I want so much to forget these images, to leave them behind. I sit up and look toward the window. The curtains are closed, blocking out all but a small sliver of light. I have no idea what time it is. But I do know this: I messed up. Again.
Oh God. I messed up.
I get up and pull my jeans on. Sally and Amanda are still sleeping, so I know it must be early. I go into the bathroom and splash hot water on my face, squeeze some of their toothpaste onto my finger and run it over my teeth. I rinse the toothpaste and pull my hair into a ponytail. Then I go to the chest of drawers and pick up the key to Phoenix’s room, the one he gave Sally last night so she could get his bags and pack them in the rental car.
I leave as quietly as I can, not wanting to wake them. I take the elevator to his floor, remembering the feel of him holding me against his chest, and the soft assurances I gave him—we have time. We don’t have to hurry.
I know Phoenix. He will tell me how he got that tattoo, and it will make sense. Or, if it doesn’t make sense, it will be okay, because he’s Phoenix. I will go into his room and lie down beside him. I will ask him to tell me what he needs to say, what he tried to tell me so many times. I was the one who said it didn’t matter. And it doesn’t, or it shouldn’t, but I need to understand. I need to let him tell me. I don’t care how long it takes. I don’t care if we miss our plane. We’ll rent a car and drive home, together.
The elevator doors slide open, into an empty hallway. I grasp the key card, feeling the edges dig into my hand. I walk slowly, passing by a long row of doors, all exactly the same. When I get to his door, I slide the card in.
The green light flashes twice.
I open the door quietly, not wanting to startle him. Gray morning light filters through the room—the curtains are wide open. I see the bed, neatly made. I see a stack of clothing carefully folded on the edge of the bed. His phone rests on top, and there is a small piece of paper. I walk over to the bed. I touch the fabric of the suit, the one that Amanda bought him for court. I read the note.
Sally and Amanda—
Thank you for everything. I will never be able to repay you, but I will try. I can’t accept your offer to help me appeal my deportation. I hope you will find someone else to help. I hope he will be able to stay. I’m very sorry I let you down.
Gretchen—I didn’t want to hurt you. I should have told you. I’m so sorry I hurt you.
Phoenix
I sit at the edge of the bed and then pick up the white button-down he wore in court. I lift it to my face, taking in his scent. Then I look toward the bathroom door, holding out hope that maybe he’s still here in this hotel room with me.
Don’t let him be gone.
But the door is wide open. He’s gone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
PHOENIX
I OPEN MY EYES to gray sky. The grass is wet against my back, but it doesn’t matter. I grab the edge of the chain-link fence and pull myself up, looking thorough the diamond-shaped holes, onto the air force base. Across a field of brown grass, I see rows of airplane landing strips. I’m trying to find Ari’s shelter from here, but it’s too far away.
I hope he’s sound asleep on that metal cot. I hope he’ll wake up feeling happy today. I hope maybe he’ll talk—tell someone how good he feels. I hope it will be me.
My hand moves to my ankle, to that stupid black box. I need to come up with a plan. My time is running out. I have been here all night, trying to think of what to do—how I can work it out to spend some time with Ari, maybe stay with him for a while before I’m sent back. I know I’m supposed to be the one who Ari needs, but the truth is that I need him now. I need for Ari to help me forget Gretchen—her touch, the sound of her voice, the way it felt to be trusted that much.
Gretchen trusted me. She should never have trusted me.
Maybe I should run. Maybe I should find a knife or some box cutters or something and cut this stupid black box off me. Maybe I should leave it here at the edge of this field and take off running toward Arizona or California. I could hide out for a while, until the government forgets about me, and then I’ll go find Ari.
I wonder if the government ever forgets.
A high-pitched noise pierces the air. I stand up and look toward it. The sound settles into a loud hum, and a plane pulls out onto the runway—then another, and another. Three small jets—their dark gray outlines stark against the early morning sky. They move slowly toward me, in perfect formation.
