The Lemon Orchard (8 page)

“Hey, hijo,” his father said, coming into the living room. He wore an undershirt and baggy jeans, and his face was wrinkled from the pillow. He never hugged Roberto anymore, hadn’t since he became a man. But being called “son” felt good, and Roberto stood to greet him.

“Bien, bien, y tú, Papá?” Roberto asked.

“Good. You’re not at work?”

“I’m going back soon,” Roberto said. “Just came home to eat and get some things.”

“Eat with us,” Esperanza said, putting down her knitting and going into the kitchen.

Roberto waited for his father to sit, then followed suit. His father’s eyes were still heavy from sleep; he blinked as he used the clicker to change the channel and find something else to watch on TV. He stopped on a program about tigers on Discovery en Español
.
They watched the male lying in jungle shadows, his stripes making him invisible to the gazelle. Roberto glanced at his father. He would wait for the commercial before speaking.

He looked up at Rosa’s picture. Seeing it here on the wall with the rest of the family comforted him. He saw the sparkle of her smile, her sheer exuberance bursting out of the frame, and it made him believe she was out there somewhere, just waiting for him to find her.

What was easier, knowing or not knowing, finality or crazy hope? He thought of Julia, of what she knew about Jenny, and he realized he wouldn’t trade places with her.

Weeks later he remembered their talk. They had sat on the front step until fog rolled in from the ocean and stars went behind the mountain. She was
gringa,
Americana,
and Roberto’s English wasn’t perfect. But they had both lost daughters, and they understood each other. What she had for Jenny, he had for Rosa.

He pictured her blue eyes. He had never been close to anyone with eyes that color, and he thought they were strange and perfect. He wondered what color Jenny’s eyes had been.

He wondered if Julia had looked into his brown eyes, or glanced down at their arms, entwined around each other, and noticed how pale her skin had looked next to his. He had lived in this country for five years, and he had worked for the Rileys part of that time, but most of his time had been spent with other Mexicans, living here in Boyle Heights, working for Americans but not hanging out with them and definitely not holding them and feeling as if their hearts were speaking, as if his knew every single thing in hers. They hadn’t kissed; it wasn’t like that. After a long time they’d said good night. He’d watched until she was safe inside and waited for the porch light to go out before he’d walked back to his cabin.

They had kept away from each other since. For him, it was because his feelings were too strong. For her, it might have been that she felt embarrassed for opening her heart to the man who worked in her uncle’s orchard.

The commercial came on, loud music and a woman saying Popeye’s chicken was the best. His father yawned. Roberto wanted to ask his father something. His mind was racing, but when he imagined putting the thoughts into words, he could hear his father giving him advice.
Don’t make a mistake, don’t jeopardize your good job, don’t imagine that she could ever feel anything real for you.

“What is it, son?” his father asked.

“There is a lady staying at Casa Riley,” he said.

“While the Rileys are in Irlanda?”

“Sí. Their niece.”

“What is she like?”

“She’s very nice.”

“Remember she probably talks to her aunt and uncle. So make sure everything in the orchard is better than ever.”

“I will.”

“It is a very good job,” his father said, as he always did, reminding Roberto how important it was to work—not just for him, but for the family back home. He wasn’t criticizing, just reminding.

“The best,” Roberto said.

“Is the niece good-looking?”

“Beautiful,” Roberto said.

“And rich,” his father said. “Be careful and behave yourself.”

Roberto nodded. He knew his father was trying to protect him and his job. He would never understand what had happened between them, and Roberto wouldn’t even try to explain.

After a while Esperanza called them into the kitchen for lunch, chicken and rice.

They ate without saying much. At one point Roberto glanced at his father and saw him watching him. It made Roberto feel uncomfortable; his father was trying to figure out what was going on. Then they both went back to their food, while in the other room the voice on TV talked about how one single tiger killed seven gazelles in a matter of minutes.

chapter four

Julia

Another week passed. It was fall, and the orchard needed a lot of tending. Julia saw Roberto working with his crew—eliminating fire hazards, cutting back brush on the hillsides, pruning low branches in the orchard, raking dry leaves and fallen bougainvillea blossoms.

