B0061QB04W EBOK (22 page)

Mami checked on Carlos as often as possible. She would bring him caramel candies, lollipops covered in chili powder, comic books, and a bag of little green soldiers to help him pass the time.

“Any time now, mijo, just be patient,” Mami would say.

“I’ll be patient, Mami,” Carlos replied. Now that we had our mother back, we wanted to make sure that this time we would keep her with us.

Then Abuelita Chinta said, “Juana, this is ridiculous. It’s been two weeks already. How much longer are you going to keep that boy out there in the middle of nowhere?”

“For as long as necessary,” Mami said. “A thing like this requires sacrifices. You know that, Amá.”

Soon, Carlos got sick with a cough and Abuelita Chinta said it was the midnight chill and the morning dew that was getting into his lungs.

“What will you do if he catches pneumonia?” Abuelita Chinta asked.

“He won’t. Any minute now, we’ll get the deed and we’ll have our own land.”

Mami sat at the kitchen table with us as we did our homework. She asked me for a piece of paper and my coloring pencils. Then, just like a little girl, Mami drew a picture of a house. She even drew sunflowers and trees and a rainbow over the house. She proudly showed us her artwork and then she went over to the wall to hang her picture.

I thought about the three little pigs story, of that brick house that had kept the third pig safe. I wanted so much for Mami’s dream to
come true. What if she were right? What if she really could show Papi that she could build a dream house of her own?

“Any day now,” Mami said to no one in particular.

But the next day Carlos was worse. He coughed so much the other squatters complained they couldn’t sleep at night because of his coughing. “Take the boy home,” they would tell Mami. She bought him some cough syrup and a little jar of VapoRub and every day before going to work, she would check on him. Abuelita Chinta watched with worried eyes, until finally she said, “Come on, mijas, let’s resolve this problem once and for all.” We went with our grandmother to the river and by then Carlos was burning up with fever. He was sleeping on the ground on top of his blanket and his arms were wrapped around his legs. He had wet himself and flies buzzed all around.

“Come on, mijo, let’s go home,” Abuelita Chinta said as she picked him up. Even in his feverish state, Carlos refused to get up.

“No, no, no. I want to help Mami with her dream house.”

I wanted to stop my grandmother from ruining our chance at such a house, but at the sight of my brother I knew that the price would be too high if anything happened to him. He was so weak it wasn’t hard for us to pick him up. Between my grandmother, Mago, and me, we took my brother home where my grandmother immediately set out to cure him.

When Mami came home, she ran over to the river to save her land, but by then new squatters had moved in. She came back home in tears.

“I’m sorry, Mami,” Carlos said. He buried his head in the pillow and coughed for a long time.

“Maybe we’ll get it next time,” I said.

Mami didn’t say anything. She yanked her drawing off the wall where she had hung it on a nail and looked at it for a long time. Just as I fell asleep, I thought I heard the sound of paper being torn to shreds.

17

M
AGO AND I
stood by the tracks watching the train rumble past us. Mago said, “That train could take us to El Otro Lado.”

“Really?” I asked, taking her hand as we started walking toward downtown. Carlos walked on the tracks, bending down once in a while to pick up bits of gravel.

“You should see, Nena,” Mago said, “how many people at the train station are heading to El Otro Lado. I’ve asked them about the journey, and it doesn’t seem so bad. They ride the train to Mexico City, transfer to another train, and ride it all the way to the border. We could save up some money, buy the train tickets, and go.”

“But how would we find Papi?” Carlos asked, joining us.

“We’ll ask around when we get there,” Mago said.

“My teacher says Los Angeles is very big,” Carlos said, shooting a rock at a bird with his slingshot. He missed.

“But what about Mami?” I said. “Would we leave her here?”

“Why not?” Mago said. “She’s left us again, hasn’t she? She won’t care whether we leave or not.”

“Yeah, but—” I said, ready to defend Mami. I was still thinking about that drawing she had torn into shreds.

“But what?” Mago said.

“I don’t know. I just wish things were different,” I said.

We walked the rest of the way downtown in silence, on our way to Mami’s work.

Not long after the government had finally given away the land Mami so desperately wanted, she decided it would be best if she went to live with Tía Güera. Back then my aunt had lived downtown, a few blocks away from my mother’s work. Mami started staying over at her apartment a day or two during the week. Then it became three days, then four, until finally she packed up her clothes and said she was moving in with my aunt. Since she would get out so late from work, the public minibuses weren’t running by then, and Mami had to take a cab home. “The cab fare is seven times the bus fare. That’s money we can use to buy food,” she would say. “Also, I’m frightened of walking home at night on these dark streets. What if something happened to me?”