I watch them gain speed, getting louder and louder. The sound fills my ears and pulses through my head. After a few seconds it feels like my head’s going to explode with that sound, or maybe with all the crap running through it. It’s like the noise of the engines is making my own thoughts scream.
You screwed it all up again, Phoenix. What are you going to do now?
The front wheels lift off in perfect unison, and all three jets climb into the air, still coming right toward me. When they pass over me, it’s like they knock me down with their force. I fall onto my back and look up. My ears are still ringing and my gut vibrates with their force of sound and motion. When I breathe in, the stench of those planes burns my nostrils. The smell takes me back to Ilopango, reminding me of the fuel my grandmother used in the stove when it got cold and she was out of parafina. I shiver, feeling the wet ground and the memories of those rare winter nights back home.
What are you going to do now, Phoenix?
These jets may be small, but they are crazy loud, tearing through my eardrums while they split apart the sky above me, long streams of smoke trailing behind them. They all turn at once, heading directly up—not at an angle, but on a direct path away from the earth. The planes move with purpose, pushing upward to create a straight line from the place where I am, collapsed on the ground, to some exact point in the sky above me. But the smoke won’t let the line form. Those streams of smoke start off straight, but then they have their own plans. They lift and dance, cross in and out and around one another.
What are you going to do? Where will you go?
They’re quieter now, farther away from me. One plane peels away from the other two, and then—honest to Christ—it launches into a free fall. The others keep moving directly up, toward that invisible point, while that one plane comes hurtling toward the ground. But the others fall out too—the second, and then the third. They’re all tumbling toward the ground, tugged down by the weight of gravity.
And I’m thinking, puta madre, these planes are going to crash into the earth around me; they’re going to explode in huge balls of flame and black smoke.
I need to get out of here. I need to run.
But I don’t move, and they don’t fall. Instead they begin to dance, one after the other, almost as fluid as the smoke that trails behind them. They curve and flip, twist and lift. Weave in and out and around one another. Those three planes are beautiful to watch, and terrifying.
I lie on the ground and let them dance above me, until the sun is hot and bright in the sky. Then I stand up, wipe the dry grass from my back, and head toward the gate. I need to convince one of those guards to let me use their phone, because I think I know what to do.
I need to call Officer Worth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
GRETCHEN
WHEN I GOT BACK from Texas, I walked. For four straight days I woke up every morning and chose one of the places I had marked on Phoenix’s map. And then I drove myself there, got out of the car, and walked until the sun started to go down.
At the end of my fourth day hiking through the woods alone, I got back into my car and drove to Janet’s studio. I told her that I wanted to join her group—the one that she had invited me to participate in months ago, the one with war veterans and refugees.
That very evening I sat around a folding table with amputees and survivors of genocide, and when Janet told me to draw, I picked up a pencil and I drew. But I wasn’t really making art. At least, most people wouldn’t call it art. I hunched over a blank sheet of p
aper with a dull pencil and worked out a complicated system of equations, hoping to find a solution. The answer was easy to find—systems of equations are simple algebra, after all—but it didn’t work. Every night, I went and sat at that table, and every night I devised a new system of equations. I stared at the answers and realized that they didn’t contain a solution. No matter how complicated I allowed my systems to be—no matter how many variables they included—I couldn’t form a solution.
For days Janet peered patiently over my shoulder, smiling gently, allowing me to carve deep black lines into the paper, and then to vigorously erase them. Then one night, when the rest of the group had left, she sat down next to me and asked if maybe I’d like to talk about those equations, to explain the solutions I was struggling to form.
As it turns out, Janet isn’t just an art therapist. She’s a therapist-therapist, the kind whose work my mom calls horseshit. It’s not horseshit, though. I know that now, because Janet is my therapist, and she’s helping me to understand that even though I don’t have an amputated leg or the scars to prove that I survived a horrendous mass killing, I am a trauma survivor. She says that all my relationships will be different than they were before, but they can be good again, and that what’s most important for me now is to be able to have healthy relationships that are characterized by trust.
