by Michel Stone
“Hey, Héctor,” he called.
“Yeah?”
“You’re nothing like that man in the car.”
“What?” Héctor said, taking a step toward Diego.
“You’re honest. Loyal. You’re a good man,” he said, before easing off down the street toward the bright lights glittering bayside below them.
Chapter 27
Lilia
“You had no mama,” Rosa said to Lilia, laying a cool cloth that smelled of lavender and mint across Lilia’s brow, trying to cool the fever she’d developed that afternoon.
New, strange worries had been bubbling up in Lilia ever since the priest had delivered the news from the orphanage woman in Matamoros, and this afternoon Lilia had been thinking about her own motherless upbringing, though deeply grateful for her grandmother who raised her. She’d been trying to explain to Rosa how Alejandra had been motherless now since infancy, and how worrisome that was to Lilia.
“Yet look at you now,” Rosa continued. “You’re a wife and a mother, and you do just fine.”
“Ah, yes, look at me,” Lilia said, her voice cracking. “I’m a mess. When I look in the mirror I can’t believe the person looking back at me, and I wonder how this could have happened. Where’s that fresh-faced girl who married Héctor? He used to love my long hair, you know?”
Rosa nodded. “Don’t be so vain, Lilia,” she said, though not unpleasantly. She had become tenderer to Lilia since she’d confined her to bed. Not so long ago Rosa had been Héctor’s harshest critic, and Lilia’s, too. She’d been so angry at Héctor for crossing into el norte, and even angrier at Lilia for following him and taking Alejandra. Perhaps she was still their harshest critic, but she’d become less vocal about her disapproval.
“When I crossed, the man at the border house made me cut my hair. Did I ever tell you that, Rosa?”
“No,” Rosa whispered. Fernando had fallen asleep on a mat on the floor, and she pointed to him, so that Lilia might lower her voice to let the child sleep.
“With a knife. I chopped my hair with a knife, then dyed it an ugly reddish color I would’ve never chosen on my own. But a murderous stranger, my temporary guardian, with a much sharper knife than the one he’d given me, stood watch over me. He said I had to do it, to be less conspicuous to the immigration officers.”
“How so?” Rosa said.
“Because not anyone could have such long hair as mine. It was a specific, recognizable characteristic. He said I needed to match the false identification I’d receive, and that with the chopped, dyed hair, I could better pull off various looks.”
“Ah,” Rosa said, brushing a loose strand of hair from Lilia’s face with such tenderness. Lilia reached up and grabbed Rosa’s cool fingers and pressed them against her hot cheek.
“I know it was only hair, but when I think back on that day, it represents something larger, not just a change in my appearance but something deeper, a shift in my whole world.” Lilia paused, searching for the right words. Rosa eyed her, listening, waiting.
“Until then my life had existed in two parts: life with my grandmother and then my life after she’d passed,” Lilia said. “But those were the thoughts of an innocent girl. Now I know that the two parts of my life occurred on either side of that day, the day I chopped my hair at the border, the day I swam the river, the last day I held my Alejandra before handing her to that woman who never returned her to me.”
Rosa nodded and took a sip of water from the mug she’d clamped between her knees.
“Rosa, I want to be excited about this news the priest brought us,” she said.
“Of course you do. This is what you’ve hoped for for years now,” Rosa said.
“I’ve often thought Alejandra could be dead, but I told myself if that were true, then at least only I would continue to suffer, but she wouldn’t have to suffer. I told myself I could take that. I mean, that’s the fate of mothers, isn’t it, Rosa? My mother died so that I could live. Like Jesus Christ. He died so that we could live. I’m not saying my mother and certainly not I am like Jesus, but good mothers possess that Christ-like trait, Rosa.”
She wasn’t certain her words were conveying what she needed Rosa to hear, though Rosa’s eyes were comforting.
