The Book of Unknown Americans: A novel (26 page)

Now I work with a group in Wilmington that’s advocating for legislation reform for immigrants. I do all the photographs for their newsletter and their website. Pictures of people’s living conditions or of some bodily harm that they suffered because they got jumped just for being brown in this country. I don’t know. We don’t make much progress most of the time. But what else am I gonna do? I gotta fight for what I believe in.

That Friday I waited by the front window for Maribel’s bus to bring her home from school. Tiny flowers of frost were etched across the windowpane, and I puffed my breath against the glass, watching it fog up and dragging my finger through the condensation.

I checked the clock on the oven. It was an old oven, scabbed with rust, and I remembered my dismay at seeing it when we first arrived. Nothing at all like the tile and clay oven I had in Pátzcuaro with its wide wood mantel. I watched the hands on the clock tick around calmly. It’s still early, I told myself. I bit my thumbnail and waited. And yet, after ten more minutes, there was no sign of her.

I put on my coat and boots and walked downstairs, standing under the balcony overhang, looking around. The grass was ragged and soggy along the edge of the asphalt. Food wrappers littered the ground. I took a deep breath to calm myself and walked to the road, craning my neck to look for her bus.

When I didn’t see it, I cut back through the parking lot and headed toward the Toros’ apartment.

Celia looked surprised to see me when she answered the door. I hadn’t talked to her since I’d called her to tell her that we didn’t want Maribel spending time with Mayor anymore. She had defended Mayor at first, reminding me that Quisqueya was a gossip and assuring me that Mayor never caused any trouble.
But later Rafael had called back and told us that Mayor admitted he’d been in the car with Maribel. Rafael apologized on behalf of himself and Celia and said that they had made sure Mayor understood he had to stay away from Maribel.

Now, though, the friction was unmistakable.

“I was on my way out,” Celia said.

She was wearing gold earrings and a butterscotch-colored sweater. Her hair was hair-sprayed stiff.

“Have you seen Maribel?” I asked.

“Maribel? No.”

“She’s not here?”

“No.”

My stomach turned. “Her bus didn’t come today,” I said.

Celia’s face betrayed a flash of concern. “When was it supposed to come?”

“Fifteen minutes ago. Maybe twenty by now.”

“Did she have something after school? A meeting or a club?”

“No.”

“I don’t know, Alma.”

“Is Mayor here?” I asked.

Celia tensed. She pulled back her shoulders. “No,” she said. “But he’s not with her. He knows the rule.”

“Maybe he’s heard something.”

“Well, he was going to a movie with his friend William after school today. I can ask him when he gets home.” Celia leaned forward and stuck her head out past the door frame. “Is that snow?” she asked.

“What?”

“It’s snowing. When did that start?”

I turned and saw brief glints of something, like dust lit by sunlight. I was so distracted that I hadn’t registered them.

“Dios, qué vaina,” Celia said. “All winter long, nothing. And now this! At the end of March!”

I was quiet, catching sight of the flakes and then losing them again, feeling myself burrow further into fear. Where was she? I didn’t want to think what I was thinking. Had that boy come for her again? Had he taken her somewhere? And what was he doing to her if he had? I felt it, then, the full weight of my terror. I felt it low and round in my belly, thin and quivering through my chest. An anguished sound escaped my lips.

“Alma!” Celia said, startled.

“I’m sorry.”

“You have to relax. I’m sure she’s fine. Maybe the bus is stuck in traffic.”

I nodded, unconvinced.

And then the two of us just stood there until finally Celia dropped her shoulders and looked at me with sympathy. “Come inside,” she said.

“I thought you were on your way out.”

“Come inside,” she said again, “I’ll make coffee. We’ll wait for her together.”

Once we were in the apartment, Celia tried to call Mayor, but she only got his voice mail. “He must have turned his phone off in the movie,” she said. “He’ll check it when he comes out.”

