Page 25 of The Lost Guardian

“Exactly!” Brooke exclaimed, excitement evident in her voice. “Call her.”

“It’s pretty late.” Santiago frowned.

“It’s not that late, Santi,” Brooke argued, digging her fingers into his side. Santiago yelped indignantly.

“Call her,” she repeated after he pushed her away to arm’s length. “This is important!”

“Fine,” he muttered, standing to pace away. Then he realized something and turned back sheepishly.

“Can I borrow your phone?” he asked. Who knew where he had left his?

Brooke unlocked the screen and handed it to him without a word. His mother’s number was in her favorites list, which almost made him smile.

Almost.

Santiago pressed the contact, and his heart galloped in his chest as the phone rang.

He wasn’t sure how he was even going to bring up the topic with his mother.

Hey, Mami, did Papá ever tell you about a super-secret society that he was a part of? One whose mission was to protect the lost tomb of the last Incan emperor? Did that ever come up?

That would go over well.

“Alo?” he heard through the speaker. Santiago’s eyes instinctively shut at the sound of his mother’s voice. His shoulders relaxed fractionally.

“Hola, Mami,” he said.

“Mijito!” his mother cried, and he could hear her beaming through the phone. “¿Cómo éstas?”

“I’m good, Mami,” he lied, walking away from Brooke to lean against the brick wall of a shut-down boutique. He heard the soft clink of knitting needles in the background, and he pictured her clearly. Phone tucked between her neck and ear because she always forgot she could use the speaker.

He imagined her hands, hard at work, so small and frail-looking, though he knew they were anything but.

Underneath skin just beginning to crease with age, hers were the hands that had picked him up as a child. That had flipped pancakes and hid “treasures” in the backyard for Santiago to unearth. They had been on the handlebars as he learned to ride a bike, the hands that had shown him how to hold and shoot a basketball. They were the hands that had held his at his father’s funeral.

“Mamá, I have a question for you—” he said.

“How was your week, mijo?” his mother interrupted him. “Did you do anything fun?”

Santiago faltered for a moment, unsure of what to tell her. He certainly couldn’t divulge all that had happened today. She would only worry.

And did she know about Abuelo Manco yet? Probably not or she would have called. After everything that had happened in the past hour, Santiago didn’t know how to break the news. So he didn’t.

“It was good,” he said. “I, um…work went well, and I saw Brooke.”

“Aye, mijo.” His mother sighed. “You need to get out more! Do more! See other people than Brooke!”

“You like Brooke!” he argued.

“I love Brooke; that girl is the daughter I never had,” Mami responded. “But since you two don’t want to get together and give me grandbabies, you need to meet other people, too.”

“Maaaa—” Santiago groaned, and his mother cut him off.

“When was the last time you went on a date?” she demanded. “You need to find a nice woman. Or a man.”

“Mami!”

“Qué?” she asked. “I’m just saying. Live a little!”