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The crack of the bullet blasting through her hand and the gasp of breath bringing her back to reality were simultaneous. María Dantés felt blood and the facts of the real world flood back into her brain, and then, thank god, her child was there. Sofía was there, in her arms, real and whole and warm and safe, gracias virgencita, she was safe. Nothing from Teresa Mendoza’s past could hurt her as María, or her child—the demons from her past were locked away in the basement of her mind. Nightmares happened when they were banging to get out.
“Ay, ma,” Sofía says, in that tone that María finds too wise for a girl of her age. “¿Siempre con la misma pesadilla verdad?”
“Sí mi amor,” María replies, out of breath, “pero no me hagas caso.”
Smiling mischeviously, Sofía acquiesces, “Está bien, pero … ¿esta vez cómo me secuestraron, eh? ¿En globo o en moto?”
Not for the first time, she feels unsettled by her daughter’s emotional acuity. She is proud of how well she has trained her daughter, praying every day that she’ll never have to use anything she’s learned. María laughs weakly, and tries not to think about the nightmares she can never tell Sofía about, dreams much worse than this one.
Nightmares about Brenda and her children are rare now. When they come, Teresa feels more guilty than scared. It should hurt her more. To feel a dull, vague ache where she once held the raw wound of their brutal murder seems like a betrayal to their memory. But when those dreams do come, they seem more like scenes from a movie she’s seen too many times to count; it can no longer shock or surprise her. It’s a sad story that happened long ago to a person by another name, in another world, in another lifetime. The pain hardly seems hers anymore. She wakes from nightmares of Brenda and the children’s death with only a lingering sadness. It’s cured quickly with a prayer to la virgencita and crawling into Sofía’s bed. Holding her daughter close and tight, she falls back asleep easily.
She is used to nightmares about Güero and Santiago, but the two men blend together in confusing and disconcerting ways. She has dreamt, for instance, of Santiago at a party at Don Epifanio’s ranch. It was almost comical at first, seeing a man she knew so serious and solitary throwing back tequilas, scream-singing along to rancheras, laughing and slapping the backs of the other faceless party-goers. But then those figures shapeshift into demons she’s already put to rest—el Gato Fierros, Ratas, Batman—and Santiago’s body crumples under a shower of bullets. She wakes sweaty and sick to her stomach before his body hits the ground.
She’s dreamt of Güero in Melilla on a moonless night. They walked hand in hand along the town ramparts, breathing in the sea air in companionable silence. Güero was never silent. The moment her dream-self remembered this was the same moment that the sensation of lazy peacefulness soured. She felt, suddenly, the weight of the Moment. It was Güero who taught her to sense these moments, ages ago, but in the dream he doesn’t feel the imminent danger that is making Teresa’s heart beat out of her chest. They are standing on the beach. Güero takes her face in his hands, leans down to kiss her, and then slumps, lifeless, against her body. She feels the warmth of his blood pooling against her front. Over his shoulder, she sees Dris Larby, his face panicked but triumphant, holding the smoking gun. Dris jumps into a speedboat, and Teresa finds another one to trail after him, but he’s too fast, barely visible against the black sky. This particular dream was interminable. Hours seemed to pass, racing her boat through unending waters, heart pounding like a cannon, never quite able to reach Dris. She wakes aching, physically exhausted, as if she has been running all night.
The nightmares of Fátima are terrifying in a deep, bone-chilling way. These dreams do not, thank god, force Teresa to relive Fátima and Mohamed’s deaths. In fact, most often, she dreams that somehow, Fátima survived. Perhaps the bullet wound wasn't a serious injury, perhaps Dmitri threw her over his shoulder and tossed her in the backseat of the car. Those parts are unclear, and in the dream they don’t matter because Fátima is there, at the house in Málaga, alive, chopping vegetables or washing the dishes. The scene is comfortable, domestic, and Teresa feels whole and safe. In these dreams Teresa is chattering away, happy and open in a way she hasn’t been for decades now. Past and present blend together: she tells Fátima about her day, the business in Italy, Paty’s latest run-in with the paparazzi, Sofía’s good grades, Güero’s latest corny gift. Ages pass before Teresa realizes that Fátima hasn’t said a word. Her face, hidden by a mass of fluffy curls, is inscrutable.
“Amiga,” she demands, pulling on Fátima’s arm, “¿que te pasa? Dime, ya sabes que me puedes contar lo que sea.”
Fátima responds, turning to face her. A bubble of horror rises in the pit of Teresa’s stomach as she sees her friend’s eyes, bright red, with tears of blood running down her cheeks.
“Mataste a mi hijo, Teresa.”
Teresa panics. “No, Fátima, no, fue un error, no lo pude salvar.” She is pleading, desperate, crying, and Fátima is walking towards her with a knife.
“Perdóname,” Teresa cries, backed into a corner.
“No se puede perdonar el asesinato de un hijo, Teresa,“ Fátima says, her tone flat and gaze blank, but menacing all the same. “Tú lo sabrás.”
