?"
The girl dropped her eyes and shook her head. She wore too much make-up and a yellow tube top that revealed her torso and the top of her red lace thong above her low-slung jeans.
"What's your name?"
"Marisol Rivera."
"That's a pretty name. How old are you?"
"Fifteen."
"How old is your boyfriend?"
"What boyfriend?"
"The one who got you pregnant."
"I did not say I was pregnant."
"But you are."
The tears came now.
"Why do you come to the doctor?"
"I want an abortion."
Two hundred thirty-five miles north in Austin, Carl Crawford ate his whole grain muffin and drank his fair trade coffee and watched the morning news and thought, Bode Bonner is the luckiest son of a bitch on the planet.
The governor's arrival at the L.A. International Airport the day before was the feature segment. The crowd- Californians, for Christ's sake! — hailed him like a conquering king home from the crusades against the Mexicans. Sure, they were cartel gunmen, and yes, they were operating a marijuana farm, and true, they had raped the girl and held those kids as slaves, but… Carl sighed. Anyone else, and he might be cheering, too. But Bode Bonner? Carl had spent the last eight years of his professional life chasing down every scent of scandal emanating from the Governor's Mansion: shady land deals, state appointments to cronies and campaign donors, misuse of campaign funds, even the execution of an apparently innocent man. But nothing stuck to the governor of Texas.
And now he's an American hero.
The only silver lining in Carl's dark cloud of a mind was knowing that no one fell harder or farther than an American hero exposed by scandal. So Carl would continue his search for scandal in the Governor's Mansion, scandal that would drive Bode Bonner from office. The governor's staff was loyal to a fault-but there was always a fault line, a crack in the loyalty of every politician's entourage, one follower who stopped following. He would find that person. He would use that person. He would bring Bode Bonner down. Unless that Mexican drug cartel killed him first, as some drug war experts on the cable talk shows had suggested might happen.
Carl could only hope.
Jesse Rincon had never before had a colonia woman ask him to end a life. These women had nothing in life, yet they desperately wanted to give birth to life. But this girl sitting across his desk now pleaded for an abortion.
"If my employer learns I am pregnant, he will fire me," Marisol Rivera said in Spanish.
"You work in a maquiladora? "
"Yes. Across the river."
"What do you make?"
" Un dolar la hora. "
One dollar an hour.
"No. What kind of product do you make? Televisions, toasters, clothes…?"
"Underwear for the gringos, panties and thongs."
She stood and turned to show her backside. She reached back and pulled the top strap of her red thong up for him to see.
"I take a few from time to time. What they call, a perk."
"Not as good as health insurance."
"I save my wages so that one day I might live beyond the wall, perhaps when I am twenty years old."
She dreamed of living beyond the wall, but she was destined to be yet another pretty chica whose life is derailed by a child before she is sixteen. And Jesse had no doubt that in fifteen years, her daughter would be sitting before him begging for an abortion so that she might live beyond the wall.
"But that dream will not come true, Doctor, if I am fired for being pregnant or if I have this baby. Will you do it?"
"Marisol, I cannot."
"Why not?"
"I am Catholic."
"And I am fifteen and pregnant."
"What are you going to do?"
Marisol Rivera had left. Jesse now shook his head.
"I do not know. It is easy to say a woman should have a right to an abortion, but it is something else to perform the abortion. To end a life. What if my mother had chosen an abortion?"
"She thinks the baby will ruin her life."
"If I perform the abortion, one day she might live beyond the wall. If I do not, she will surely live out her life on this side of the wall."
"Is there a doctor in Laredo who will do it?"
"No. There might be one in McAllen, perhaps as far away as Brownsville." He exhaled. "Two lives rest in my hands."
She could tell he needed to think, so Lindsay went over to Inez's vacant desk and updated her medical histories. Jesse sat quietly for a long time. Finally, he stood and began assembling surgical tools by the examining table.
"Find her," he said.
"Your dad's on Oprah," Darcy Daniels said.
Becca Bonner lay sprawled on her bed in their dorm room. Asleep. They always napped after volleyball practice. Darcy rolled out of her bed, stepped over to Becca's bed, and gave her a shake. Her eyes opened.
