So Mom wasn’t going to dish the info. Fine. I’d just have to get it out of Tía Laura. But first, I peeked in on my brothers. They were sniping at each other about who knows what in the living room. Poor kids. They basically escaped to the video game world probably like I did with making miniatures, or writing. Right before I walked in, I overheard Benjamin say to Christopher, “How long are they staying here? And when’s Dad coming home?”
“Hey!” I called out. Benjamin glanced up.
“What?”
“You guys want to… wrestle or something?” I had a flashback of Dad pretending to wince in pain as one of the boys pinned him down, and I gave my head a shake.
Christopher narrowed his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” I said, all enthusiastic-like. “We can…” I paused to think of a way to make it more fun.… Ah! “Put pillows in our T-shirts and wrestle sumo-style. Want to?”
They looked at each other and with their twin ESP thinking came to a silent decision, because Christopher picked up the remote control. “Maybe later.”
I tried.
An hour later, in the kitchen, Tía Laura was drinking beer, a fan of cut limes in front of her. Tía liked her beer. And she was talking nonstop and sort of yelling-laughing to my other aunt on the phone. Mom had gone to the corner store to get stuff for dinner. Tío R. was taking a pre-dinner siesta, not to be confused with his jet lag siesta. He’d eaten half the Magdalena cake for lunch. He sure was comfortable here!
“¿Con permiso? Tía?” Normally I wouldn’t interrupt an adult on the phone, but it sounded like she was about to get off.
She didn’t hear me, just kept talking a mile a minute.
“Tía?” I repeated, louder.
She turned and blinked at me as if trying to remember who I was. Maybe she was more buzzed than I thought.
“Te llamo después,” she said into the phone, and hung up, just like that.
She popped a thick wedge of lime into her mouth and sucked on it, smiling with her eyes as I joined her at the table.
I actually really liked Tía Laura. Usually I caught like 80 percent of what she was saying. Her Spanish was fast and full of slang, and she was funny. I liked how her whole body laughed when she laughed. Her arms would fall to her sides, and she’d lean over like she was about to fall, but at the last second she’d straighten herself up and let out an enormous laugh that was, no lie, contagious.
“Tía? So… by any chance… have you been in touch with my dad?”
“You know…” She paused to take a sip of her beer. “You should talk to your father before—”
WAIT. It was possible to talk to Dad? Had Mom talked to him? How often? And she didn’t she let me, or the boys?!?! Slow down, slow down—I needed to play this cool.
“If I knew his number, I would love to talk to him,” I said, as in HINT, HINT—do you want to call him, like right now, and pass me the phone? I picked up a knife and began to cut a lime peel into tiny pieces.
But Tía stayed quiet, set down the now empty beer can. I got her a second from the refrigerator.
“Gracias, mija.” She cracked it open, letting loose that great little hissing sound.
I eyed her. “Tía, can I ask you something?”
She shrugged. “Ask or don’t ask, but don’t ask whether you can ask, mija.”
I picked at a hangnail. “Okay, well… What did you mean when you said you hoped Dad would make it back safely? Is he in, like, danger? Is this why… you’re here?”
She twanged the pull tab on her beer can. “I’m here to get money, to bring back to Guatemala, sí, for your father.”
Got it. Money. So… did that mean she got to see him? That she’d seen him?
And of course that was when Mom barged in the front door, yelling, “Come help with these bags!”
Tía whispered, “Mija… he is paying a coyote to help him cross.”
Boom.
14
“Earth to Lili.” Holly poked me in the arm.
“What? Oh—sorry!” I gave my head a shake, trying to refocus on whatever it was Holly was talking about. But my mind was on the bomb Tía had dropped the other night. Dad had hired a coyote. Normally I was not so bad at compartmentalizing home and school, but this—this was major.
“Am I boring you?” Holly now verbally poked. “You’re like spacing out here!”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind. My aunt and uncle are visiting from Guatemala, and they’re kind of… making me crazy.” So—not true, but not entirely a lie. What Tía had said was making me crazy, worrying.