I talk with Janet every day, and I sit around that table every night with Sam and Abroon, Mike and Absmil, with Aamino, and Fartuun—the beautiful Somali woman who always brings sambusas to share. Holding tight to that routine, it only takes me a couple of weeks to devise the right system of equations, and to solve it.
When I see that solution—1 1/3, 5 2/3—a pair of numbers that must seem meaningless to anyone else, I know I need to visit Sally and Amanda.
* * *
It’s late, but I go to their house anyway. Sally answers the door, in her pajamas. She reaches up on her tiptoes and folds me into a huge hug. Amanda shows up beside her, and the three of us stand together, hugging one another tightly in the doorway.
When we finally pull away, Amanda says, “He won’t change his mind.” She’s looking at me, her eyes heartbroken. “We’ve tried everything to convince him—”
“Hon!” Sally scolds. “The poor dear hasn’t even come inside yet.”
Amanda takes my arm and leads me to the sofa. “She wouldn’t let me call you,” Amanda says. “She told me you needed some space, time to work things out.”
“No,” I say as we head toward the living room. “I don’t need any more time. That’s why I’m here. I want to help.”
They make me a cup of chamomile tea and we curl up together on their sofa. They tell me that the clock is ticking. Phoenix only has five days. If he doesn’t agree to let Ms. Pérez appeal the immigration court’s decision to the Board of Immigration Appeals—if he doesn’t let her file some document called a “stay of removal”—he’ll be deported. The problem is, he won’t let Ms. Pérez do it. Sally and Amanda keep begging him, and he keeps saying he’ll never win on appeal. He keeps telling them that he doesn’t want to waste any more of Sally and Amanda’s money.
I’m sipping my tea, listening to all this, and thinking about what Janet told me about trust and relationships. I’m trying to work out who Phoenix might trust. Who could convince him that appealing is the right thing to do, even if he loses in the end? I don’t think that person is me, but I still may be able to help. Maybe what he needs is evidence, concrete information, sort of his own solution to a system of equations. Maybe I could find some bit of information that will make him believe he has a stronger case than he thinks he does. He’s always worrying about money, never wanting it wasted on him. But if he could believe it’s not a waste—that the investment would be worth it, that he’s worth it …
“Do you still have Phoenix’s phone?” I ask.
“Yes,” Amanda says. “We’ve kept everything for him, just in case.…”
“Can I see it?”
* * *
The next morning is a Saturday. I go over to Bree’s house early, with coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts. I’m banking on the fact that Ty won’t be there at nine thirty a.m. on a Saturday, and feeling only a little bit guilty about the relief that washes over me when she comes to the door to let me in—alone.
I’ve been up since six, thinking. I went out and got the doughnuts from the shop on Ponce where they make them fresh. They’re still warm—gooey and melty—when Bree and I sit down at the bar in her kitchen to dig in. We’re on our second doughnut, studying Phoenix’s phone to see what we can find in there. He only has two numbers saved—besides mine, Sally’s, and Amanda’s. Bree convinces me to call the first one—a 770 area code, which means it’s local. Well, sort of local. It’s in the suburbs.
I take a swig of coffee and push the call button.
“Phoenix, you asshole. Where the hell have you been?” That’s what the guy says when he picks up, and then: “You left me hangin’, dude. I’m flailin’ over here—haven’t got a fuckin’ clue how to finish this kitchen, and my Barbie and the kids are waitin’ on me.”
“Um, this isn’t Phoenix,” I say. “He’s gone.”
Bree’s kitchen door flies open, and Ty walks in without even knocking. She stands up and heads over to kiss him on the lips. I wave at him and put my finger to my lips, to keep him from making one of his obnoxiously loud comments while I’m trying to figure out who this person is, yelling at me from the other end of the line.
“Gone where?” the gruff voice on the phone says. “Tell me that kid’s not back in El Salvador.”
I wipe my sticky hands on my jeans and then hold the phone tight against my ear. “Not yet,” I hear myself say. I feel a little dizzy. “He’s in California. With his brother.”
“Well, I know about that.… Who is this?”
“Gretchen. I’m a friend of—”
“Oh, I know who you are.”