"Your dad's on Oprah."
Becca rubbed her eyes and said, "I thought she quit?"
"It's a special."
On the flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, Becca's dad stood on the stage surrounded by the thirteen Mexican children. Darcy and Becca had gone to the Mansion the past Sunday to meet the kids. The audience gave the governor a standing ovation.
"He didn't spray his hair."
"Josefina looks pretty in that yellow dress."
On the television, her dad introduced the children, first the boys and then he turned to Josefina, who was almost hiding behind him.
"And this beautiful young lady is Josefina."
The camera captured her face as she slowly raised her brown eyes to him.
"?Yo… Josefina… soy hermosa? "
"Yes, you are beautiful."
Tears rolled down Josefina's cheeks. She hugged Becca's father.
"Bode Bonner… el hombre… es mi heroe," she said on national TV.
Lindsay did not know where Marisol Rivera lived, so she and Pancho walked the colonia asking everyone she saw if they knew her. Up and down the dirt roads with the black satchel over her shoulder she trudged, stopping from time to time to tend to minor injuries and apply antibiotic to children's sores. The wind brought the smell of the river into her nostrils and the dirt of the desert into her mouth and inside her clothes. She spit dirt then retrieved her water bottle from the satchel and rinsed her mouth. But her thoughts were on this child so desperate to have a life torn from within her so that she might live beyond the wall. The sadness of the thought crushed her spirit that day.
It was just after five when Pancho barked.
Down a little dirt side path near the river she saw residents gathered around a small shack. A sense of fear enveloped her. She ran to the shack with Pancho at her side. The people parted for the Anglo nurse, and she ducked her head and entered the shack. She gasped at the sight of so much blood. She thought she might faint, so she went to her knees. A wire clothes hanger seemed to float in the blood. The girl lay in gray dirt made red by the blood.
Marisol Rivera would never live beyond the wall.
"I'm against abortion."
"No, you're not."
"I'm for abortion?"
"No, you're not for abortion either."
"Then what am I?"
"A politician who wants to be president."
They had flown into Chicago that morning and arrived at O'Hare to a hero's welcome. Jim Bob had tweeted ahead. They checked into the Ritz and then went to the studio. After taping the show, Mandy took the kids back to the hotel for a room-service dinner and a pay-per-view movie; Bode, Jim Bob, and Ranger Hank took a cab to Morton's for a thick steak. They now sat in a booth drinking bourbon; Hank drank a soda. He stood when a middle-aged couple came up to their table and held out a menu for Bode to autograph.
"Easy, Hank. We're fourteen hundred miles from the border."
Bode signed the menu. The couple then leaned in and took a self-photo with their cell phone, as had strangers at the studio, on the sidewalks, and in the entrance of the restaurant. After they left, Bode turned back to Jim Bob.
"Abortion is a wedge issue the Democrats use to split Republicans and women."
"It ain't the only issue splitting men and women."
Two attractive young women wielding iPhones now stopped at their table.
"Governor, will you take a photo with us? We're followers."
"Two pretty gals like you? You bet."
He stood between them and wrapped his arms around them. They squeezed in tight and smelled intoxicating. He liked Chicago. They held out their phones and took a few photos then thanked him. Bode returned to his seat but he and Jim Bob watched the girls sashay off.
"Nice followers," Jim Bob said. But his thoughts soon returned to politics. "So your position on abortion is: You hate to see a life ended. You don't think the Supreme Court should make up the law to suit their politics. The people should. Democracy should. But we have more pressing national matters to deal with right now, like the economy and deporting those damn illegal Mexicans."
"You sure that'll work?"
"This is what I do."
Bode downed his bourbon.
"She reminded me of my mother," he said.
"Which one?"
"Not the girls… Oprah."
"You're mother was white and Irish."
"She has a sweet face."
Like his mother before the cancer. Once she died, his dad's days were numbered. The official cause of death was prostate cancer, but the real cause was loneliness. He couldn't go on without her. Then it was just Ramon and Chelo to raise Bode Bonner the boy. But now Bode Bonner the man wondered: If his wife did not come back, would he die of loneliness, too?