Departed Noon—Arrived 30 Years Earlier
Emily catches the handrail of the Piribebuy bus just as it hisses to pull away, her sandals slapping the pavement in uneven bursts, the top straps already biting at her instep. She trips into the first seat, catching a flash glance at the half‑empty cabin as she shifts off a spring pressing through the cushion, her phone lighting with a roaming alert: Welcome to Paraguay. At the Parador stop she buys a warm chipa from a woman with a cloth‑lined basket, the dense, salty bread steady in her hand as the bus shudders back onto the road. A baby coos somewhere behind her; a man in a straw hat sleeps with his chin on his chest; the window shows green hills cut with red earth. By the time she steps off at her uncle’s clearing, the heat has thickened and the forest presses close, a green wall where sunlight reaches the ground in scattered coins. The three‑room adobe stands like a cool, dim cave against the monte, bunches of drying herbs and a rusted machete hanging from the porch rafters. Loro—Blas to the government, Loro to everyone else—comes out of the shade, lean and sun‑darkened in a faded button‑down and dust‑caked pants the color of the soil. Chickens scatter around his feet; a pig shifts in the mandioca rows; the donkey flicks its ears at her. The clearing holds a small space between the adobe walls and the monte, the tall corn and heavy‑leafed mandioca keeping the vines from taking it back.
Loro swings his arm high as he comes out of the shade toward her, the pale scar on his right cheek catching the light—the one from the day he fell with her when she tipped off a tricycle in her parents’ yard. He leads her inside, favoring his right leg a little. The adobe interior smells of woodsmoke and old limestone, the air cool against the heat outside. She sets her tote down and her phone lights again—a short message from Kayla saying she’s finally on her way to Cancún and asking how the break is going. Loro rummages for a chipped enamel cup and pours tereré, spilling a little on the table and muttering at himself. As they eat, a fat, black chinche thuds against the whitewashed wall and drops onto the table beside her plate. “Sorry about that chinche,” he says. “I meant to patch that corner last year, but corn prices were down again.” He talks about a pig slipping through the fence and the motorcycle that starts when it wants to. She doesn’t catch the part about the chicken slipping off again; her attention drifts to Kayla’s message and the picture of tanned guys laughing and chasing frisbees across the sand.
“Would you like some cake?” Emily snaps back from the beach.
Loro is already sliding away, muttering as he goes about his routines, brushing dust from the pig trough with his boot. She moves out of the sun’s line, finds a stool, and sits higher than is comfortable, her phone buzzing again against her thigh, the sound thin and out of place in the thick air. A bill notice, a swipe, and it’s gone—is there a bathroom?
“Emily!” he calls from outside. “Come look at this!”
“Just a minute!” she answers, texting her mom: At Uncle Loro’s. Returning tomorrow.
She checks flights for tomorrow; the rescheduling fee; tries to ignore the salty aftertaste of the chipa.
From outside: “It’s gone now!”
Emily whispers, “Me too.”
Mother texts: Tomorrow? What happened?
She types: Nothing. That’s why I’m coming back.
Buzz: Your tax refund has been applied to your Laters Account. Next payment due in four weeks.
Loro steps back inside. “How about we go down to the ykua tomorrow?”
Another buzz. The question is still in the air.
