I stared directly into Roman’s eyes when he opened them. I stared long and hard. I scrutinized everything from the color of the irises to the shape formed by the lids and the pattern of vessels and the color of the sclera. I watched comprehension dawn on his face, followed quickly by panic, then, finally, resignation. I read all of this while staring directly into eyes that may have been similar to mine, but when it came right down to it, were clearly different than my fathers, than mine. Than Ban’s.

I released Roman’s shirt. He slid down the wall and crumpled to the floor. He looked old in a way he hadn’t before, as though it had been the perpetuation of one lie that had formed the foundation for so many others. And now the whole house of cards was falling down on top of him.

The dust snuck through the front door like an unwelcome guest and settled onto the furniture and the floor. I felt the same heaviness and had to collapse onto the arm of the La-Z-Boy. I shook my head and rubbed my eyes. I was exhausted, physically and emotionally drained.

“What was her name?” I asked in little more than a whisper.

“Carmen,” he said. “Carmen Chona.”

When he looked up at me there were tears in his eyes. The expression on his face spoke of sadness and love, and something I couldn’t quite interpret. Something like failure. Or maybe regret.

“Did you tell him?”

“Who? Ban?” He shook his head and looked past me. The dust that had settled on his hair made him look older still. “Pass me that beer, would you?”

I grabbed the bottle of Coors Light from the table behind me and handed it to him. He nodded his thanks, tipped it back, and drank everything but the foam, which he swirled around at the bottom.

I waited him out.

“He’s a smart kid. He figured it out. But that didn’t change the fact that he was my son.” I nodded. There was a fire in his eyes that gave truth to his words. This was a man who loved his son unconditionally, regardless of the nature of their biological bond. “I think he was maybe fourteen when he figured it out. It was a few more years before he said anything to me, but by then I’m pretty sure he already had all the answers he needed.” He sighed and finished off the foam. “Whatever you may think of me…I’ve always tried to do right by him. I don’t expect you to understand. He’s my son and there’s nothing on this earth that I wouldn’t do for him.”

“Even cover up the murders of so many innocent people?”

Roman turned away. He whispered something that sounded like “None of them was innocent.”

“What happened to his mother?”

“She died when he was three. Hit by a car while walking on the side of the road. Driver was doing fifty. The skid marks didn’t even start until after the point of impact. Bumper, windshield, trunk, road. She was pretty much unidentifiable when I was asked to ID her.”

I gleaned the truth from his face.

“She stepped out in front of the car.”

A wistful smile, but there was no happiness in it. Only pain.

“The driver said he never even had a chance to brake. She just walked right out in front of him. Just driving along and then all of a sudden she was right there. Facing him. Eyes closed. A faint smile on her lips. Then shattered glass and blood. So much blood. Police said the evidence supported his story.”

“And what do you think?”

He stared down into his bottle for a long time before he finally spoke.

“He just left her, you know? Just left her like that. Left me…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Rafael. Your father. He just left us both. Up and joined the Air Force and none of us ever heard from him again. Stole off in the middle of the night. Like a coward.”

“My father was no coward.” I could feel the heat rising under my collar, but at the same time, I had seen Ban’s eyes and knew there was truth to the story, if not Roman’s interpretation of it. “He took his responsibilities seriously. He never—never—would have left had he known—”

“That she was pregnant?” Roman stood and walked to the kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and close as I stared blankly at the wall in front of me, now cracked in the shape of the man I had slammed up against it. He handed me a beer before he again sat down on the floor and tipped his back. The bottle was cold in my hand. I just sat there holding it, uncertain exactly what to do with it. I eventually settled on resting it against my aching knuckles. “Of course he didn’t know she was pregnant. And Carmen didn’t tell him. She didn’t want him to abandon his dream and return to her out of some misguided sense of duty. She wanted him to come back because of her.”

“Why didn’t she go with him? You said they were going to get married.”

He stared at me with a genuine expression of confusion.

“You still don’t get it, do you? This isn’t just some housing development out here, some suburb misplaced in the desert. This is our home. Our parents lived here, and theirs before them, going back countless generations. There are traditions to uphold, beliefs that need to be passed on so they aren’t forgotten. The world out there?” He made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm. “It has no i:bdag. No heart. It is a world devoted to greed and ambition and the usurpation of the individual. It is a giant bee hive where the drones don’t even seem to recognize the fact that they’re building a giant hive for a ruling class that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about them, all while destroying the traditions of the land—the very land itself—in the process. Of course she didn’t leave. Regardless of whatever plans she and Raffi might have made, when it came time to actually do it, there was no way she could. Not for her child. Not for her heart. And in the end, not even for her life.”

“But you were here for her.”

He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.

“Yeah…I was here.” He drew a long swill that emptied half the bottle. “I think she loved me, too. In her own way. I wasn’t Raffi. But I was here. And I loved her. With all of my heart. I loved her. Maybe a part of it was because I initially felt obligated to do what my brother didn’t. To right his wrong. Maybe at first, anyway. But it wasn’t long before there were genuine feelings. I loved her and I loved her child. My child. Ban. My little coyote.”

“Coyote?”

“Ban’s O’odham for coyote. Carmen chose that name because the night Raffi left, she sat alone in the desert crying while coyotes bayed at the moon all around her. She thought it was an omen. More of a self-fulfilling prophecy, I guess.”

“Why’d she do it?”

“Kill herself? Haven’t you figured it out yet? Aren’t you supposed to be the big shot investigator? She killed herself because of you.”

I sat stunned for a long moment.

“Everything changed between us when Carmen heard Raffi had another child. Another life with another woman. I never tried to be Raffi. I couldn’t replace him. I didn’t want to replace him. I wanted my own family…and for a while…I had it.” He released a long sigh. “Carmen was beautiful—the most beautiful woman in the world—but there was always a sadness to her. Something deep down. A hole she couldn’t quite seem to fill. I think she must have filled it with Raffi. Or at least thought she had. I guess I couldn’t fill it. Not for lack of trying. Hell, not even her own child could fill it. She was just one of those people always meant to burn really hot, but really fast.”

“Ban blames me for her death. You both blame me.”

“Can you fault him for that? Here he was, orphaned by his mother, raised by a father who wasn’t his father by nature, and forced to watch all of those pictures of your successes accumulate on his grandmother’s wall while he would never enjoy any of the same opportunities. He did the very best with what he was given. He breezed through school, earned his degree, and joined with Homeland Security to protect and patrol his ancestral land. It was noble and it was good, but many of our people viewed it as selling his soul to the enemy. He was shunned everywhere he went. And on top of it all, you had to go and one-up him every step of the way. He earned his associate’s; you got your bachelor’s. Mechanical engineering, if you can believe that. He had a mind for that kind of thing. But then nine-eleven happened and Gatekeeper closed down the established migrant routes and they started flooding across our land. All of them potential terrorists, you know? So he signed on with the Border Patrol. And you had to show him up again by joining the FBI. And to top it all off, the very same week he made one of the largest drug busts in history and was starting to catch the eye of the DEA, you go and get your face in every newspaper across the country by helping to take down the Delivery Man. I think that was what did it for him. In his mind, you guys were in a competition that not only could he never win, but one in which you would never even acknowledge the fact that he was competing against you.”