by Diana Lopez
“That’s her. That’s La Virgen de San Juan del Valle,” Mom said when she caught Carmen and me stretching our necks to get a better look.
Dad found a parking spot and told us to grab our special items. Then we jumped out of the car and found ourselves near a fountain between the church and a group of buildings that included a school, a convent, and a gift shop. Many flowers surrounded the walkway. We pointed so Mom and Dad could tell us the names—blue plumbago, pink bougainvillea, and yellow esperanza. Carmen repeated the names as if prepping for a quiz. I’d probably forget which plant was which by tomorrow, but Carmen would still remember in twenty years. Mom put a shirt over her bikini top and told us to wait while she went to the gift shop. As soon as she left, Jimmy ran to the fountain. “Gimme money!” he said when he saw the coins there.
“You can look but you can’t touch,” Dad told him as they leaned over the pool. “See how shiny the money is?” Jimmy opened and closed his hand, so Dad reached in his pocket and gave him a penny. Jimmy looked at it, then threw it into the water.
“Hey, you’re supposed to make a wish,” Carmen said, holding out her own hand. Dad gave her a penny. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and tossed it in. Then Dad handed me a penny, keeping one for himself. We closed our eyes, made our wishes, and tossed the coins. All of us kept our wishes secret, but I felt certain that we had asked for the same thing.
Mom returned a few minutes later. She had bought a stuffed puppy for Jimmy. He was so delighted. For the rest of us, she bought candles. They featured La Virgen on one side and a prayer with “ayúdame” on the other. I couldn’t speak much Spanish, but I knew that ayúdame meant “help me.”
“When we get there,” Dad said, pointing to the church before us, “we’re going to pray.”
“Then we’re going to make promesas,” Mom added.
“What’s a promesa?” I asked.
“A promise, just like it sounds,” Mom said. “Only this is a different kind of promise. A ‘thank you’ promise.”
“What are we being thankful for?” I said.
“We’re going to ask God and La Virgen to help your mother,” Dad explained, “and in return, each of us is going to do something special.”
“Like what?” Carmen asked.
“That’s up to you,” Mom said. “Some people promise to say extra prayers every day. Others promise to work for charities or do something for the church.”
“I heard of a man,” Dad added, “who promised to run a thousand miles.”
“All at once?” Carmen sounded totally amazed.
“No. But every day he ran and recorded how far he went till he got to a thousand.”
“And I had an uncle,” Mom said, “who promised not to cut his hair for two years. This was in the 1950s, when men weren’t supposed to have long hair.”
“So it’s like a bribe,” I concluded. “We’re bribing God to help us.”
“No,” Dad said. “We’re thanking Him.”
“But He hasn’t helped us yet.”
“But He will.”
“Because of our prayers and promesas?”
They nodded, all of them, even Carmen. Apparently, I was the only one who thought this was a bribe. It just didn’t make sense. Weren’t you supposed to say “thank you” after someone helped you?
We entered the church and stepped into a giant, fan-shaped room with a floor that sloped down like in a theater. High above the altar stood the legendary statue of La Virgen de San Juan, an exact copy of the mural outside. I was expecting a giant statue, life-size, but this was a small doll with a dark brown face. She stood in a nook surrounded by a huge wooden frame that reminded me of an Aztec sundial with its ring of hieroglyphics and shapes that looked like snakes and leaves.
Mom and Dad led us to a chamber behind the altar, where hundreds of candles flickered and dozens of people knelt to utter prayers. As I overheard their different accents, I realized that they had come from all over the United States and Mexico to visit this shrine.
“Here’s where you light the candle,” Dad said. “Say a prayer and make your promesa, okay?”
