Esperanza Rising (14 page)

“She may have a fever on and off for weeks but you must try to keep it down. She will cough and have headaches and joint aches. She might get a rash.”

“Can we catch it from her? The babies?” asked Josefina.

“No,” said the doctor. “It isn't contagious. And the babies and young children have probably had a mild form of it already, without you even knowing. Once the body fights off the infection, it doesn't get it again. For those who live here most of their lives, they are naturally immunized. It is hardest on adults who move here and are not accustomed to the agricultural dust.”

“How long until she is well?” asked Esperanza.

The doctor's face looked tired. He ran his hand through his short blond hair.

“There are some medicines she can take, but even then, if she survives, it might take six months for her to get her full strength back.”

Esperanza felt Alfonso behind her, putting his hands on her shoulders. She felt the blood drain from her face. She wanted to tell the doctor that she could not lose Mama, too. That she had already lost Papa and that Abuelita was too far away. Her voice strangled with fear. All she could do was whisper the doctor's uncertain words, “If she survives.”

E
speranza almost never left Mama's side. She sponged her with cool water and fed her teaspoons of broth throughout the day. Miguel offered to take over the sweeping job for her, but Esperanza wouldn't let him. Irene and Melina arrived each morning, to check on Mama and to take the babies. Alfonso and Juan put up extra layers of newspaper and cardboard in the bedroom to keep out the November chill and Isabel drew pictures to hang on the walls because she did not think the newspaper looked pretty enough for Mama.

The doctor came back a few weeks later with more medicine. “She is not getting worse,” he said, shaking his head. “But she is not getting better, either.”

Mama drifted in and out of fitful sleep and sometimes she called out for Abuelita. Esperanza could barely sit still and often paced around the small room.

One morning, Mama said weakly, “Esperanza …”

Esperanza ran to her and took her hand.

“Abuelita's blanket …” she whispered.

Esperanza pulled her valise from under the bed. She had not opened it since before the dust storm and saw that the fine brown powder had even found its way deep inside. As it had found its way into Mama's lungs.

She lifted out the crocheting that Abuelita had started the night Papa died. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Had it only been a few months? She stretched out the zigzag rows. They reached from one side of Mama's bed to the other, but were only a few hands wide, looking more like a long scarf than the beginnings of a blanket. Esperanza could see Abuelita's hairs woven in, so that all her love and good wishes would go with them forever. She held the crocheting to her face and could still smell the smoke from the fire. And the faintest scent of peppermint.

Esperanza looked at Mama, breathing uneasily, her eyes closed. It was clear she needed Abuelita. They both needed her. But what was Esperanza to do? She picked up Mama's limp hand and kissed it. Then she handed the strip of zigzag rows to Mama, who clutched it to her chest.

What had Abuelita told her when she'd given her the bundle of crocheting? And then she remembered. She had said, “Finish this for me, Esperanza … and promise me you'll take care of Mama.”

After Mama fell asleep, Esperanza picked up the needlework and began where Abuelita had left off. Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain. Add one stitch. Nine stitches down to the bottom of the valley, skip one. Her fingers were more nimble now and her stitches were more even. The mountains and valleys in the blanket were easy. But as soon as she reached a mountain, she was headed back down into a valley again. Would she ever escape this valley she was living in? This valley of Mama being sick?

What else had Abuelita said? After she had lived many mountains and valleys they would be together again. She bent over her work, intent, and when her hair fell into her lap, she picked it up and wove it into the blanket. She cried when she thought of the wishes that would go into the blanket forever.

Because she was wishing that Mama would not die.

The blanket grew longer. And Mama grew more pale. Women in the camp brought her extra skeins of yarn and Esperanza didn't care that they didn't match. Each night when she went to bed, she put the growing blanket back over Mama, covering her in hopeful color.

Lately, it seemed Esperanza could not interest Mama in anything. “Please, Mama,” she begged, “you must eat more soup. Please Mama, you must drink more juice. Mama, let me comb your hair. It will make you feel better.”

But Mama was listless and Esperanza often found her weeping in silence. It was as if after all her hard work in getting them there, her strong and determined mother had given up.

The fields frosted over and Mama began to have trouble breathing. The doctor came again, with worse news. “She should be in the hospital. She's very weak but more than that, she is depressed and needs nursing around the clock if she is to get stronger. It is a county hospital so you would not have to pay, except for doctor bills and medicines.”

