Not wanting to stand around wondering about the outcome, Miranda decided on a course of action. She looked down the street and noticed the usual sluggish traffic. A taxi would be too slow. She’d just have to make a run for it to the other side of the mercado. She’d have a straight shot if she ran along the outside of the market rather than weaving around the crowds and stalls underneath the canopies.
Taking a deep breath, she set off running down the cracked and buckled sidewalk. From time to time, she ran in the street alongside the curb before hopping back onto the sidewalk. Passersby stopped to watch her progress. Drivers honked their horns, seeming to cheer her on as she often sped faster than the traffic. Miranda remembered a mercado not too far from the neighborhood where she'd located her mother. Maybe there was a chance they'd get to find out—after Spencer calmed down.
After several minutes, she could see the end to the canopies that had stretched for blocks. She ran around to the side and looked further up the street. No racing child or Spencer as far as she could see. Gulping lungfuls of the metallic air, she leaned forward and braced her hands on her knees.
She could hear the sounds inside the mercado. Cries of ¿Qué le doy, Señor?, ¡Barato!, ¡Escójale! What can I get you? Cheap! Pick something! mingled with the babble of foreign voices and traffic.
A flash of movement caught her eye. She jerked her head up. A small dark-haired boy shot out of the opening to the market. Miranda lunged toward him and grabbed a handful of his shirt, then clamped an arm around his belly and pulled him tight against her.
The boy bucked and struggled to no avail. His bare feet thrashed out to kick her. Miranda wrestled with him until she had his arms pinned to his sides. His wails attracted little attention.
“Hurry up, Spencer!” she muttered, darting glances around the area.
As if on cue, Spencer stumbled from the edge of vendors, wheezing and looking wildly around. He saw her and the boy and strode over to where she stood. Without saying a word, he pawed through the boy’s ragged shorts pockets. A wallet, a bracelet, and a banana tumbled out onto the ground. Along with a watch.
“Aha!” He held up his watch before placing it back on his wrist.
“Spencer,” Miranda said as the boy continued to howl and thrash. “A little help here.”
Spencer took the child from her, lowering him to his feet. He grabbed his arms and knelt before him.
“Young man, don’t you know stealing is bad?”
Miranda covered her mouth to stifle a snort. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she mumbled. “Anyway, he probably doesn’t speak English.”
Spencer sent her a hard look. “What, should I just let him go? Is that what you want? So he can go steal something else? Besides, I have to see that all this other stuff is returned to the rightful owners.” The little boy struggled impotently in the strength of Spencer’s grip.
Miranda crossed her arms over her chest. “Look how skinny he is. Maybe he’s just hungry. He could buy a lot of food with that watch. Buy enough food for his whole family for a year. You could afford another watch within the next half hour.”
Spencer opened his mouth, then clamped it shut. He firmed his lips. “This watch is special to me.”
“Just like food is special to a hungry little boy.”
“Miranda,” he growled. “You’re not making this any easier. Just tell me where the authorities are so I can have him returned to his parents.”
“The authorities, as you put it, won’t be any help. And maybe he doesn’t have any parents. Did you think of that?” He’s just doing what it takes to survive. Miranda bit back the words just in time. She didn’t want to upset the tenuous thread of their fragile reconciliation so soon.
She crouched down next to the little boy. He’d apparently stopped wailing when no one bothered to pay him enough attention. His big brown eyes surveyed her with a distinct lack of fear. More like resignation. The exact way I feel most of the time. Her heart went out to him.
“¿Dónde está tu casa?”
He continued to look at her with stoicism. Miranda decided he didn’t want to divulge where he lived. If he did get caught by the authorities, he’d be in for a rough time.
“We don’t want to hurt you,” she said in Spanish. Bet he’s heard that before. “We just want to make sure you get home safely.”
While Spencer continued to keep a tight grip on him, Miranda fumbled in her purse and pulled out several notes worth a hundred pesos. Pocket change to her. Big money for a family. “For you. To buy food for your family.”
“He’ll probably just give it to his parents who will use it to buy drugs,” Spencer said in an aside.
Miranda bit her lip to keep from saying something she’d regret later. “There are not social services here like in the U.S. I’m just going to think the best and assume he’ll use the money for food.”
“Why not actually buy the food? We’re right next to a market. Let him pick out what he wants. He takes it home. Everybody’s happy.”
Miranda couldn’t think of an argument to that. “Fine. You hold him and I’ll tell him what’s up.”
She told him in Spanish of her plan. The boy’s expression remained impassive. “But first tell me where you’re from,” she insisted. Nothing.
She straightened. “Okay. Let’s see if the food changes his mind.”
They escorted the boy back into the mercado. Miranda opened the bolsa Spencer had given to her and told him to choose what he wanted to fill it with. At first the boy stayed silent. She pointed to a tortilla vendor. When he didn’t shake his head no, Miranda ordered two pounds and put them in the basket.
“So how did you get ahead of me?” Spencer asked her—belatedly.
“I ran around the market instead of through it.”
A grunt was his only response.
