Blog 17-Y Adela?

I asked Patria if she was in touch with Adela. It was through my Partido friend Adela that we'd met. I stayed with Adela when I tried to move to Karaya years ago, and Patria, Irma then, was her neighbor.
“Viene pronto, para El Grito.” Patria said.
"Looking back, those days with Adela were happy days."
The smile she gave me softened her words. "Then why didn't you persist? You ran back home."
I answered her with a shrug and went back to enjoying my pleasant memory. She knew the answer to the circumstantial reason and was asking me a deeper question. Why hadn't I put myself first? "Machi and I slept on the little couch in Adela's husband's studio, that old storage shed Noel managed to fit his easel and his paints into. When Noel showed up early in the morning to start his day of painting I'd carry my sleeping Machi and cross the courtyard from the studio to their small room half under her uncle's house, the room that once would have belonged to a servant. I loved that shaded, cool, dark room.
"I'd crawl into their bed with Machi, watch Adela finish getting ready for work, wave goodbye when she left, and doze off again. I felt like Adela's child. It was good to feel taken care of. I was sorry she found me a job with her at Infodes right away. She found us our own tiny apartment around the corner, really a porch with a fiberglass roof rats scurried on, under the dense tree branches, after the rainstorms. I preferred their little room and Noel's studio. I felt safe with them. She took care of my whole life.”
I inched closer to the fire and split the last of the cafe con leche between our two cups. The one remaining narrow log collapsed to ash. “InfoDes never officially found Adela's husband Noel.” Patria raised her brows. “I remember now. You got him back for her. But he was another one who found himself." I laughed out loud. "I couldn't believe it when he came up to me in the dining hall at the Manantial Spa, como de casualidad. He just happened to stumble into me. I gave him a ride home and I pretty much never saw him again!” Suddenly her voice was very loud. "Now that the drumming stopped I realize that we've been yelling." She explained it had turned out Noel had not been taken by the City but by the Rebels. "You should get him and Adela to tell you about it when they come."
“One way or another he got found." I stretched my legs and arms. "Adela can do anything. But what hope do I have of finding Ori? He's not going to stumble into me de casualidad like Noel.
He was Desaparecido so many times before. You remember that's why I went back, why I didn't persist staying in Karaya back then like you said. He was disappeared in the City right after the First Presidio attack here. I went back to try to find him. That time he was gone for weeks and it turned out sure enough he'd been picked up by the City Force in their pre-emptive sweeps to prevent an attack in the metropolis. That was around the same time Noel was desaparecido here. My Ori they released, no help from InfoDes."
"I remember I helped you pack in a hurry."
"I didn't know what to do to find him then either. I walked into the office of Ana Marta Biaggi, off the street. I just barged in, no appointment. I looked so terrified her young assistant took pity and Ana Marta happened to be in town, just back from one of her humanitarian trips. So maybe it was pressure from her group got him out, although who can be sure why the City Force decided to release him. There are more of those fake garantias in the City. This time when he went missing after the Second Asalto al Presidio I didn't even have to do my InfoDes intake face to face. I just input Ori's information into the Infodes database online. Just about a year ago. Pero claro, nada.”
I looked up at the sky, illuminated by the sweep of a searchlight. "Ya empezaron," Patria said. "Now they'll be keeping all of us awake for hours. They do it to try to desquiciarnos, as if they could actually make us lose our minds."