They agree to let us do it our way. A million instructions. Text. Call. Check in. See Rachel, says the woman at the Buffalo place. They install the app that tracks where we are. At first, they wanted to arrange for an escort, but then Carlos begged, “Please, Ms. Jayne, let us have our time.” He draped his arm around my shoulders. “I need to say goodbye to my love. Mi amor.”
My cheeks flamed, embarrassed that he’d said it in front of everyone!
Jayne’s lips twitched into a laugh. “I can’t believe I’m letting you do this.” She sighed. “I’ve been there. I remember what it’s like to be young.” She winked. “And in love.”
But they don’t know. Not really. They don’t know what it’s like to be us, kids and not kids. To play in a barn with Kamal and yet sink into the cool shadows of memory. To kiss and hold Carlos, touch his hand, have his drawings pinned to my walls. To want time to go as slow as honey; that we could run and stay in place at the same time. Carlos is the only one in the whole world who gets what it is to be already grown-up and just seventeen at the same time.
It’s a straight shot—six hours on a highway—and Jayne has already called ahead to make sure that we can stay there overnight. We’re going to a safe house where people get help to file their claim in Canada. Everyone says Carlos’s case will be easier than most, so we’ll drive there, and then Kamal and I will turn around the next day and come back to the sanctuary. Kamal’s strapped into his booster seat, happy because we stopped for snacks before turning onto the highway. At his feet is an insulated bag with sandwiches and bottles of Vitamin Water.
For some reason, the drive has us lighter, sillier, even happier. We’re making the most of these hours together, putting off the inevitable. Carlos keeps his arm draped on the back of my seat, occasionally touching my hair. ¡Mi amor! I keep thrilling at the words. No more hiding how we feel. But then I’m laughing too at how corny we are. We sing songs. We play the car license game—we’ve come up with thirty-two states so far. Carlos makes Kamal do his addition and subtraction tables. Then I grow sad, remembering what we’re doing. I dream of a time when we can be together, when I can cross borders easily and throw my arms around Carlos. I try not to pay attention to the pinched knot in my stomach, or the way my hands sometimes tremble on the wheel.
We pull into Buffalo in the afternoon, and stop at a drab-looking brick building surrounded by a huge metal fence, clothing folded over the top edge. Up the concrete stairs, where we are buzzed into an echoey place of noise and commotion. People hurry down corridors, a group of kids sit in a kind of living room with toys and board games. Carlos and I freeze: It’s the shelter all over again, only with families dragging their luggage up a set of stairs.
Rachel greets us in a narrow office crammed high with files and papers. She’s a heavyset woman, with gold-rimmed glasses that give her face a clear, direct look. Like all the adults, she’s kind, but harried. She hands Carlos a clipboard, forms to be filled out. Then she explains that since he’s here, she can start the paperwork for asylum in Canada. While he’s doing that, so many people stop in—one, a woman who’s carrying her baby in a sling on her back. She’s crying. “Isn’t there anything we can do?” she asks Rachel.
“I’m so sorry. You just have to wait.”
There’s an air of desperation, of people at a dead end. We’re not even the only teenagers on our own—two brothers in Guatemala flag T-shirts slump on a sofa, napping with their arms crossed. Rachel leads us from room to room—crammed offices, a cafeteria and meeting room, the laundry room where people fold their clothes into luggage, a dormitory where people sprawl limp on beds. I tuck my hand into Kamal’s as we follow Rachel down a hall to a small room.
She points to a bulletin board pinned with several sheets, and lists of names. “Every day they release the names of the people who can appear at the border crossing.”
“How many do they usually release?” Carlos asks.
“Two or three, maybe as much as five.”
“Five?” I exclaim, thinking of the rooms and rooms of people here. That woman with the baby is pacing the hall, head tilted, as she presses a cell phone to her ear.
“Since the policy has changed, there’s been a surge.”
We stare at the names, so many, in their neat rows. I remember what Ammi used to say to me before I left for school: Remember to ask questions, Rania. I wished I asked more of her, all these years.
“And how long could it take?”
Rachel hesitates. “Might be two or three months.”
Two or three months. Carlos looks crestfallen. We turn from the lists.
At lunch we’re very quiet. I can barely eat—it’s a thick pea soup that seems to clump in my stomach—and Carlos just sits, fiddling with his spoon. Rachel was nice enough to give Kamal a little plastic puzzle to occupy him and in between bites, he’s trying to get the tiny cars out of their traffic jam.
