CHAPTER 40
The world stops. Nothing makes sense. It’s a dream.
This woman has dark hair and long blond bangs that almost cover one eye. She wears stylish knockoff jeans, a striped blouse with fancy buttons set diagonally across the front, and a light jacket. She rushes forward with open arms, which he evades.
No touching.
“You don’t seem happy to see me,” María Dolores says, stopping half a meter away.
Santiago blinks. Happy? Yes, he’s pleased she’s not la malvada or any other blood relative. But full happiness? That’ll take a while. Maybe once he can move again. “Of course I’m glad you’re here. Just surprised.” And confused, and a million other emotions he doesn’t understand.
She crouches on the floor until she spots the lava stone he dropped. She flips it over, caressing its smooth edges. “I can’t believe you kept my stone through everything.”
“They only just returned it to me.” No point saying he’d forgotten about it until a moment ago.
“Do you want to keep holding on to it for me?” she asks, her hand outstretched with it in her palm.
“Not really.”
Her large eyes widen as if he slapped her.
“García, do you know this woman?” The same female guard who took his name and fingerprints when he arrived steps out from behind the desk. This is too much. Now the guards are sympathetic and cautious?
“Yes,” he says, and because the guard continues to wait, he adds, “She’s María Dolores Piedra Reyes.”
“What’s her relationship to you?” the guard asks.
He looks into María Dolores’s wide, dark eyes. They remind him so much of Alegría’s. Consuelo was wrong, though; he doesn’t have their eyes. He turns his gaze back to the guard before answering the question. “She’s my sister.”
The guard’s own eyes shift between the two of them. “Are you afraid of leaving with her?”
Afraid? He’s more than a head taller than her. And after six months in a youth immigration detention center among teenage boys, he can, more than ever, take care of himself. But would his response really affect his release? If la malvada had come, could he have refused to leave with her? He wouldn’t have thought so.
“I’m not scared, just surprised. It’s fine, we’re good. I can go?”
“You’re free.”
He and María Dolores remain glued to their spots a few seconds longer before their feet pry themselves from the floor, and they head out the glass front doors. He lifts his feet carefully to compensate for his curled toes and missing laces. Once outside, the spring air bites into his bare arms. Neither says anything as they head to an old blue car parked near the ominous white bus.
As he passes the bus, he gives it a hard stare. I win.
Then a blur of black pigtails and wide, bright eyes crashes into him.
“Santi!”
He catches Alegría in his arms and holds her tight as she locks her feet around his waist. His nose buries into her fruity-smelling hair; different, but nice. She’s here; she’s all right. How he missed her. His eyes begin to sting. No, he can’t. Not here, not now.
He eases his grip to let her go, but she holds on tight with her legs and keeps her arms around his neck. She leans out to gaze at him.
“You look different, Santi,” she says.
The sound of her nickname for him gives him a twinge. After months of cringing every time someone said that name, it now makes his eyes sting again.
“Your hair is long enough to make pigtails,” she continues.
“Yeah, I guess.” Okay, a small smile won’t kill him. He runs the free hand through his thick wavy hair he’d allowed to grow out. The facility brought in a barber every so often, but Santiago always refused. After his tíos shaved his head, having long hair felt like a rebellion and one of the few things he could control.
“Did you get my drawing?”
Her family portrait Consuelo delivered. The one he threw away when he thought they’d abandoned him, then instantly regretted. Darn eyes, he must have allergies. “It was beautiful.”
“And guess what? Princesa came back. She was just looking after Mami. She’s okay now.”
From the driver’s side of the car, another woman emerges. Plump with black hair pulled into a short ponytail; wide, near-black eyes; and a huge smile. If he had seen her first, he would have mistaken her for her sister. “Hi, I’m María Eugenia, your other sister.”
He accepts her traditional kiss in greeting. “Thank you for driving out to get me.”
“Of course. So great to finally meet you.” María Eugenia gestures to the car. “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got a tray of enchiladas suizas that needs to go in the oven.”
¡Qué delicia! María Dolores mouths. Santiago says nothing.