Carmen and I nodded. Then the whole family filed into an empty section of the kneeling pad. I placed my candle in a slot, lit it, and said the Our Father and Hail Mary. I didn’t know what else to say, so I added the Act of Contrition and asked to be forgiven for all the times I fought with Carmen. Then I was done feeling guilty, but when I glanced at my family, they were still praying, so I pretended to keep praying too, though I was actually thinking about Mom’s surgery, like how she would sleep on a cold, metal table surrounded by strangers wearing masks and gloves. I thought about the medical dramas on TV, how they always showed clamps on the patient’s chest while doctors gave one-word orders like “scalpel” or “suction,” and how something bad always happened. The doctors would snip an artery or inject the wrong drug, which made the patient have a heart attack. Then the doctors would call, “Code blue!” as they charged paddles to jolt the patient back. Sometimes the heart monitor would bleep again, but other times, it stayed flat till someone said, “Call it,” and a frustrated doctor announced the time of death. I trembled as I pictured the scene, though I knew TV wasn’t real life. Sometimes, though, the fake world of TV actually did happen, and that’s why I got so stressed, and the only way to deal with stress was to… well… to think about the boys on my Wish List. I knew it was totally wrong to think about boys in church, but I couldn’t help it. My mind just went there.
Enough of that, I told myself. Think of a promesa. I silently brainstormed, but I had absolutely no inspiration, so I felt even more stressed. I considered Mom and Dad’s examples, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to say extra prayers, and I couldn’t grow long hair because my hair was already long, and I couldn’t run a thousand miles—at least, not in one lifetime.
“What are you going to do?” Carmen asked.
I shrugged. “What about you?”
“I’m going to clean the bathrooms till Mom gets better.”
I had to admit, Carmen had a great idea—practical but also a real sacrifice since cleaning toilets was so gross.
“Look it! Look it!” Jimmy said, showing me his fingers, black from squeezing the tips of burned-out matches.
“Mom,” Carmen tattled, “Jimmy got ashes on his fingers. It’s all Chia’s fault.”
I elbowed her. “No, it isn’t.”
Mom glanced at me and jerked her head, a signal that meant “get him out of here.” I couldn’t believe it. I got in trouble even when I was praying.
“Come on, Jimmy,” I said, happy to get away. I led him to a doorway, where I found a basin with water. I lifted him. “Wash all that black stuff off your hands.”
He splashed his hands, getting himself and me all wet.
“Hey,” a lady hissed. “That’s holy water.”
I set Jimmy down. “I didn’t realize,” I said, but she just glared at me. She must have thought I was the most sarcastic teenager. After all, I was in a church. Of course it was holy water. How dumb could I be? Maybe I shouldn’t go to church at all. I seemed to get in more trouble here than in the Land of Temptation outside.
I grabbed Jimmy’s wet hand and took him through a hallway, hoping to find a way out before I’d have to say more Acts of Contrition, but instead, I discovered the most amazing room. It wasn’t very big, but it was filled, ceiling to floor, with flowers, wedding veils, communion dresses, locks of hair, jewelry, car keys, cards, toys, empty prescription bottles, letters, rosaries, shoes, braces, crutches, postcards, newspaper clippings, dog tags, expired licenses, eyeglasses, helmets, and pictures. Lots of pictures. Not an inch of the room was bare.
Jimmy’s mouth opened as if he wanted to swallow the whole scene. I’d never seen him look so astonished. His eyes widened as they glanced across the room. “Gimme?” he said, for the first time not knowing what to ask for.
I picked him up so we could look at some of the letters on the wall. Most were in Sp
anish, but I did find a few English ones. One read:
Dear Virgen de San Juan del Valle,
Thank you for your intercessions. When my husband fell off a ladder last summer, he suffered a serious head injury. The doctors said he would never talk again, or if he did, he wouldn’t make sense. But thanks to you, he’s talking now. And he makes sense. Escúchame, Madre. Your generous heart has made this possible. For this, and for all the kindnesses you have shown to my family and to all those throughout Earth and time, I thank you. Please accept my humble offerings. I have planted roses in your honor and will make rosaries from its petals for patients at the hospital where my husband stayed. In that way may I share your message of love and hope.
All the letters were about the sick, injured, or those at war. They gave thanks for people who survived or requested blessings for people who had died.
