The Year the Swallows Came Early (6 page)

M
ama and I walked home slowly from the salon.

Me with wet hair, and Mama with a look on her face like a teacher has when she passes back a test you didn't do so well on.

And I could feel that with every step my stomach was tightening.

But it was not the same stomach feeling I had when Daddy was arrested, because my hands did not sweat. Instead, I felt sick.

“Baby,” Mama said when we came to the top of the hill, “being your mother, I thought it was
best to try to get that money back. So it would be there when you were ready to use it for cooking school. But when I found out he lost every cent on a bet, well, I'm sure you can imagine how angry I was. I gave him a chance to get that money back, but he didn't.”

She stopped then, and her black bag fell to the ground as she raised her fists high toward the lone stars peering through the leftover fog in the dark sky. She cursed them for her fate first. Then for mine.

“Do you know the value of that kind of money?” Mama asked the sky, with her neck bent backward, looking up.

She waited.

I looked up. I knew she remembered the names of all those stars. And that it was good luck when one of them shone more brightly than another. Or if they lined up in certain formations.

But all I could see was the Little Dipper.

She turned in circles as she held her arms out to the sides, still watching the sky. Her pink-painted
toenails glowed in the dark on top of the black pavement, and her yellow hair blew around her face from the breeze. She looked beautiful to me, twirling like a maple seed does when it falls from its branch on a windy day. And as I watched her, I knew I loved her for taking such good care of me, worrying about my future, all the matters of my heart that'd obviously transferred automatically when I wasn't watching, just like she said they would.

After a minute she stopped and turned to look at me. “I don't know how to explain what your father did. I'm sorry.” She shook her head. “Let's go home.” She took my hand in hers because it was almost like I didn't know the way just then.

We walked up to our white house and to Mama's roses. The moonlight caught their petals, like tiny night-lights showing the way home. The smell of Listerine rose from the dirt, mint and orange mixed together.

She put her arms around me as the shock of all the news sank in deep.

“I can't believe Daddy did that,” I told her, feeling my face grow hot.

Mama stopped at the front door and looked me over. Then she guided me into her bedroom instead of my own, saying she wanted to keep an eye on me for the night.

“Put these on,” she told me, helping me change into my pajamas.

She slid me into the middle of her bed, tucking the soft, light-blue blanket tight around the edges of my legs and feet, making me look like a mummy.

“I'll be right back with some hot jasmine tea and some limes and honey, baby,” Mama said.

“Mama?” I asked.

She turned to look at me. “What, baby?”

“When Daddy was being taken away in the police car, when he got into the backseat, there was this flower growing out of the sidewalk right there where the car was parked.” I stopped, feeling tears start in my eyes. I remembered the chrome bumper on the car, how it had shone in the sun.
How now I understood why Daddy hadn't been able to talk about anything just then. And how his explanation hadn't really explained anything. Well, no wonder; it had been about my future.

Mama waited.

“It was a dandelion,” I told her. “It was poking out of the concrete beside the wheel of the police car. And when Daddy got into the car, he stepped on it, accidentally, probably.” I wiped my eyes and breathed deep.

Mama walked to the bed and sat down next to me. “It will grow back, baby. Dandelions are strong.”

“He didn't watch where he was going,” I said. Tears rolled down my cheeks. “He ruined it, Mama. He didn't watch, and now it's ruined.” And I started crying like there was no tomorrow. But it wasn't the dandelion that made me so sad. It was how I was like the dandelion, minding my own business, waiting to grow and be something. And he hadn't seen me waiting.

M
ama didn't know what to do with me after that. I could tell by how long it took her in the kitchen. I couldn't believe how she carried on. “You want some tea, baby?” “I could fix you a plate of saltines.” “Here you go, liquid Tylenol.”

I heard her banging pots and filling the tea-kettle with water. It took her four tries to get the stove lit. When she finally came back, she brought two cups of steaming tea. I watched her squeeze limes into the cups and stir them with her little finger. I wondered why she didn't know that with
tea, most people used lemons.

“Careful,” she said, handing one to me. “It's hot.”

“Thanks, Mama.” I held the cup in my hands and the lime scent rose up in little puffs, stinging my eyes from the hot air-and-tears mixture.

Mama fluffed the pillows until they were big with air, and we leaned against them.

After a long time of blowing on the tea to cool it, she said, “Groovy, I did what I had to. When I found out he didn't have a way to put that money back in the bank, I wanted him to pay for what he'd done. So I called a lawyer. It took some time, but then your father was on his way to the city jail. I'm sure he won't be able to post the bail. And if that's the case, the judge will have to keep him there until his hearing because he might try to leave again.” She looked me straight in the eyes then to make sure I was listening. Her gaze caused my tears to start again, and I looked down at the blankets.

“You see, baby”—she kissed the top of my
head—“I thought he should have to live with the consequences of his actions. And when he goes before the judge, the judge will tell him how to make it right, and give him his sentence. He may have to stay in jail several weeks.”

I nodded but didn't say anything. I was afraid that if I tried to answer, or even looked up, I would start to cry hard. So I stared at her light-blue blanket, memorizing the crisscross stitching and forcing my brain to follow the over-under pattern so I couldn't think about Daddy anymore.

“I'm sorry about all of this, baby,” Mama said after a while. She waited a long time between her words, giving me a chance to talk if I wanted. But I didn't. She pushed my hair from my face and tucked it behind my ears.

I sat still and calm, letting her fingers pull me into a peaceful feeling with the soft strokes while the space between her words and me got bigger.

“You should try to sleep now,” she said finally, and took my teacup, setting it on the table next to her bed.