“I can walk you home,” Carlos said, holding tightly to his slingshot.

“Mijo, you’re only ten years old. I don’t think a robber would be frightened of you and your slingshot,” Mami said.

We begged her to stay with us. We promised we would be good, but Mami shook her head and said it was for the best.

By then, my memory of Papi had become a wisp of smoke. Sometimes I would forget that I had a father, and whenever I remembered him, the memory of him did not hurt. It did not take the breath out of my body or sting me and fill me with pain like the venom of a scorpion.

But the thought of my mother living apart from me made my body tremble, my teeth clench in my mouth, my eyes burn as they did whenever we had no money to buy gas and I would have to fan the hot coals in the brazier as our meal slowly cooked.

If she hadn’t returned from El Otro Lado, Mago said I would have already forgotten her, the way I’d forgotten Papi. Little children are blessed with short memories. But my mother’s constant comings and goings wouldn’t let me forget her. Instead, they increased my longing for her even more.

She visited us on Sundays, and every time she left us, Carlos, Mago, and I would keep ourselves from running after her. Betty chased after her like a little duckling. We were left behind to comfort our little sister, to hold her while her tears subsided, to make funny faces and stick out our tongues, do cartwheels and handstands, sneak into the neighbor’s yard and steal juicy guavas and mangoes to sweeten the bitter memory of the one who came and went.

Since my grandmother didn’t have a refrigerator, we had to go to el mercado every day to buy the ingredients for that day’s meal. But first we had to stop at Mami’s work so she could give us money.

Whenever we walked there, we would be out of breath and our feet would be hurting. It would take us forty-five minutes to get there and another forty-five to get back. Mago could get there by herself on the combi, but she didn’t like going alone and we couldn’t afford the bus fare for us all, so we walked. Mago thought I should stay home, that it was too far for me to walk, but I wanted to see Mami more often than four days a month and so I would come. And I wouldn’t complain about my feet hurting because if I did Mago would stop bringing me. She had been less patient with me. With us all.

Usually Mago would go in there and wouldn’t even talk to Mami. She would just hold out her hand for the money and then quickly leave the record shop, and all I could do was turn around and wave a quick goodbye to my mother.

But one day, when we went inside, Mami wasn’t alone. Her boss, Don Oscar, was there, and his son was there, too. I knew he was his son because he looked just like Don Oscar, and Mami was always talking about Don Oscar and his family, about the three record shops they owned and the money they had. I saw Mago wiping the dust off her face with her hand. But she couldn’t do anything about the dust that covered her feet.

“Hola, niños, how are you?” Don Oscar said. We said good afternoon to him and his son, who was about Mago’s age. “Mago, your
mother tells me you’ve done very well in school. I’m very proud of you.”

“Thank you, señor,” Mago said.

“Mago, I asked Don Oscar to be your godfather for your graduation, and he’s accepted. Isn’t that great news?” Mami said. She came and put an arm around Mago’s shoulders. My sister tried to skirm away from Mami, because even though it was the most amazing news we’d heard in a long time, Mago was still too angry at Mami for leaving us again.

“Thank you, señor,” Mago said.

“We’ll have the graduation party at my sister’s house,” Mami said. “It would be an honor if you and your family joined us, Don Oscar.”

“Of course, of course,” he said.

Mami gave us the money for our shopping, and she even gave us a few extra pesos so that we could buy ourselves a treat. Then we said our goodbyes. We walked out the door, and Mago stopped and turned to look at Oscar Jr. one more time. He smiled at her and she blushed all the way to el mercado.

“I think he likes you,” Carlos said.

She blushed even more. “I don’t think he would like someone like me,” she said.

“Why not? There’s nothing wrong with you,” I said.

“Of course there is. I’m poor.”

I thought about the movie we saw with Mami, of Paquito and his rich father. There was nothing wrong with Paquito except that he was poor. I told Mago I knew what she meant. But still, I thought about all those soap operas Tía Emperatriz liked to watch, the ones where tragically beautiful girls are saved from their miserable poverty by handsome rich men who fall desperately in love with them.

“Oscar can be your hero,” I insisted. “He can save you.”

Mago looked at me and said, “Papi will be my hero.
He
will save me. Save us all.”