Illegal (3 page)

I opened my eyes. It was dark outside but the overhead light shone dimly. I looked beyond the bed and into the mirror. The side of my cheek tinged purple and my lip was cut. My barrettes were gone. Although there was no blood on my face, plenty was splattered on the front of my dress.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Grandma and I were talking…”

“Arguing,” spat Grandma.

Mama ignored her and turned toward me. “Out in
the dark we heard a huge crack and a thump. You screamed. We think the tree limb broke underneath you.”

The falling. The fight. The voices. A large, pulsing bump grew from my cheek. I licked my lips and tasted oil.

“Aurora, we should take her to a doctor. Look at the size of that lump,” said Grandma.

I didn't want to walk to the other village past Cedula where they had a doctor. “Who has been putting oil on my lips?” Mama pointed to Grandma.

“The doctor is a foolish old quack. He will tell us she only has bruises.”

I remembered when I had an ear infection a few years back. This doctor prescribed aspirin and olive oil. When Papa had diarrhea from food poisoning—aspirin and olive oil. No real doctor in site.

“No, I'm fine,” I lied. Grandma left the room in a huff.

Mama's face creased with worry. “I'm glad you're finally awake. You've been talking, but none of it made sense.”

I noticed she was wearing the same shirt, but now it was streaked with my blood. “I don't want to fight like this anymore,” I said, looking into her deep brown eyes.

Mama reached down and touched me gingerly. “I'm sorry about what I said. It was so wrong of me to explode and drive off like that.”

I followed the voice from my head. “We have to do something.”

Mama pulled me in. “I wish I knew what to do.”

I burrowed my head into her shoulder until I felt the heavy puffs of deep sleep lulling me back to a fitful slumber. I awoke in the middle of the night, but I couldn't stay in bed any longer. The rest of the house was dark. Mama had curled herself away from me with my only sheet.

Stiffly, I pulled myself out of bed. The pain still lingered. The feeling of the voice remained. God spoke to people on television all the time, like on
telenovelas
when people are in comas going toward the light, or on some of those holy programs Grandma likes.

Are voices things people make up to feel better about their choices, or does someone really talk inside your head? Was the voice really telling me to go find Papa? How would I do it?

In the kitchen, I looked inside the money jar. We had enough to buy our way across the border, but then what?

A small light clicked on behind me. “What are you
doing?” asked Mama. Her eyes looked sleepily at the piles of money on the table.

“I was thinking about America. Do we have enough to get across?”

Mama rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. “I don't know.”

I bit the inside of my lip. “I think we should go find Papa.”

“I need some coffee.” She yawned. “Maybe after the next harvest I could try to get a job in Mexico City and save more.”

The answer became clear to me. “No. We need to go soon, not in a few months.”

Mama shook her head. “We can't just leave. There are things to do, and we can't just leave Isabel.”

“We're not leaving Grandma, because we would come back,” I insisted. This would be the plan: find Papa, get some education, and come back to fix Cedula.

“Nora, we can't just leave. There isn't enough money,” said Mama.

I felt my voice rising above our midnight whispers. “This isn't about money. It's about Papa and what we are supposed to do.”

We wouldn't be abandoning Cedula. This would be the fix.

Mama looked at me with concern. “We can't just go.”

Grandma stuck her head into the room. “What is all of this whispering?”

I poured water into the pot and lit the stove. “Mama and I are going to Texas to find Papa,” I said with rising confidence.

She raised her eyebrows. “What? Are you crazy? It's five o'clock in the morning. Put the coffee away.”

Mama shook her head slowly. “I've been thinking about it too.”

I moved the stack of money and pulled out three mugs. “We're going to find Papa and bring him home.”

Grandma crossed her arms. “We'll talk about this tomorrow. I'm going to call the doctor in the morning.”

Mama and I said in unison, “No doctor!” Grandma stomped out of the room mumbling.

