Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco (14 page)

Is this my fault? Did I wish Abuelita dead?
And part of my brain asked the
other
questions.
Is there time for Mamá to cross the border? Can she be home by Christmas?

I helped my sister pack the suitcase she had borrowed from Tía. Rosa kept wiping her face on her sleeve. My eyes were dry.

Rosa packed the perfume we bought for Mamá at the drugstore. I added another wrapped package to the suitcase — the sweater Miss bought for me and Suelita to give to Rosa for Christmas. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that Miss also got a sweater for my sisters to give to me. I’d already sworn to myself I wouldn’t wear it until Mamá came home.

Mamá had said Rosa was old enough to ride the bus to Mexico by herself, so she could attend Abuelita’s funeral.

“You love Rosa more than me,” I’d accused into the phone.

Mamá said, “You don’t want to come to the funeral. Your heart would break,
mija
.”

“It’s broken already.”

“Jacinta, you must stay with Papi. To care for Suelita. And what about Carmen? She needs help with the new baby. With Mateo. They all need you now.
¿Sí?
”

“Sí.”
The word was sour in my mouth.

“You are almost a woman,
mija
. A woman must be strong. Even more than a man.”

Is Mamá stronger than Papi?
I thought of how she had pushed him to come to America so that we could get an education. How she had gone to Mexico to care for Abuelita while she was dying, even though Papi said no.
How strong do you have to be to watch your mamá die?

I thought of how difficult and dangerous it’d be for Mamá to come home.

Then I thought of Tía Carmen raising three children by herself. She could’ve gone back to Mexico with Victor. But even though she was scared about raising her children alone, Tía wanted education for her children, too.

And I thought of Rosa. She was still a girl, but she’d been there for Suelita, who was a baby when Mamá left. To Suelita, Rosa was more like a mother than a sister.

And Rosa had been there for me.

I’d thought Miss was the most powerful woman I’d ever met, with strength in tones of copper and steely blue. But Miss’s strength had never been tested. Her creamy skin wasn’t covered in scars. I realized that there are many different shades to being a strong Mexican woman. As many colors as in Abuelita’s afghan.

When it was time for Rosa to leave, I stood in front of our building and held Suelita while she whimpered. Snow fell in fat, wet clumps as Rosa climbed into Papi’s truck.

Suelita’s tiny body shivered, but I felt nothing.

Papi would drive Rosa to the bus station. Then he’d go to the first of his two jobs.

Mamá and Rosa would spend Christmas burying Abuelita.

I would go to Tía’s and care for Suelita and my cousins during winter break so Tía could work.

We put aside our grief.

We did what we had to do.

I DIDN’T WANT
to talk, but Miss didn’t care. She wanted answers. “Rosa went on a bus? By herself?”

“
Yessss
. She comes home tonight.”

Miss massaged her temples.

The older waitress at Mom’s Diner ambled up to our booth. “Whatcha gonna have?”

Miss took her hands away from her face. “Just coffee.”

The waitress turned to me. “And what would
you
like?”

She could tell that I’d been crying. By then I knew that waitresses were nice because they’d get bigger tips. I didn’t feel
obligated
to be nice in return, but it’d become a habit. I looked into her eyes. “Root beer, please.”

I thought about the early days of going to Mom’s Diner. Miss was always telling me, “Sit up straight and look the server in the eye. It’s rude otherwise. It’s like telling people they don’t exist.”

This lesson had been hard. I wasn’t trying to be rude. In Mexico, we lower our eyes as a sign of respect. I’d told this to Miss.

She’d said, “That won’t work in the United States. If you want people to trust you, you look them in the eye. Eyes are the window to the soul.”

I didn’t like the idea of people seeing into my soul. It made me too
vulnerable
. But I’d learned to look the server in the eye.

Once the waitress left, Miss and I had nowhere to look except at each other. We saw the misery in each other’s souls. Then we both looked away.

Miss spoke. “What were your parents thinking? You know what it’s like in Mexico. Drugs. Kidnappings.”

She said other stuff, but I didn’t hear it.
Why am I getting a lecture? I’ve been here washing dishes and changing smelly diapers. Navidad
had always been full of warmth, full of light. This year Christmas had been dark and cold. Empty.

I’d been waiting for Miss to come back from her vacation so there’d be someone to pay attention to
me
. Instead she was worried about Rosa.

By the time we left Mom’s Diner, I thought Miss was finally done talking. But after she drove me home, she parked outside our apartment and turned off the engine. Like when Pastor Federico clears his throat before saying someone has died.

She stared at her hands on the steering wheel. “I had no right to say the things I did. I’m sure your parents do what they think best.”

I saw Miss then. A woman who loved my sister. Someone who loved me. I started to tell her not to worry. I hadn’t listened to most of what she’d said anyway. For a moment, I thought she might even hug me. But in that second she exploded again. “It’s just stupid to send a child into a foreign country on a bus!”

If lightning had hit the van, it would’ve been better. I wanted to say,
Mamá ISN’T stupid!
I wanted to say,
Mexico isn’t a foreign country — it’s HOME!

Mostly I wanted to say,
What about ME?

All those words fought to get out of my mouth at the same time. They stuck in my throat, and before any of them came, I jumped out of the van and ran down the stairwell to our apartment.