I sat on the couch and stared through the window at the white sky, the empty parking lot, the faded asphalt, while Celia brewed a pot of coffee. I forced myself to imagine scenarios in which Maribel was fine: She was sitting on the bus, twisting her hair between her fingers, staring out the window at the traffic on the street; she was asleep in the bus seat, oblivious to the delay; she was only a block from our apartment, pulling her backpack onto her shoulders, preparing to get off. I said to myself: You didn’t
have a bad feeling before the accident, and then she wasn’t fine. Maybe because you have a bad feeling now, it means she
is
fine. I didn’t care that it made no sense.

“I need to call Arturo,” I said suddenly, reaching for the phone in my coat pocket. But when I looked at it, the screen was black, out of minutes. How long had it been like that? I dropped the phone back in my pocket and asked Celia if I could use her house line instead.

“Of course,” she said, handing me the receiver.

“Bueno,” Arturo said when he answered. He was out, as he had been for forever it seemed, still looking for a job.

“It’s me, Arturo. You need to come home,” I said.

“Why? What happened?”

“It’s Maribel.”

“What happened?” he said again.

“She didn’t come home from school.”

“What do you mean? Did you call the school?”

I was embarrassed to realize that I hadn’t, and I didn’t want to admit it to him now.

“Come home, Arturo. Please.”

“I’ll be right there,” he said.

I did call the school as soon as we hung up, but no one answered, and when I passed the phone to Celia so that she could listen to the recording that started playing, she reported that it simply gave the school hours and said that there were no after-school programs that day. I thought of calling Phyllis, too, but her number was in my dead cell phone.

By the time Arturo arrived, not more than ten minutes later, I was pacing outside, knotted with worry, every knot pulled so tight that it had begun to fray. The snow fell lightly, like weightless
kisses, although I barely noticed it. I ran to him as soon as I saw him. His face clouded and he put his hands on my shoulders.

“Her bus didn’t come,” I said. My lips felt numb, but not because of the cold.

“Was there an accident?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you call the police?”

“The police?”

“She was supposed to be home half an hour ago! Who knows what could have happened?”

“I didn’t know if I was allowed—”

“To call the police? Why?”

I stared at him. I didn’t want to say.

“Alma! Use your head! Let them deport us if they want.”

He stormed past me, toward our apartment.

“Arturo!” I yelled after him.

He stopped and turned.

“I need to tell you something.” Tears were forming in my eyes, but I had to say it. I had no choice now. What did it matter, my instinct to protect him, my misguided idea that somehow by keeping all of this from him, I could prove that I was capable, I could prove that I could take care of our daughter even though I had failed her so terribly before? If she was missing, what did any of it matter?

“There’s a boy …”

Arturo looked like he was annoyed that I was changing the subject. “What are you talking about?”

“He lives in Capitol Oaks.”

“Who?”

“You saw him. A long time ago when we went to the gas station. He was there.”

“Who was there?”

“I don’t know his name. But he came here one day.”

Arturo shook his head as if he were giving up on trying to understand me.

“I found him with her,” I said, and pointed to the side of the building. “Over there. I think he’d been after her since the beginning. He had her against the wall.”

A darkness settled over Arturo’s face. “What do you mean? What was he doing?”

“He had her shirt up.”

“When?”

I didn’t answer.

“When, Alma? When did this happen?”

“I told him to stay away from her.”

“When?”

“A few months ago.”

“And you’re just telling me now?”

“I thought I could handle it.”

“Handle it? Alma!”

“I went over to his house. I told him to leave her alone.”

Arturo stared at me with such incredulity it was almost horror. As if I were someone he didn’t recognize. “Did he hurt her?” he asked.

“No. I don’t think so.”

“But you said—”

“I got here in time.”

“But where were you? Why weren’t you with her?”

There was nothing I could say to that. I had no defense.

“You lied to me,” Arturo said.

“I was trying not to worry you.”

He sputtered, a sound that verged on laughter, and tipped his head back, gazing at the faded gray sky. The snow was falling steadily now and flakes the size of postage stamps landed on his face, on his hair.

“I wanted to make it up to you,” I said.

I waited, but he just kept his eyes trained on the faraway sky.

