B0061QB04W EBOK (25 page)

Papi hugged Mago, Betty, and Carlos and then called me over. I had no choice but to go to him. He hugged me too briefly, too hesitantly, the way one would hug an acquaintance’s child, as if out of
obligation. Looking back on it now, I understand how awkward it must have been for him as well. We were strangers to him, too.

He introduced us to the woman standing by his side, whom I hadn’t noticed until then. My eyes were focused on him, only him.

“This is Mila,” he said.

I looked at the woman who had broken up my family. I wanted to yell at her, to say something mean, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Instead, I compared her to my mother. She wore her wavy black hair in a stylish cut, whereas Mami, ever since she returned from El Otro Lado, had worn hers short, like a boy, but permed into tight curls, and dyed a rusty red. Mila was light-skinned and wore makeup in soft colors such as peaches and browns, unlike Mami’s dark blues, purples, and hot pinks that didn’t go well with her olive skin.

The woman was wearing white pants and a pink blouse, and white sandals with straps. Mami was always wearing flowery dresses like the kind Abuelita Chinta wore. I suddenly wished to see Mami wearing a pretty pair of white pants. I wished that the woman before me didn’t look younger than my mother, even though she was five years older. I wished her skin wasn’t so light and smooth looking, so different from my mother’s sunburned face lined with wrinkles.

I wanted to kick myself for thinking those thoughts. I was betraying my mother. I told myself I should hate that woman, not admire her clothes or makeup or pretty skin.

“I’m starving,” Papi said. “Let’s eat.”

He gave Tía Emperatriz money, and she went to buy a pot of menudo at the nearest food stand. Out of the suitcases, he took out three dolls, one for me, one for Mago, and one for Betty. They were life-size baby dolls with blue eyes that closed when they were laid down, and opened when stood up. I buried my face in my doll’s hair and smelled the scent of plastic, the smell of a new toy. He gave us girls a couple of dresses and Carlos got jeans and three shirts. This time, he had gotten our size right. He looked at our feet. I put one foot behind the other, ashamed of my old sandals. He said he hadn’t known what our shoe size was, so he hadn’t brought us any. He promised to buy us new shoes the next day.

We played with our new dolls. Mago, who was going on fourteen and claimed to be too old for baby dolls, was more than happy to play
with Betty and me, just to spite Élida. Papi didn’t give Élida anything, and part of me was glad. Now she knew how we had felt when her mother had visited from El Otro Lado and didn’t give us a single present. But part of me wanted Papi to be different than Tía María Félix. I wanted him to be kinder to his niece.

Soon evening came and he still hadn’t told us why he was there. I waited for him to tell us that he missed us. I waited for him to say he was sorry for being gone for so long. I watched him sitting on the patio with his new woman, laughing at something she said. I felt the sting of jealousy burning sharp like a scorpion sting, and I thought of Mami. Just briefly, I understood how she had felt. For a moment, I understood her anger.

We spent the night at Abuela Evila’s house. In the morning Papi shaved Carlos’s hair to get rid of the lice. He even gave him a bath, as if my brother were a little kid, but he said Carlos was in need of a good scrubbing. He took us girls to the hair salon and told the hairstylist to cut our hair short. I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell him no. But when I looked at him, I was afraid he would disappear if I angered him. I was afraid he might leave again and never come back. So I sat still and closed my eyes when I heard the hissing of the scissors. I cried silent tears about losing my hair once again.

“Look at all the lice,” the hairstylist said to her coworkers. Papi picked up a copy of the newspaper on the seat next to him and hid behind it. Mago sat with Betty on her lap, waiting. When the hairstylist was done with me, it was Betty’s turn. She cried and kept moving her head and Mago had to hold her still. When the hairstylist was done with Betty and asked Mago to sit down, Papi said, “Not her.” I looked at Mago, and I was so angry I could spit at her. On our way home we stopped at the pharmacy, and Papi bought special lice shampoo and made us wash our hair with it as soon as we got home.

“You didn’t have to cut my hair,” I said.

“It’ll grow back, Chata. Don’t worry.” My anger disappeared immediately at hearing Papi call me by the special nickname he had given me when I was little.