“But if I knew Alejandra has been living out there somewhere,” Lilia continued, “I’d worry more than if she were dead, because maybe my child needed my help. I worry she’s suffered evil, that she’ll never know that she was conceived in love and loved fiercely by her mama, that she’ll never know that our separation has been crushing for me. Perhaps my girl will grow into a bitter woman, angry about all the trials and pain she’s endured without the solace of a mama who she believes abandoned her.”
Fernando cried out in his sleep then rolled onto his side, the soft, deep breathing of his slumber resuming.
“I don’t think I can bear more loss, Rosa. If I lose this baby and if Héctor can’t track down Alejandra, I’m not sure I can figure out how to put my feet one in front of the other anymore, and I am ashamed to tell you this because you could do it. You’re far stronger than I.”
Rosa shook her head. “Lilia,” she began, but Lilia interrupted her.
“No, Rosa. Let me say this.”
Rosa exhaled. “Go on.”
“I’ve longed that my daughter know my love for her. I’ve ached, imagining the suffering she may have endured since I lost her, a crushing weight that I hold in my chest like a rough, cold millstone, because I can’t take the hurt away from her, I can’t unburden her.”
“Lilia, all mothers feel that way at times,” Rosa said. “I’m sure you’ve felt that way about Fernando, too. We can’t shield our children from pain, even if we carry them in a sack against our breasts. Still the bee can sting, the thorn can prick.”
Lilia shook her head. Rosa wasn’t understanding what Lilia needed her to hear. “If Alejandra had been able to see my face and know my heart all these years,” Lilia said, “even if her life’s physical suffering has been harsh, somehow she could have witnessed my discomfort, my sorrow for her suffering, and in that sharing between us of suffering and grief, Alejandra’s pain would be lessened. Rosa, if my little girl lives out there in this world and bears heavy burdens and wears the ragged scars of life without a mother’s love, my love, as a salve, that, to me, is the worst kind of agony a mother can know.”
Lilia clasped Rosa’s hand between her own hot, dry palms. She needed Rosa to grasp her words, her concerns. Rosa squeezed Lilia’s fingers, but she didn’t speak, letting Lilia continue.
“I worry Héctor will find Alejandra, but that her suffering has been immeasurable, her scars too deep for me to knead out, Rosa. Do you understand? How can we pick up the pieces and be a family, a mother and daughter, if I’ve failed her in irreparable ways, ways that will define her, ways that have broken her?”
“Enough of this talk, Lilia. You do this to yourself, you always have. Don’t waste your energy and emotions on things that can’t be helped. You cannot conjure good from evil. No amount of wrangling out the endless possibilities of bad scenarios will diminish the likelihood that bad has occurred to Alejandra. Instead, focus on your new, unborn baby and on your hope that Alejandra will be returned to you. That’s where your mind should be. Only there, and also on little Fernando, the living, breathing, rambunctious boy who danced so long in puddles today he’s exhausted himself.”
Rosa stood. “You rest while he rests. I’m going to the market to get a few things for our dinner and then stop at my house and check on my José. My man needs a little loving to keep his head right, you know,” she said with a smile. “I’ll be back in a while. Do you need help to relieve yourself before I go?”
“No. I’ll rest now,” Lilia said, rolling onto her side as Rosa left the house. She listened to Fernando’s soft, sweet breathing and tried to match it with her own. She willed herself to dream of her two daughters, laughing in the surf, the three of them holding hands, splashing at the edge of a calm s
ea, perhaps waiting for Héctor and Fernando to return from a fishing trip. How strange to think with such uncertainty on these two girls’ existence, as if they were strangers who may or may not cross her path sometime in the future, yet she loved them with such ferocity their existence simply had to be. She prayed God would not let her thoughts drift to the dark places, and that, indeed, her girls would live and thrive and know love and goodness.
Chapter 28
Héctor
The ocean, dark now except for a spot in the distance where the moon glowed between fat clouds like melted silver, stretched before Héctor, the surface smooth and concealing what lay below. He wished memory could be like the sea, leveling everything into an infinite plain that spread so far and distant that even the most tragic of events would be thinned and washed to the horizon, remaining no more indelibly in one’s mind than the simple mundane events that composed the majority of a man’s existence.