I handed the stack of pesos to Mama. “Take the money. Do it for us.”

Mama's face was lined with worry. “Nora, I don't know how to do this. Maybe we should wait.”

I pushed the money into her hands. “If we wait any longer, then we'll really be out of money.”

I poured the steaming water into the cups and watched the lazy curls float upward. Maybe prayer
was like steam, going upward to heaven. Then hopefully the answers rain back down when you need them most.

I pulled Mama's hand into mine. “We need to be a ‘we' again. Then everything can be okay.”

The word was frozen permanently into Grandma's face. No. No. No.

Mama eyed me with concern. Grandma stared off in a different direction, as if ignoring us would make the entire conversation disappear.

Later, I heard the voice from her morning Mass blast out of the television. Mama slipped quietly out the back door as I washed the dishes. The volume increased as the program continued, as if Grandma was trying to drown out her own thoughts with the television.

As I tried to sneak out the back door, Grandma called from the couch, “I forbid you from going.”

“I'm just going out to the orchard,” I called back to her.

“It's the end of the conversation. You are not going to
America
.” She huffed air through her nose like an angry horse stomping in its stall.

I hesitated, because I knew how Grandma would react. “Mama went into town to buy our bus tickets to the border,” I said.

Grandma gasped as if I had punched her in the stomach. “What! We have to stop her. That money was for the tax man.”

“No, Grandma. I told her to do it.” The cuts on my arm were still hot and red from the fall.

The rosary beads were wrapped around her hand so tightly I thought her circulation might be cut off. “God will bring Arturo back to us.”

I didn't know how prayer would work. The harvest was finished, and nothing was planted for the summer. “We can't survive like this,” I said.

“You can't go against God. I have to trust my faith,” she said belligerently, turning back to the television.

“Where was God when Papa stopped calling? Where was faith when the nuns stopped coming to Cedula?” I asked, trying to trump her argument.

“Faith is believing when there is nothing to see. That's when God's plan is happening!” She yelled like I was deaf, trying to get me to understand.

What if faith was stupidity?

“God has been talking to me. He told me to go,” I said back quietly.

Grandma rarely yelled at me. “Don't lie to get your way!” I backed away from her hand and the swinging beads.

“He's been trying to talk to me but I didn't want to listen. He wants me to find Papa.” Was it really God's voice, or just my own trying to convince me?

Grandma pulled out the guilt card. “You can't. You can't leave me here alone.”

I had my own stack of aces. “God told me to. You always preach that when God calls, you have to go. This is
my
faith.”

My own stupidity.

She turned off the television. “You don't know God. You never went to church and you don't listen during Mass. You are a child!”

“Mary was fourteen when she conceived Jesus.” I slammed the door on the way out to the orchard. “I'm old enough to know!”

I found my missing postcard leaning against a tree.
The trees always knew what I needed, and whispered stories in the soft wind. Maybe they were murmuring for me to stay? The dust swirled. I could still smell the faint aroma of fruit. The last few grapefruit hung like moons in the trees.

I climbed slowly into the tree's lower branches and sat. Leaning my head against them, I wondered deep down in my soul about the voice, and whether I was old enough to know anything.

 

Three mornings later, the sunrise stars above Cedula blinked like a sleepy baby waking from a nap. Grandma blessed everything again, including my shoes, and crossed me three times.

“I love you, Grandma. We'll be home soon,” I said. I didn't know if that was the truth—because I wasn't coming back until I could fix things.

“Of course you will,
mija
.” Her eyes welled with tears and she blessed Mama's luggage again. “But you can always stay.”

“Don't cry, Grandma. I'll see you again.”

Grandma stopped and took my face in her hands. “Of course you will. I will see you every day in the trees.”

My heart shattered and the tears slid down our
faces. I wanted to feel her hands every day and to wake up and see the sun shining in her hair. How could I do this from so far away?

“Someday,” I whispered. No words seemed good enough for this moment.