He sits in the back seat with Alegría while the women sit in the front. Alegría slips her hand into his as they drive through the open gates of the facility. Once clear, he lets out a huge breath. Last time he tried to get through, the gates slammed in his face. For better or worse, the center became his home, a place where he knew the routine, knew what to expect. If anything, he’ll miss that.
The landscape remains the same parched tan-brown he remembers from their trek, with no signs of other buildings or roads. In the far distance, a long range of rolling foothills peak into mountains. If those are part of the same mountain range they crossed, he can’t imagine how they made it as far as they did.
Signs of civilization start cropping up with other cars and wider roads, while cattle graze on either side of the highway. A half hour later they stop in a small town with nothing more than a dozen buildings, pulling into a gas station.
“Maji,” María Dolores tells her sister as they all get out of the car. “Can you take Alegría to the bathroom while I fill up?”
“But I don’t need to go,” Alegría protests.
María Dolores shakes her head. “I want you to try anyway.”
“Can Santi come with us?”
“No, mamita, I need him for something here,” she says.
María Eugenia grabs Alegría’s hand. “After we pee, we’ll get some snacks.”
María Dolores places the nozzle into the tank before turning to Santiago with her hands on her hips. “Talk to me. What is your problem?”
Under the shade next to the pumps, the temperature drops. Santiago tries to shove his hands into his pockets, but they don’t fit. He folds his arms across his chest and leans against the car. He doesn’t want to hear it. He scuffs his too-small shoe against the pavement. “Nothing.”
Pointing a finger at his face, she forces him to make eye contact. “I told you once before, I don’t appreciate people lying to me.”
They stare at each other for a few seconds until Santiago’s shoulders slump and his eyes drop.
“I thought you were dead,” he whispers. “When they took you away.”
“I almost was.” She nods. “Another hour and I would have been. They kept me in the intensive care unit for three days.”
Now his voice hardens as he crosses his arms tighter. “But they didn’t detain you? They took Alegría away from me. I worried she’d died too. I stole food for a guy to get information about her. He said she’d left with her family. How did you manage that?”
María Dolores sighs. “My brother-in-law’s friend is a pastor who runs a church refuge. He made the arrangements so I wouldn’t be detained and helped get Alegría out as well. We still have court dates, though. Who knows if they’ll grant us the asylum we requested.”
“But you didn’t come for me.” He kicks the car tire with the sole of his foot before remembering his curled-under toes. Pain inside, pain outside. “I wrote millions of letters to get into foster care. I filled out applications so I wouldn’t have to live behind a fence topped with razor wire. I helped the obnoxious guards. I saved your life, and your daughter’s, and you forgot all about me.”
“Of course I didn’t forget about you.” She throws her arms up in the air. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Six months later!”
“That’s how long it took to get a copy of your birth certificate. They wouldn’t release you to me unless I could prove we were related.”
All defenses drop. His voice returns to a whisper. “You got my birth certificate?”
María Dolores reaches in through the open car window and extracts a clear plastic folder with a piece of paper inside. The Mexican seal on the left, Chihuahuan seal on the right. Below the two seals, he reads the words:
ACTA DE NACIMIENTO
NOMBRES: Santiago García Reyes
“It says my birthday is the twenty-third of March?” No one ever bothered telling him that.
María Dolores smiles a little. “Which is in a few days. Alegría wants to throw you a unicorn party.”
He keeps on reading.
NOMBRE DEL PADRE: Juan García García
A name so common that it could be almost anyone.
NOMBRE DE LA MADRE: Sofinda Reyes de la Luz
Here, in his hands, is proof that Mami really existed, and that she had been his mamá.
“How did you manage to get this?” His eyes refuse to leave the paper, taking in every detail. His time of birth is 14:16; his mother had been twenty years old when she had him.
“Trust me, it wasn’t easy.” María Dolores moves closer to him. “Six months of phone calls and letters, getting archives of Chihuahuan newspapers in search of birth announcements, filing paperwork, a few bribes to the right people. Every time I got close, something else would set me back. Luckily, I don’t give up easily.”
The gas pump pops to indicate a full tank, but neither removes it.
He can’t believe it. That she went through all of that. For him. “I wish I’d known.”
