The World in Half by Cristina Henríquez

over it for weeks. Actually, I think I’m still obsessing over it. That single fact is what got me hooked on geology and geography in the first place. Because the idea of it is so compelling. The earth used to be one continent. And over time, that continent, carried on the backs of dozens of different tectonic plates, broke apart. Even now, the plates are moving under our feet. The continents are on a collision course every second of every day. The earth was born and every time a volcano erupts or a plate shifts, the earth is born again. It keeps reordering itself, it keeps trying new patterns, it keeps meshing one piece with another piece, and then another piece, and then another piece. I like to imagine that the reason behind all of that relentless effort is that the continents are yearning to come together again, as they were in the beginning.
    Humans try to be like the continents. We stumble and crisscross and stagger all over the world in an effort to find our way back to one another. It seems to be the main business of life sometimes: our disordered attempt to bump into other people. Straining, straining, just to touch.
     
     
     
    An older woman holding a dustpan greets me. Her face is long, and her mouth, fixed into a frown, is framed by deep wrinkles like a series of outwardly expanding parentheses. I feel light-headed as a breeze scrabbles at my back.
    “What do you want?” she asks.
    “I’m looking—”
    “Yes?”
    “I’m looking for Gatún Gallardo.”
    “Gallardo?” She repeats the word as if it’s a seed she’s spitting on the ground, then shakes her head.
    “Do you know him?”
    “No.”
    I sneak a look over her shoulder into the dark house. Is this really it? I can make out the edges of a chair and a lamp.
    I don’t think she appreciates me peering into her house because she takes a step back and puts her hand on the door, making a move to close it.
    “Do you know Catherine Reid?” I ask.
    “No.”
    “I’m sorry. I’m just—I’m looking for my father.”
    “Gallardo?”
    “Yes. Do you know him?”
    The woman shakes her head. “Amelia Varón,” she says, pointing to her chest. “Gallardo no.”
    I nod.
    She tightens her lips and continues pushing the door, the metal hinges squeaking until it shuts.
     
     
     
    I’m a levelheaded person. I think things through. I rarely let my emotions get the better of me. I try to keep it all inside. I knew, of course, that there was a very good chance my father wouldn’t be there. I wasn’t operating under the assumption that finding him could be so easy. But even so, I am unprepared for the sensation, as I climb back into the taxi, that my chest is slowly caving in, that I’ve been punched square between the breastbones and everything underneath is giving way.
    The driver starts off. I can’t even pay attention at first to where he’s going. Then, vaguely, I assume he’s taking me back to the hotel. I don’t want to go there yet, though. I don’t want to lie in my room by myself with all of that air and space around me and think about what just happened. I ask him to take me downtown instead.
    “The hotel is downtown,” he says.
    “No. Somewhere else, please. Anywhere where I can just walk around is fine.”
    “You want to go to Avenida Central?”
    “What is it?”
    “Lots of stores.”
    “Sure.”
    He drops me at the mouth of a brick-paved street with stores along both sides, their entire fronts wide open. The street is swarming with a healthy mix of tourists and native Panamanians, many of whom are simply sitting on ledges drinking soda out of bottles or playing dominoes on card tables under the shade of a tree or hanging out in the shop fronts, chatting with the employees. It’s the closest thing I have seen to a gathering place here.
    All afternoon I walk up and down the street in air so humid it makes my hair frizzy, ducking into shops every now and again to catch a burst of frigid air-conditioning. There are jewelry