I thought I’d feel better when Rosa got home. But when she came in with Papi, new little silver stars glinted from her ears. She’d spent Christmas with Mamá, and I hadn’t.

I wasn’t going to speak to Rosa, but she pulled me into our room and closed the door. From her underwear drawer, she pulled out a wrapped package.
The sweater
. “I forgot to give this to you before I left to go to the — to Mexico. It is from Miss and me.”

I shoved it back at her.

She didn’t seem angry, or even surprised. She put the package on my bed, then turned to me. “Miss was right.”

I snorted.
Isn’t she always?

“We are not Mexicans.”

Her words were plain, but I couldn’t wrap my mind around them. I shook my head like a dog with water in its ear.

“When I was in Mexico, it was as though I had never seen it. It is dirty. A cat died, and was left in the street to rot and stink.”

Can this be true?

“I washed my hair in the sink, and one of our uncles yelled about ‘wasting water.’ The people have nothing. We would not know how to live there.”

I forgot I wasn’t speaking to her. “You’re lying.”

“At the funeral, people pointed and whispered, saying I was Abuelita’s rich American granddaughter.”

“We’re not rich!”

“Our uncles think we are. They want money to pay Abuelita’s doctor bills. Mamá told them we do not have it, but they saw my braces.”

I sank onto the edge of my bed. “Your braces were free!”

“Mamá told them, but they do not believe her. They say she is American now and does not care about family. They have to sell the farm to get the money.”

Again I opened my mouth to speak, but my tongue was dry. In a moment — in less than a moment — the happy picture of our family living together on Abuelita’s farm vanished. The future was dark, scary, filled with only questions. If Mexico wasn’t home, I was lost.

Like in that movie. Dorothy after the twister. Lost with no ruby slippers.

I swallowed. “We’re Americans?”

Rosa sat on her bed, looking at the carpet. “No. We are not Americans.”

“W-where do we belong?”

She looked into my eyes. Into my soul. “Here. In the barrio of northeast Maplewood.”

Miss was right again. Our world was too small.

The only good thing about Abuelita’s death was that Mamá could come home. I hung on to that the way a little kid in the deep end of the pool hangs on to his floaties. So he doesn’t drown.

Papi sent money to Mamá.

Then we waited.

“WHY CAN’T I
do my driving with Dad? His car’s smaller,” Ethan whined.

Miss sighed. “You ask such easy questions. Your dad’s not going to let you drive his precious car. Ask me something hard — like,
Hey, Mom, why don’t you drop me off at the nearest bus stop?
”

Ethan snorted. French was a private language between Miss and me, but Ethan and his mom spoke in
sarcasm
. Behind the steering wheel, his head swiveled, scanning the street in front of our apartment. The turn signal continued its
click-click-click
, counting off the seconds. In the seat next to him, Miss sat with her “patient” look.

He eased the van into the street. “This thing’s a boat. It’s like trying to pilot the USS
Enterprise
.”

At sixteen, Ethan looked too small to be driving, especially something as large as the van. But that’s not why I was amazed.

Ethan was afraid to drive. And he didn’t care that we knew. Boys in our neighborhood could be scared sometimes, but only little ones would admit it.

Rosa grinned. “Ethan, you are such a weenie!”

Miss shot her a look, and Rosa’s grin disappeared.

I was glad Miss made Rosa “put a sock in it,” as Ethan would say. No other boy I knew was brave enough to be afraid.

But if driving a car was the scariest thing Ethan had to do, he was lucky. Even after months with Miss, I still had fears, but not about stupid stuff like taking French or girls in gymnastics class. Real fears.

Mamá had tried to cross
la línea
once already. She was looking for another guide to help her, because the first one got shot in the knee. When they took Mamá back to Mexico,
la migra
— the border police — brought the injured man to a hospital. His joint was shattered. He’d live, but he might not walk again.

No one said it. Not Papi, or Rosa, or Tía, or me. But we all thought it.
That could’ve been Mamá who was shot
.

I was afraid to go to bed. The last several mornings, Papi found Rosa and me asleep on the sofa with the television on. Each time we lied and told him we got caught up in a movie. He bawled us out, telling us we needed our sleep for school. I couldn’t tell him the truth — that I’d been having nightmares about men in uniforms with guns.

Rosa and I wouldn’t talk about our dreams. Not even to each other. That would make them too real. We walked around with fear in our bellies and worry in our minds.

Miss leaned forward from the passenger seat and tapped the middle of the windshield with her left hand.

Ethan flicked on the turn signal and took the next left.

She leaned forward and tapped the right side of the windshield. Ethan turned right.

It went on like that. No one said anything until we got to the recreation center. Miss took the keys and walked inside. Rosa and Ethan followed.

I blocked Cody’s path. “Why did your mom do that? Tap on the window? Why wouldn’t she talk to him?”

“Ethan has ADD — Attention Deficit Disorder.” Cody said it like that explained everything. But he must’ve read the confusion in my face. “He has trouble focusing, remembering right, left, east, west. So Mom taps on the glass.”

“Ethan told me he’s a genius. He’s —
disabled
?”

“He’s both.”

I didn’t know what to think about that. Ethan seemed so smart sometimes. Like when he was making movies or inventing new games. But it was true that other times his big ideas got us into trouble. Those were the times when Miss said he was
impulsive
. But I still didn’t understand what that meant.