She stifled a yawn. “Por favor, Liliana. Vaya. What is it?”
“Okay.” I went for it. “Can I stay after school tomorrow… for a game?”
“No.”
“Mom! You didn’t even ask about what game or how long it is and if there is an after-school bus. Which there is, by the way.”
She began opening and closing her fists. This is what she did when she felt stressed—she must have read about it in one of her magazines.
“Liliana. I can’t be worrying about where you are. Just… just go to school and come home. Please.” Yup. Just like I figured. “I’ve got enough to worry about with your father in—” She stopped short. In? IN? Wait, wait, wait—did she know where Dad was?
“In where? Where is Dad?” I blurted out. She knew! I could tell!
Mom, suddenly pale, reached for the table as if to steady herself, then plopped into a chair.
“Mom?” I said, sitting beside her. “Just tell me.”
She looked at me so long, if I’d had a timer, it would have been a straight minute. It really would’ve.
Finally she took a deep breath. “Bueno…” She nodded, as if to convince herself it was okay to say more. “Your father… he’s in Guatemala.”
I sat stiller than still. Guatemala? Guatemala? What was he doing there? But I didn’t utter a syllable and risk her clamming up.
“Because… well. At first, and I’m sorry to say this, but I thought he was with another woman. There have been times, Liliana, when part of me wished that were actually the case.”
Whaaa? “Mom!”
Mom held up a hand. “Escucha. He got into some trouble. He didn’t do anything wrong! This you have to believe.” She lowered her hand. “At first, though, even I really thought he had done it.”
I grasped her arm. I was trying not to freak. “Done what? What are you talking about? And why didn’t you tell me before!”
“Oye. So, he and some of his friends went to a bar one night after work, and then they stopped for burgers at Wendy’s. No big deal, right? Then some old guy started in on them. Calling them spics and other stuff, telling them their days were numbered. One of your father’s friends got mad. He—maybe he’d had too much to drink, I don’t know. But he started pounding on the old man. The manager called the police.” Mom paused to inspect a worn spot on one of the place mats. She rubbed a finger over it, frowning, then went on.
“Once the police arrived, things got worse. Your father’s friend really got into it with one of the cops. Your father stepped in. How could he not? But then the old man started hitting your father!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I wanted her to stop.
I didn’t want her to stop.
“Anyway, de verdad, this is all on video, so they know it was self-defense, but they didn’t care.” She wiped at her nose with her robe sleeve.
“But, Mom, I don’t get it. What does this have to do with him being in Guatemala?”
She closed her fists, opened her fists, closed her fists, nodded, then whispered, “Liliana… your father was deported.”
I gaped at her. “What! But he can’t be deported. How can he be deported? He’s a US citizen! Right? Right!” I wasn’t hearing correctly. I couldn’t be hearing correctly. Could I be hearing correctly? But then I saw. Mom looked scared. For real. No, no, no.
Then she said it. “No, Liliana. He isn’t.”
I slumped back in my chair. Oh my God, what did this mean? Were… were… I had to ask. “Is he— Are you… undocumented?”
Mom plucked a napkin off the table and pressed her face into it. I couldn’t even do that. Honestly, I felt paralyzed, like someone had just covered me in cement. My father… my mother… my parents—they were undocumented. I had no idea what to say. And now Mom was sobbing.
I don’t know how long we sat there, Mom crying into the napkin and me just staring at the wall. The room felt like it was closing in. I brought my hand to my chest. Breathing? Okay. I was still breathing.
And as I sat there, so many images, so many pieces of the past that I never quite understood, came into focus, and suddenly made sense.
Like the time when I was eight and we got separated by a crowd at the South Shore mall. After she found me, Mom grabbed my shoulders, shook me hard, and told me that if anything should ever happen, I should call—not her, not Dad, but my Tía Carmen in Lynn.
And the time at a New Year’s party at some friend of Dad’s in Everett. Someone shouted that an immigration cop was on his way up the stairs, and everyone ran out the back door. Dad held my hand so tight, I thought it was going to snap off. We never stepped foot in Everett again.