The men—Roberto, Serapio, and anywhere from two to five others—worked hard each morning, then stopped for lunch in the shade of the barn at noon. Roberto was always the first to stand, brush himself off, and walk back into the orchard. He directed the guys, but did the same hard work himself. When Julia walked Bonnie, she waved and called hello, and Roberto always waved back. But he was busy, and she didn’t want to bother him.

Besides, her plan was evolving. She approached it the way she had her thesis: gather information from as many sources as possible, make an outline, and seek support. In this case, her support came from Jenny. Jenny had sometimes given her a hard time about going back to school, dragging her to the middle of nowhere for fieldwork one summer, but inside she had been proud, and she’d let Julia know.

Now, sitting at her uncle’s desk, Julia pored over maps of the Sonoran Desert, remembering the hot months she and Jenny had spent there with Dr. Christopher Barton and his team. Julia could almost feel Jenny perched on the desk, urging her to find Chris online. He was still on staff at Yale, but spent most of his time in the field and was currently working on a project in Honduras. Julia emailed him, but she knew how carefully he guarded his work, how reclusive he could be, and knew not to expect a reply any day soon.

The third week of October, Julia saw Serapio in charge of the men, so she knew Roberto had left the property. He returned early two days later, his dusty black truck pulling up to the barn, headlights soft in the predawn fog. As she watched from the kitchen window, her heart was racing. She hadn’t said a word to him about what she’d been doing, but today she felt ready.

Once she heard the sprinklers start and saw him walking through the grove, she stepped outside and waved. Bonnie met him halfway down the path, her tail wagging.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Good morning. You and Bonnie are up early,” he said. It was still mostly dark, the day’s first light penetrating the fog.

“We like early mornings,” she said. “It must have been good to be home last night.”

“Sí,” he said.

“Are you married?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “I live in my father’s house. Well, in my own apartment.”

She smiled, surprisingly happy. “Do you have time for coffee?”

“Sí, gracias,” he said. “But . . .” He glanced at his boots, well worn and flaked with dirt and grass.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “Bonnie and I track in the whole outdoors.”

He hesitated on the threshold for a moment; she wondered if it felt strange to him. Then he came through the door. She gestured at the kitchen table, and he took a seat as she poured coffee into blue mugs. She drank hers black, but put out cream and sugar for him.

“You’ve seemed so busy,” she said.

“Yes, this time of year there’s a lot to do.”

He looked around the kitchen, seeming to take in the pictures, beams, books, and copper pans in a more leisurely way than before.

“Don’t you come in here often?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Señor Riley and I usually talk in the orchard. There’s no reason for me to be in the house.”

“I see,” she said.

He spooned three sugars into his coffee, added cream, sipped. “Delicious,” he said, beaming. He had beautiful white teeth, but was missing one toward the back on the right side.

“This was very nice of you,” he said. “You didn’t have to invite me.”

“I wanted to.”

“You’re my boss while the Rileys are gone,” he said. “You don’t have to do this.” Maybe he saw her expression change, her face fall, because he spoke quickly: “But I’m glad you did. Gracias, Julia.”

She looked down, aware of how tenuous her plan felt. So far it had all been in her head—a way of keeping Jenny close. Madwomen behaved this way, talking to their dead children, holding them near.

“Julia, what’s wrong?” he asked.

“There’s something I wanted to speak to you about,” she said.

“Okay,” he said.

She met his gaze. Was this rude, intrusive? She’d lost perspective. “Roberto, would you tell me everything you can about Rosa and your crossing?”

He squinted—pain and confusion in his eyes. “I told you,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “But I want to know more.”

“I thought . . . ,” he began.

“Thought what?”

“That I had upset you with what I already said. That you must have decided what kind of man I am, who would lose his daughter in the desert.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“How do you know?” he asked angrily.