Miranda turned her attention back to shopping and tried to think of things a family might really require. Staples like tortillas, beans, and produce. Soon the basket was just about overflowing. Miranda spied a vendor selling little sugar skulls and when she looked at the boy, his gaze devoured the pile of glistening candy. She purchased a big bag and wedged them in the bolsa.
“For you and your family,” she said. “But you must tell me what neighborhood you live in.”
Miranda knew she was putting undue pressure on the child, but she didn’t like the thought of him being too far from home. Maybe if she could get him close and drop him off, she wouldn’t worry so much.
“Neza.”
Miranda's heart skipped a beat. She glanced at Spencer, who stood with his hand on the boy’s shoulder, looking around with a frown.
The neighborhood Nezahualcóyote was vast, populated by about three million people, but that fact didn’t stop her mind from whirring into action. It was where she’d found her mother—not too far from a large market—in a region admittedly full of large markets. She looked around. Did anything seemed familiar? The buildings looked right, but she couldn't be sure. Still, it was something. Maybe more than something—despite the long odds.
She turned to the boy. “You take me to your neighborhood and I will give you the food, and I promise you won’t get into trouble. Understand?”
He gazed at her with a blank look, as if he found the world of adults incalculable. He began to tug against Spencer’s restraint.
“Follow him,” Miranda told Spencer.
“Whatever you say.”
She shot a warning glance his way, wondering if he was mocking her. But Spencer appeared as resigned as the little boy.
Under a sky of baked blue enamel, they made their way through the neighborhood which soon gave way to a labyrinth of dusty dirt streets littered with piles of trash, donkeys pulling carts loaded with refuse, and vacant-eyed adolescents, probably high on drugs.
Miranda knew many families in Neza struggled to build better lives for themselves and their children, and many succeeded. Parts had paved streets, electricity, brick homes, and schools. In this part,
however, despair hung like a methane and smoke pall over the neighborhood.
She put on her cardigan, pulling it close around her shoulders, feeling she’d been unwise to come. But the incipient dangers of gangs, petty criminals, and prostitution hadn’t been considered in her overwhelming desire to find Soledad.
Spencer seemed uncomfortable as well. His gaze continually scanned the immediate vicinity, ahead and behind. Miranda wished he’d dressed down a bit. He should’ve shoved his watch in his pocket instead of putting it back on his wrist where it glinted like a beacon in the humid, filtered light.
The boy suddenly stopped and refused to budge.
“Aquí.”
Miranda took a deep breath. “Gracias. You give the food to your momma, you understand?”
Spencer released the boy, who took the bolsa by the handle with one hand, and grabbed a handful of the candy with the other. He shoved the skulls into his mouth before turning on his heel and dashing around a corner.
Miranda started after him, determined to see where he lived. She heard Spencer panting behind her but couldn’t slow or she’d lose sight of the boy. As she rounded a tottering wooden fence, she saw him slip through an entryway into a tiny cement block structure. A dog tied to a chain barked in warning at their approach. Little grubby-faced children played in the dirt street nearby, chanting the words to a rhyme she remembered from her youth.
Naranja dulce
Limon partido
Dame un abrazo
Que yo te pido
The words tugged at a nostalgic place deep within her. It was a game she’d played with the children at the orphanage where her parents worked. She hadn’t thought of it in years.
“What does it mean?”
Miranda looked up to find Spencer standing next to her, hands at his waist, struggling to catch his breath.
She shook her head as if awakening from a dream. “The rhyme they’re singing?”
He nodded.
“It means sweet orange, sliced lemon, give me the hug, or kiss, that I ask for.” The little children threw their arms around each other, kissing and giggling, before beginning the game anew. “I used to play it when I was a kid.”
Had childhood really been so simple? When she could just ask for a hug and a kiss when she wanted one?
“Did you really find your mom in a place like this?” Spencer’s voice was tinged with disbelief.
His words pulled her from her reverie. She nodded and looked around at the ash heaps from garbage burned to keep down rats, at the rusted bicycles and cars, and the drab, depressing structures that served as housing.
“What do you plan to do now?”
“Go to where that little boy went and hopefully speak to an adult. One that speaks Spanish anyway. Some people speak the various Indian languages from further south. I don’t know those.”
The dog tethered outside the door made a low rumble in his throat. Miranda squared her shoulders and approached the structure, mentally calculating just how far the rope attached to the dog would reach. She stepped around piles of litter, trying to breathe through her mouth.
Keeping one eye on the straining, snarling dog, Miranda raised her hand to knock on the piece of corrugated tin that served as a door.
“Miranda!”
A body collided against her, shoving her up against the building. She heard a sickening crack and realized it was the sound of her head hitting something hard behind her. Her ribs creaked under the weight pressing against her. A drawn switchblade hovered in front of her face. It winked wickedly in the sunlight. She blinked at it in confusion, wondering how it got there.
A stream of profanities blew into her face by the man who had her pinned. She focused on him, fighting down a sensation of nausea. He was young, handsome, and his empty eyes terrified her. Miranda writhed against him. “Spencer!”
“Don’t move, Miranda!”
