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“Well,
mi hijita,”
Papá said, glancing over at
me as if afraid he had already said too much. “I think we should wait until next year.” I could tell he was saying this more for my benefit than because he was convinced that Mamá was alive. And by now, it didn't matter if Mamá's picture was on the altar for the dead. Her whole family had deserted her, except for me. It was as if she had really died.

I began to sob. I could not stop myself. Papá looked confused, as he had ruled in my favor. As for Ofie, willful as she is, she has a tender heart. When she saw me so upset, she came to my side and threw her arms around me as if she were my little mother.

“Don't cry, Mari. We won't put Mamá on the altar. Not even next year,” she promised. But her sudden kindness just made me cry harder. She looked over at Papá helplessly, then reached for the picture of Mamá and gave it to me to hold.

“You can keep the frame, too,” she added. And then, she, too, began to cry, and that made Luby cry, and Papá, and soon, Abuelita, we were all sobbing democratically around that table.

(Later the same day)

Abuelita, there is something else I wanted to tell you about that has been preoccupying me. You know that when we left Carolina del
Norte, some new arrivals from Las Margaritas took over our apartment. The arrangement was that we would let them know if we were coming back. The Monday before the Day of the Dead, Papá had some minutes left on his phone card after calling Abuelote and Abuelota in Las Margaritas, so he decided to call our acquaintances in the apartment in Carolina del Norte and let them know that we were happily settled in our new home in Vermont, the work was good, the
patrones
nice.

Imagine his surprise when he got a recording that the telephone had been disconnected. He dialed again and put me on to listen to the taped voice to be sure he understood the English. He had heard correctly. The number had been disconnected and there was no further information.

“¡Esa viejita!”
Tío Felipe exclaimed. He was sure the old lady with the two dogs had sent the police to the apartment and they had rounded up our acquaintances from Las Margaritas. “I should have warned them!”

“That
patrona
didn't know where you lived,” Papá reminded him.

“But maybe she gave the other little dog something Tío Felipe had touched and the dog followed the smell,” Ofie offered. We had all seen a program on television where the police had
tracked down a missing girl by giving a dog some of her clothes to smell.

At first, I was just worried about our acquaintances in the apartment, but then I started thinking about Mamá. We had left them instructions as well as the Paquettes’ phone number. But if our acquaintances had been rounded up by
la migra,
how would Mamá know where to find us in this huge country?

Maybe he had the same worry because Papá called a friend from Las Margaritas who was also working in Carolina del Norte. This time the friend answered. And yes, he told Papá, our acquaintances had recently been picked up at work and deported. The apartment had been taken over by other Mexicans, but not from our village. No one we knew.

We were all gathered around Papá, trying to reconstruct the news from the expressions on his face. “I see. I see,” he kept saying. I was desperate to know what it was he was seeing. Finally, as Papá was saying
adios,
I reached for the phone. My father looked startled but he handed it over. “Please,
por favor,”
I asked Papá's friend, “if you would do us a favor.” And then I begged him to go by our old apartment and leave our new phone number here in Vermont for my mother, María Antonia Santos, if she should come back looking for us.

Papá's friend sounded unsure, but I must have been as insistent as Ofie because he finally agreed. He repeated our new number before the time was up on the card and we were cut off.

After that call, we were all very nervous as we always are when we hear news of someone being nabbed by
la migra.
It is as if a cloud hangs over our family and darkens our world. The very opposite, Abuelita, of your shower of light. So when the doorbell rang, we all jumped. For one thing, in the four months we had been living here, that doorbell had never rung. Everyone uses the back door. At first, none of us even knew what it was. One ring, and then another, another. It reminded me of the priest ringing the independence bell in México to wake up the people to freedom. But since we feared it was
la migra,
this ringing was more the sound of the end of our family's freedom.

On and on! Each time it was like a needle going through my heart. Papá lifted his hand and put a finger at his lips, just as he had the night before when Ofie and I had been fighting about Mamá's picture on the altar. Very, very slowly as if a fast movement would make noise, he stole over to the light switch and flicked it off. I heard a terrified gasp that I thought came from Luby. But a moment later an ice- cold hand clutched my
own, too big to be Luby's, belonging to my brave and bold sister, Ofie!

Luby herself had begun to cry.
“Shhhh, tranquilita, tranquilita,”
Papá shushed her in a whisper that almost had no sound. Our visitors had now given up ringing and were banging and shouting at the door. Perhaps because we had already been spooked by the bad news about
la migra
and our friends, none of us remembered that this was Halloween. We knew from Carolina del Norte that children would dress up and come to our apartment door for candy. Papá and Mamá always locked the door and refused to open it for anyone. “You never know if it could be
la migra
in disguise,” Mamá warned. As for us, no matter how much we explained the American tradition, my sisters and I were not permitted to go around begging for treats. “That is a lack of respect,” Mamá explained. “With so many beggars who really need alms!” Sometimes, even if I had been born in México, I felt a huge desert stretching between my parents and who I was becoming.

Finally, the ringing and banging and shouting stopped. By now, Luby was sobbing hysterically, so Tío Felipe carried her to our back bedroom, where she would not be heard. After a moment's pause, we heard soft thuds as if something squishy were being thrown at our windows. Then silence, and the sound of laughter and hooting and
shouting. Finally, doors banging and cars driving away.

