by Sara Alva
“All right, Freddy. Let’s read the next one.”
Five pages in to the incredibly boring tale of Nan and the bug, the front door of my house opened and an enormous man stepped in.
“Papá!” Frederico wiggled off the couch, his round little body barely reaching his father’s thighs when they hugged. Luz and Gloria also left the kitchen to greet the man, and I heard Gloria whispering to him in rapid-fire Spanish. Too rapid for me to make out.
After finishing his conversation with his wife, he strode over purposefully. “Hello. I am Raúl.”
Seb stopped playing with the sheet, his face blanking out as he scooted further into the corner of the couch.
Was he scared? If he were, I wouldn’t really have blamed him. Raúl was a man who could knock either of us out with one blow.
He was wearing overalls, stained with paint and crusted with splotches of plaster, and he smelled of sweat and burnt wood. Little flecks of soot dotted the stubble on his face. I figured he was a construction worker, or maybe just a day laborer. Whatever he did, it must’ve contributed to those bulging muscles, covered by only a thin layer of fat.
“Hey.” I stood, because from the lower stance he seemed like an absolute giant, and I was starting to feel a little intimidated.
He gripped my hand with strong, calloused fingers and shook it forcefully.
“I’m…I’m Alex.”
I forgot to introduce Seb, but that was probably because he was still seated, eyes glued to a carpet stain. I was pretty sure Mimi had made that, with an overturned cup of hot chocolate.
“My wife she say you can stay for coffee,” Raúl’s voice boomed as he ran his gaze over me suspiciously. He had a very heavy accent, but he spoke English with authority, not with the timid uncertainty Gloria had.
“Oh…thanks, but we’ll probably…”
“Vengan, vengan,” Gloria interrupted, waving us back to the kitchen. “Tengo café y un poco de pastel.”
When I didn’t move immediately, she came over and placed a mug in my hand. Seb stayed zoned out, so she left his on the kitchen table.
Raúl dropped his heavy form into the recliner that sat in the corner of the room.
“Papi, read a story?” Frederico asked, grabbing another book and crawling onto the armrest of his father’s chair.
Nodding, Raúl cupped his son’s head in one of his gigantic hands. “I will read a short one.”
He called Luz over, and she skirted around me to join them.
The story Freddy had picked was The Cat and the Hat. I recognized the cover right away—at least I’d learned that in school—and couldn’t imagine a sillier book for someone of Raúl’s size to be reading.
After clearing his throat with a mighty rumble, he began to read. His rich voice filled our little living room, sounding far too noble for the ridiculous scriblings of Dr. Seuss.
Seb relaxed and returned to his earlier game of picking at the couch cover. Whatever had upset him had evidently passed—maybe because the big bear of a man who’d arrived on the scene actually seemed a lot like a teddy bear now, with his kids smiling up at him adoringly.
For some reason, though, this unexpected side of Raúl had my guts rolling. Father was a completely foreign concept to me, but I’d never let that bug me before. It wasn’t like I was the only kid in the ghetto without one. José didn’t have one. And neither did Star.
But Star would’ve liked the story. I should’ve read to her while I was there, instead of just letting her play around in the dirt.
Raúl pulled Luz into his lap, and she tucked her long hair over one shoulder before resting on his chest. Where had they gotten a chair big enough to fit both him and his kids? Something that size couldn’tve been easy to find.
I blinked twice before it hit me. The chair.
There’d never been a chair in that corner of the room before. No furniture at all, actually. But I’d been there. I’d been crumpled on the floor in that very same spot, crying those long, hiccup-y sobs that left tears and snot all over my face, cradling a broken arm against my chest. I’d been there watching my sister—my closest ally—pack up and leave, watching my mother cowering beside the leg of the sofa, weak and confused and totally incapable of lifting a hand to help either of us.
The memory strangled me.
Abandoning my coffee, I scrambled to my feet and raced to the kitchen. I leaned over the sink and gasped in short, shallow breaths, my chest contracting too quickly for me to really draw in the right amount of oxygen.