I slid down into the blankets. I let them cover my head, blocking out the lamplight, the air from the ceiling fan, the picture of Daddy in my head getting into that police car and how Officer Miguel stopping him had not been a mistake after all.

Mama lay gently beside me. She adjusted her feet. One outside of the covers and one inside, the way she always slept.

And as we fell asleep together, late that night in Mama's bed, I carefully and ever so slowly stretched my feet across the sheets to touch Mama's inside foot. I wanted to feel the anger she had inside her toward Daddy. I hoped it would travel through her leg and into mine, all the way up to my heart. That way, I wouldn't have to feel the hurt from what my daddy had done.

S
unday morning I waited in bed while Mama got dressed. I pretended to be asleep.

“I've got a training class at the salon this morning. Texturizing hair,” she said. “But I'll be home before lunch. You try to rest this morning.” She kissed the top of my head, and a lone strand of my hair stuck to her lip gloss, lifting up as she pulled away.

“I know you're awake. Did you hear me? I want you to rest some.” She pushed hair from my face. “I called Luis. I asked him to order a case of the large strawberries. In case you decide
you want to start making your chocolate-covered strawberries.”

I didn't feel like answering. I didn't feel like dipping strawberries in chocolate sauce. I held my breath, waiting for her to leave.

But I heard her open the newspaper instead. “Well,” Mama said finally. “There's nothing in here that will be of assistance today. I'm surprised. Usually this author is more accurate with her horoscopes. I'm gonna have to call the newspaper and complain. There's people trying to plan their lives around here.

“Good-bye, baby,” she told me.

The smell of burned toast drifted from the kitchen. Even with me setting the toaster for her, she blackened every piece of bread. I wondered where my cooking abilities came from. Not from her.

I sat up and called Frankie on the telephone.

“Can you come over?” I asked him. I could hear Luis in the background chopping something on the counter.

“I'm helping Luis this morning. We got a big order of tacos for a party tomorrow. Someone's birthday. You sound weird. What's wrong?”

“Is that Groovy?” I heard Luis ask Frankie. “Tell her to come in if she wants. I could use another pair of hands today. Tell her I'll pay her for her help.”

“Luis says—”

“I heard him,” I told Frankie. “I'll come there.”

“See ya,” he answered.

I hung up the phone and thought how people were still celebrating birthdays and ordering food platters, and how things went on at their own speed no matter what sort of terrible news just got told.

I told myself,
Don't think about cooking school.
But as soon as I thought it, wouldn't you know my mind would think up all sorts of things about cooking, just because I told it not to.

But the worst thing was thinking that Frankie
had been right all along about my daddy. I was wrong and he was right.

Frankie, Luis, and I sat at the back counter next to a plate of forty chicken–black bean–green onion tacos before the Swallow opened up for business. We ate cinnamon toast and drank coffee
con leche
with mostly
leche
and actually only a little coffee out of tall Styrofoam cups.

I told them everything.

 

Frankie listened with a look on his face that said,
See, I knew you couldn't trust your father.

Luis let the party order wait. He kept refilling our drinks, even though they didn't need refilling, while saying things like, “I can't believe it,” and “I never would've thought.”

When I got to the end, he sat down right next to me. He looked me in the eyes. Then he said, “Groovy, I'm very sorry about your father.”

I nodded.

“And I'm sorry about you not having that money for cooking school. You know it's still a
long way off before you're old enough to go, but in the meantime, I'll tell you what. I can teach you everything I know about food. It's mostly Mexican dishes and all, but I've got at least twenty more secret recipes. Ones you don't even know about.”

I smiled at Luis. I'm here to tell you he would've given me his shop if he thought it would help.

“Plus, I'd be proud to sell your chocolate-covered strawberries.”

“Your mom called about it early this morning,” Frankie said.

“When she ordered a whole case of strawberries, well, I naturally asked what they were for,” Luis told me.

“You think people would buy them?” I looked at Luis, feeling slightly hopeful for the first time since the news about Daddy.

“Let's try it out,” he said, smiling big.

A soft knocking on the glass door in front of the shop interrupted us. Because of the
SORRY, WE'RE CLOSED
sign being in the way, we couldn't make out who it was. So Luis walked over and
unlocked the door.

Frankie checked his watch. “It's not opening time yet,” he told me, and I wondered who it could be.

The smell of the sea drifted inside as a black-haired lady made her way toward us. She took miniature steps, like she wasn't sure she should really come in. She seemed familiar to me, but by the way she wouldn't look me in the eye, I decided I didn't know her.

Her long hair was held in place by two butterfly-shaped crystal barrettes. Her eyes were dark, like the asphalt on the fishing docks. And her face was perfectly round with a rich girl's forehead, the kind Mama always pointed out to me in magazines.

“Buenos días,”
she said to Luis in perfect Spanish.

“Good morning,” Luis answered, and looked back to Frankie.

A loud thud sounded next to Frankie's feet. It echoed through the store, through the sudden quiet, like a thunderclap from far away brimming
on the horizon to tell you it's making its way.

I looked to see what it was. His coffee
con leche
was spilling out from the Styrofoam cup around the bottom of his tennis shoes, staining the white leather and his laces. He stared at the lady like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't seem to notice the mess on the floor, or care.

“I'm here to see Francisco,” she told us, walking toward Frankie, spreading her arms wide. Tears came from her black eyes, spilling down her face so fast, she stumbled as she reached out to him.

And then I remembered who she was by the way she knew Frankie's real name, how her eyes recognized him. And by the look on Frankie's face. How he tightened and backed away quickly while Luis went on high alert like a mother polar bear protecting a cub.

She was Zoila Maria Venicio, Frankie's mama. The one who'd sent the letters he refused to read. The one who left with only a carry-on.

And she was standing in the Swallow, right in front of us.