We stayed in darkness for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. “Can we turn on the lights?” Ofie kept asking. But Papá was unsure if we were still being watched. At last, Papá turned on the switch, and just as he did, the telephone began to ring as if one thing were connected to the other. “It's them,” Papá whispered desperately, flipping off the lights again. He had every reason to be suspicious, as hardly anyone ever calls us, except sometimes the Paquettes or some of my uncles in California or a wrong number. And that phone kept ringing and ringing, even longer than the intruders at the door had rung our doorbell. Finally it, too, stopped, and we could breathe, though Papá still would not allow us to turn the lights on.

A little while later, there was a knock, this time at the back door. “Hello!
¡Hola!”
a voice called. “It's just me, Connie.” We were so relieved to hear the voice of the
patrón's
wife. Papá hurried to the door and opened it.

Mrs. Paquette was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt with the initials uvm, which stand for her older son's school. She was carrying a flashlight and a bucket of candy. She explained that she had heard the car doors and seen the kids banging at our door and then throwing eggs and
rotten fruit at our windows, and she guessed what had happened. Halloween trick-or-treaters had not gotten their treats and so were playing tricks. But then, she also realized we might not understand. She would have hurried right over, but she wanted to be home in case the kids came to her door. Sara and Tyler were both out trick-or-treating with their friends, and it was too much for Mr. Paquette to be up and down to answer the door with his injuries. So she had tried calling us to explain and gotten worried when no one answered the phone.

“We knew it was Halloween.” Ofie was showing off. Oh yes? I probably had several broken bones in my left hand to prove otherwise.

“Of course!” Mrs. Paquette laughed at herself. “What was I thinking? You would have known about it from North Carolina.” Anyhow, she had brought over some extra candy for us to have and hand out. Even Ofie did not dare tell her we were not permitted to give alms to pretend beggars.

“Very kind of you to come and explain,” Papá thanked her. He wanted to walk the
patrona
back home, but Mrs. Paquette wouldn't hear of it.

By this time Tío Felipe had joined us at the back door with Luby still sniffling in his arms. Somewhere in their dark walk to the back bedroom Luby had dropped her stuffed dog. So on
top of being scared, she didn't have her faithful puppy to protect her.

Abuelita, even after all of us realized that we had not been in danger, there was an uneasy feeling in our family. In those ten minutes of terror, we had been reminded that we were living on borrowed kindness and luck. Most of all I thought about our mother, perhaps this very night, ringing the doorbell of our old apartment in Carolina del Norte. Perhaps just as we had never opened to strangers, the new inhabitants would not open the door to her. All I could hope was that as she went back out on the street,
la migra
could not be sure if the woman with the long braids and dark skin was a real Mexican or someone pretending to be one. Just as the children begging for treats were not real beggars.

Abuelita, before I close and put my letter behind your picture in its frame, I want to ask you a favor. Just as you sent down your shower of light to let us know you are watching us, please look out for Mamá. Guide her steps to the apartment after Papá's friend from Las Margaritas has delivered the new phone number. Put some dollars in her hands so she can buy a phone card. Let her call when one of us is home to answer. Because if she does not come by next year, I will be the one going to our bedroom and taking my
new frame down from the dresser and placing Mamá alongside you on the altar for the Day of the Dead even if Ofie begs me please,
por favor,
not to.

Your blessing, Abuelita,
la bendición,

Mari

FARM OF MANY PLOTS

“And thank you, dear Lord, for all the many blessings you have bestowed upon us,” Grandma prays before the Thanks-giving meal. Then she asks everyone to say one thing they are especially grateful for before they all begin to eat.

Tyler sees several glances going around the table. Every-one is no doubt thinking that the meal is not going to stay warm through that much thanksgiving.

Grandma begins by saying how she has so much to be thankful for. All her children and grandchildren are gathered together: Uncle Larry and Aunt Vicky and their three sons, Larry Jr., Vic, and Josh; Aunt Jeanne and her husband, Uncle Byron, who teaches at the nearby college, and their twin daughters, Emma and Eloise; as well as Tyler's whole family. And—Grandma insisted—the three Marías and their father and two uncles.

“I don't know,” Uncle Larry said confidentially to Tyler's dad when he heard who all was at the back door. He hadn't invited his Mexicans. But no one wanted to raise a fuss with Grandma. This is going to be the first Thanksgiving without Gramps, so they're all poised for a lot of tears.

But everyone is pleasantly surprised by how upbeat Grandma is. Even though she mentions Gramps often, Grandma has not cried once. Mom's theory is that the three Mexican girls have filled her mother-in-law's life with com-pany and someone to care for. “She's never happy other-wise,” Mom has said, countering Aunt Jeanne's theory that Grandma is “losing touch with reality.”

A few weeks ago Aunt Jeanne dropped in and found Grandma alone in the garden, having a full- fledged conversation with Gramps! When Aunt Jeanne confronted her, Grandma made some lame excuse about how she was just praying out loud. Aunt Jeanne pretended to go along, but the seed of suspicion had been planted in her. Then the car accidents. Minor fender benders, but still. Grandma should not be driving. She should not be living alone.

The week preceding Thanksgiving, there has been a round of phone- calling. Plots and plans tossed back and forth. According to Aunt Jeanne, the family should intervene and insist that Grandma either come live with one of them or go into an assisted- living facility. Uncle Larry thinks their mother is just fine. It's Aunt Jeanne who's the challenge. Ever since she majored in psychology in college, Aunt Jeanne's always finding problems to solve. Dad is un-sure, worried about his mother but inclined to agree with his brother that if something ain't broke, you don't fix it. “Or even worse,” Uncle Larry clinches it, “break it so you can fix it!”