The Name Beside Hers

Four days passed before Mateo’s rider came back.

I spent them trying to keep still. The settlement had work enough to occupy me, and I took what I could without pretending it would solve anything. I mended a torn cuff for one of the women in the north cabins. I helped carry water. I read my brother’s note until I knew every stroke of his hand. It was no use. The answer I wanted was not in the paper.

On the fourth afternoon, I was at the well when a horse came through the gate lathered and dusty. The rider was bent low over its neck. Mateo saw him from the yard and went to meet him. I set down the pail and followed, trying not to run.

The rider swung out of the saddle stiffly. “Register’s there,” he said. “At St. Brigid’s. Kept in the mission house. It ain’t burned or scattered.”

The pail handle cut into my palm. “You saw it?”

“I saw it. The keeper let me look at the index. Wouldn’t let me take the book away.” He glanced at Mateo. “Said she’d show the pages to the family, if the family came.”

“What did you learn?” I asked.

He pulled a folded sheet from inside his coat. The paper had been creased and dampened at one corner. “She let me copy one entry. Your brother’s note gave me your mother’s name, so I asked after it.”

Mateo took the paper, checked it, and passed it to me. The rider stood with his hat in both hands while I opened it.

The writing was in a careful hand, copied in Spanish. I could read enough, and Mateo quietly supplied the rest. The entry recorded the baptism of my mother, years before she married my father. Beneath her name stood another: a younger sister, baptized the following spring.

There was no marriage recorded beside it. No burial. No later entry at all.

“What was her name?” I asked, though I could see it.

“Isabel,” Mateo said.

I read the name again. My mother had never spoken of a sister. My brother had never spoken of one. There was only the ink, stating that the child had been brought to the font and received a name.

The paper shook slightly between my fingers. I pressed it flat against the side of the well.

“Could she have died?” I asked.

The rider shifted his weight. “Yes, ma’am. She could have gone elsewhere, too. The keeper said the book has gaps around those years. Some pages got wet. Some were lost when the roof came down.”

“Did she say there were more records?”

“She said she would show you what remains. That’s all she promised.”