“Mira. It’s us.” He had snapped a selfie of the two of them, an overexposed, blurry image of him leaning into the frame while she gazed into the distance, unaware that he had come in close.
CHAPTER 36
JUNE 1986
They were just eggs, smaller than the eye of a needle. And yet, every time Elda slid one off a long, shiny strand of Claudita’s hair and cracked it between two fingernails, the sound—a low click—made her want to run out of the apartment, jump into the pool, and scream where no one could hear her. It was like something out of her worst nightmare. Her baby’s soft head, populated by microscopic parasites that had her itching and crying all day.
“Mami, ica, ica,” she’d say, and Martin would laugh and correct her, “It’s pica! ¡Pica!”
But Elda wasn’t amused. No mother wants to tell her daughter, years later as they reminisce over faded photo albums and fuzzy memories, that some of her very first words were “it itches.”
Elda told as much to her mother one Sunday evening.
“Don’t laugh.” She imagined her voice slithering through the phone line for hundreds of miles, only to be met with the sound of her mother’s chuckles. “We don’t pay forty-eight cents a minute for you to make fun of me.”
“Mija, that’s too expensive! You can send me three letters for what it just cost us to say hello.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s worth it to hear you. I can’t get that in a letter.” She pulled out one of their new fold-out chairs from beneath the kitchen table, spinning twice to untangle herself from the telephone cord before taking a seat. “Omar and I can afford a ten- or fifteen-minute call every once in a while.”
“Since when?”
“Since tonight.” Omar had called just minutes ago with the news. “He got promoted to shift supervisor. He’ll be overseeing the staff for a new building. It’s seventeen stories tall!” It felt almost impossible to keep her voice down. If Elda hadn’t called her mother the second she had gotten off the phone with Omar, she might have awakened the kids just to have someone to celebrate with.
“¡Gracias a Dios! I’m so happy for you. It was time, no? How long has it been since he’s worked there now?”
It’d been more than five years, but that wasn’t so important. “Only two years since the last time they promoted him. And if it hadn’t been for that, I would still be scrubbing toilets with him, remember?”
“I suppose that’s true. But what is this world coming to with buildings taller than God made the mountains?”
“It’s not that tall.” Elda tried to picture it the way her mother would, windows and doors that opened to the clouds. Only she could exaggerate and minimize something at the same time. “You’ve seen them bigger. Remember that time we went to DF for Tía Eva’s wedding?”
“Don’t remind me. My sister’s always been a show-off, but a wedding in DF was too much, even for her. I’m sure she loved having her husband pay for our hotel when we could’ve easily slept on the couch. Who puts their family in a hotel?”
“I thought you liked the place.” To Elda, who had been sixteen when her aunt married and moved to Mexico City, the hotel was majestic, the most beautiful place she had ever been. It had a glass elevator with golden railings, and the rooms—with their two beds and a couch—were large enough to sleep six.
“Who needs all that luxury? That’s what’s wrong with cities,” her mother said. “Everyone is so obsessed with living in big houses, they end up cramped together, sleeping in each other’s filth. That’s how kids end up with lice.”
“Like you never saw a head of lice.”
“You never came home with one, no.”
“Besides, McAllen is not some big city. It’s not even a tenth the size of DF.”
“It’s not the size of the city that matters, it’s the population. And what’s worse is all the DF drug dealers and gangs are coming into our town now.”
“What?”
“I didn’t tell you? Poco a poco. We hear these stories all the time now. My friend’s son was mugged just two weeks ago on his way home from work. The pandillas wait for them outside the bar on Fridays. Maybe they’ll think twice about drinking away their money before spending it on their family, but still. Casi lo matan.”
“That’s terrible.”
“I know. Have you tried hot air? A blow-dryer?”
“What?”
“For Claudita’s lice.” Her mother had no patience for segues. She was always bouncing from one topic to another, and got annoyed when Elda didn’t keep up.
“No. I thought about it, but Sylvia says the baby’s too young. It’ll burn her scalp.”