“I was the one holding the ladder.”

Arturo lowered his head and looked at me. “What?”

“That day. I was the one who let her go up there. One second she was on the ladder and she was our perfect daughter, and the next second—”

“She wasn’t perfect,” Arturo said.

“But I knew you didn’t want her up there—you told her not to go up there—and I let her go anyway.”

“So?”

“So she fell, Arturo! And it was my fault.”

“That’s what you think?”

“That’s what you told me! In the hospital. Afterwards.”

Arturo looked confused.

“You said I was supposed to be holding the ladder. You accused me of letting it go.”

“You think I blame you for what happened?”

“We both know it was because of me.”

“Well, I’m the one who told you both to come with me that day.”

“You didn’t know what would happen.”

“Neither did you. That’s what I’m saying!”

“But it’s different.”

“No, it’s not different. You say you let her go up there, but how could you have known she would fall?”

“But I was the one holding the ladder.”

“Did you take your hands off it? Did you move it on purpose?”

I shook my head.

“It wasn’t your fault, Alma.”

“Everything changed because of me,” I said.

He looked at me with sadness, maybe even mercy. “It wasn’t your fault,” he said again. “You have to let it go.”

“But—”

“Whatever I said back then … I was upset, Alma. I wasn’t thinking straight.”

I bit my lip.

“Listen to me,” Arturo said. “It’s you. It’s you who needs to forgive yourself.”

I couldn’t speak. Tears from a wellspring deep and dark streamed down my face.

“Do you hear me?” Arturo asked. “Forgive yourself.”

I nodded and felt a distant sort of release, as if something inside of me was draining away.

“Now,” Arturo said, “we’re going to find her.”

INSIDE THE APARTMENT
, Arturo called the police. They said that the school had already notified them and that they had a patrol car out looking. They seemed surprised that no one from the school had been in touch with us. They told him, “Kids this age. You’ll see. She’ll probably walk through your front door before we even get a chance to track her down.”

But she didn’t, and Arturo wasn’t going to wait. He collected change for the bus, put on his cowboy hat, and started toward the front door.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“I’m going to find that boy.”

“And then what?”

“And then I’m going to make him tell me where the hell our daughter is.”

“It’s snowing outside,” I said stupidly, as if that made a difference.

Arturo zipped his coat. “You stay here,” he said. “In case she comes home.” He opened the door. “I’ll be back soon.”

Daylight had started to fade by the time Maribel and I got back in the car. We’d driven a few miles, headed toward home, when the snow picked up for real. It started swirling around in gusts and falling so heavily that I had to turn the windshield wipers to the highest setting, and even then I had trouble seeing the road. I couldn’t make out any of the shops and restaurants along the side of it, either. Whole clumps of snow were blowing off the trees and off roofs. Streetlights looked like giant cotton balls.

Before we even made it to the highway, the car was skidding all over the place, the tires spinning like they weren’t touching the ground. We passed two cars that had pulled off onto the shoulder to wait it out, which seemed like a pretty good idea, so I did it, too.

Maribel didn’t ask any questions, and I realized, after I stopped the car and actually took a second to look at her, that it was because she’d fallen asleep. Without much of anything else to do, I rested my own head against the steering wheel and watched her for a while. She was still wearing my coat and her hair was wavy from the snow. Her hands were resting palm up on her lap.

Outside, the wind howled, and every few minutes a car crept by with its high beams on. The snow will let up soon, I told myself. At least, I hoped so. I mean, I really hoped this wasn’t
the start of some blizzard that was going to bury us alive on the side of the road. I got a little freaked out at the thought of it and started wondering whether there was a flashlight in the glove compartment and how long two people could survive on a handful of Starbursts. But then I told myself to relax. We were, like, a few hundred feet from the nearest house. It wasn’t exactly the tundra.

The heaviest part of the storm passed eventually, but I have no idea when. I fell asleep, too, waking myself up when my head rolled onto the horn, which let out a long honk that cut through the night air. At the sound of it, Maribel startled.

“Where are we?” she asked.