She turns in surprise to look at him. “But I wrote about this in the letters. Almost every week. I thought maybe you didn’t know how to read but figured someone could read them to you.”
“I can read now, but I never got any letters. None of us did.”
“Oh, that explains so much.” She places a hand on his arm. This time he doesn’t flinch or shake it off. “But even when you thought we’d forgotten you, you still told them we were your sisters. Me and Alegría. La guardia had that on file. Knew who I was when I showed my identification.”
Yes, he did say that. “I tried to exclude that information, but the word hermanas kept coming out.”
“You saved our lives. I could never stop thinking about you as my hermano. No matter what happens, we’re in this together.”
Her words make him smile like never before. “Thank you, my sister.”
She throws her arms around him in a tight hug, standing on her toes in order to reach. He lets her, doesn’t pull away. More comfort, more security. Now if asked, he remembers what happy feels like.
“Damn you for growing so tall,” she says, finally easing herself away and fussing over the wet spot she left on his shirt. “And you’re still way too skinny. But why is your shirt inside out?”
He laughs. How long since he did that? “Doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Santi, guess what!” Alegría bounces out of the convenience store. “They have raspberry ice creams. Do you want one?”
“Of course.” Even with the chill, how can he say no? He turns to María Dolores. “Can I buy her one? Is twenty dollars enough?”
“Should be enough to buy several.”
“¿Cuatro?”
She grins. “Probably. But can I have a chocolate one instead?”
“Anything you want.” He swoops down for Alegría and swings her up to sit on his shoulders.
“Again, again!” she screeches, but he holds on tight to her ankles, not wanting to let her go, and turns to the other sister instead.
“María Eugenia, what kind of ice cream do you like?”
“Chocolate, of course.”
He reminds Alegría to duck as they enter through the doorway of the convenience store. The variety in the ice cream chest is unbelievable. Someday, when he can read the different English flavors, he’ll try them all.
Next to the ice cream chest, a rickety rack holds postcards showing the beauty and diversity beyond the dry, harsh New Mexican desert. If two raspberry ice creams cost $3.50 apiece, and the two chocolate ones are $3.99 each, he still has plenty to get some postcards at $0.99. One to send to Don José in Capaz, because he promised. Another for Consuelo from both him and Alegría. And one to write to Señor Dante. Because, thanks to him, he can.
Back in the car, ice creams long gone (though Alegría still sports a handsome red mustache), a loud thundercloud rumbles in the distance. Alegría leans as close to Santiago as her seat belt allows.
“I don’t like thunder, Santi,” she says.
“Can I tell you a story?” he asks. Alegría nods against his shoulder.
His fingers absently run through her thick pigtails. “When I was your age, I was scared of thunder too. Until my mami said that thunder is like a drum, announcing the arrival of rain. Rain is what makes things grow and also washes away what isn’t wanted, leaving a fresh start.”
“But why do the thunder and rain have to be so loud?” Alegría asks.
“Because it’s a party, a celebration. Mami and I used to sing and dance in the rain. She said it honored the rain to feel the drops on our skin instead of hiding from it. When we embrace the rain, she said, we’re free.”
Alegría snuggles closer. “Can we do that too? Dance in the rain?”
Santiago’s hand drops from her pigtails. As much as he tries to stop them, memories prey on his heart: His tía criticizing him for letting her kids play in the mud, and la malvada insulting him and his mami; the one time in the center where he got soaked to the core and almost died.
No, he won’t let those thoughts ruin things. Not anymore. “I’d like that. Dancing together will be a tremenda fiesta.” Santiago kisses the top of Alegría’s head. “If your mami says it’s okay. And if there’s a way to get dry and warm afterward.”
María Dolores turns around from the front seat and grabs Santiago’s hand, giving it a squeeze. “Of course, to all of that. But only if I can party in the rain with ustedes.”
“Me too!” María Eugenia says from the driver seat.
Another clap of thunder rattles the car. This time, Alegría sits up. “Do you think it’ll rain when we get home?”
Santiago gazes out the window. The sun behind the thunderclouds has caused them to turn brilliant shades of purple and pink.
Home, a future he’s never known.
“Yes, creo que sí.”