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The letter I started for you in Señora Ramírez's class I had to hand in, so I am writing you another one that can be as private as I want.

First of all, thank you, Abuelita, with all my heart for sending down so many kisses of light on Day of the Dead night!

Some nights when Tío Felipe plays his guitar, Wilmita, and sings such beautiful songs that make my heart soar, I have felt you close. But after the shower of light I am certain you will never abandon us even though we have wandered far to a strange land like the swallow in the song.

Tyler, the
patrón's
son who is now our friend again, says that what we saw was the Taurid meteor shower, which comes in early November. I don't know if this is true. But every clear night, I continue to go out, and though the shooting stars have diminished, you always send down one or two to let me know you are still watching over us.

We have taken down the altar we made for you in the trailer, pouring your Coca- Cola on the ground. (Luby and Ofie ate your chocolate bars. “You always tell us not to waste,” they defended themselves.) When I am done with this letter, I will put it behind your picture inside its frame.

Someday I hope to bury it at your graveside the way Señora Ramírez said her family in México used to do with their letters.

We took your picture to the supper in your honor at our American grandmother's house. She lost her husband, Gramps, only five months ago, so the supper was also in his honor. At the table and later in the garden, the grandmother told us so many stories about him that I felt as if I knew him. “He would have been tickled by you girls!” she repeated several times.

I did not want to correct her, but we would never disrespect an old person by tickling them! Often when I do correct something she says, she laughs and explains what she means. Then say what you mean, I feel like telling her. But I do not want to upset her as she is so nice and has made us feel that we do have family in this country. Grandma, she has asked us to call her, which is
abuela
in English.

So now we have three grandmothers, but only you are in heaven to watch over us. Abuelita, please ask God to keep it that way. Papá's mother, Abuelota, has not been well, which worries him and my
tíos
and me. Her blood pressure is up and the doctors have prescribed medicine that costs a lot of money. My uncles and Papá are now each sending sixty dollars a week, but even that does not cover the added expense.

I sincerely hope her health improves … because if anything should happen, my
tíos
and Papá will all want to travel back as Mamá did to be with you during your last days. This time, Papá would have to take us back with him, and, Abuelita, I don't think my two sisters could get used to life in Las Margaritas. They are like American girls, preferring to speak in English and not thinking about the cost of things, as if we were rich people like the Paquettes.

Morning, noon, and night, they will drink Coca- Colas and think nothing of leaving some in the glass! “I'm full,” they say if I tell them not to waste. I put the leftover in the refrigerator for later, and when I serve it to them at the next meal, they complain, “It's not bubbly.” I know that now with the help of Papá and the
tíos,
our family has built a concrete house with indoor water and electricity back in Las Margaritas. But that would not be special enough for my sisters. They would want their own television, and so many games and toys that they have to choose which one to play with. They would expect to ride a bus to school instead of having to walk the five kilometers there and back. And if any of their elders were to tell them what to do, my sisters would reply that they don't have to if they don't want to.

Ofie, especially, loves to argue. She is getting
so she won't obey me even though Papá has told her that she must mind me without Mamá around. “You're not my mother!” she answers back, her hands on her hips. Once she makes up her mind, there is no reasoning with her.

Like what happened as we were preparing for this Day of the Dead. Papá had come back from the evening milking, and we were all four setting up the altar to you. Suddenly, Ofie disappeared to the bedroom we sisters share and brought Mamá's picture from when we were in Carolina del Norte that we keep on the dresser. Just like that, she placed it on the altar along with yours. I couldn't believe that Papá said nothing. I snatched it right off. “She's not dead,” I told her. “You can't put her here!”

“I can too put her there!” Ofie shoved me away and placed the picture back on the altar. Usually, I just let her have her way to avoid fighting as I know how tired Papá is when he comes in from milking. But this time, I had to prevent her. It wasn't just about getting my way, Abuelita, it was the fear that if Mamá's picture was on that altar for the dead, she would surely die. Wherever she was right at that moment, trying to find her way back to us, she would have a horrible accident, or get hit by a car, or bitten by a serpent, or die of thirst in the desert.