Maybe it was important we kept saying those things. It didn't matter that we didn't know what was going to happen. It only mattered that we wanted it. Maybe that is what prayer is for?

Mama twisted her hands and squirmed. “I'm sorry. We have to go,” she said to Grandma.

I kept looking back. Long after I couldn't see her hands waving, I could still see her hair in the rising sun.

 

When we reached town, I imagined the tips of our trees waving in the mounting sun. I didn't have a postcard of Cedula. I would have grapefruit and the smell of soap.

Across the street, Hector jingled his keys to attract my attention. “Please, don't tell me you are leaving,” he said with concern, pointing at the red suitcase.

I crossed the dusty road to look at him for the last time. “Make me a promise,” I said. “Will you do me a favor and watch out for my grandmother?”

“Yes, of course.” Hector searched my face, looking for answers.

The bus turned the corner with a heave. “Maybe you could watch TV with her? Or tell her when our money arrives?” I said quickly. “I need to know Grandma will be safe.”

Mama motioned at me from across the street.

Hector kissed me on the forehead. “Be safe, my little friend. Until.”

I cocked my forehead, “Until what?”

“Just until,” he said with concern in his eyes.

I couldn't even form the words to say good-bye.

Outside of the Matamoras bus station, the stale air hit my face. The road oozed filth, and everything seemed to be dipped in a coat of garbage. Fear and excitement mixed in me like oil and water. Mama's hands were slick, but I held on to them anyway.

A young girl with liquid eyes looked through the crowd and locked eyes with me. She held out her hand. A beggar.

I had a few broken pieces of candy. “Take it.” Her smudged fingers grabbed the bits of sugar.

“That was very kind, Nora,” said Mama with a tight squeeze of my hand. “But be careful, we can't give something to every beggar.”

I watched the little girl scamper away, and then she disappeared behind a taxi. A plastic Virgin of Guadalupe rested on the dashboard of the delapidated car. The idol wore a sad face and held handfuls of roses. The patron saint of the country I was abandoning. The deep eyes of Guadalupe stared at me. Perhaps she knew about my doubts. Maybe she knew the voice in my head telling me to go to America to find my father wasn't God's—it was mine. A dry gust of exhaust pushed against me, and I felt I had grown a million years since leaving Cedula this morning.

Mama pulled the address of the
coyote
out of her purse. “I guess we should find a taxi.”

I waved at the taxi with the statue on the dashboard. “He seems safe,” I said.

“My lucky girl. You'll help me make it through this,” Mama said with hope.

The roads developed bumps and scars as we drove through the city. Horns honked as the smell of the exhaust choked me. Seeing broken telephones and run-down markets reminded me of what I was
leaving and why. I laid my head on Mama's shoulder.

The taxi stopped next to the fruit docks. Wooden pallets, cardboard boxes, and random carcasses of citrus were scattered around the trucks. But here, there wasn't the lingering aroma of sweet fruit. It was the sharpness of diesel making my eyes water.

There was nothing beautiful about this place. Why would so many people come this way if it weren't worth the risk? This wasn't a choice or a whim.

We had to go and we had to survive.

No one ever talked about this part.

In front of my eyes, my plan shattered like a lightbulb on a tile floor. This produce depot reeked of rotting fruit, diesel, and danger.

The
coyote
approached us with a swagger. Shiny sunglasses covered his pockmarked face.

“How much?” I asked.

“Two thousand each.” Tobacco stained his teeth, several of which were coated in silver.

“We don't have that much,” I said, stepping in front of my mother, who had become mute. She
trusted me. I had to do this right.

He licked his lips. “Then go back to your village, unless you want to pay with your virginity.”

“Fifteen hundred. Nothing else.” I tried not to shudder.

He grabbed the money. “I don't have time for you anyway. Get in the mango truck. It's leaving soon.”

Trucks were roaring to life around us, dissolving our words into the dust.