Holly now looked at me, her lips pursed. “You need a break, is what’s up. Why don’t you come over after school?”
“You mean to your house?”
“No. Not my house,” Holly said, throwing some snark. “Come over to my cardboard box under a bridge. Yes! To my house.”
Sunlight pushing through a tall window in the cafeteria made her hair glow. And she’d just invited me to her house. And suddenly I was wondering how big her room was rather than how you even hired a coyote. I wondered what snacks she had in her kitchen. Of course I wanted to go! But, hello—my mother…
“I’m not sure I can, because my aunt and uncle—well, they need lots of entertaining.” I looked over my shoulder. It was a weird thing that I’d caught myself doing all day. It wasn’t like I was worried Dad would show up with a coyote in the hallway or anything, but—I don’t know. I felt nervous now, like down to my toes, ever since Tía had told me about my father.
Holly nudged me. “So? It doesn’t have to only be you doing the entertaining.”
“I—I mean, I don’t know,” I stammered. “My parents are kind of strict.” That was not a lie! Translation: my parents had never let me go to someone’s house besides family or family friends that they’d known for years.
“So, they won’t let you go to a friend’s house? That’s weird.” Holly instantly grimaced like she regretted what she’d said. “Sorry. It’s just that, going to your friend’s house is kind of, I don’t know…”
“Normal?”
“Yeah.” Holly shrugged.
I picked up my lunch tray. Normal? What was normal? I bet it didn’t involve worrying about whether Border Patrol was going to catch your dad.
I faced Holly. “You’d think. But okay, thanks. I’ll ask.” Then it dawned on brilliant me. I didn’t have to ask! I’d just let Mom think I was going to art club like any other day. Yes!
But the more I thought about it, the more anxious I got. What if I missed the late bus home? So just in case, I decided I should tell Mom about going to Holly’s. But, of course, of all days, I’d flippin’ left my phone at home. I KNOW. So, during study hall I asked for a pass to the nurse, said I had a headache. No lie—except it wasn’t the type an aspirin would help. Then the nurse told me, as I had hoped, that I needed to call my mother to get permission to take aspirin. When my mother picked up, I spoke in Spanish for the whole call. Times like these, I really loved being bilingual.
“Liliana? What’s wrong? What happened? Where are you?” That’s Mom. Instantly hysterical.
“Fine. Nothing. School. I left my phone at home, so I’m calling you from the nurse’s office.”
“Oh.” Mom paused. “So what’s the matter? Are you sick?”
I quickly reassured her that there was nothing wrong.
“Nothing? You called for nothing? What is it, Liliana? I’m late.”
In the background I could hear her scrambling—the faucet running, the microwave beeping. She was probably getting ready for another interview. All of a sudden she’s been trying to get work as a housekeeper—said it paid more. And now I understood why, and why it was so difficult for her to get a job. Probably everyone wanted to see papers! How much money did Dad even need anyway? I bet a lot. And, even with Tía and Tío there now, Mom was still losing it. Just yesterday I found my sock drawer rearranged by color—by color.
“Well, my new frien
d here, this girl Holly? She and her family are my host family. I told you about the METCO host families. So, she’s really nice. She has red hair. Anyway, Holly asked if I could come over to her house to study for a big test in bio we have next Monday, and you know I really want to make a good impression on my new teachers here, and this test is going to suck. I mean, it’s going to be really hard, so everyone is studying extra for it. Holly’s mom can drive me back to the school so I can catch the late bus to Boston. I’ll be home by seven. So can I go?”
“Fine.”
“Really?”
“I have to go, mija. Ahorita.”
“Okay.” My mother had said fine! What universe was I in?
“Wait!” she yelled just as I was about to hang up. The nurse was giving me a look like, You know, I haven’t heard the word “aspirina” once during your entire conversation.
“Yeah?”
“Call back right away and leave the girl’s name and address and phone number on my voice mail. Just in case. I won’t pick up.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t forget.”
“I won’t. Good luck.”
“Love you.”