Tearing her gaze from the young man, she looked past him. Two larger men had Spencer face down on the ground some distance away, one with his knee in Spencer’s back. Miranda struggled to breathe, but her lungs were crushed. Desolation filled her like a noxious fume. I was wrong to come. So wrong.
“Please,” she pleaded in Spanish. “We only want to talk to the boy’s mother. We mean no harm.”
The man’s impassive gaze surveyed her. The switchblade never wavered. Miranda swallowed, determined to be calm. She closed her eyes, breathed a prayer, and opened them. Nothing had changed.
“Enrique!” The screech made Miranda jump. A woman erupted from the house with a broom in her hand. She proceeded to beat the man holding her until he released her.
“¡Mamá!” he hissed, covering his head with his arms. “¡Alto!”
Miranda pressed herself against the side of the building, not daring to move. The man rubbed the back of his shoulders and gave the woman a dirty look.
His mother, dressed in a ragged dress and dusty sandals turned on the men holding Spencer, wielding her broom like a weapon. She ranted and screamed until they released him. They retreated several paces, while Spencer struggled to his feet, wiping blood away from his nose. His face was flushed red and his eyes glittered with a dangerous light.
He swiveled and stared at the retreating men as if he wanted nothing more than to finish them off. Then he swung back to her. Miranda ran to him and flung herself into his arms, pressing her face against his throat. Relief flooded over her to feel the strength of his embrace. By his rigid stance, she guessed he was keeping an eye on the men.
“Are you all right?” he said in a gritty voice.
Miranda nodded, looking up to see a smudge of blood on his face. She reached into her purse under her cardigan and pulled out a tissue. While she gently dabbed at the blood, she fought against the rush of tears threatening to overflow.
Spencer reached up to take the tissue from her. “You’re shaking like a leaf.” His lips thinned into a white line. A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to protect you.”
Miranda felt the tension in his body, the anger. “It’s not your fault. We were both taken by surprise.”
He shook his head. “I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve been ready.”
She tentatively reached up to touch his face. “There you go again,” she said softly. “Pretending you can see all, do all.”
He smiled a little, but his eyes lacked humor. “Am I that bad?”
“Uh huh.”
He looked over her shoulder. Between shouted words and the sounds of an undignified scuffle, Miranda ascertained the woman was angry with the men for treating strangers so, yelling that she was ashamed of her son, didn’t like his friends, and wished he would go find something useful to do with himself.
She then screamed at them to go away after rapping the dog on the head for apparent good measure. When she turned to Miranda, her lined face was wreathed in smiles, all traces of anger gone.
“Bienvenidos!”
Miranda opened her mouth but could think of nothing to reply to the woman’s bright welcome!
“Those naughty boys are gone,” she rattled in Spanish. “You have no more worries. They were just protecting this old woman. But they should’ve known better. Obviously you are not the bad guy type, eh?”
Miranda reluctantly moved from Spencer’s arms, missing the warmth of his touch. “Um, the little boy with the basket of food? Does he live here? I would like to talk to his family.”
The woman’s eyes dulled. Her smile faltered. “Is there something wrong? Was he bad?”
Miranda was glad Spencer didn’t speak Spanish. Otherwise he’d surely chime in with his opinion about the wristwatch theft. “No,” she said quickly. “I only wanted some information about a person who may have lived in this neighborhood.”
The woman raised her eyebrows and gave her a sweeping look. “I do not think you have friends here, señorita.”
Miranda experienced a stab of panic, panic at the thought of impending failure. What else cou
ld she really expect? She took a deep breath and plowed ahead. “My biological mother used to live here. I came to bring her back with me to the Unites States a year ago. I can’t remember what house she lived in and want to find someone who might have known her.”
The woman looked away. “Many people here in Neza, señorita. What was her name?”
“Guadalupe Ruiz Perez.”
She stared at Miranda. Something flickered in her eyes. Recognition? She set her features in a polite mask. “A very common name.”
Miranda felt her shoulders sag. Spencer reached from behind to take her hand. She squeezed it and held on.
“Yes, a very common name. But I did know a señora by such a name. She had a way with herbs to help the sick. She was known by many here.”
Miranda sucked in a breath, feeling faint. “Yes! Yes! My mother was trained in medicine.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “What makes you think this Lupe had children? I never saw any children.”
“I was given up for adoption. My name is Miranda Ruiz Perez.”
The woman took a step back and raised her hands to her face. “Madre de Dios!”
Miranda swallowed, blinking in an effort to clear her vision. “A sister. She told me I have a sister Soledad. Another baby given up for adoption. Please I must find her. Did she tell you where that baby might be?”
The older woman leaned on her broom handle. Under her breath she muttered about lost children, sorrow, and pain. She shook her head. “Lupe was close with my mother, who is sick. She is not well enough to talk right now. Many times I have wished Lupe was here to brew us her special tea.”
“Can we help? Is there some medicine we can buy for your mother?” She took a step closer, staying attached to Spencer. “Anything at all, tell me, please.”
A long pause ensued. Miranda waited, breathing unevenly, hearing the low rumble from the distrusting dog, and the singsong of children playing games nearby as if the earlier altercation with the men never occurred.
Milagro For Miranda (Book Three Oregon In Love) Page 14
