Look Both Ways in the Barrio Blanco (21 page)

My mentor waved me into the van, so I climbed into the middle seat and extended my hand to Mamá. Miss closed the door behind us and jumped into the front passenger seat. “Drive.”

The van belched a cloud of smoke as we lurched away.

That should have been the “Happily ever after.” The part of the movie where the credits roll. What Ethan calls a Hollywood Ending.

RED LIGHT. BLUE LIGHT
.
The side of the patrol car said
NEW MEXICO STATE POLICE
. Right there on the side of the two-lane highway that had brought us here. To get home, we’d have to drive past it. At a crawl. Traffic was backed up in both directions.

My pulse throbbed in my neck. Mamá squeezed my arm.

With his hands and legs apart, a dark-skinned man leaned against the roof of a battered white pickup. An officer kept one hand on the man’s back while talking into a radio attached to his shirt. Drivers craned their necks trying to get a good look. Some were even taking pictures with their cell phones.

I gulped. “Is he being arrested?”

No one answered. Mamá shrank in her seat. We hesitated in the exit of the motel parking lot, staring at the blockage in the T-intersection off to our left. Ethan’s white-knuckled hands gripped the wheel.

Miss’s voice was calm. “Just turn left.”

The car rolled forward and turned. To the right.

“Left! I said left!”

“Really? You wanted me to drive
into
that mess?” Ethan asked.

“We’ve got to. Turn around,” Miss ordered.

Mamá’s violent trembling made me afraid. I didn’t want to drive by a squad car and that man getting arrested. “No, Miss! This road will come out somewhere, won’t it?”

Ethan continued to roll away from the flashing lights. A siren screamed behind us. Miss, Mamá, and I whipped around to see a second patrol car edge around the highway traffic on the shoulder.

I looked ahead to see Ethan crane his neck, checking the rearview mirror.

“Mom?”
Not his usual voice. The voice of a little kid.

Concern flickered across Miss’s face. After a pause, she said to Ethan, “Okay. Just drive.”

Relieved, I told Mamá, “We’re going to find another way home.”

Mamá breathed, “Thank you, Miss.”

Her normally soft skin was rough and leathery — parched and peeling — and almost as dark as mine. The yellowing shadow of a bruise lingered on her cheek, just below her eye. Her lips were purplish black and cracked.

I didn’t recognize the ripped and grimy pants and shirt she wore. They hung on her, just as the skin seem to hang on her bones. There wasn’t enough of her to fill them out.

Cuts covered her arms. Another cut on her neck oozed, as if it wasn’t healing just right.
Had she been this beat up when she returned from Mexico the last time?
I couldn’t remember. I wanted to find the people who’d done this to her and show them I knew how to use a baseball bat.

But Mamá was the whole world, right there in my arms. Safe. After more than a year, I was finally safe.

She kissed my forehead over and over. Angel kisses.

Miss watched from the front seat with a small, sad smile.

It was too much.

Tears burst out.
Happy, sad, angry, afraid. Too much. Too, too much. A swirl of Mamá’s and Miss’s faces
. I squeezed my eyes shut, but the flood kept coming.
My heart. So full, exploding. My mouth, open and gasping. Air, I need air
.

Mamá’s arms tightened around me. Her worried voice traveled through my haze. “Jacinta?”

Then Miss. “Jacinta!”

No, don’t! Don’t say it. Whatever it is, don’t say it. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. Please, please, don’t say anything
.

“Drink this, or you’re going to get a headache.”

I opened my eyes a crack. Miss held out a bottle of water.

Oh. Okay
.

Mamá brushed my hair away from my face, soothing the ragged edges of my nerves, as the water bathed my raw throat. I drained the bottle.

Then I struggled out of Mamá’s sweater. She helped pull it off me. I thought she might ask why I wore the filthy thing, but she said nothing and dropped it on the floor of the van. I felt silly for all the times I’d insisted on wearing it. But the charm had worked. Mamá was back.

Her eyes darted from Miss to me. The three of us exchanged looks.

Miss must have realized she was staring at something private. She blushed and turned to face forward. She asked Ethan, “Where are we?”

“You said, ‘Drive.’ I drove.”

Miss pulled her phone from its holder, looked at it, then groaned. “The battery’s dead.”

“Use the car charger.”

“The lighter doesn’t work. The van’s electrical system is shot.”

Ethan sighed. “You should’ve bought
me
a smartphone. At least then we’d still have GPS.”

“Does it occur to you that we’re living on one income? That we can no longer buy whatever our little hearts desire?”

“Did we ever?” Ethan steered the van around winding curves.

We were on a twisting road. Wildflowers, cactuses, and other plants dotted the landscape. It was kinda pretty, but not familiar.

“Should I —? Do I —? You want me to turn around?” he asked.

“Not here. It’s too dangerous.”

I glanced around. A line of cars snaked behind us.
What are all these people doing here?
I faced forward — just as we passed the sign.

“Oh, my goodness,” said Miss.

“Oh, wow!” said Ethan.

Mamá asked in Spanish, “What did the sign say,
mija
?”

“No sé,”
I told her. Then we were in a parking lot.
A parking lot in the Middle of Nowhere?
A man in a uniform, wearing a badge, waved Ethan into a space.

Mamá gripped my arm.

“Miss, where are we?”

“What should I do?” asked Ethan.

“Go ahead and park.”

He moved to pull into a space, but Ethan was new to parking. It looked like he might hit the car next to us. Miss shouted, “Crank your wheel!”