And so I snatched that picture off the altar,
and before I knew it, Ofie had grabbed one end, and we were yanking it back and forth. Each one was screaming at the other to let go. Finally, Papá swooped in and took the picture away from us both.

“Papá! Give it back, it's mine!” Ofie was partly right. It was her frame she had bought for a dollar at a sale our American grandmother took us to at her church. Very pretty with little seashells all around the border. But the picture itself belonged to all of us. Not only that, it had been my suggestion to use the frame for Mamá's photograph. Ofie had wanted to put a picture of the new American Girl doll from the catalog we found in the
patrones’
trash.

“I am going to keep the picture for now,” Papá explained, raising a hand to his lips to quiet Ofie's protest. “We will sit down like civilized people and decide whether or not it belongs on the altar with your
abuelita.”

I know that this must be the influence of democracy on our father, just like the Paquette family deciding things by discussion and voting. But I found it incredible that Papá would even allow there to be a vote about this life-and-death matter.

We sat around our supper table, actually just the four of us, as Tío Armando and Tío Felipe, being in- laws, would not have a say in this
matter. But very respectfully, they had turned down the television, where a bloody
lucha libre
was going on, just like the fight Ofie and I were having. Papá started off by saying that it had now been a year.

“No it hasn't!” I protested. “It's only been ten months, two weeks, and two days.”

Papá winced as if it pained him that I knew the exact count. “It has not been a year, but it has been a long time.” He went on to explain that the crossing was very dangerous. That the desert had many dangers.

“Did something happen to Mamá?” I gasped. Maybe this was Papá's gentle way of delivering horrible news.

“No, I'm not saying that.” He stroked my hair for comfort. But I felt none as he went on. “I am only suggesting that after this much time”—he pulled Luby over to his side as if to protect his baby girl from what he was about to say—”after so many months, your mother is probably watching us from the other side of life.”

Ofie narrowed her eyes at me as if to say, See, I was right! How could she be so coldhearted? Actually, I don't think she or Luby really understood that Mamá being on the other side of life meant she had died. “So we can put her picture on the altar, right, Papá?”

“Well,
mi hijita,”
Papá said, glancing over at
me as if afraid he had already said too much. “I think we should wait until next year.” I could tell he was saying this more for my benefit than because he was convinced that Mamá was alive. And by now, it didn't matter if Mamá's picture was on the altar for the dead. Her whole family had deserted her, except for me. It was as if she had really died.

I began to sob. I could not stop myself. Papá looked confused, as he had ruled in my favor. As for Ofie, willful as she is, she has a tender heart. When she saw me so upset, she came to my side and threw her arms around me as if she were my little mother.

“Don't cry, Mari. We won't put Mamá on the altar. Not even next year,” she promised. But her sudden kindness just made me cry harder. She looked over at Papá helplessly, then reached for the picture of Mamá and gave it to me to hold.

“You can keep the frame, too,” she added. And then, she, too, began to cry, and that made Luby cry, and Papá, and soon, Abuelita, we were all sobbing democratically around that table.

(Later the same day)

Abuelita, there is something else I wanted to tell you about that has been preoccupying me. You know that when we left Carolina del
Norte, some new arrivals from Las Margaritas took over our apartment. The arrangement was that we would let them know if we were coming back. The Monday before the Day of the Dead, Papá had some minutes left on his phone card after calling Abuelote and Abuelota in Las Margaritas, so he decided to call our acquaintances in the apartment in Carolina del Norte and let them know that we were happily settled in our new home in Vermont, the work was good, the
patrones
nice.

Imagine his surprise when he got a recording that the telephone had been disconnected. He dialed again and put me on to listen to the taped voice to be sure he understood the English. He had heard correctly. The number had been disconnected and there was no further information.

“¡Esa viejita!”
Tío Felipe exclaimed. He was sure the old lady with the two dogs had sent the police to the apartment and they had rounded up our acquaintances from Las Margaritas. “I should have warned them!”

