Desert Passage (4 page)

T
he next morning, the boys awoke to a quiet house. The sun was shining brightly into the bedroom window.

“Hey, what time is it?” Miguel asked, looking with halfclosed eyes at his cousin.

“What, what are you talking about?”

Ramón was still trying to sleep.

“It's almost ten o'clock, man,” Miguel suddenly realized.

“So what?” Ramón said in an agitated voice.

Miguel turned on his back and stared up at the ceiling. The house was really quiet. He thought to himself that by that time the house always smelled of food. They should have heard their grandmother's footsteps down the hall.

“Hey, we should get up. This is weird,” Miguel said, sitting up in bed.

“Whatever.”

Ramón then opened his eyes, remembering the scooter on the lawn outside and the leftover chicken
mole
. “Yeah, I guess we should get up.”

They both put on their jeans and T-shirts from the folded stacks left for them on the dresser. They opened the door and walked out to the hall. The house was still. No one was walking about or cooking in the kitchen.

“Where's Abuelita?” Miguel said, remembering all the years that he had awoken to his grandmother cooking in the kitchen.

“Check in her bedroom,” Ramón suggested.

“Come with me.”

Miguel gave Ramón a commanding look and they both walked toward their grandmother's bedroom door. The door was unlocked and opened with a small squeak.

“Abuelita, are you awake?” Miguel whispered.

No one answered. Their grandmother was in her bed facing away from the door. A soft peach quilt covered her small, still body.

In a louder voice, Ramón asked, “Abuelita, are you okay?”

She didn't answer. The boys crept closer to the bed, softly touched her shoulder and shook it gently.

“Abuelita, wake up, wake up!”

Abuelita Rosa did not wake up.

 
Chapter 7
 

A
buelita Rosa was breathing but her breath was slow and shallow. Miguel carefully turned her over onto her back and felt for a pulse, holding her wrist gently in his hand.

“I think I feel a pulse, but I'm not sure,” he said, feeling his own heart pounding.

Ramón was nervously pacing the room and his eyes darted from the bed to the telephone on the bedside table. He quickly grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

“Hello? Yeah, my grandmother is in bed and I don't think she's doing well. I-I mean … I-I think something is wrong,” he stammered. “I don't know what's wrong. Shouldn't you send somebody over here or something?” His voice grew impatient and rose with his next response, “Just send somebody over here. I don't know what's wrong!”

Meanwhile Miguel was gently patting his grandma's hands and speaking softly to her, “It'll be okay, Abuelita. Somebody's coming over here to check on you, just stay still and rest.”

His words were calm but Miguel knew deep inside that something was terribly wrong. His grandmother had always taken medication for various ailments for as long as he could remember but he had never seen her unconscious before.

“When are they coming?” Miguel asked anxiously.

Ramón had just hung up the phone.

“They said they will send someone over right away.”

Ramón kept pacing, looking about the dark bedroom nervously. He went to the windows and drew back the curtains, allowing the sunlight to enter the room. Only two or
three minutes had passed since they had first seen her lying still, but it felt like hours.

“Ramón, get her medications and put them in a plastic bag to give to the paramedics. I saw that on a TV commercial; you're supposed to do that when an old person goes to the hospital.” Miguel ordered.

“Good idea,” answered Ramón and ran to the kitchen. He grabbed a large plastic bag from a drawer and went in search of the prescription bottles he had seen next to the sink. Six bottles went into the plastic bag along with a few pharmacy receipts he saw stacked in a corner on the kitchen counter.

“Okay, I got them,” he announced, running back.

“Put that bag down, get Abuelita's purse and her suitcase from the closet. Put some of her stuff in there,” Miguel directed from the bedside.

“What stuff?”

“I don't know. Go into the bathroom and pack her lotions, toothbrush, stuff like that … ” Then he added, after pausing, “also two or three nightgowns.”

As Miguel thought of which of his grandmother's belongings should be packed, he remembered being rushed to the hospital as a small child many times when an asthma attack would strike. His grandmother never left his bedside and she always brought his toys to the hospital even when the nurses told her not to.

The ambulance finally arrived. Ramón ran outside to meet it and led the paramedics through the house to his grandmother's bedroom.

“All right boys, step aside,” the paramedic ordered. “We can handle this now.”