Oh my God. Mom’s obsession with paperwork and envelopes and bills and filing… and her freak-out just the other day when she couldn’t find some letters! No wonder she was always a minute away from a nervous breakdown.
And… oh! Ohhhhh. Her inability to get a real job.
It all made sense now. Oh man.
* * *
After Mom went to bed, I texted Jade. No answer. I knocked on the window three times. Nothing. C’mon, Jade, where are you? I mean, holy shit. My father was deported. My father was deported. My father was deported. Was he coming back? Could he come back? What if he never came back? Would we have to move to Guatemala? Gahhh! My brain was in overdrive. No. Dad would find a way back to us. But would he have to hire a coyote? The first time I ever heard this word, I thought it was a reference to an actual coyote, as in the animal, but I’d since learned that in this case “coyote” refers to a person you pay mad money to sneak you across the US border.
My purple notebook stared at me, practically begging me to open it. Funny. On the bus home I’d been imagining writing all about Dustin.… Yeah, some people fantasized over the dessert they were going to eat later on; I fantasized over what I’d write about. But now Dustin seemed a million days ago. I picked the notebook up, put it down, picked it up again, and wrote Today. I wrote Today. I wrote Today like seventy-five times all on top of each other until I tore a hole right through the page. Plus my hands were doing this old-person-shaking thing. Dang it. Where was Jade? Her grandmother never let her stay out this late. I paced the room. My father had been deported. My father had been deported. Okay. It had never occurred to me that my parents weren’t citizens. I mean, why would it? And where was Dad staying, anyway? Was he getting food? Was he scared? Was he with family there, or did he have to like, hide? I had no idea. And how did they even actually deport you, anyway? March you to an airplane going to the country you came from, and push you on? Are you handcuffed? Oh my God! Thank God Jade finally replied to my text.
Me: can u come over NOW
Jade: k…
I raced to the bottom of the stairs so Mom wouldn’t hear the buzzer. “You okay, girl?” Jade asked as I swung open the building door. Then she gave me a hug.
I held on to her. She smelled like Ernesto’s cologne.
“Not really.”
Jade stepped back, really looked at me. “Liliana, what’s going on?” She wore summer on her body, a jean skirt and a peach halter top, hadn’t even taken the time to put on a jacket; it dangled in her hand.
“Nothing good. Come on up. I’ll tell you everything,” I whispered.
“Yo, I can’t. My grandmother will flip if I’m not back in five minutes. Spill!”
I looked up the stairwell, then leaned in close. “So… my father… he’s been gone for a minute because… he was actually deported.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “No.…”
“Yes. He got sent back to Guatemala.” Now I bit hard on my bottom lip because an ugly cry was coming.
“Shit—your dad?”
“I know.”
“You for real?”
“Yes, yo.”
An ambulance siren blared in the distance. Jade put on her jacket and crossed her arms. “That fucking sucks, yo.”
We talked for a few more minutes, but I don’t remember
what we actually said. All I remember is that I felt a little better. Jade hugged me one more time before she left. As I looked out into the dark street, my head felt fuzzy. I prayed that Dad was okay wherever he was now. A streetlight flickered, then burned out. I must have stared at this street a thousand times, but that night it looked darker than all those other thousand nights stitched together. Yeah, pretty ironic.
Dad, he was never scared of the dark. He said you needed dark so that light could be light. One was nothing without the other. The hard times, he said, made you stronger. And, you know how you hear that stuff, and it all feels totally cliché? But then when you need it, it’s weird, yeah, I know, but it kinda helps. Still, I pictured Dad kicking a pebble down some lonely road somewhere thousands of miles away from our home. I sent him a hug in my mind, told him to keep going. And you know what? I kinda didn’t need to actually talk to him to know what he’d say to me. He’d tell me to keep going. He would tell me to stay focused, give METCO a shot, dig in my heels at Westburg. You do you, Dad would have told me. So that’s what I decided to do. No matter what.
