Chapter 3
Maria
Sitting in a chair beside her catatonic son's bed, Maria blinked, the room slowly coming into focus.
"Mamá," Maria said. Her elderly mother stood before her. Maria had been taller than her mother since junior high and the woman had grown stooped with old age. Though she was on her feet and Maria was sitting, such was the difference in their height that they were looking eye to eye.
"Were they there? Did you talk to them? Did Manuel tell you where my necklace is?"
Stop asking about that damn necklace! Maria wanted to snap at her mother, but held her tongue. Her brother Manuel's death had been hard on both of them, especially since it came so soon after Maria's father passed away and at the same time as Todd's fall into catatonia. Her mother was old, looked ever frailer,