“You too.” I hung up.
I thanked the nurse, told her I no longer needed aspirin, and returned to study hall, where I couldn’t focus on my math homework. The numbers all translated to money, which got me thinking about how Tía Laura and Tío R. had flown all the way to Boston to collect cash to bring it all the way back down to Guatemala for Dad, I guess because wiring the money was too dangerous. But the plane tickets alone had to be mad expensive, so how much did a coyote cost? Couldn’t exactly pay that with a credit card, hello. And money was the easier part! I mean, Dad would be trusting his life to a stranger—even if that person was the best smuggler around—with his actual life. And, actually, how far away was Guatemala from the US border? I didn’t even know! And all of a sudden I had to know. I closed my math book and again asked for a pass before heading to the library.
On my way there I passed the METCO office and overheard two girls laughing. I slowed down, peeked inside without trying to be mad obvious. They were eating Halloween candy from a bowl in the shape of a pumpkin. I recognized one as Ivy. But the other part of me was on a mission. Guatemala.
Score. One of the library computers was free. I sat down and Googled “Guatemala.” Up came:
a Wikipedia article and map
photos of volcanoes
news articles about people looking for disappeared family members
a recipe for tamales
“I love tamales!” I yelped. The librarian gave me a disapproving look. “Sorry.… Charley horse,” I said, as if that would explain my tamale outburst. I clicked on the map. Dad was there. Huh. I knew Dad had come to the US when he was eighteen, but I never thought about how he’d gotten into the US to begin with. Mom had come to Boston from El Salvador two years after him. They’d met at a party, and that was that. I kept scrolling. Countries that bordered Guatemala: Mexico, Belize, El Salvador, and Honduras. Next I read some quick facts:
home to volcanoes, rain forests, and ancient Mayan sites
capital is Guatemala City and boasts lots of museums
the old capital, Antigua Guatemala, features preserved Spanish colonial buildings
Lake Atitlán, formed in a massive volcanic crater, is a major tourist attraction
Guatemala is roughly the size of Louisiana
Jeez, I hadn’t known any of this. I wish I’d asked more questions about Guatemala. I had sort of wondered why Mom and Dad never took us there, you know, to visit, especially since we had tons of relatives and everything was less expensive. (Mom and Dad were always comparing US prices to things “back home.”)
I clicked on “Images,” and up came dozens and dozens of photos of coffee fields, villages, women wearing traditional dresses and skirts made of a zillion different colors, kids as young as my brothers carrying big baskets of vegetables on their heads, a blond lady overlooking a huge lake while meditating on a yoga mat, a giant cross in front of a giant church, a Mayan ruin called Tikal, skyscrapers beside an old fountain, a couple getting married on a cobblestone street in Antigua with plump clouds and pink skies behind them, and a rug on a street made entirely of colored sawdust! I couldn’t stop scrolling. Why hadn’t Dad ever told me about any of this stuff? Once in a while he went all nostalgic—telling us how the chicken tasted much better there and how people looked you in the eye more—but then he’d go back to doing whatever he was doing. Or maybe… maybe it was that I never asked him to tell me more? Maybe he didn’t think I was interested? Dad—I’m interested!
Suddenly I felt the presence of the librarian behind me. “Can I help you search for something?” she asked. Her tone reminded me of those annoying salespeople who followed me down the aisles, probably thinking I was going to steal something.
“Oh… no, thank you,” I said, immediately clicking on the x in the corner of the screen. Oh God. Now she probably thought I’d been looking up porn or something.
“I see that you were reading up on Guatemala.” Again with the tone! She sounded like I had been looking up porn.
I legit didn’t know what to say.
“Are you writing a report?”
“Sort of… I mean, it’s… extra credit.” Good save!
“It’s nice to see students take advantage of extra credit,” she enthused. “But—” She glanced at the clock. “This period is almost over. I can leave some books and resources on reserve, and you can pick them up later if you’d like. Good for you. To learn more about these people.”
These people?
