Only three weeks after I’d been left at Mr. Brodsky’s house, I heard someone ring the bell at the front door. My first thought was that the social worker had come to take me to another foster home. Every day I dreaded this.
I was alone in the basement doing the laundry. This was a chore that Mr. Brodsky had given me, as he liked everyone who stayed at his house to help out with something.
I liked to sit in the warm basement and look into the round porthole window of the washing machine. There in the ocean of blue Tide and water I’d watch my clothes mix with Leo’s clothes through the wash and rinse and spin cycles. When I moved the clothes to the dryer, I’d never untie my blouses that were knotted up with his shirts. I always folded his clothes with care, even pressing them with my hands, so at least there would be devotion in the clothes that held his body.
I walked upstairs and opened the front door.
It was Corazón.
She opened her arms and took me into her and held me tight as if I were her own lost child.
She said, Mi niña, my poor child, my baby girl.
But I pushed away from her, because I was not hers and I knew I wasn’t belonging to anyone. There was no comfort beyond warm clothes. People feeling sorry for me was going to make me feel like spitting.
I closed the front door and led her into the kitchen.
How did you find me? I asked as she sat down on one of the chairs that circled the round breakfast table.
Corazón was all made up, as always. She even had her false eyelashes on. Her long, fake fingernails were painted red and had a perfect white dot painted in the middle of each nail. Her black hair was streaked with blond and she was wearing light-pink lipstick.
Corazón said, Mi niña, I came to get you away from this horrible place. This house, she’s not for you.
How did you find me?
Muñeca, let’s go and see Selena’s grave. We have to go and take her some flowers. They killed your mama just like they killed Selena. Don’t tell me this is a coincidence.
Corazón reached for my hand across the table to hold it in hers, but I pulled away and placed my hands in the pockets of my jeans. Just because my mother was dead, it didn’t mean I needed my hand held to cross the street.
Corazón leaned back in her chair and looked at me as if she were fitting me for a dress. The ribbon of measuring tape was in her eyes.
She said, Pearl, it’s gun love. That’s what the man felt for your mother. He bought that gun and didn’t even know it was for her until he saw her. So you must think of it as a sacrifice. Life is always on the edge of death. It was a good day to die. God knows: I would hear and would be heard, I would be wounded and I would wound, I would be saved and I would save. I have the bus tickets to Texas. We’re going to Corpus Christi and we’re taking some flowers for Selena’s grave. You’re coming.
Yes, I said.
I knew you would never say no to this.
As she was speaking, I knew I’d rather run off with her than be taken off to some other foster-care home. It was only a matter of days. I wasn’t going to become Helen or Leo and march in a band for somebody.
I looked at Corazón and I saw my escape road away from a daisy chain of foster homes.
The Risk Star was shining bright above the foster home.
Where’s Ray? I asked.
That stupid Ray. He disappeared. He’s so lazy. He’s so damn lazy, when he goes to pick the oranges, we will already be drinking the juice. You know! And Eli and Pastor Rex—those two rats—they got out of there before your mother was even taken away. She was still warm, almost alive, you could say. Well, like a rose is alive in a vase. Not really.
How did you find me?
Listen, Pearlita, I always say: if Ray dies tonight, I’ll take my time getting there to say goodbye to him. Let him wait for my tears!
How did you find me?
Noelle told me. Your social worker told her mama where you’d be for the next few weeks in case someone showed up looking for you, like an aunt or cousin.
Where are you staying? I asked.
I’ve spent these last nights, all weekend, sleeping in that estúpido little playhouse in the garden and eating tuna fish. That man never left the house so I could go and see you.
I was quiet for a minute. I looked at Corazón and knew everything she said was true. She was not going to give me away to the United States of America fate. She was betting on Mexican love.
Maybe it’s better than living in a car, I said, and smiled.
I don’t know how you and Margot survived that. Well, I guess she didn’t.
Corazón told me that everyone at the trailer park was still there except for Pastor Rex and Eli. She said that on the day my mother had been killed both men had disappeared and had not returned.
Pastor Rex? I asked. Why did he leave?
And Corazón explained it all.
Pastor Rex, well, who knows if he’s even a pastor, she said. I do doubt it. He, Eli, and Ray have worked for years in the south of Texas and Florida getting guns to sell in Mexico.
I wasn’t surprised, because there was no surprise left in me. I’d used it up.
She also told me that only two days after I left, our car had been hauled away from the visitors’ parking area.
It was so fast, Corazón said. It was suddenly gone.
I wonder where they took it.
After the car was taken, everyone was there, walking around where your car had been parked, Corazón said. I found a complete roll of Life Savers there. I didn’t pick them up as they’d probably been there for ten years.
She made me laugh.
There was also a bullet there, under the car in the grass, Corazón said. I didn’t pick that up either.
I knew that was the bullet, which my mother and I had looked for. It was the bullet that had left a clean hole in the car with a dark ring of residue.
When I thought of our car being towed away, I remembered sleeping in the backseat with my mother while Mr. Don’t Come Back slept in my place. He’d been the only person who’d shared that car with us and knew what it was like to like to sleep in the dark Mercury with the taste of Raid on one’s mouth. My mother and I didn’t know we’d invited our fate in to receive our homeless hospitality.
And that Sergeant Bob, Corazón continued, he said people get killed all the time and that it’s just not news. And all he was saying is that your mama was the albatross. That bird.
And what did April May say?
I don’t remember. Noelle said she’d seen everything, but she didn’t tell that to the police. Mrs. Roberta didn’t want that loca Noelle talking to policemen, as she’d get her story all mixed up. That Noelle said midnight is knocking.