8
With my new You Do You attitude holding my Where Is Dad Now panic attacks at bay, I admit I was psyched to see it was C day on the school calendar. This meant I had a double block for my English elective, Creative Writing. On my way into the classroom, I spotted Dorito Girl and another METCO girl—named Ivy, I think—clustered in front of the lockers. Ivy looked up and sort of smiled, but then Dorito Girl pulled her elbow and they were off. Fine, then. Maybe I’d make them villains in a story. For real, it would be great to roll up my sleeves and write. Except, no lie, Mrs. Grew didn’t exactly send out the creative vibes. At least not to me.
As I slid into a seat, I did a double take. Rayshawn was there, in the far back corner. Huh. I would have guessed he’d pick weight lifting or study hall—seemed more his thing. But there he was, in his navy-blue hoodie and basketball shorts. Different earring. His eyes were closed.
Mrs. Grew was telling everyone to settle down. Ha. Rayshawn couldn’t have been more settled. Then she told us to take out some paper as she scribbled on the board. I couldn’t resist peeking back at Rayshawn. He was pulling out a thin notebook and a pen missing its cap from his backpack. His earring caught the light coming in from the window and sparkled, but he looked totally beat. I turned back to the board.
Describe one of your worst fears and a time you overcame it. Show. Don’t tell.
“You have thirty minutes,” Mrs. Grew said, looking at her watch.
They didn’t play at this school. We were getting right into the work.
Everyone around me started writing feverishly, stopping only to click their mechanical pencils, releasing more lead. I stared at the pale lines on my paper. My worst fears? Well, I had a bunch, including two new ones: that my father would never come home, that my mother would also be deported, and that the boys and I would be left without our parents. Okay, that was three. And then there was that Jade and I wouldn’t stay best friends until we were one hundred years old, that I would mess up this opportunity to go to a school that had all these resources—including a pool. But right that very second my worst fear was writing this essay. That’s right. I had writer’s block. Bad.
“Is there a problem, Miss Cruz?” Mrs. Grew called out.
I shook my head, sank down in my seat. Began to write. I wrote something, something, something along the first two rows. Total waste of lead. But at least I looked like I was writing.
Barely fifteen minutes later, one girl raised her hand.
“Yes, Paula?”
“Can I share?” she asked. My eyes bugged. She was finished?
Mrs. Grew nodded.
“Then me,” said a kid in the front row.
“And me,” said another.
Really? These kids were all amped to share. Maybe they got extra credit for participation or something? I dug out the class syllabus and scanned it. YUP. Participation counted for 25 percent of your grade. I kept reading the fine print. Oh, wow. It also said that at any time the teacher reserved the right to collect writing prompts and count them as a quiz grade. I looked at my something, something, something. That wasn’t even F material. My bad for not reading the syllabus.
“Of course! Anyone can share,” Mrs. Grew was saying, clapping for our attention.
Paula cleared her throat. She didn’t stand, but her voice was loud, as if she was standing anyway.
A Time I Overcame a Fear
When I was younger, I was afraid of the ocean. Everything about the ocean. I was scared of the waves. Seaweed and all the animals in it. I thought that if I went in, I would get pulled out to sea and drown. I was a good swimmer, but I only swam in pools. Every time I went to the beach with my friends, I would always stay on the sand and make up a reason why I couldn’t go in the water. I wanted to get over the fear. The next time I went to the beach, I promised myself I would go in the water. A few weeks later I got up one morning. It was sunny and my dad planned a day to go to the beach. Once we arrived I felt like running back, but I knew I had to face my fears. Right at the edge of the water, I stood there, counted one… two… three… and I ran in the water! It felt good not to be scared anymore. I was happy I faced my fears.
Wow. That kind of sucked. People slow clapped. More hands flew up. Double wow. I desperately wanted to ask for the bathroom pass just to escape from all this eagerness, but before I could even raise my hand, a kid charged to the front of the room.
“Jeremy D.,” Mrs. Grew said in a low, disapproving tone. “Next time, please wait to be called on.”
He ignored her and started right in, no dramatic pause like Paula, no waiting for a nod from the teacher, no anything. “My Favorite Video Game,” he said so loud that the class across the hall probably heard him.
