HABÁNAME     Chapter 10                                                          - 2 -


?All right, Deirdre!? she cried out, picking up the package from Bay Crossing Press and tossing it in the air. ?We have copy
edits!? She exuberantly caught it behind her back before picking up her remaining mail and pushing the door open with her
shoulder. After throwing herself and the stack of papers onto her bed, she used her teeth to strip the adhesive closures off the
package containing the edited manuscript. She lifted the top of the box and stared reverently at the first few sheets as she picked
them up. She paused at the dedication, wondering what Chela would think about Martin Stevens sharing that space of honor with
the feisty Irene O?Hara, who had finally passed away on the Fourth of July.

Awright! I can get these done in a month. No problem! Besides, less time trying to sleep is less time thinking about what I?m
missing. Fuck! No wonder Sister Mary Frances used to be such a heartless pisser. And I guess if she was playing by the rules she
had to go in and confess every friggin? time she let her fingers do the walkin?. No wonder it must have seemed easier for her to
just torture local schoolchildren. It?s kind of how white collar criminals get off easy while your average food-stamps-ran-out
shoplifter does spooky time. They probably used to give the poor woman a Hail Mary for accidentally disemboweling a kid that
brought a bologna sandwich on ?no-meat? Friday and a freakin? Novena per jill-off. Maybe I don?t really need that bath.
Fuck, I?m tense? well, I know how to fix that, but let me get this crap off the bed first. I hate it when a perfectly good orgasm
gets interrupted by a staple or pencil showing up in an inopportune place and time.

She had kicked her shoes off, banking them off the wall so that they left scuff marks before dropping to the bare wood floor
with a loud thud, and was gathering up the debris that littered the bed?s surface when a bulky envelope fell out from the
surrounding flyers and catalogs. Curious, she pulled it up to examine it more closely ? she did not recognize the sender?s name
or address. Barbara ripped the end open and tried to make sense of the contents as they tumbled out. There ?lying atop the sheets
- were her driver?s license, the small booklet of clinic records that Chela had shown her many months before, and a worn Cuban
Cédula ? an identity document ? in the name of Marcela Stevens.

Her hands were shaking as she tapped on the edge to remove the letter hidden at the bottom.

                                                                                                   September 30
Dear Barbara Murphy,

I don?t know whether this envelope brings you good or bad news. It was bad news for someone, that?s for sure. But if identity
theft is as bad a problem for you all up in New England as it is for us in Florida ? well I hope that it?s a good thing you have
your license back. You don?t want just anyone to have that.

This stuff came ashore in a plastic bag after the last big storm, along with a whole bunch of other things: shoes, toys and a mess
of ripped inner tubes. I figured it wasn?t any use mailing the Spanish documents to Cuba. And maybe you knew this person. I?m
sorry if you did.

We see this all the time on the beach. We often get personal possessions and pieces of the rafts. I don?t remember ever seeing a
body ? the sharks are pretty well-fed in these parts.

We do also get the ones who make it and I wrote the phone number of the agency that deals with them on the back. But because
of the storm, no one that I know of has arrived alive on our side of the Key for the last week or so.

Again, you have my sympathy if you knew the owner of these other items. Perhaps you can notify their family.
                               
                                                                         Robert Fergis

There was a slab of ice where her intestines used to be. She looked at the clock. It was five in the morning, too early to call the
refugee clearing center that Fergis had referred her to. Barbara?s chest was tightening in earnest now, and her limbs felt too
heavy to move, but she forced herself to act, ordering her almost sensation-less fingers to sort through the materials lying by the
side of the bed.

Maybe she was robbed. Maybe she made it and for some reason this stuff wasn?t with her when she landed. She wouldn?t do
anything that stupid. Why would she jump the gun and do something so dangerous? I was still working on it. I would have gotten
her out of there. Shit. Why didn?t I see this?

The distinctive blue envelope embossed with a seal displaying a graceful red rearing lion caught her eye, but it was the smeared
postmark on its far right corner that filled her with a chilling dread. The letter from the Norwegian embassy in Cuba had been
processed on September 15. She vaguely recognized the name of Jonas Erskildsson as that of one of Chela?s old clients.

I never thought I would say this, but please let this be a Dear Barbara letter. Please let it say that she?s changed her mind and
that she?s as happy as a pig in shit with Mister Norseman and that she is in Cuba with him or in Norway or anywhere but the
fucking bottom of the sea.

She didn?t make it past the first paragraph before turning into a storm of misery, the blood flowing from her knuckles in rivulets
where she forcefully bit into them to try to hold in the wails that seemed to roll like giant waves out of her chest. She crumpled
the letter and reached randomly for the items sitting on her bedside table. She was outside of herself, watching numbly as the
giant heartsick child inhabiting her body threw the lamp and paperweight at the wall before kicking a sizable hole into it. Another
two craters were opened on the wall by her fist ? without her gloves on, her smallest finger had no protection when she threw
the blows, but she didn?t care. The half-full glass of rum from the bedside table was directed towards the window, the amber
liquid adding a curious effect to the early morning light streaming in through the broken glass. The first sound she let herself hear
was the upstairs neighbor pounding on the floor and calling out, ?One more noise and I?m going to call the police!?

She slid onto the floor and fumbled for the paper ball that had provoked her outburst. She was spent. She thought she might
have broken a few toes and fingers; agonized messages from the nerves in those areas were starting to get past the wall of grief
that had protected her as she incurred the injuries. It was over. Her tantrum was over and her hoping was over. She could not
use her mind to busily think up places that Chela might be and things Chela might be doing. The letter confirmed that Chela had
sailed roughly a week before her possessions turned up