Miguel and Ramón took a few steps back and watched the paramedics use a black armband to check their
grandmother's blood pressure and a stethoscope to listen to her heart.

“Is she going to be okay?” Miguel asked, trying to look over the shoulder of one of the paramedics.

“We don't know yet. Please step back,” the young man replied curtly.

Miguel and Ramón held their breaths as the emergency examination continued. After a few moments, the paramedics arranged the gurney and started to prepare their grandmother to be lifted onto it.

“Are you going to take her to the hospital?” Miguel asked with fear in his voice.

“Yes, she has to go. She needs more tests.”

“Here, take this,” Miguel grabbed the plastic bag with her prescription, her purse, and the small suitcase. “She might need these.”

“Are you kids all alone?” asked one of the paramedics.

“No, my mom will be right back,” Miguel lied.

Their grandmother was moved onto the gurney and wheeled out of the bedroom. The boys followed the paramedics outside and watched their grandmother disappear through the red-and-white doors. The ambulance drove away with the lights twirling and the sirens blasting.

 
Chapter 8
 

M
iguel and Ramón sat at the kitchen table in silence. The morning was nearly gone and in the span of only a few hours their lives had changed forever. The house was unbearably quiet, with the occasional noise of passing cars in the distance. The day held no promise.

“Do you think we should call my dad?” Miguel asked in a low voice.

“We cannot make long-distance calls from Abuelita's phone. Remember that he took our phones? He doesn't want us to call them,” Ramón replied, looking at the useless black phone mounted on the wall.

“Yeah, but this is an emergency!”

“Remember what he said about emergencies?”

“Yeah, I remember.” Miguel slouched in the kitchen chair and thought about the hunger pangs in his stomach. “I'm going to make a burrito, you want one?”

“Yeah, make me one without
chorizo
.”

Miguel walked to the refrigerator and pulled out the containers filled with beans, rice, and
chorizo
. He placed the cast-iron grill pan on the stove and warmed up the flour tortillas. The smells of the warming food made him think of his grandmother and tears began to fill his eyes.

“What if she dies?” his voice cracked as he spoke.

“Don't say that!” Ramón yelled out. “Don't be negative!”

“Yeah, but what if she's really sick?”

“We have to be positive.” Ramón thought for a moment, then added, “We have to call Tío Rodrigo, he doesn't know what happened.”

Miguel hadn't considered the possibility that his father wouldn't know about their grandmother's sudden illness. “Doesn't the hospital have phone numbers to call when someone gets sick?”

“I think so, but we should call anyway. We can use the phone at the gas station. Let's go after we eat.”

The boys ate their burritos quickly and didn't say another word. Although each one was thinking of their grandmother and the grim possibility of her death, neither boy wanted to face losing her.

The distance from the house to the nearest gas station was a mile. The boys walked at a fast pace and within minutes arrived at the dusty and vacant establishment.

“Is anyone here?” Miguel asked, looking around at the empty spaces between the gas pumps.

“Probably inside the store. I'll go look.” Ramón walked around the side of a small building and entered through an open door. The attendant was sitting behind a crowded counter filled with beef jerky, candy, and assorted key fobs.

“Hey, do you have a pay phone around here?” Ramón asked.

The attendant was slightly older than Ramón and barely noticed anyone walking in.

“No, the phone was taken out a long time ago.” He continued to read his magazine and never looked up again.

“Where can we find a pay phone? We really need to call someone.”

“I don't know. I think there's one outside the market about a mile or so down the road,” replied the disinterested clerk.

Ramón told Miguel the bad news. “Can you believe this, another mile!”

“Well, let's go,” Miguel replied.

The boys walked down the road at a slower pace and eventually found a pay phone

“Okay, you call your dad and tell him.” Ramón took the quarters from his pocket and gave them to Miguel.

“Why can't you call him?”

“He's your dad. If I call him, he'll get mad,” Ramón answered.

“He'll get mad if
I
call him!”

The boys looked at each other, wondering what to do next. Then Ramón came up with a brilliant idea: “Let's flip for it. Heads, you call; tails, I call.”

The quarter flipped in the air and landed on the dusty ground below. Miguel had to make the fateful call. He put the coins in the slot and dialed his dad's cell-phone number.