When Corazón came, I didn’t hesitate to say yes. I was leaving. But first I needed to do something. I told her we’d leave in two days.
It’s going to be so special to see Selena’s grave. It will be almost like being with her, Corazón said.
Corazón knew everything about the story. She knew Yolanda Saldívar, Selena’s manager and her killer, always claimed that the gun accidentally went off. Corazón had read this was impossible, as the .38-caliber revolver required eleven pounds of pressure on the trigger to fire.
That kind of pressure is no accident, Corazón said.
When I spent time with Corazón in her trailer cleaning the guns, Corazón said, On March thirtieth, 2025, when Yolanda gets out of jail, I’m going to be there. I will be there standing at that prison gate.
What are you going to say to her? I asked.
I don’t know yet. I’m figuring it out.
You’re not going to kill her?
I won’t have to, niña. Someone else will take care of that job.
Maybe I’ll just ask her why the hell she just didn’t slap Selena across the face like a good Latina. Why did she have to kill her? Who kills a nightingale? I want to hear her answer to that.
You must be hungry. What do you want for breakfast? I asked.
She’s a beautiful kitchen, Corazón said, and stood up and caressed the black-and-white marble counters. Then she opened up one of the cupboards and looked inside.
Look at all this chocolate and boxes of cookies, she said. I want to eat everything in here.
I helped her around the kitchen and watched her cook up some scrambled eggs. I prepared her a glass of orange juice from freshly squeezed oranges.
I’m going to bathe too, she said. I haven’t bathed in days. There’s no shower in that playhouse.
Yes, of course, I said. I’ll get you some clean towels.
If you’re raised up in a car you’ll give anyone the chance to have a shower.
This house smells like orange flowers, Corazón said. Did you notice that?
No, I said.
Well, it does. Someone sprinkles orange flower water all over the place.
After she’d finished eating breakfast, I took her to my room and then she had a long shower.
While she was bathing I took the gun out from under my pillow, where it had been since the day I’d arrived, and placed it in one of the dresser drawers.
When Corazón got out of the shower she lay on the bed wrapped in the large, white towel and fell asleep.
I sat in the chair at the window and looked at Corazón’s kind face.
She’d saved me from the girl-without-a-friend loneliness of the empty trailer full of guns, and now Corazón was going to save me from being in the we-don’t-want-you-here foster-child life.
When Corazón woke up and opened her big brown eyes, she sat up straight and patted the bed with the palm of her hand and said, Come sit next to me.
I stood up and sat next to her and she wrapped her arms around me. She caressed my hair and kissed my cheek and forehead. She rocked me back and forth in her rocking-chair body. I let her treat me like a doll.
Do you have a cigarette there for me? she asked.
Of course, I said.
We sat, side by side, with the covers over our legs, smoking the cigarettes.
You know you’re not supposed to smoke in bed, Corazón said.
Yes, I know.
Well, just as long as you know you’re not supposed to, then you can do it. It’s like I know I’m not supposed to eat a lot of sugar. Well, I know I shouldn’t do it and then I do it. Does a doctor really think you’re not going to eat ice cream? That’s so ridiculous, it’s ridiculous.
Corazón, I said. My mother is buried out there in the garden. She’s in a box under the magnolia tree. What do you think?
It’s the perfect place. Your mother would have loved this house.
Yes, I said. But I’m not sure about being buried in a place you don’t know.
Well, it happens all the time because you’re never really in charge of what happens to your body—not even when you’re alive.
Corazón wanted to leave and get on the road as soon as possible. We were going to take the Greyhound bus all the way to Texas. She had it all planned out.
I needed two days to do everything. It was Monday. I told her we’d leave on Thursday. She could spend the afternoons, when Mr. Brodsky was home, in the playhouse. I’d give her some cookies and apples. I promised I would sneak her in at night so she could sleep in my bed with me.
I want you to meet Helen and Leo, I said.
Oh no. They’ll tell. They’ll tell that man that you’re leaving with me.
No, I said. Foster children never rat on anyone. That’s the golden foster-child rule.
Are you sure?
Yes. Leo told me. He said the first thing foster children learn to say is, I didn’t see a thing.
On Monday night, after everyone had gone to sleep, I went downstairs, opened the front door, and ran out into the garden. I walked past my mother’s grave. Around me was the sound of crickets and a soft humming sound of other insects.
When I reached the playhouse, Corazón opened the small door and stepped out. I took her hand and we walked back to the house and up to my room.
We lay in bed in the dark and listened to the sounds outside and inside and the sound of each other breathing.
How do you feel? Are you okay? Corazón asked.
I cannot find the words.
I’m not in a hurry. Look for the words.
I slipped out of the bed and opened the curtains and then the window. A cold night breeze blew into the smoky room. I looked down at the garden and at the place my mother’s ashes were buried. A cloud of fireflies lit up the garden with tiny flashes everywhere.
I left the window open and got back into bed.
After a while Corazón whispered, Do you think this señor here has some money we could take? We could use some more money.
I don’t know, I whispered back. Leave it to me. After Mr. Brodsky and Leo and Helen leave tomorrow morning, I’ll check around.
Okay, buenas noches.
Corazón?
Yes? What is it?
What do you think happened to my mother?
What do you mean?
How did all this happen to us?
What?
My mother never should have let Eli come into our car. She should’ve rolled up the window.
Your mother wanted to be rescued, Corazón said. She had no family, no house, no roof. How can anyone live in a car for all those years? She was a lonely woman. That man just walked into her and sat down.
Yes, I said. I do know what happened. She wanted every day to be a Sunday. That’s a song. She wanted a Sunday kind of love.