Mrs. Grew placed her coffee mug on a high file cabinet and said, in an eerily calm voice, “Just… just, go.”
My Favorite Video Game
On the cover of the game it said there are like eighty-seven bazillion guns in the game. It is a good game for people who like killing, guns, humor, and fantasy. Now I only have three or two friends that have the game and another friend might get it for Hanukkah. Anyway, the game is great.
The class cheered. Mrs. Grew jotted something down on a pad on her desk. Maybe she was writing something, something, something too. For the next few minutes, Mrs. Grew talked about imagery and the power of three in writing. I stared out the window at the parking lot—the senior parking lot, according to the green sign. Whoa. Like, as in high school seniors? And the parking lot was full! Jeez. My family didn’t even have a car, hello.
“Now I want you to take a look at what you’ve written. See if you can substitute abstractions and generalities for more specific language, sensory images, as we discussed last week. Remember, we have another hour,” Mrs. Grew said now, looking right at me. I swallowed.
“Miss Cruz? Can I check in with you in the hall, please?”
Could she see all the something, something, something from where she stood? I followed her nervously.
Outside the door, Mrs. Grew turned to me, her eyes two watery pools of blue and gray, like wet marbles. Sensory imagery! She put her hand on my shoulder. More sensory: Why did teachers smell like either potpourri or coffee? “Liliana.” She said my name as if trying on the word. “Where are you from?”
I hesitated. She knew I was in METCO. From Boston. So what did she want? My exact address? “Jamaica Plain,” I said. “Hyde Square.”
She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t know where that was. “Feel free to express yourself fully here. We want you to succeed. Okay?”
Huh. Maybe she was nice after all. “Okay,” I said, and smiled. And I decided right then to write about Jade and one of the most fear-inducing nights of my life.
I filled three whole pages about the night when we were six or seven and Jade’s father came tumbling into their apartment, the whiskey practically oozing out of his pores. Our mom
s were eating pan dulce in the kitchen. The twins were asleep in their carriers by Mom’s feet. But as soon as Jade’s father burst in, everyone scrambled, as if on cue. Jade grabbed the Barbies we’d been playing with and shoved them under a couch cushion. In the kitchen I could hear the gathering of plates and saucers, a kitchen chair scraping the linoleum. “Shut off the TV!” Jade’s mother called from the kitchen, even though the TV wasn’t on.
Look, I had seen Jade’s father drunk a hundred and one times, but never quite like that, with bloodshot eyes and his head twitching to the right, like he was trying to use his shoulder to get something out of his ear but couldn’t. He stormed into the living room. His fly was undone. “What’s this mess? Who are all these people in MY house? Get out! Everyone, get out!” And then he was off. He punched the wall. The plaster made little clouds, like the wall was coughing. In the kitchen, my brothers started crying.
“We were just playing,” Jade tried to explain, frantically scooping up all the Barbie accessories from the rug.
“I’ll help you,” I told her, my voice wobbling. We snatched up tiny pairs of high heel shoes and sparkly skirts, and deposited them into a shoebox.
Her father lurched toward us. “Don’t talk back to me!” he yelled, and—whack!—he slapped the back of Jade’s head. “Do you hear me?” Jade was using every ounce of strength not to cry.
“Leave them alone,” Jade’s mother said, coming out of the kitchen, her face as white as the beat-up wall.
My mother gripped her necklace, her eyes darting between the babies fussing in their carriers and me. “Get your stuff, Liliana. Now.”
But I couldn’t move. I just stared as Jade continued desperately, madly, scooping up miniature jean skirts and frilly scarves. Her father hit her again. The side of her arm. Then again. Her ear. The more he hit, the faster Jade’s fingers grasped at Barbie sneakers, Barbie bathing suits.
And then Jade’s mother charged. She leapt onto his back like a pro wrestler. “Leave. Her. ALONE!” she screamed, which set the babies off screaming. And Jade kept picking up Barbie stuff. Not crying, just clawing, clawing, clawing tiny shoes out of the carpet.
Don't Ask Me Where I'm From Page 6