“They’re testimonials,” I heard Dad say. He took Jimmy from me, and immediately my brother put his head on Dad’s shoulder, since this was when he usually took a nap. “This is el cuarto de milagros, the miracle room,” Dad continued, “where people share stories and make offerings.” He nodded toward Mom. She had removed one of her bikini tops from her purse and was placing it on a table. Then she took out a notepad and started to write a letter. Carmen was with her. She seemed reluctant, but after a few seconds, she decided to leave behind her trophy.
“Do you have your special item?” Dad asked.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the envelope, and showed him the pebble, crystal, and coin. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out two movie tickets for Back to the Future.
“From my first date with your mom,” he explained. “I kept them all these years. Isn’t that silly?”
“Not at all,” I said, remembering the “romantic” mementos in my jewelry box.
We placed our special items beside one another, right next to a newspaper article from the San Antonio Express-News with a picture showing a giant mass of people by the Alamodome, almost all of them in pink shirts, and a caption that read “Over 30,000 Race for the Cure.” I read the first paragraphs of the article and learned that they were participating in a fund-raiser for breast cancer research. Wow! I thought to myself, wondering what it was like to be with thirty thousand people, all walking in the same direction and wearing the same colored shirt. I couldn’t help it. I mind-traveled. I put myself right in the middle of the crowd, imagining people lightly bumping into me as we walked, and everyone chanting the names of their loved ones with cancer. I imagined myself peeking over shoulders and looking for breaks in the crowd so I could make my way through, stopping at the water stations for a drink, and waving to the people on the sidelines. But mostly I imagined the energy, the positive energy, and the joy. If I actually did the race, then I wouldn’t have to mind-travel about it. Maybe the race could be my promesa. Then again, it was only five kilometers. It didn’t come close to being a thousand miles, and if it wasn’t a thousand miles, would it be good enough to cure Mom?
45 BILLION BEES
The next Wednesday, Mom went in for surgery. When my parents were gone for an hour or two, they let me babysit my brother and sister, but since Dad would be at the hospital the whole day and Mom even longer, Grandma came over to be with us.
As soon as she arrived, Carmen said, “Did you hear about the honeybees?”
“No, sweetie. What happened to the honeybees?”
“They have a disease called colony collapse disorder. I read about it in that magazine you ordered for me.”
Last Christmas, Grandma had given Carmen subscriptions to Discover Magazine and National Geographic; she gave me barrettes.
“That sounds awful,” Grandma said.
“It is,” Carmen agreed, “and it killed around forty-five billion bees last year.”
I knew bees lived in hives the way people lived in cities, so when I heard that number, I pictured downtown San Antonio totally abandoned. I saw the city going dark because no one was around to fix the electricity. I saw the boats slapping against the edges of our famous River Walk. I saw parking lots like empty seas. Then I pictured other big cities, like New York, Chicago, and Houston, all of them completely silent with no people around.
“Imagine forty-five billion people dying,” I said.
“That’s ridiculous,” Carmen told me.
“It could happen,” I insisted.
“No, it couldn’t.” She snapped. “Not when there aren’t forty-five billion people on the planet.”
Grandma patted Carmen’s head the way a trainer pets a dog that jumps through a hoop and fetches a stick. Why did I even try to join the conversation?
In order to distract us, Grandma kept us busy. First we baked cookies. Then we played Monopoly. Carmen won—but only because I had to keep Jimmy from grabbing the pieces. For lunch, Grandma took us to Alamo Cafe, one of our favorite restaurants, and after, to a shopping center that had a bookstore for Carmen, a toy store for Jimmy, and a T-shirt shop for me. I bought a shirt with a teddy bear wearing a feathered hat and reading from a scroll. According to the caption, his name was Shakesbear. I thought it was totally cute, but I couldn’t get excited. I didn’t even feel like sending a picture of it to Iliana. Grandma meant well, but her plans to distract me weren’t working. In fact, I felt worse. I couldn’t stop moping or thinking of some doctor putting Mom “under the knife.” And why did we use that word, “under,” when we talked about surgery? It made me think of “underground,” as in graveyards. I knew I shouldn’t think the worst, but my mind kept going there.