Later, he inspected the house he had built for us. We were surprised
to see it almost finished; it just needed the windowpanes installed. As we walked from room to room, we told him how we’d helped to build this house by carrying the gravel and the mortar buckets and bricks. “Which is going to be your room?” Mago asked him. Papi didn’t say anything.

In the evening, when Papi reached into his suitcase to grab his pajamas, he found a big surprise. A dozen baby scorpions and their mother came tumbling out to the floor when he took out his pajama pants. I screamed and jumped onto the couch. He stepped on the scorpions and killed them.

“You could’ve been stung,” Mila said, glancing around the floor to make sure he had killed all the scorpions, and then she added, “How soon do you think we can go home?”

Go home?
I wondered.
But this
is
his home.

As if reading my thoughts, Mago said, “Our house is finished now. He doesn’t need to leave again.” She turned to him and said, “Right, Papi? You’re staying now, aren’t you?”

Papi looked at Mila and then at us. “Let’s talk about it later. ¿Está bien?”

“Why don’t you tell them now, Natalio? Tell them you aren’t staying,” Mila said.

“All right,” he said. He sat us down on the couch and said, “Well, you see, kids, I’ve decided I can’t come back here. Even though the house is finished, there are no jobs here. If I come back, we’ll still live in this miserable poverty, ¿entienden?”

“But the house is finished, Papi. We’ll be safe there,” I said.

“We don’t eat much,” Carlos said. “You wouldn’t need to make a lot of money to feed us. Mago already has a job at the train station. I could get a job, too. I’m old enough.”

“No!” Papi said. “You need to go to school. All of you need to stay in school, you hear? Negra, what is this about you working already?”

Mago stayed quiet. He looked at her, waiting for her to say something. Finally, Mago stood up and said, “Abuela Evila was right all along. Excuses, that’s all you have to give us. Excuses as to why you can’t come back.” She ran out of the living room crying.

The next day, Papi told us he would be leaving in a few days. Mila would be flying back because she was a naturalized U.S. citizen. Since he had no papers, he would hire a coyote to take him across the border.

“I’m not coming back here,” he said to us. “I have a new life in El Otro Lado. I don’t want to give up that life, but I know it isn’t fair for you not to have a father. I thought your mother was taking care of you, but now I see that she isn’t. I don’t have enough money to take all of you with me. I can take only one of you.”

Tears gathered in my eyes because I didn’t want to hear what he was going to say next. I knew who he had chosen.

“I’m going to take Mago with me. She’s the oldest, and she won’t have as much trouble running across the border with me.”

“You can’t take her,” I said. “You can’t take her.”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because she’s all I have.”

Mago put an arm around me. I held on tight. I had survived being left by my father. I had lived through my mother’s constant comings
and goings. But if Mago left me, I didn’t think I could survive. I looked at him, and I wished he had not come back. I wished he had stayed where he was. I wished he were just a photograph hanging on the wall. I would’ve preferred that to losing my sister. Why did he have to come back, only to leave again, and not just that, but take away the only person who truly loved me?

“And what about me, Papi?” Carlos said. “I can run really fast. Just ask my friends. They can never catch me when we play soccer. I’d leave la migra in the dust! Take me with you, Papi.”

Papi put his hand on Carlos’s shoulder. “You’re right, Carnal. You could probably manage the crossing as well as Mago. I’ll take you with me. But you, Chata, I cannot.”

“How could you split us up?” I asked Papi. “How could you take them away?”

“I don’t want to separate you,” he said, bending down to look at me. “I will come back for you, Chata. I promise that as soon as I have some money I will come back for you.”

I shook my head, unable to believe him. “The last time you left, you were gone eight years, Papi,” I said.

Papi looked down and didn’t say anything.

We returned to Abuelita Chinta’s house that evening because Papi didn’t want us to miss school.

“You’ll still be here tomorrow, won’t you?” Mago asked. We were afraid that while we were gone, he would pack up and leave, never to return again.

“Of course I will, Negra,” he said.

At school my classmates wanted to know all about him. They asked painful questions I didn’t want to answer. “Is he finally moving back here?” they asked. “Or is he taking you with him?”