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20 THE BOX AND THE ATLAS

20

THE BOX AND THE ATLAS

After Anna Lagare is gone, Vida takes the yellow gift-wrapped box from the closet and holds it as she sits on the edge of the bed.

Embossed in script, the words Happy Birthday flow in ordered lines across the package.

It's been in her possession two weeks. Intuition tells her that it's not an ordinary gift. Now is not the time to open it. An inner voice not her own says, Every ending is a beginning, but this is a beginning on which you're not yet prepared to embark.

She smooths one finger along the midnight-blue ribbon to where it ravels into a bow. Some days it seems her life is un raveling, but she refuses to pursue that indulgent line of thought. That is not the kind of woman she wants to be or has ever been.

José hadn't fallen in love with a woman capable of wallowing in self-pity and victimhood. Dignity is a consequence of perseverance, persistence, endurance. She intends to remain the woman he loved, and avoid all temptations to become someone else.

She returns the package to the closet.

Smoking river. The collection in the library includes books of state history, a keen interest of her uncle. Among those volumes, a thick atlas contains hundreds of maps, each with an index. None of the handwritten words on the scrap of paper Anna found in José's shirt pocket is capitalized. However, "smoking river" suggests a watercourse, and "two moons" might be a small town, a campground, something. However, hours of poring through the indexes fails to reward her with a revelation or even the faintest clue.

Long ago, a woman of strange power had warned her, "Moon, sun, and smoking river. To chase the meaning of those words will put you at great risk. Be patient, and the meaning will come to you, for that is who you are. All things come to you in their time."

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