“You do?” I close my eyes and lean against the counter. When I open them, Bree is standing next to me, mouthing, Who is it? Ty’s standing behind her, his arms wrapped around her waist.
“I know all about you,” the voice says. “But Phoenix never told you about me, did he?”
Silence. I bite my lip.
“I guess there are a lot of things Phoenix never told me,” I say.
“Come on over to the shop,” he says. “I’ll text you the address. I can tell you what I know.”
I hang up and let the phone slide onto the counter. Then I go over to the sink and wash the gooey doughnut glaze from my hands.
“It’s a friend of Phoenix’s, I guess. He said we could come visit him.”
Bree takes the last doughnut from the box and feeds it to Ty.
Ugh.
A text comes in, and Bree and I both lean in to see the message. The guy on the phone sent me his address. It’s a place called Georgia Boyz, in Acworth.
“Oh no, no, no. I love you, Gretch. You know I do, and I’m proud of you for doing this, but I will not be taking you to Georgia Boyz!”
I look up from the phone, right at Bree. “I need you, Bree.”
“To go to a place called Georgia Boyz? In Acworth? Not a snowball’s chance in hell I’m going to that place. It’s probably wallpapered with Confederate flags.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask her.
“I’m talking about the fact that black girls from Decatur don’t go to Acworth to visit biker tattoo parlors called Georgia Boyz. That’s what I’m talking about.” She’s got her hand on her hip, which means she’s serious.
Ty laughs. “My girl’s got a point.”
His girl?
Okay, his girl may have a point. But I need her. So I try a new tactic. “You’re prejudging.”
“Yes, Gretchen.” She nods, hand still on her hip. “Yes, I am. It’s a little thing we colored people call self-preservation.”
“Colored people?” I say. “Really? Okay, then. Phoenix is ‘colored’ too, right?” I tell them.
“And this guy appears to have been his only friend in Atlanta, besides us.”
“Nope,” Bree says. “Not happening. Plus, I have a Model UN meeting in a half hour.” She turns away from me and starts to walk out of the room. “Can’t miss it. Sorry! Gotta get ready.”
Ty grabs a napkin to wipe his mouth and then stands in front of me, looking dumb and shaking his head. “My baby’s already in Wellesley,” he says. “I keep telling her it’s senioritis time, but that girl won’t listen to me.”
I bury my face in my hands. I have to do this, but I don’t think I’m ready to do it alone.
Ty shoves me gently with his elbow. “Hey,” he says. “I’m free.”
I let out a sigh and bury my face deeper into my arms.
“C’mon.” He’s dangling his keys over my head. “Let’s do this thing!”
* * *
When Ty pulls into Georgia Boyz, a heavyset white woman rushes out to greet us warmly. She has dyed-red hair and brightly colored tattoos on every inch of her body, except for her face. She’s so nice to both of us, wrapping us in big hugs. She has a pretty face—a kind face. It makes me glad she didn’t decide to tattoo it, too.
“Look at you!” she says, stepping back to examine me. “You’re such a lovely thing!” Then she turns to Ty. “And you’re a good friend to bring her out here to us. I’ve been dyin’ to meet this little lady.”
She takes my hand, and she tugs us both through the bright blue door, under the (somewhat offensive) sign with a half-naked woman painted onto it. Ty’s quiet, smiling that big, genuine smile of his—the one that says he’s wide open to the world. It usually bugs me, that smile. But right now I’m feeling grateful to see it.
“I’m Barbie,” the tattooed woman tells us, pushing us into two of the molded plastic seats lined up by a desk at the front of the shop. “And this here’s Bo, my knight in shining armor.”
“That’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Ty says, nodding at Bo.
I feel like laughing out loud. I don’t know whether it’s because Ty just said he thinks it’s cool to be a “knight in shining armor,” or because this nice woman has the unfortunate name of Barbie—or maybe it’s because she called a chubby guy with too many facial piercings her savior. They’re cute together, though. I mean, they look like they really love each other. You can tell that, sometimes.
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