Soon after we got home, GumWad called. “Hey,” he said. “How’s it going? Is your mom still in the hospital? Today’s the day she’s having that operation, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But you don’t have to sound all cheery about it.”
“I’m not cheery. That’s just how my voice is.” He paused a moment. I could hear him smacking on the other end and wondered what color his gum was today. “How are you holding up?” he asked, using a totally fake low voice.
I couldn’t help laughing.
“What’s so funny?” GumWad wanted to know.
“Your voice,” I explained. “When you make it deep, you sound like a frog with a serious sore throat.”
He sighed. “I guess I can’t win. I’m either too cheery or I sound like a sick frog.”
“That’s okay,” I said. “I shouldn’t have snapped at you. But all this waiting while my mom’s in surgery is driving me nuts.” I glanced at my new mood ring. The stone was black, which, according to the mood ring color chart, meant I was severely anxious.
“You have to think positive thoughts,” GumWad said.
“That’s tough for a girl who’s wearing a T-shirt that says, ‘I used to be a pessimist, but now I just think the worst.’ ”
He laughed. “I love your ‘I used to’ series.”
“My what?”
“You have a lot of shirts that start with ‘I used to.’ ”
“I do?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Like ‘I used to be doubtful, but now I’m not so sure’ and ‘I used to be infallible, but now I’m perfect.’ ”
“ ‘I used to be a loner,’ ” I added, “ ‘but now I hang out with myself.’ ”
“And ‘I used to be apathetic, but now I just don’t care.’ ” He laughed again, still managing to smack his gum.
When he settled down, he said, “I stopped by your house but no one was there.”
“We went to Alamo Cafe. Why did you come by?”
“To drop something off. It’s in your mailbox, okay? There’s no stamp on it or an address because I put it there myself. I mean, it’s no big deal. Just a little something. But don’t read it when people are around, okay?”
“Are you nervous?” I asked.
“No. Why?”
“Because you’re saying ‘okay’ a lot. You always do that when you’re nervous.”
“Ha-ha.” He laughed, smacking extra loud now. “Okay, gotta g
o.” He hung up before I could say good-bye.
I went out the front door, reached into the mailbox, and pulled out an envelope. It had my name on it and a blue smudge, probably from GumWad’s gum. I was about to open it, but I heard a loud crash, followed by Jimmy’s screams, so I stuffed the envelope in my pocket and rushed back inside.
I found everyone in the kitchen.
“Jimmy was climbing the counter, trying to get at the cookies,” Carmen explained. “He dropped the plate, and it broke. Now all the cookies are on the floor. They’re all dirty and mixed up with the broken plate, so we can’t eat them after all.” She started to tear up. “And I really wanted one!”
This only made Jimmy scream. Grandma was holding him and saying, “Now, now,” as she kept him from grabbing the cookies on the floor.
“This wouldn’t have happened if Mom were here!” Carmen whined. She was really crying now, which upset Jimmy even more.
Grandma looked at me and said, “I’m getting too old for this.”
Poor lady. I could tell Jimmy was wearing her out. He really wanted the cookies, but how could he eat them without swallowing a piece of glass?
First things first, I told myself. Remove the temptation. I grabbed a broom and started to sweep. Step two, find another temptation. “Hey, Jimmy, isn’t it time for your favorite cartoon show?” I winked at Grandma. “Don’t you want to see it? If not, let me know because I’ve got a lot of shows I want to watch.”
“No!” Jimmy said. “My TV!”
“I don’t know,” I went on. “As soon as I finish cleaning up, I’m going to watch the afternoon news. Whoever gets there first gets to choose.”
“Gimme TV,” Jimmy said, pointing to the living room. “Gimme cartoon!”
“Are you finished crying?” Grandma asked.
He nodded, so Grandma took him out. A few minutes later, I heard cartoon music in the other room. Meanwhile, Carmen hadn’t moved. She kept sniffling, while I swept the mess into a little pile. As I cleaned, I got more and more frustrated. The least she could do was help. But no. She just stood there, watching, not lifting a finger.