I’d only been ten years old, but even then I’d had some understanding of what was going to happen to my sister out there on the streets. How she’d be beaten down by loneliness, how she’d be desperate for money, how she’d do anything to get by. And I’d tried to stop it. I’d tried to stand up to Hector, told him to go to hell like the scum he was, even smashed a glass vase against his chest.
And all I’d gotten for it was a reminder that I was ten years old, powerless and breakable.
With a weak, shaking hand, I grabbed some paper towel and wiped the sweat from my face.
Why was this hitting me now? I’d lived in this house for years after that day, and I’d always managed to keep thoughts of it right where they belonged—buried under a thick blanket of that’s-just-the-way-it-is.
“No te sientes bien?” Gloria ambushed me from behind. Her eyes were full of concern, and she placed her hand on my head like she was checking for a temperature. “You no feel good?”
I wanted to tell her I was fine, that we were ready to leave, but my mouth fell open and all I could do was suck in more air.
“You lie down,” she said, taking my arm and leading me down the hall to my own room.
Seb followed us immediately, standing close by my side as she opened the door to reveal a space that was almost as bare as it’d been when I’d slept there. The biggest difference was that there were two beds again—like there’d been when Mimi and I shared the room—and my dresser was covered in stickers. Only a few toys lay neatly stacked on the floor, and the closet was mostly empty. These people were just as poor as we’d been.
“You lie down,” Gloria repeated. “For to feel mejor.”
I nodded, and she apparently trusted me to follow through with her instructions because she turned around and left us.
“That’s just the way it is,” I whispered into the dark room once we were alone, but there was no more power in the words. That Band-Aid had been ripped clear off the wound. I knew it didn’t have to be that way. I couldn’t blame it on Watts, couldn’t even blame it on being poor.
We just hadn’t been the right people for the job of family.
Strong arms surrounded me, and Seb brought his hand up to my head, threading his fingers into my hair and pushing down so that I rested on his shoulder. I was so exhausted it took me several seconds to realize this was the first time he’d ever been the one to start a hug.
“Seb,” I mumbled breathlessly. “Seb, I…”
He patted my head once and pulled away, just as thundering footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Raúl flicked on the lights in the bedroom and stood in the entranceway with his beefy arms folded across his chest.
“My wife,” he said slowly, “she trusts. I tell her here, you not always can trust. But she trusts. She say you can stay one night.”
“O-oh,” I stuttered. I’d almost forgotten the sun had set outside, and we were still completely without a place to sleep. All my stupid self-pity was going to cost Seb in the end, if I couldn’t get my act together. “Um, yeah, that’d be great. Thanks.”
“You sleep here.” Raúl pointed to the beds.
“Oh, no.” I shook my head. “We can sleep in the living room, right Seb? I don’t want to take the kids’ beds.”
I started toward the doorway, but Raúl held his ground, completely blocking the exit.
“The children sleep with us tonight, because there are strangers.” His eyes narrowed on us.
; “Right.” I swallowed, trying to recoat my dry throat with saliva. “That’s…that’s a good idea. I mean, not because of us, because we’re not…I mean, we wouldn’t…but in general…”
He walked off.
I was finally able to draw in a deep enough breath to clear my head, and I gave Seb a weak smile. “Guess we solved that problem.”
If only for the night.
I settled into one of the beds—probably my bed, because it creaked the same way—and Seb lay down on the other one. He fell asleep right away, smartly building up his energy for the next day of uncertainty.
Lucky him. I couldn’t even bring myself to close my eyes.
The mattress wasn’t the world’s greatest, but it was a whole lot more comfortable than the floor, so that wasn’t the issue. I just kept staring out the window into the purple sky, listening to the sounds of the city night—the same sounds I’d heard all my life. Cars revving and tires screeching. Loud stereos with pumped-up bass. Cats in heat. Dog fights. Sirens.
All so familiar, and yet so foreign now.
An ambulance roared past, and I pulled the blankets more securely over my body.
