The Faraway World

Contents Cover Title Page Dedication Epigraph 1. Aida 2. Fausto 3. The Book of Saints 4. Campoamor 5. Guapa 6. La Ruta 7. Ramiro 8. The Bones of Cristóbal Colón 9. Libélula 10. Aguacero Acknowledgments About the Author Credits Copyright Guide Cover Start Of Content Title Page Dedication Acknowledgments About the Author Copyright iv v vii viii ix x xi xii xiii xiv 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 
 
 “Patricia Engel is a wonder.” —Lauren Groff
 The Faraway World
 Stories
 Patricia Engel
 New York Times bestselling author of Infinite Country
 
 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY PATRICIA ENGEL
 Vida
 It’s Not Love, It’s Just Paris
 The Veins of the Ocean
 Infinite Country
 
 
 
 
 
 AVID READER PRESS
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 This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
 Copyright © 2023 by Patricia Engel
 All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Avid Reader Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
 First Avid Reader Press hardcover edition January 2023
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 Interior design by Carly Loman
 Jacket design by Grace Han
 Jacket art: birds by Goodgnom/Getty Images; sunset: private collection/photo © Christie’s Images/Bridgeman Images
 Author photograph © Elliot & Erick Jimenez
 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
 ISBN 978-1-9821-5952-8
 ISBN 978-1-9821-5954-2 (ebook)
 
 
 For my mother and father and for Matías
 
 
 
 We are what we
 are what we never
 think we are.
 —SONIA SANCHEZ, “PERSONAL LETTER NO. 3”
 And your otherness is perfect as my death.
 Your otherness exhausts me,
 like looking suddenly up from here
 to impossible stars fading.
 Everything is punished by your absence.
 —LI-YOUNG LEE, “THE CITY IN WHICH I LOVE YOU”
 
 
 
 AIDA
 THE DETECTIVE WANTED TO KNOW if Aida was the sort of girl who would run away from home. He’d asked to talk to me alone in the living room. My parents stood around the kitchen with the lady cop and the other detective, an old man who looked to be on his last days of the job.
 I sat in the middle of the sofa, my thighs parting the cushions. The detective sat on the armchair our mother recently had reupholstered with a fleur-de-lis print because the cat had clawed through the previous paisley. The old-man detective was telling my parents Aida would walk through that front door any minute now. She probably just got distracted, wandered off with some friends. Our mother wasn’t crying yet but she was close.
 He looked young to be a detective. He wore jeans with a flannel shirt under a tweed blazer even though it was August. He wanted to know if Aida ever talked about leaving, like she had plans beyond this place, something else waiting for her somewhere.
 I shook my head. I didn’t tell him that since we were eleven, Aida and I kept a shoebox in the back of our closet under some long-forgotten stuffed animals that we called our Runaway Fund. The first year or two, we added every extra dollar we came across, and when our piles of bills became thick and messy, we took them to the bank and traded them for twenties. We planned to run away and join a group of travelers, sleep under bridges beside other refugee kids, and form orphan families like you see in movies and Friday night TV specials. Those were the days before we understood how much our parents needed us. Aida insisted on taking the cat with us. Andromeda was fat but could fit in her backpack. Aida had lied to our parents and said she found the cat alone one day by the river behind the soccer field, but she’d really bought her at the pet shop with some of our runaway savings. I didn’t mind. The cat always loved her more than me though.
 “Does she have a boyfriend? Somebody special?”
 She didn’t. Neither did I. Our parents told us boys were a big waste