He’d left the dock earlier than necessary, anxious to leave the land and get out onto the water, and so now the Gabriela with Héctor at the helm receded from the lights of Acapulco at a more leisurely pace than usual.
The scents of the burning car tainted Héctor’s being, though he’d showered and even swum in the sea earlier that evening, hoping to cleanse himself of all the nastiness that lingered.
This run to the cliff side would be his last, and for many reasons, he would wait no longer after tonight to leave Acapulco. Twice before he’d done this and each time had been the same. His contact and he would meet, speak little, lower the cooler to the boat, and Héctor would leave. Then, God willing, if God were involved in such undertakings, Héctor would meet Ignacio or Santiago back at the dock. The men would waste no time loading the cooler into a pickup truck. Héctor would receive eight hundred pesos, and within twenty minutes of his arrival he’d be back in Emanuel’s apartment, grateful for the money and that the night had been uneventful.
When he reached the cliff, he secured the boat and climbed the ladder up the rocky bluff. As usual, his contact emerged from the darkness, and the two spoke no words as they went about their now-familiar proceedings. Only this time, after they hauled the cooler to the cliff’s edge, the man said, “I have two for you tonight.”
Héctor wondered why the amount had doubled this week, and he wondered if his bosses knew this or if the double order would surprise them. They had not mentioned an increase.
“Okay,” Héctor said, following the man back to his truck for the second cooler, careful not to scrape his throbbing, blistered knuckles on the cooler’s handle.
When they’d returned to the cliff’s edge and were preparing the ropes to lower the cooler to the boat, the man said, “Been a very good few days here.”
Héctor nodded, unsure what to say to this. He considered telling the man that this would be their last meeting, that after today he’d be long gone, headed north, but he thought better of it and instead busied himself in silent work.
When he’d secured the coolers in the boat, he untied his bowline and eased away from the rocks, glad to be done with this bit of business.
With the dark cliff shrinking in the distance behind him, Héctor revved the engine and turned the boat toward Acapulco. The night air felt cool and velvety on his skin, and he realized how much he’d come to love being on the water. When he could make out the distant shore of the bay twinkling a mile or so ahead, he slowed the boat and cut the engine, though he wasn’t sure why he’d done so. For several seconds the momentum of the boat brought the lapping sound of water against the bow, but then all was still and calm, and Héctor wished he could freeze this moment, the best part of this horrific day.
He heard a whale purge somewhere off to his left and he studied the surface as best he could, hoping to see its silhouette rise. He heard the whale blow three more times, then it was gone, leaving Héctor in silent contemplation.
He’d been wrangling all evening with the conflicting desires to block out the proceedings of his ride with Diego but also to make sense of it. He’d been able to do neither. He told himself that after tonight, he’d be gone from this place and on the path to his little girl, and that was all that mattered now. He could do nothing to parse out the events of the day. As he sat there replaying his conversation with Diego, he considered Diego’s questions about the contents of the coolers Héctor hauled on these runs, and he wondered if Diego knew the answer, if he weren’t just testing Héctor. He stood and turned in a slow circle, his view the oily darkness of midnight. For a few moments the moon peeped from between the clouds, but even then the moon was just a quarter moon and not too bright.
No one would ever know, he told himself. He fingered the flashlight in his hip pocket. Diego had called him honest and trustworthy, but if he lifted the cooler’s lid, if he peeked inside, wouldn’t he be disloyal? Dishonest? He’d buoyed himself the past two weeks not to care or consider the contents of the coolers, but something about today sabotaged his steadfastness, and as he bobbed on the gently rocking sea, his curiosity mounted with each passing minute.
What did his knowing matter? He had every right to know. He’d been the one taking the risks, working under cover of darkness, meeting the quiet stranger late nights on a cliff’s edge. Nothing had gone wrong, but that was just dumb luck, or God’s will.