I wished Star could’ve been there, in a warm bed, instead of lying on the cold hardwood floor, alone.
~*~
“Y a dónde van?” Gloria asked for at least the third time over breakfast the next morning. She was back in the apron, because she was cooking again.
“Uh.” I blinked, my eyes sore and my lids weary from lack of sleep. “I told you, we’re going to that friend.”
Frederico shoveled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth and started to translate through the crunch of flakes. “Dice que—”
“Hold it.” I patted his hand. The friend story obviously wasn’t working on Gloria—I needed to come up with something more elaborate. Nibbling at my tamale, I bought myself a little time. “Uh, I have a tía we can stay with…tengo una tía y vamos a…a quedarnos con ella.”
“Dice que tiene una tía—” Frederico began, then stopped, his round face puzzled. “Oh…never mind.”
Luz giggled, hiding her face behind a sheet of hair.
“Freddy, you should be a translator when you grow up,” I said.
He took another bite of cereal and shrugged. “What’s that?”
Gloria came around the table and handed me a warm package of food wrapped in aluminum foil. “Algunos tamales.”
“Oh, thanks.” I stifled a yawn as I tucked them away in my backpack. “Well, I guess we should get going.”
“Los niños también,” she added, “a la escuela.”
Luz and Frederico stood at the mention of school, grabbing their own bags from the backs of their chairs. Each of them received a hug, a kiss, and a plastic lunchbox from Gloria before we all headed out the door.
“Adiós,” Gloria called. “Que les vaya bien.”
I nodded, taking slow steps down the walkway as the train rattled by and dusty air swirled around us.
Que les vaya bien. Basically…may you travel well.
But travel where? And how? And do what once we got there?
I ran through things quickly in my head. We needed shelter, somewhere where the cops wouldn’t be looking for us. Warmer clothes if we were going to be on the streets at night. Food. More money. Jobs.
The tamales I’d had for breakfast, delicious but full of lard, suddenly became lead weights in my stomach. I wrapped my arms around myself and breathed deeply to work through the queasiness.
“So, Seb, we should—”
“Goodbye!” Frederico shouted. He and Luz were turning to go in the opposite direction, toward the elementary school. Luz gave me a timid little wave, but Freddy’s plump hand waggled energetically. “Bye-bye!”
I waved back, though I tried to keep my mind on our current problems. Should we go further east? Or west? Leave Los Angeles? Or maybe leave California all together?
But I knew nothing of the world outside this city. How would we get by?
Freddy was still waving. Little kids liked to wave forever, it seemed. I focused in on his hand, letting my other concerns be pushed to the background for a moment—probably because I had no answers. But as I continued to stare, it wasn’t his little fingers I was thinking about.
It was Star’s.
I turned back to Seb, wishing we were alone so I could lose myself in his arms again. “Star will never have this, will she?”
He blinked.
“The dinner at the table and the fresh tamales and the story reading and the whole…this whole family thing.”
His eyes drifted to the ground. No. Probably not.
The oppressive hand returned, clenching my heart in its mighty grip. “She…she doesn’t really have a chance, does she?’
I stopped walking and inhaled through my nose, willing my breakfast to stay exactly where it was.
“Mimi didn’t have a chance. She didn’t. It wasn’t fair. I…I tried to help her, but I just couldn’t do anything. And now Star…now… they…they don’t have a chance…”
They didn’t, unless something changed. And who would change it? Not Mimi—she didn’t know how. Star was too young. And the only change Angel would make would be to influence Star, maybe make her into a little wh—
I dry-heaved once, then began emptying the contents of my stomach all over the sidewalk.
Seb’s arms were at my shoulders immediately, holding me as I continued to retch. Brown and orange half-digested tamale bits splattered on the ground. When there was nothing left to throw up, I stayed hunched over, staring down at them with sick fascination until my eyes stung.
Seb eventually pulled me up, and I spit to rid my mouth of the vile taste. As my vision cleared, a blur of black and blue in the distance slowly morphed into a payphone.
