What Goes Around

Chapter 4 — Questions

The questions started at the company barbecue.

It was a Reyes Construction tradition — every fall, Daniel rented the pavilion at the county park, bought two hundred dollars’ worth of brisket, and fed his crews and their families until nobody could move. Carla ran the sides table like a general. Miguel manned the coolers and the football game. Daniel loved every minute of it — this was his kingdom, these were his people.

Sofia came with Miguel, wearing jeans and a white blouse, her hair in a long braid, carrying a tray of Carla’s brownies like she’d been coming for years. She fit in with the crew wives instantly — asked about the kids by name after hearing them once, remembered who was pregnant and who’d just had surgery, laughed at the foreman’s terrible jokes like they were actually funny.

Daniel was flipping ribs at the big grill, smoke rolling up into the oak trees, when she wandered over with two bottles of water and handed him one, condensation cold against his palm.

“Hot work,” she said.

“Somebody’s got to do it.” He grinned. “Miguel’s supposed to be helping, but he’s — where is he?”

“Losing at football,” Sofia said. “Badly. Your crew has no mercy.”

They stood in comfortable silence for a moment, watching the smoke curl. Then, lightly, like she was commenting on the weather:

“Miguel says you grew up around here. Born and raised?”

“Born in San Antonio,” Daniel said, turning the ribs. “We moved out this way when I was a kid — I was maybe ten. Been here ever since.”

“Small world,” she said. “My family was from around here too. Well — my parents were. I was raised mostly by my aunt, over in the next county, after —” A small pause. “After my sister died.”

Daniel’s tongs paused for half a beat. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“It was a long time ago. I was eight.” She took a sip of water, her eyes on the grill. “What were you doing at twenty-five, Daniel?”

The question was so casual it took him a second to register it. “Twenty-five? Let’s see.” He laughed, a little too quickly. “Miguel was two. I was still swinging a hammer myself back then — hadn’t started the company yet. We were renting a little place off the highway. Why?”

“No reason.” She smiled, bright and easy. “Miguel’s twenty-three. I was just thinking how young you both were. Starting families, building things. It’s — I don’t know. It gets me, sometimes.”

She drifted off to help Carla with the potato salad, and Daniel stood at the grill with the smoke in his eyes, telling himself it was nothing. Curiosity. Small talk. The girl was going to marry his son; of course she wanted to know the family history. Of course she asked about people’s pasts. That was normal. That was what people did.

But an hour later, he overheard her with Rosa, the senior foreman’s wife, by the dessert table.

“So the company started in — when was it?” Sofia was asking, licking brownie off her thumb.

“Oh, ’06, ’07,” Rosa said. “Daniel was still a young pup. Worked himself half to death those first years — we all thought he’d kill himself with the hours. Your Miguel was just a little thing.”

“2006,” Sofia repeated, and there was something in the way she said it — not quite a question. “That’s a good year to start something new.”

Daniel turned away before she could see him listening, his face hot. 2006. One year after the rain. He’d thrown himself into the company like a drowning man building a raft — eighteen-hour days, outbidding everyone, outworking everyone.

Coincidence, he told himself, flipping a rib too hard. She was making conversation with Rosa. People asked when businesses started. It meant nothing.

It meant nothing, and his hands wouldn’t stop shaking.

That night, on the drive home, with Miguel’s taillights ahead of them on the dark highway, Carla said, “Sofia asked me about your mother today. And about where you went to high school. She’s really trying to learn everything about us.”

But that night, on the drive home, Carla said, “Sofia asked me about your mother today. And about where you went to high school. She’s really trying to learn everything about us.”

“That’s sweet,” Daniel said, watching the road, gripping the wheel too hard.

“She asked if you ever lived near Cedar Flats.”

Daniel’s hands tightened further. Cedar Flats. The town nearest to that road. He’d built a twenty-year wall between himself and that knowledge, brick by brick.

“What did you tell her?”

“I said you’d have to ask you.” Carla glanced at him. “You okay? You’re white as a sheet.”

“Just tired. Long day.”

Carla let it go — Carla always let things go. But Daniel didn’t sleep that night. Every time he closed his eyes he saw a white sneaker lying on its side in the mud.

The next Sunday at dinner, the pot roast was going around and Miguel was telling a story about the Henderson build — a delivery driver who’d gotten the cement truck stuck in the mud up to the axles — and everyone was laughing, and when Sofia passed Daniel the rolls, she held his gaze a moment longer than necessary and said, warm as sunlight, sweet as pie:

“You know, Daniel — you remind me of someone.”

The laughter at the table didn’t stop, but Daniel felt it stop inside him, like a record needle lifted mid-song.

“Oh?” Carla said, reaching for the butter. “Who?”

Sofia tilted her head, studying him with that open, curious expression she wore so well. “I can’t place it. Someone from a long time ago. It’s the —” She gestured vaguely at his face. “Around the eyes, maybe. It’ll come to me.”

“It happens,” Miguel said easily, stealing a roll off Sofia’s plate. “Dad has one of those faces. Trustworthy. That’s why clients sign the contracts.”

“Must be it,” Sofia said, and smiled at Daniel — a warm, uncomplicated smile — and went back to her pot roast, and asked Carla about the fundraiser, and the conversation flowed on without him.

Daniel sat very still with a roll in his hand that he had no memory of taking.

Around the eyes. Someone from a long time ago.

He’d spent twenty years not knowing whether she’d seen him in that last second — and not knowing had been its own kind of mercy.

Daniel didn’t taste a single bite.