He slipped the flashlight from his pocket and illuminated the closest cooler. It was not unlike the coolers they used on their fishing charters, but these had been painted black, and the ones for fish were white. If he were careful, he could peel back the tape, lift the lid, verify what he already suspected, then seal it just as it had been. He’d deliver as planned at the dock, and this time tomorrow he’d be on his way to northern Mexico. But he had to hurry. Santiago or Ignacio—he never knew which one would be at the dock—would be expecting him soon.
He worked a fingernail under the edge of a corner of tape and tugged. The adhesive was sealed tight to the plastic surface and very sticky, but Héctor suspected he could secure it back in place without difficulty. Slowly he worked free one strip and then another, glad for no wind that could tangle the loose bands dangling from the side of the cooler now. When he’d freed one side he worked the front and then the other side, and he realized that, despite the milder than normal temperature, sweat beaded on his brow.
As he labored Héctor noticed for the first time the tiny pits pricked into the four sides of the cooler. He’d not studied the cooler this closely before now, and the holes were all but invisible along the black surface.
When he’d freed all the tape, he inhaled sharply and blew a deep breath. “Okay,” he said aloud, looking around again in every direction to be certain no boat had approached without his knowing. Nothing had changed, and for all he saw the Gabriela was the only vessel on the entire sea this peaceful, dark night.
He lifted the lid and turned the beam of his flashlight into the cooler. At first he thought he’d been the victim of a strange and puzzling joke. Green, yellow, and red, the bold colors of a child’s crayon drawing. Downy, textured softness, as if a feather blanket lay over the cooler’s more important cargo, cloaking whatever lay hidden beneath it.
But the eyes! So many eyes, dark as obsidian beads but full of life, full of fright. A cooler of birds. What the hell was this about? He moved closer, wary of touching them, and shone the light close over the dense mass of living, trembling, fettered parrots. He ran a hand through his hair trying to make sense of this. Laughter almost rose in his throat, as he considered the many suspicions that had played through his mind about his freight.
“Goddamned birds?” He said it aloud, shaking his head. “I’ve been hauling goddamned birds.”
Leaving the cooler’s lid open, he sat but continued to stare at the birds. How many were in there? He guessed at least forty or fifty, maybe more. And how could they possibly survive very long like that, especially the ones on the bottom. He tried to imagine how the man on the cliff had captured them, surely with illegal methods, otherwise
he’d not be running them to shore in stupid coolers at midnight. He considered the birds flying free, an entire flock. They’d land in a mango tree or some other fruit- or berry-bearing bush, expecting a meal, and then, what? Would their captors spring a giant net over the bunch, then bundle them like dead fish in these coolers? No wonder the man had told Héctor to go straight to the dock with no stops. He wondered what one of these birds brought in? How many pesos did Ignacio and Santiago pocket for these parrots?
With sickening remorse he recalled that first night, when he’d almost tossed the cooler into the sea, and he uttered a silent prayer of thanks to God for stopping him.
But then he looked at them again, studying them in the white beam of his flashlight. What magnificent creatures they were! And how horrific this transport had to be for them!
He was taken back to his crossing, how terrifying that had been for him and his fellow pollos, their fates uncertain and the potential for death significant. How helpless he’d felt, packed into the sealed undercarriage of that delivery truck, much like these birds were stacked in this cooler. He stood again and gently slipped his fingers beneath a parrot, careful not to break its feathers. Each bird had been wrapped tight in a sheer netting. The heft of the bird surprised him. He would let them all go. He could unwrap each one and set them free right there from the bow of the Gabriela. But just as he had that thought he knew he could not do so, for as he’d told Diego earlier, he could not compromise his plan to earn money and get to Alejandra.
Alejandra. Héctor sighed and lowered the parrot back into the cooler, a heaviness in his chest for his part in this illegal trade. The birds had been plucked from where nature, where God had intended them to be, and he wondered at their future, the future of the ones that would survive. Would they be kept in a clean cage, adorning the courtyard or fancy house of some rich family in Mexico City, or America, or even that faraway and cold country of Canada? Just as he could not possibly know what had happened to Alejandra when she’d been plucked from him, so he could not know the fate of these birds.
