Read Online Open Pit by Marguerite Pigeon - Free Book Online Page B

delegations together every year, is in a position to override time-tested official policy out of pure spite. “That’s a terrible idea.”
    â€œSo I’ll piss off the government. So what? What’re they doing for us? I’m going to embed the names into an opinion piece. Just demolish Wall, point by point. The press’ll pick it up, guaranteed. But I wanted to see how you felt about it first.” Neela pauses. “Now I know.”
    Aida doesn’t have the energy for a fight over publishing the names. She’s exhausted, already. Since the news of her mother’s disappearance, her feelings have become uncomfortably intermingled, like a ball of elastic bands she doesn’t dare touch for fear one will snap. She only knows that she’s lonely. And the people who could fix it are long dead, so far away she can barely make out their faces when she closes her eyes. She can see her grandmother’s smile. The shape of her grandfather’s head. “Do what you want,” she says.
    Neela clicks her tongue sympathetically. “I know that what’s happened to your mother is beyond hard for you. It is for me too. . . .”
    She breaks off and Aida almost feels sorry for her. Neither Neela nor Danielle ever married. In a way they’ve become each other’s next of kin — closer than Aida, for sure.
    â€œShe’s going to be alright, you know,” says Neela, recovering. But there’s an air of cheerleading about it that Aida long ago learned to despise.
    â€œShe always is.”
    â€œI hate to hear you sound so angry. Danielle left you her letters so you could understand better. She can’t change the past. It’s been years. . . .”
    â€œI’ll see you tonight, Neela.”
    â€œOkay, Sweetie. Sure.”
    Aida hangs up loudly.
    Back on the couch, the mining rep is finishing a live rendition of Mitch Wall’s statement from the newspaper. “. . . amounts to trespassing and would result in multiple negative consequences, including a major disruption to our operations, a blow to employee morale, and possible endangerment of the safety of our own families. Obviously, these consequences are unacceptable to NorthOre.”
    Barraza nods gravely, and now it’s the turn of Antonio de la Riva Hernández, head of El Salvador’s anti-kidnapping unit. Below a brush of black hair, he has big eyes that hang low in their sockets, moving slowly from side to side, taking in the room. Aida catches a phrase of his slow, wheezy voice before the translator overlays it. “I am limited in what I can say, of course. But I feel I must clarify that it is the responsibility of my agency and no other, internal or external to El Salvador, to carry out this investigation. This is a crucial moment in our country. The criminal elements would like the upper hand. We will not let them have it.”
    Hernández has the mannerisms of a cowboy, which Aida finds comforting. She can see a man like him standing over the dead kidnapper, dual pistols still smoking. But Barraza doesn’t speak of any such concrete plans. Just a few more vagaries about readiness and swift action before the camera switches to the anchor’s desk in Toronto. Coverage of the press conference is over. Aida’s window onto El Salvador slams shut.
    She presses the off button over and over until the screen goes blank, then rests the remote on Danielle’s coffee table. She and André sit side by side in a silence broken only by the refrigerator clattering in the kitchen.
    â€œMy mother fell in love there,” Aida says. “Last time.”
    André turns towards her. Despite everything, under his square jaw, the olive skin on his neck looks inviting. The eyes, though, are wary. “Her letters?”
    â€œYes. I could read you one.” Aida has half decided not to. André will probably find them corny.
    â€œIf you think it’s important,” he