“I…I think I need to make a phone call.”
The fifty-cents left over from the UCLA couple—my only change—went into the phone. Still shaking from being sick—or from shock or from fear or from whatever insanity had possessed me—I pulled the crumpled business card from my pocket and smoothed it out so I could dial the number.
It rang twice.
“Suzie Gardell, Department of Children and Family Services.”
I hung onto the receiver, closing my eyes and breathing heavily.
“Hello? Hello? Is someone on the line?” Papers rustled in the background.
“Suzie,” I whispered.
The noise of movement stopped. “Yes? Who is this?”
“Suzie…it’s me.” My voice sounded awful. Wobbly and scratchy and tearful, even though I wasn’t actually crying.
“Alex? Oh my goodness. Please, tell me where you are. Is Sebastian with you?”
There was panic in her tone, but I ignored it. “He’s here.”
“Thank God. Alex, please, you need to tell me—”
I cut her off. “I have to know something. When you first picked me up…when you said that DCFS doesn’t rip apart families…that they work with them to make a safe environment…was that true?”
“Have you found your mother? Where? If you’ve found her we can do this the right way—”
“Answer me!” I slammed my fist into the numbers on the payphone, and a series of tones emerged.
“Okay, okay.” Suzie’s breaths were growing shorter. I could just imagine her lifting her hands and motioning for me—and for her—to calm down. “Yes, it’s true. We don’t remove children from households unless we suspect immediate danger…like we did with you. DCFS can provide counseling…we can recommend therapies and drug rehabs and shelters and employment offices. There are a lot of services out there, a lot of places that can help, if people know where to look.”
“They don’t.” I snorted bitterly. “They don’t know where to look.”
“Then let us help you, Alex. Please tell me where you are. We’ll come pick you up right away.”
I kept my eyes closed, as if the darkness would protect me from the reality of what I was doing. “Sw
ear to me.”
“Swear…what?”
“Swear to me you won’t rip children out of their mother’s arms. Swear to me that you’ll help them.”
“I swear, Alex. I swear that everything we do is in the best interest of the children and the family.”
“Then I need you to write down an address.”
Some papers shuffled and a desk chair creaked. “Okay, I’m ready. Go ahead.”
“6724 Makee Avenue, unit two.”
“And that’s where you’ll be? You and Sebastian?”
My lids fluttered, trying to open, but I squeezed them shut again. “No.”
“Alex, I don’t understand.”
“Promise me, Suzie. Promise me you’ll help her. Help both of them. Promise me you won’t take Star away from her. It’s not her fault. She didn’t have a chance. Sh-she didn’t have anywhere to go…sh-she…she…”
“Who are you talking about? Your mother?”
I shook my head, even though Suzie couldn’t see it. “My sister. She has a daughter…she’s…she’s only five years old…”
My face was wet. The tears had arrived.
“What’s happened? Please, let me come pick you up and we can talk about this.”
“She’s only five years old,” I repeated. “And my sister…my sister is a…my sister is a…”
My throat closed and I choked on the taste of vomit. I felt myself slipping—slipping to the floor, slipping into complete despair…until Seb’s hand closed around mine.
He squeezed my fingers, stroking my knuckles with his thumb. I finally opened my eyes and found him gazing at me with concern…but beneath that, I swore I could make out a flickering of…understanding.
I took a deep breath.
“My sister is a hooker. But she didn’t have a choice. She got kicked out and she had a kid to support. She didn’t know any other way.”
“Alex—”
“You won’t arrest her, will you?”
“I don’t work for the police department. Of course I won’t arrest her.”
“She’s a good mom. She loves Star. But they don’t have enough money and Star is so skinny and…and…what if the cops got her? They’d take Star away anyways. And then Angel…that fucking piece of shit…he’s a fucking pimp and he carries a gun around Star and he…he smokes crack in front of her, and I’m afraid…I’m afraid that…and I want Star to…I want her to have a fucking chance!”
