Still, he liked the soft, velvety feel of the rose petals between his fingers, the way they reminded him of the touch of Maria’s skin, of those nights at the lake when they reached out for something comforting and familiar in the darkness and found each other. He had thought it was lust that had driven him into her arms. But he recognized the sensation as closer to longing. He was here and he wanted to be in Esperanza. He wanted to hear Triza’s whippoorwill voice drifting from an open window. He wanted Stephany on his shoulders and Juliza and Lorenzo walking beside him, talking his ears off. He wanted to taste the dust in the square, the ripe mangoes in the marketplace, the salty sweat on his wife’s skin after they made love.
Soon, he told himself. He had worked hard this season—seven days a week most weeks. His hands were so callused that when he tried to sew a loose button on his shirt, he could not feel the needle between his fingers. He was working regularly for one landscaping contractor but he also did some work for another man who paved driveways and built stone walls. Both of the contractors were Latin Americans and while they worked him hard, they were fair. He had paid back the cost of coming here, kept food on his family’s table, and provided money for his children to go to school. He had saved up enough in rent to survive the winter. Another year or two or maybe three and there would be enough to return home. He hoped he wasn’t lying to himself. He’d met men on his first journey to Lake Holly five years ago who told him they were headed back home for good after the season. On his return journey, they were still here, still vowing to leave.
He had wanted to do this trip to the lake by himself, but that was impossible. The reservoir was too far to hike to after work. He was too tired. Most days, he worked too late to consider such a journey. It would have been pitch black by the time he arrived. Besides, knowing what he knew now, he felt it only fitting that Olivia accompany him. So one day, when it was too wet to work outside and Señora Linda had hired him for some small projects around her house, he asked if she might consider driving him and Olivia to the reservoir some late afternoon to say a prayer for Maria.
He was nervous making such a request. Neither of them had ever spoken about what had happened, though it was an open secret that Porter was in prison and Olivia was Maria’s child. Many of the immigrants Rodrigo knew spoke against the Porters in private. Neither of the Porters had anything to do with La Casa anymore. Still, Rodrigo felt for Señora Linda. He knew she had suffered, both physically and emotionally. He knew she loved Olivia and that she had brought Maria’s mother and nephew all the way from Guatemala to visit. In the end, Maria wasn’t dead for anything Señora Linda or her husband did anyway. It was an accident—an accident that Cesar Cardenas’s boy would probably be paying for for the rest of his life.
And so one day in late October when work was cancelled because of bad weather and the rain had finally let up, Rodrigo bought his roses and he and Olivia and Señora Linda headed over to the reservoir. They were quiet in the car. Olivia was listening to her iTouch. She had asked to hold the roses and Rodrigo urged her to be careful of the thorns.
Rodrigo looked out the car window at the scenery passing by. For all the work he did on people’s yards, he seldom took the time to appreciate the landscape. He saw leaves as something that needed to be blown or raked or bagged. He saw branches and tree limbs as appendages that needed cutting. A stretch of green was something to weed or mow. Now, looking out the window, he found himself captivated by the colors and textures before him. The deep scarlet of a Japanese maple. The billowy bright yellow of a tulip tree against the dark gray sky. The feathery defiance of a grove of spruces that would remain green all winter.
He knew the names of trees and plants here now. He felt an affinity for them. This would never be his home. The Norte Americanos would never let it be, nor could it be, really. But he felt some measure of ownership all the same. He could point to stairways and stone walls and patios he’d helped build, driveways he’d resurfaced, bushes and trees he’d planted that would grow in stature long after he was gone. He had staked a claim, however small, on this patch of New York. It was not home, no. But it was not entirely foreign anymore.
“You must think Scott and I are terrible people,” Señora Linda said after a long spell of silence. Her voice was so unexpected, Rodrigo jumped.
“I don’t think that.”
“But Maria must have.”
“I don’t know what she thought. She never told me. She would have been very sad, yes. But you are doing what you can now.”
“Her death touched so many lives.”
“I think,” said Rodrigo, “she would have preferred to think her life touched so many lives.”
“Her life, yes,” Señora Linda agreed.
At the lake, Olivia scampered ahead with the roses while Rodrigo clutched Señora Linda’s elbow and gently guided her across the slick leaves and dropped acorns that rolled like marbles beneath her unsteady feet. Since the accident, she’d needed a cane to walk. He suspected she might always need one from now on.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized, her gait awkward and slow.
“You are doing fine.”
“I wish things were the way they used to be.”
“I find,” he said slowly, trying to put his thoughts into words, “it is better to look for beauty in the way things are.” So much of Rodrigo’s life he’d had to hold with open arms. He’d learned not to hold on to anything too tightly—especially, the past.