* * *
On my way out of the library, I headed to Mr. Phelps’s class, “these people” still running through my head. I was the first one there. Mr. Phelps sat on a stool, hunched over his laptop, his glasses about to fall off the tip of his nose. Mr. Phelps was kinda growing on me (even though he still went overkill on asking if I understood the material and all).
He was really ramping up the immigration unit. Like, he’d added all these books to our extra-credit reading list, and he’d been showing us parts of documentaries about immigration but from different points of view. One was about the women who leave their children in Honduras and Guatemala and El Salvador to come to the United States to work as maids and housekeepers and stuff, and send the money back. It was crazy sad to see how they were sometimes separated from their kids for their entire childhoods, missing their kids’ birthdays, graduations, everything. And here I complained when Mom made me call Tía Rosa on her birthday. And she was only in New York. Plus, I had both my parents with me—well, I used to—unlike the kids in the documentaries. I guess I’d always known why my parents had moved to the United States. I mean, in general: They wanted a better life. But I didn’t really understand what they’d had to go through to come here, leaving their own country, language, family, friends, everything. Everything. I’d been so clueless!
“Excuse me, Mr. Phelps?” I said.
He looked up. “Oh, hello, Lili.”
“If this is a bad time, I can ask you later,” I said quickly.
“No. Please. Sit.” He shut his laptop. “What can I help you with?”
“Well, remember how you were saying that we could get extra credit for reading a book on immigration?”
“Yes!” Dang, teachers got so excited when kids showed like a speck of interest in anything.
“Well, there was one book you mentioned, one about a boy who travels on top of a train from Mexico to the United States?”
“Guatemala.”
“Huh?” I froze. Guatemala?
Mr. Phelps shook his head. “No, not Guatemala, my bad. Honduras. The boy’s name is Enrique. The book is about his journey from Honduras to North Carolina.” His tone grew gentle. “He was searching for his mother.”
“Oh—”
Mr. Phelps was now practically sprinting for the bookshelf. He ran a finger along a few spines. “Here it i
s!” He handed me a paperback. The cover showed a boy—about my age—perched on top of a huge train. He could have been—my dad? As a teenager? I blinked hard.
“This the one you were thinking of?” Mr. Phelps prompted.
“Yeah. Thanks.” Enrique’s Journey by Sonia Nazario. I shoved the book into my backpack. I didn’t want anyone else seeing it. I was born here, and I didn’t have to prove it to anyone, but it was just easier for me to slide the book into my bag and not make a big deal.
“Lili, I’m glad to see you’re interested.”
I stayed quiet, balanced my weight on my heels.
“Honduras, I don’t know. But Guatemala is actually a beautiful country.”
“You’ve been there?”
“I have! When I was in my twenties, I traveled in Mexico and Guatemala and part of South America.” He pushed his glasses up, looked as if he wanted to say something else, or worse—ask me something. But he didn’t. Instead he told me, “Don’t forget. You only get extra credit if you write a response to the book. Minimum of two pages. There’s more information on the class website.”
The bell rang and other students began to trickle in.
“Right. Okay. Thanks.” I paused. “One more thing, Mr. Phelps?”
“Yup?”
“So, do people really make it? I mean, do the people who ride the tops of those trains or hire smugglers, do they really make it across the border?”
His brow furrowed. “Some do.”
“Ah, okay. Good to know. Thanks,” I said, keeping my voice chill. The rest of me? Not so much. Was he looking at me funny? What if he guessed why I was asking? I found a seat in the back row and took out my homework.
15
On my way to meet Holly at her locker after school—I gotta admit, I was excited to go to her house, be a normal kid—I peeked into Dustin’s last class, hoping to catch him. But no luck. I hate not having my phone! Then I stopped at the library. Sure enough, the librarian had set out three books for me on Guatemala. But they were nothing like the ones Mr. Phelps had in his class. These books were… basic. Mostly factual and showing photos of exotic birds. I checked out two just so the librarian wouldn’t feel bad, but I knew what I was reading first, for sure.
Don't Ask Me Where I'm From Page 10