Julia stayed silent. She thought of Jenny and Rosa, their two lost girls, and of the study she had begun, slowly and methodically and inspired by Jenny, to search for Rosa.

“I just know,” she said.

“You want to hear what really happened?” he asked. “Okay. But it’s—it’s the worst thing.”

“Roberto, I’ve already lived through the worst thing.”

He nodded, touched her hand as if remembering Jenny.

And then he started telling the story.

Roberto

MAY 2007

Roberto and Rosa had traveled by bus from Puebla to Mexico City to Hermosillo and finally to Altar, just south of the U.S. border from Nogales. The buses were hot and crowded and Rosa was carsick. She held her doll, Maria. Roberto’s grandmother had made it for her, sewn on angel wings, and said Maria had magical powers to protect her and her father.

While Rosa held Maria, Roberto held Rosa on his lap, hand on her forehead, telling her stories about when he was little and he and his cousins would go searching for treasure in the hills.

“And you found it,” she said, because this was a favorite story.

“Well, there were a few gold coins,” he said. “We imagined that the stones were gold, too. Once we did find an old statue, small and round, an old man. My grandfather said he was a thousand years old.”

“Why didn’t you take me looking?”

“Always working,
preciosa,
and not enough time,” he said, holding her tighter. Working nearly round the clock for nothing, barely enough to feed himself and his daughter, or support his grandmother’s medical care.

“Will it be different where we’re going?” she asked.

“El Norte,” he said.

He could only dream how different it would be. He’d grown up working in the fields from dawn until eight, when he went to school, then after school until dark, never enough time for homework. He was smart, and so was Rosa, but he didn’t want her to endure the same shame, never being prepared for class, falling asleep on her desk because she was so exhausted from work.

His family and everyone in their small pueblo tended a rich man’s orchard and cornfields. As a child, Roberto and his cousins planted the seeds—his grandfather was already training Rosa to do the same thing. When they got older, they used the plow, learned to harvest, prepared shipments for market. Staring at Rosa, he knew he’d do anything to keep her from working that hard, dropping out of school at sixteen, the way he had.

The bus chugged along, spewing carbon monoxide through the cabin. People had windows open but there was no getting away from the smells of sweat, beer, chickens, and dirty feet.

“Papá, I feel sick,” she said.

“Where’s the picture?” he asked, to distract her.

“In my pocket,” she said weakly.

He reached in, and pulled it out to show her: there they were, Roberto and Rosa and his grandma, standing under a lemon tree. She touched the photo and smiled.

“That’s us,” he said. “And Abuela. Smell the lemons, Rosa? How beautiful and fresh? Remember how you help me pick them, what a good girl . . .”

“Sí, Papá,” she said. “But I miss Abuela.”

“The picture will help us remember her,” Roberto said. “And when you look at it, you’ll know how much she loves us and how much I love you.”

“Gracias, Papá, te amo.”

“Te amo, Rosa.”

“But I still feel sick.”

He slid the photo back into her pocket. “Then let’s think about where we’re going. Everything will be better. Easy to get work, good jobs, and I come home to you every night, I pick you up at school.”

“Not helping,” she said, turning pale green. Roberto held his hands near her mouth, ready to catch if she threw up. “Tell the good part, not the work part.”

“Okay,” Roberto said. He closed his eyes, and the image felt like a dream—he’d never seen it himself, only heard about it from his father. “We’re going to live next to a public square, the most special and magical square in all of Los Angeles. But instead of angels or fairies, there are . . .”

“Mariachis!” Rosa said. “In their black suits and hats, white braids on their shoulders, brass buttons, and all their instruments. They’re always there.” She smiled and closed her eyes as if remembering the many times Roberto had told her about his father’s neighborhood. She’d loved hearing about mariachis as if they were archangels instead of normal workingmen. “Why are they always there, Papá?”

“Waiting to be hired. Restaurants and people having parties need mariachis, so the men wait in one spot until someone drives by and picks them up.”

“Will they play music for us?”

“Grandpa says we’ll be able to hear it from the porch every day, every night.”