When Teresa wakes from a nightmare about Fátima, she finds she can’t return to sleep for several days. She blames the dark circles under her eyes on allergies, or a cold. She’s been in Massa Marittima for nearly a decade at this point, but no one knows her well enough to ask questions, anyway.
Teresa’s dreams about Patricia are not nightmares in the truest sense. They are warm and pleasant and frivolous.
They walk through the streets of Málaga, arms full of shopping bags, chattering about anything and everything. They are in a dressing room, bodies pressed close together, Patricia’s lips twisted into a devilish grin as she buttons up a new shirt she had insisted Teresa try on—“Esto sí que te queda bien, mexicana.”
They sit next to each other by the pool in the house in Málaga, legs dangling in the water, a joint and an ashtray and a bottle of tequila between them. Paty lays her head on Teresa’s shoulder and the weight of it feels good, grounding.
They are—absurdly—dancing together in one of Oleg’s club. And then they are on the Sinaloa, sailing nowhere in particular, facing the fresh sea breeze as Paty drapes an arm around Teresa’s shoulder and pulls her in close. Sofía is there, too, more often than not. They eat dinner on the yacht, the three of them together. Sofi and Paty are cracking jokes and Teresa is either rolling her eyes or smiling indulgently. “Están re locas las dos,” Teresa will say. And Paty will respond, “Tú la pariste, pero gracias a díos esta mexicanita heredó MI estilo. ”
She has dreamt them at Sofía’s quinces. Teresa is holding back tears as she watches her daughter dance and laugh with her friends. Paty sidles up next to her, gripping Teresa’s hands tightly and whispering in her year, "Igualita a ti, Teresa. Simplemente preciosa." Teresa feels something brush her cheek.
She has dreamt them lying side by side, face to face in bed—back in jail, at Las Siete Gotas, in a million other places—Teresa places a hand on Paty’s face and smiles to feel no scar, no wound. Her skin feels like silk.
When she dreams of Paty she does not wake with a sudden start, or drenched in sweat, or afraid of her own dreams. It’s an easy, peaceful return to reality. She’ll stretch leisurely, holding the sensation of warmth inside her, relishing the promise of a new day. It lasts for a long while after she wakes, too, suffusing her waking hours in a beauty she rarely finds, even in the idyllic countryside of her new home.
One morning, though, Sofía catches her in a reverie, absorbed not in the memory of the dream but in the feeling of it. She is standing over the coffee pot, staring out the kitchen window and smiling absently when Sofía bursts into the kitchen, throwing her lunch bag and a stack of papers in her backpack.
“¡Ay ma pero que cursi que eres!” her daughter laughs.
“¿Qué dices, mija?” María asks, bemused.
“¡Que pareces una chica de esas novelas! ¿Estás pensando en tu novio, no? Se te re nota.”
María’s face goes blank, instantly. Sofía laughs—she thinks she’s embarrassed her mother, which for a precocious nine-year-old is a tremendous win. Her daughter is already halfway out the door, shouting back at her, “Sbrigati, mama! Farò tardi per andare a scuola.”
María downs her coffee quickly, and drives her daughter to school with her mind in a fog. She can’t focus on work all day, so she heads home at lunch time and calls Pedro over.
“Necesito que me hagas el amor, Pedro,” she whispers. “Ahora mismo.” He’s thrilled, of course—any man would be—but María has been so slow to open up that any direct expression of desire on her part feels like a treasure to him. She tries to keep her mind blank as Pedro plays his part.
She does not have nightmares about Patricia, but the dreams frighten her nonetheless because they remind Teresa of something she doesn’t want to know. To face that fear would be to acknowledge how easy it would have been, too easy, to save Paty, how it was only her own fear and ignorance that kept her from taking that step. So she turns towards Pedro, and lets him love the dream out of her mind.
As she stands looking out at the plaza, waiting for Sofía’s school group to begin their demonstration, the dream of Teo weighs on her. It doesn’t surprise her any longer to dream of Sofía being kidnapped, stolen, and tortured by nameless, faceless figures. María imagines that these sorts of dreams come to any mother who knows what it’s like to run for her life. But for Teo to show his face in such a dream feels ominous.
Usually, when Teresa dreams of Teo, her mind replays all the moments that could have saved him from the fate he chose. A day in the TranserNaga office—all she had to do was ask to see the books. Or a night out at dinner—watching him step away to take a phone call without wondering who could be calling, accepting the pleasant brush-off of “Nadie, no pasa nada amor, cosas de negocio. ¿Por qué no nos disfrutemos de la noche en vez de hablar de esas cosas aburridas?” These dreams offer no resolution. María watches, outside her body, as Teresa, her past self, lets these crucial moments pass as smoothly and quietly as they arrived. It has occurred to her more than once that not even in her dreams could she act in a way that would free Teo from his fate. Discovering his betrayal and casting him out of her life a moment too soon might have meant that Sofía would never have arrived—and that’s the one nightmare too terrifying to consider.
María Dantés smiles and waves as Sofía marches her classmates out into the plaza for their display. Her daughter smiles back. A dream that Teo lives and is out for vengeance is frightening, to be sure. But this nightmare is easier to bear than all of the others. Teresa knows she would kill him again if she had to.