All good? Jayne texts.
I text a thumbs-up.
Drive back a.m. tomorrow, right?
I send a smiley face.
A guy in a wool hat pulled over his ears and sweatshirt sits down at our table. He has a wide toothy smile and big eyes. “You waiting to get across?”
“Like everyone,” Carlos says, and goes back to his soup.
“They tell you two or three months?”
We both nod.
“I’m Keku,” he says. “It means Wednesday and that’s today.”
No kidding. I’m in no mood to make new friends. But we introduce ourselves and he teases Kamal and then says to us, “There’s another way.”
We both look up. Keku is a few years older than us—maybe in his twenties. He explains how he’s been on the run for years. For a while he sold jewelry and hats on the streets of New York. The cops rarely bothered him about his stand, but he knew he had to get moving again, especially since he was turned down for asylum three times. He heard about this shelter, in Buffalo. Everyone says Canada seems like the only option.
“What’s the way?” Carlos asks.
“You can walk across. Not here. But another place.”
He pulls out his phone, puts on Google Maps, and zooms in to show us swaths of green and a snaking road. “You just drive to Plattsburgh and then take a taxi. They know where to drop you off. Then you walk across. There are guards there, they arrest you, but you can apply for asylum.”
“Is that what you’re doing?”
He shrugs. “Miss Rachel says for me it’s only a matter of a week or so. I figure if it doesn’t happen, I’ll do this.” He adds, “But don’t tell her I showed you this. They don’t do it that way here. They say it’s not safe.”
Grinning, he stands, stretching his arm over his head. “But who knows?”
After he leaves, we fall quiet again but for the click-click of Kamal’s puzzle. Carlos is fingering his backpack. He hasn’t even put his belongings down in the bunk that was assigned to him. I’m calculating, checking Navigator. Six more hours to Plattsburgh.
“What do you think?” I ask.
I can feel his answer.
Morning mist drifts up from the asphalt yard. The clothes hung over the fence have all been brought in. The corridors are dead quiet. We sneak from our bunks, don’t take breakfast. Kamal grumbles, but we managed to fit him into the back seat, still in his pajamas. I figure I’ve got a few hours before Jayne will notice that I turned off my phone. We’re on the highway, headed west.
Rochester.
Syracuse.
Utica.
Then we’re plunged into forest, shimmering lakes lined with spears of blue-green spruce. How is it that they can’t find room for us? There’s so much space here. We’re nearing midday and we stop to eat sandwiches at a picnic bench in a rest area.
“Should we check our phones?” Carlos asks.
I stare down at mine. If I turn it on, they can trace where we are. There will be angry messages. We tricked them. Again.
“No.”
“You sure?”
I nod.
He doesn’t push it. We eat in silence, except to call out the car licenses we see. “Nebraska!” Kamal shouts.
“Wyoming,” Carlos points out, as if to top him.
“Whoever gets Alaska wins the prize,” I say.
“What’s that?” Carlos asks. The only thing I want, the only thing we all want, we can’t have. “A Reese’s cup,” I say. Lame.
Once we reach Plattsburgh, we stop and stretch our legs. It’s right on the shimmering expanse of Lake Champlain, and I sense that Kamal, who is staring through the window, is remembering our time on the Cape. So we get ourselves ice cream and then walk for a little while, me and Carlos holding hands, Kamal skipping ahead, as if we’re just anyone taking a vacation. We stop at a bench, while Kamal squats at the lake’s edge, absorbed in digging a hole with a stick.
“You don’t have to be so overprotective of Kamal,” Carlos says. “He’s stronger than you think.”
I nod. “He grew up a lot these last weeks.”
Carlos gets up and walks to the water’s edge. I join him. He picks up a flat rock and slants it on the water. Only one bounce. I try too, swiveling my wrist, and I get one jump.
“Make a wish,” Carlos says. He drops another stone in my palm.
“You first,” I tease.
“Nope.”
I take a breath, then hurl the stone, not caring if it skips. “That you’ll come back for me.”
Even as I say it, I know it’s impossible. Since he’s undocumented and in the system, Carlos won’t be allowed into the US for a long time. Am I even staying? Then I think, it doesn’t matter. Everything impossible for us and still we did it—we stayed together. As long as we could.