He slammed on the brakes instead. We lurched forward in our seats. The man in the uniform got that “patient” look on his face.

I tried to hang on to Mamá, feeling her panic, but she slipped to the floor, cowering behind Miss’s seat.

“What is this place?” I asked again.

Miss pulled her eyes from the parking space while Ethan eased the van forward. She looked from me to Mamá. A gentle smile broke through Miss’s look of concern. She touched Mamá’s hand.

“Está bien, está bien,”
said Miss.

“Where
are
we?” I insisted as Ethan switched off the engine.

Miss’s eyes sparkled. “Tell your mom we’re in Fairyland.”

WHEN ETHAN SAID
we were at Carlsbad Caverns National Park, the words meant nothing to me. But he was excited. “Mom, can we go inside the cave?”

“No, I’m supposed to anchor the show tonight.”

“Stick your finger down your throat and tell them you’re still vomiting.”

Miss glanced at me, to see if I was listening. She lowered her voice and said to Ethan, “It’s still lying.”

“No, it isn’t.”

They argued across the parking lot, up to the visitor center. I practically had to drag Mamá, reassuring her as Miss had,
“Está bien, está bien.”

Mamá’s eyes darted to the park ranger directing traffic. To his uniform.

I called out to Miss, “Can’t we just go?”

“I need to use the restroom,” she shouted over her shoulder.

Since I’d chugged a whole bottle of water, a bathroom break seemed like a good idea. Even if yelling it all over the parking lot wasn’t. I whispered to Mamá,
“El baño.”

She stopped resisting.

An older lady in the women’s room stared at Mamá. At her wounds.

“Rough trail,” I told the lady.

She nodded and backed out the door. I imagined her running to the cashier, trying to get her money back.

I helped Mamá clean up a bit, lending her my hairbrush.

Miss looked almost as bad, in her own way. She glanced in the mirror and started digging around in her purse as Mamá and I left the bathroom.

Ethan grabbed my arm. “This is perfect.”

“What’s perfect?”

“This place! This is our alibi! If we get stopped by police on the way home, we say we came for spring break! We’ll have the tickets to prove it!”

“But this place scares Mamá.”

“There’s only one road in or out. We’ll have to drive by those cops if we leave now. Don’t you wanna see the cave?”

And I realized I did. I wanted this
educational opportunity
. Who knew when I might have another chance? Miss’s year as my mentor was nearly over.

And I’d just spent nine hours in her stupid van.

Miss emerged from the ladies’ room looking more like her regular self.

“Are we going in?” Ethan asked her again.

“I told you, I need to get back to my job.”

Ethan whined. “Even if we left this minute, you’d never make it for the five o’clock show. And we’re hungry. There’s a cafeteria inside the cave.”

Mamá looked from Ethan to Miss. “What are they saying?”

“Ethan says there’s a restaurant inside the cave.”

Mamá shook her head. “No, we need to go home.”

Miss frowned. “What did your mom say?”

I wound my hair around a finger. “She hasn’t had anything to eat today.”

Using Ethan’s disposable phone, I called Rosa. I wanted to be the one to say we’d rescued Mamá. Rosa was so excited that she couldn’t stop shouting. After she talked to Mamá, I got back on the line and told her to call Tía. I’d wanted to tell my aunt myself, but Miss said we needed to save Ethan’s phone battery since we didn’t have the charger for it.

Ethan and I ran ahead on the trail, to look into the gaping mouth of the enormous cave. Staring down into it, little bumps popped out on my arms, despite the hot dry air. I stepped away from the stone wall. It felt like I might fall in. Mamá walked up behind me, then gripped my arm with both hands.

Even with a spring break crowd descending into the massive opening, we felt like the only ones there. The cave is that
majestic
. That
awesome
.

Once again, Miss was right.
Awesome
is a word to save for when you need it.

You might think people would shout inside a big cave to hear the echo. That didn’t happen. The horde of people approaching that emptiness made almost no noise. As if none of us wanted to wake the sleeping beast and get swallowed in one gulp. Maybe we’d all watched the same kids’ movie, where the guy is trapped in a cave of wonders and finds a genie.

I looked at Mamá and was surprised to see that I was taller than she was. It shocked me again, to see her cuts and bruises. “How’d you get so beat up?”

She shook her head and wouldn’t look at me. “It is not for little ears.”

At the word
little
, I pulled her around to stare down at her. My glaze slipped past her eyes, into her soul.
Pain. Too much pain
.

I looked away, feeling sick.

Who did this to her? Vigilantes? Americans who try to stop illegals from crossing? Or was it Mamá’s own
coyote
who hurt her?
I’d never know. Mamá wasn’t going to tell me. And I could never bear to hear.

Rage. Impotence
.

I wanted to punish Mamá for allowing herself to get hurt. For what her scars were doing to
me
. For leaving me for more than a
year
. I thought about walking with Miss, rubbing it in Mamá’s face while I held Miss’s hand, my pinkie wrapped around her finger.

But I was angry with Miss, too. She was leaving me.
No
. I’m
leaving her
.

I shoved my hands in my pockets and walked by myself down the zigzag trail.

But as I moved into the darkness, Carlsbad proved it
was
a cave of wonders. Nature had carved gardens and castles, animals and faces, out of the rock. I glided past unchanging worlds. Cold, restless air whispered stories I could almost understand.

I felt my anger slipping, so I tried to pull it tight around me. Like a
shroud
.