“That
patrona
didn't know where you lived,” Papá reminded him.

“But maybe she gave the other little dog something Tío Felipe had touched and the dog followed the smell,” Ofie offered. We had all seen a program on television where the police had
tracked down a missing girl by giving a dog some of her clothes to smell.

At first, I was just worried about our acquaintances in the apartment, but then I started thinking about Mamá. We had left them instructions as well as the Paquettes’ phone number. But if our acquaintances had been rounded up by
la migra,
how would Mamá know where to find us in this huge country?

Maybe he had the same worry because Papá called a friend from Las Margaritas who was also working in Carolina del Norte. This time the friend answered. And yes, he told Papá, our acquaintances had recently been picked up at work and deported. The apartment had been taken over by other Mexicans, but not from our village. No one we knew.

We were all gathered around Papá, trying to reconstruct the news from the expressions on his face. “I see. I see,” he kept saying. I was desperate to know what it was he was seeing. Finally, as Papá was saying
adios,
I reached for the phone. My father looked startled but he handed it over. “Please,
por favor,”
I asked Papá's friend, “if you would do us a favor.” And then I begged him to go by our old apartment and leave our new phone number here in Vermont for my mother, María Antonia Santos, if she should come back looking for us.

Papá's friend sounded unsure, but I must have been as insistent as Ofie because he finally agreed. He repeated our new number before the time was up on the card and we were cut off.

After that call, we were all very nervous as we always are when we hear news of someone being nabbed by
la migra.
It is as if a cloud hangs over our family and darkens our world. The very opposite, Abuelita, of your shower of light. So when the doorbell rang, we all jumped. For one thing, in the four months we had been living here, that doorbell had never rung. Everyone uses the back door. At first, none of us even knew what it was. One ring, and then another, another. It reminded me of the priest ringing the independence bell in México to wake up the people to freedom. But since we feared it was
la migra,
this ringing was more the sound of the end of our family's freedom.

On and on! Each time it was like a needle going through my heart. Papá lifted his hand and put a finger at his lips, just as he had the night before when Ofie and I had been fighting about Mamá's picture on the altar. Very, very slowly as if a fast movement would make noise, he stole over to the light switch and flicked it off. I heard a terrified gasp that I thought came from Luby. But a moment later an ice- cold hand clutched my
own, too big to be Luby's, belonging to my brave and bold sister, Ofie!

Luby herself had begun to cry.
“Shhhh, tranquilita, tranquilita,”
Papá shushed her in a whisper that almost had no sound. Our visitors had now given up ringing and were banging and shouting at the door. Perhaps because we had already been spooked by the bad news about
la migra
and our friends, none of us remembered that this was Halloween. We knew from Carolina del Norte that children would dress up and come to our apartment door for candy. Papá and Mamá always locked the door and refused to open it for anyone. “You never know if it could be
la migra
in disguise,” Mamá warned. As for us, no matter how much we explained the American tradition, my sisters and I were not permitted to go around begging for treats. “That is a lack of respect,” Mamá explained. “With so many beggars who really need alms!” Sometimes, even if I had been born in México, I felt a huge desert stretching between my parents and who I was becoming.

Finally, the ringing and banging and shouting stopped. By now, Luby was sobbing hysterically, so Tío Felipe carried her to our back bedroom, where she would not be heard. After a moment's pause, we heard soft thuds as if something squishy were being thrown at our windows. Then silence, and the sound of laughter and hooting and
shouting. Finally, doors banging and cars driving away.

We stayed in darkness for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. “Can we turn on the lights?” Ofie kept asking. But Papá was unsure if we were still being watched. At last, Papá turned on the switch, and just as he did, the telephone began to ring as if one thing were connected to the other. “It's them,” Papá whispered desperately, flipping off the lights again. He had every reason to be suspicious, as hardly anyone ever calls us, except sometimes the Paquettes or some of my uncles in California or a wrong number. And that phone kept ringing and ringing, even longer than the intruders at the door had rung our doorbell. Finally it, too, stopped, and we could breathe, though Papá still would not allow us to turn the lights on.