Esperanza shook her head no. “The hospital is where people go to die.” She began to cry.

Isabel ran to her crying, too.

Hortensia walked over and folded them both into her arms. “No, no, she is going to the hospital to get better.”

Hortensia wrapped Mama in blankets and Alfonso drove them to Kern General Hospital in Bakersfield. The nurses would let Esperanza stay with Mama only a few minutes. And when Esperanza kissed her good-bye, Mama didn't say a word, but just shut her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

Riding home in the truck that evening, Esperanza stared straight into the alley of light made from the truck's headlamps, feeling as if she were in a trance. “Hortensia, what did the doctor mean when he said that Mama was depressed?”

“In only a few months, she has lost her husband, her home, her money. And she is separated from her mother. It is a lot of strain on her body to cope with so many emotions in such a short time. Sometimes sadness and worry can make a person sicker. Your mother was very strong through your father's death and her journey here. For you. But when she got sick, everything became too much for her. Think of how helpless she must feel.” Hortensia took out her handkerchief and blew her nose, too upset to continue.

Esperanza felt like she had failed Mama in some way and wanted to make it up to her. Mama had been strong for her. Now it was her turn to be strong for Mama. She must show her that she didn't need to worry anymore. But how? “Abuelita. I must write to Abuelita.”

Hortensia shook her head. “I'm sure your uncles are still watching everything that goes in and out of the convent and probably the post office, too. But maybe we can find someone going to Aguascalientes who can carry a letter.”

“I have to do something,” said Esperanza, holding back tears. Hortensia put her arm around Esperanza. “Don't worry,” she said. “The doctors and nurses know what she needs and we will take care of one another.”

Esperanza didn't say what she really thought, that what Mama really needed was Abuelita. Because if sadness was making Mama sicker, then maybe some happiness would make her better. She just had to figure out a way to get her here.

When she got back to camp, she went behind the cabin to pray in front of the washtub grotto. Someone had knit a shawl and draped it over Our Lady's shoulders and the sweetness of the gesture made Esperanza cry. “Please,” she said through her tears. “I promised Abuelita I would take care of Mama. Show me how I can help her.”

The next day, Esperanza pulled a heavy shawl around her shoulders and waited for Miguel to come home from the fields. She paced in the area where the trucks unloaded, and wrapped the wool tighter against the early winter cold. She had been thinking all day about what to do. Ever since Mama had first become sick over a month ago, they had no money coming in. The doctor's bills and medicines had used up most of what they'd saved. Now there were more bills. Alfonso and Hortensia offered to help but they had done so much already and they did not have much to spare. Besides, she could not accept their charity forever.

Abuelita's ankle was probably healed by now, but if she hadn't been able to get her money out of Tío Luis's bank, then she would have no money with which to travel. If Esperanza could somehow get money to Abuelita, then maybe she could come sooner.

When Miguel jumped off one of the trucks, she called to him.

“What have I done to deserve this honor,
mi reina?
” he said, smiling and walking toward her.

“Please, Miguel, no teasing. I need help. I need to work so I can bring Abuelita to Mama.”

He was quiet and Esperanza could tell he was thinking. “But what could you do? And who would take care of the babies?”

“I could work in the fields or in the sheds and Melina and Irene have already offered to watch Pepe and Lupe.”

“It's only men in the fields right now, and you're not old enough to work in the sheds.”

“I am tall. I'll wear my hair up. They won't know.”

“The problem is that it's the wrong time of year. They aren't packing anything right now. Not until asparagus in the spring. My mother and Josefina are going to cut potato eyes for the next three weeks. Maybe you can go with them?”

“But it is just three weeks,” said Esperanza. “I need more work than that!”

“Anza, if you're good at cutting potato eyes, they will hire you to tie grapes. If you are good at tying grapes, they will hire you for asparagus. That's how it works. If you're good at one thing, then they hire you for another.”

She nodded. “Can you tell me one more thing, Miguel?”

“
Claro
. Certainly.”

“What are potato eyes?”

Esperanza huddled with Josefina, Hortensia, and a small group of women waiting for the morning truck to take them to the sheds. A thick tule ground fog that hugged the earth settled in the valley, surrounding them, as if they stood within a deep gray cloud. There was no wind, only silence and penetrating cold.