“My turn,” he says. He shoots his rock. Two bounces. “You have to keep remembering. To help your mother with your story. For immigration.”
“But it’s hard!”
“Paciencia.”
“Not my strong suit.”
“And you have to speak to your family in Pakistan.”
“Not fair!” I cry.
He makes a face. “Who said wishes are fair?”
I twist away. “I don’t want to ever talk to them.”
“Rania, my aunt, she did everything she could. It wasn’t her fault.” He looks at me, straight on. “Make your family fight for you. For your mother.”
Scraps of laughter, parents calling to their kids, scatter around us. The water softens everything, even our sadness. We stretch our arms over our heads. All of a sudden Carlos reaches for me and hugs me, tight. He never does that. I can feel him shaking.
“Thanks,” he mumbles, the sound buried in my neck.
“But I didn’t do anything! I didn’t save you!”
“No. You did something better.”
“What?”
“You let me in.” He gives me a soft squeeze. “More, it’s like you banged on my door and—”
“Pushed my way in,” I finish.
“It’s just—” He looks away. “I never let someone help me before.”
“Me neither,” I say softly.
We turn hushed as we drive the last leg from Plattsburgh. Down a local road, then a left, a right turn. A cluster of vans loom ahead—taxis, I realize—letting people out. All kinds of people—families, dragging their roller luggage; four tall guys with backpacks. They all seem to be headed down a narrow grassy path. Just beyond, there’s a makeshift concrete barrier, where a woman in a uniform stands. Beyond that, some white tents, the kind you see at street fairs.
A confused couple stagger toward us; I can hear snatches of Urdu. The wife’s crinkled shalwar sticks between her knees. The husband asks, “This is the border?”
“Yes, right here,” I say in Urdu, pointing.
The woman’s face breaks open in relief. “Thank you, beta.” She starts to pull her luggage but her arms tremble as her luggage bumps into the dirt path. “You are coming?” she asks. I shake my head.
The Canadian border guard is calling to the couple. “Do you have a valid visa?” The couple tell her no. “You do understand if you cross here, you will be arrested?”
The man answers, “But, madam, where else can we go?”
The guard looks like she’s been doing this for hours, hearing the same thing. The couple move past her, their luggage twisting and banging on bumpy roots, until they are under the white tent.
Carlos is crouching in front of Kamal. We’ve told him that Carlos would have to go, without us. Now it hits him. Kamal is blinking, hard.
“Okay, mi amor. I won’t see you for a while.”
Kamal scrunches his face, tight with a frown. “No!”
“I’m so sorry.” Carlos’s voice is rough, low. He throws his arm around Kamal, rests his cheek on top of my brother’s head, as if breathing him in. I feel as if I’m splitting in two. Carlos is losing so much more. Kamal, me. He turns, and I’m seeing him as I don’t want to see him: all alone.
He pulls me, deep, into his arms. I smell and feel all of him. His fingers loosen my curls. “I always liked your hair,” he says with a quiet laugh. “It never stays where it’s supposed to be. Like you.”
“Very funny,” I reply, but my voice is muffled in his collar.
There’s just us two, our bodies fierce against each other.
“I better go,” he whispers.
When he pulls back, too much air swims between us.
He reaches down for the duffel, hikes his backpack onto his shoulder. He checks his wallet—inside are what’s left of his earnings and a little more, from the summer. Then he shifts toward the edge of the road, joining the stream of people who are inching their way to the path. That poor border guard is shouting the same thing all over again—Do you realize—Carlos takes his place behind the others. I think about how many times he’s done this: become a number, a thing, on a line. He’s turning himself hard, protected, to get across.
Be safe, I think.
The line edges forward. Carlos twists around and gives a big wave. Then he turns to the border guard, tells her yes, he completely understands what he’s doing, and moves past her. Last I see of Carlos is his beige sketch pad, sticking jauntily out of his backpack.
In the taxi area, as I’m settling Kamal into his booster seat, one of the drivers says to me, “You wanna make money? There’s a ton more waiting at the bus station.”
“No thanks.”
He flings his cigarette down on the ground. “Your loss.” Heaving the door shut, he climbs into the driver’s seat and rumbles away.
Kamal asks, “Where are we going?”
I feel him kicking the back of the front seat. But I’m crying so hard it’s all I can do to steer the car back down the road, as if through a blurred rainstorm.
“I don’t know,” I sob.