We walked toward the cab of the truck, but the dockworker pointed to the back. “Inside the truck!”

He flung the suitcase in the back of the semi and motioned for us to jump in. The man on the dock made a low whistle and shook his head like this was a big joke. I wanted to spit in his direction, but my mouth had dried up in fear.

It wasn't
supposed
to happen like this. Shaking my head in protest, I watched my feet disobey me. I wondered if angels would watch over us on the way to America. I felt my courage shrinking.

We moved all the way to the back of the truck. The heat from the metal of the trailer pulsed from the late-afternoon sun. It seemed cooler in the direct sunlight than here in this oven.

There only existed a small space on a wooden pallet. “This is our home for the next ten hours,” said
Mama, pointing to the floor.

A forklift crashed onto the truck, pushing more pallets in. The sound crunched around us as pieces of wood cracked against one another. A shriek escaped my mouth.

I tried to stifle my fear by clapping my hands over my mouth. “Mama, they're putting more stuff on the truck.” Panic climbed from my chest and my skin grew cold despite the heat.

The curious dockworker smiled at me from the forklift. It was as if he knew all the secrets that no one was telling us. Fear was climbing my legs like heavy mud, ready to sink me to the bottom and smother the life out of me. “No, Mama. Let's do it another way.” I shot up and pushed against the pallets looking for an escape. “Let's just ride the bus and explain to the people we are looking for Papa.”

Mama pulled at me. “We can't; you gave him our money.”

The noise from the machines was deafening inside the metal shell of the trailer. The air got heavier. The space filled up with the scent of ripe mangoes and heat. No crying or giving in to the fear. I had to concentrate on Papa. Our life could begin once we found him. I had to think clearly about our survival.

I took a deep breath to think. Food. Water. Money. Papa.

“We don't have anything to drink and we need water.” It was also an excuse to get out into the air.

Mama pulled me down to our spot. “No, I'll do it. You stay here.” She scrambled up and over the pallets, leaving me alone.

My body shook, so I closed my eyes in prayer, but words escaped my mind. The constant rumble made me rock back and forth, and waves of nausea hit me. I hated feeling like a cowering child who was hiding under the bed from the c
hupacabra.

I overheard the men on the dock talking. “The money is decent, but it would have been better if I could have found more to come on this trip,” said one of the voices on the dock. Was it the
coyote
?

“The driver is always asking for more,” said another voice outside of the truck.

I poked my head out of our space when the
coyote
saw me.

“¿Chica? ¿Donde está su Mama?”
His teeth gleamed like a rabid dog I had seen once on the edge of Cedula before someone shot it. “Maybe I do have time for you today.” He loosened his belt.

Pushing myself back, I growled, “Get back. You've
already been paid and I have a knife.” My only weapon was my mouth and a few quick lies. “I'll cut you into pieces and feed you to a pig,” I snarled. He pulled his lips into a sneer and walked away.

The air seemed wavy with the heat. My hand slipped through the cardboard of a mango box. I found a prayer card.

Many farmers pray over their crops, even dropping in cards like this one to bless future production. The only hope they have left is an unseen God who might save them from the poverty sitting around the next corner. I wondered where my God was.

On the front of the card was a somber face of Jesus, and on the back, a prayer in Spanish. A garland of roses lined the card where it said
Iglesia de Guadalupe.

Mama climbed back into the truck with two gallons of bottled water. “It's all I could find.” She touched my face, and pushed a strand of hair out of my eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asked with concern.

I reached back into the broken box and pulled out a mango. I placed the prayer card in my bra.

As I bit deeply into the soft skin of the mango, its yellow juice ran everywhere. I had to make a new plan. On the other side of Mexico, there stood a
new life to find. My father, education, money. These were things we needed to fix our situation.

I leaned my head against Mama's chest and heard her beating heart. I remembered how I used to hear Papa's heart too.