At the edge of the lake, Rodrigo, Señora Linda, and Olivia pulled the pink petals off the roses until they each had two fistfuls. They floated them on the water while Rodrigo said an Ave Maria softly in Spanish. Olivia blew her petals like little sailboats. Some gathered in a pocket along the shoreline but others drifted on the tin-colored surface until they had scattered far and wide, until the waning light showed only their cupped outlines bobbing across the water.
Olivia stood in front of Señora Linda and rested her head in the crook of her arm until a deep chill settled down over them and the trees lost their definition in the fading light. The little girl played with her earlobes. Rodrigo suddenly remembered Maria doing that. And he thought with a smile that Maria had staked her claim on this land too.
“We should go,” said Rodrigo. “The child is cold.” They walked more slowly now, even Olivia. Above, a flock of gray-white birds called out across the milky sky. Maybe they were headed south, to a place half-remembered and half-envisioned, a place where warm winds would welcome them and hold them in their embrace. Rodrigo hoped they would find their way. He hoped in time, they would all find their way.
Acknowledgments
This book grew out of a desire to tell the stories of real people who live their lives with courage and dignity as undocumented immigrants. I am forever grateful to the men and women who shared their experiences with me: Adolfo, Amanda, Ana, Carmen, Enrique N., Enrique P., Gabriela Monroy, Gonzalo Cruz, Higinio, Maria Luisa, Marlla Sanchez, Minerva, J. Nelson Arboleda, Ovidio, and Raul. I have been moved to tears by their accounts of harrowing journeys, desperate partings, and unwavering determination in the face of incredible odds. I hope this book does justice to their stories.
I am grateful to Professor Louise Yelin and the Purchase College Writers Center for their fellowship grant that enabled me to start this project; to John Gitlitz, professor of Political Science and Latin American Studies at Purchase, for his careful read of my manuscript; and to Ileana Sav-vides who helped with all my early interviews as both translator and editor.
My deepest thanks to Graciela Heymann, executive director of the Westchester Hispanic Coalition who provided help and support on so many fronts. I couldn’t have done this project without her.
On the legal/medical front, I am very grateful to Westchester County Medical Examiner Dr. Kunjlata Ashar for her forensic expertise and attorney Theodora Saal for sharing her understanding of the legal issues facing the undocumented. I would also like to thank Westchester County Police Department detectives
Captain Christopher Calabrese and Lt. James Palanzo for their help on county police matters and Detective Sgt. James Wilson of the New Castle Police Department for insights at the local policing level.
I’m grateful to my agent, Stephany Evans, for her unwavering support on this project—and for dragging me into twenty-first-century technology! Thanks also to Rosemary Ahern for her keen eye in helping to shape this story early. And a special thank you to my editor at Kensington, Michaela Hamilton, for seeing the book’s potential and to her assistant, Norma Perez-Hernandez, for advocating early for it.
My thanks most of all to the people who give me encouragement when I need it most: my husband, Thomas Dunne; my children, Kevin and Erica; and Bill Hayes, Sol Chazin, Gene West, and Janis Pomerantz who have been there over the long, long haul.
Photo by Thomas Dunne
About the Author
Suzanne Chazin is the author of three mystery novels: The Fourth Angel, Flashover, and Fireplay about the New York City Fire Department, inspired by her husband who is a high-ranking chief in the FDNY. Her essays and articles have appeared in American Health, Family Circle, Ladies Home Journal, Money, the New York Times, People and Reader’s Digest. Her short fiction has appeared in the anthology, Bronx Noir.
Suzanne was drawn to writing Land of Careful Shadows after working on an outreach project with immigrants near her home in suburban New York. The more she learned about the lives of the undocumented, the more touched she became by their courage and quiet determination. Because the people Suzanne interviewed couldn’t share their stories publicly, she decided to tell them in novel form. Thanks to a grant from the Purchase College Writers Center, she was able to complete Land of Careful Shadows. Suzanne is currently working on a sequel and hopes her novels will raise greater awareness about the issues the undocumented face in the U.S.
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Suzanne Chazin
Excerpt from “Exodus” by Jaime Torres Bodet reprinted courtesy of Indiana University Press. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
Library of Congress Card Catalogue Number: 2014943593
ISBN: 978-1-6177-3633-9
First Kensington Hardcover Edition: December 2014
eISBN-13: 978-1-61773-634-6
eISBN-10: 1-61773-634-1
First Kensington Electronic Edition: December 2014
Land of Careful Shadows Page 31