“Oh? Well what does Sylvia suggest you do?” Since Elda’s mother-in-law had moved into the apartment upstairs, Elda’s mother got defensive whenever Elda mentioned her. It was an innocent jealousy, born of a mother’s longing to be close to her daughter. Still, Elda decided not to mention that Omar’s cousin, Julio, had arrived just a week ago and was sleeping on their couch. Today Julio had left with Omar when he went to work, giving Elda a small, rare window of privacy.
“Don’t say it like that. You know you could just as easily come live with us too if you—”
“Just as easily, ha! It is not, ‘just as easily,’ mija. Mi tierra is like my blood. You can’t just take it out of a person. That is not living. You were young when you left. Maybe that’s why you think it’s so easy.”
“I never said it was easy. I just don’t feel like being reminded every time we talk.”
“You’re right. It’s just, I miss you. I miss the kids . . .”
Through the crackling phone line, Elda could hear her mother’s quiet sniffles, the muted sobs for the grandchildren she had never met. “If things go well, maybe we can visit soon.”
“What do you mean? What things?” Her mother gasped before she could answer. “No, Elda. Tell me you didn’t hire another lawyer. Not after what happened last time.”
Last time. Last time she had let her hopes fool her into optimism, and it had cost her two and a half years of their savings. Elda could barely stomach the shame.
“This time will be different,” she said. “Esta vez es de confianza. He helped a woman at our church in the exact situation. Even Yessica is using him. We asked around to nearly everyone we know.”
“And what exact situation are you in?”
“You know what I mean. The kids, they’re citizens.”
“And what does Omar have to say about all this?”
“Hold on.” She stood to get a Coke and some leftovers, the telephone cord stretching between the refrigerator and the kitchen table. Elda heard a shrunken voice coming from the receiver.
“Don’t tell me you haven’t told him! ¿Elda? ¿Estás ahí?”
“I’m here, I’m here.”
“Why wouldn’t you tell him? Is it because of how angry he got last time?”
“He didn’t get angry. Not at me, anyways.” Elda was constantly reminding her mother that her marriage to Omar was not as volatile as her and her father’s.
“This is not a little thing. A husband has a right to know his wife hired another immigration lawyer.”
“And he will. When the time is right. It’s too early to tell if anything will come of this, and I don’t want to get his hopes up. He was so upset about the money last time, it was like someone drained the life out of him. He said everything was fine, but he can’t fool me.”
“Does Martin have them, too? The lice?”
That was the other thing about Elda’s mother: she dropped an argument the second she realized she wouldn’t win it, with about as much finesse as a tired squirrel.
“Not nearly as much as Claudita. The second he brings them home from school, they decide they like her head best.”
“Well then have him stay home until that school has their lice under control. You’re always talking to the teacher. Just have one of those conventions again.”
“Conferences, Mamá. And I can’t hav
e Martin missing classes.”
“It’s just a few days.”
“And what kind of example does that set for him and his sister? They have to know their education is the most important thing.”
“You put too much pressure on them, mija. They’re so young.”
“Exactly. They’re sponges now. They absorb everything.”
Elda heard the delicate clatter of her mother’s rosary beads and pictured her nightstand, crowded with framed pictures of her grandchildren.
“What are they doing now?”
Elda knew her mother meant not in this moment, when they were tucked away in bed, but in this life. What new development had she missed?
“Martin has become obsessed with the Star Wars movies. One of his friend’s moms took them to the theater for her son’s birthday, and now he can’t wait to see the next one. He pretends everything is a sword. His toothbrush. His father’s flashlight. His English is nearly perfect now. I think he’s taught his sister a few words. She named her favorite doll Jenna.”
“Jenna? Where did she learn a name like that?”
“I have no idea. Maybe it’s one of her brother’s classmates, or the TV.”
“Don’t let them watch too much TV. You know it only turns them stupid.”
“Only a little bit. And only educational shows.” Even Elda had learned a few new words from Sesame Street. “Claudita watches an hour in the morning while I pick up after breakfast, and then we go to the library.” Not every day, she thought. It was more like once or twice a week, but her mother didn’t need all the details. “She likes it when I read to her in the afternoons.”
“And they’re eating well?”
“Claudita’s a vacuum. You drop a shred of meat on the floor and it’s in her mouth before you can pick it up. And Martin will eat anything you put in front of him. Sopas, tamales con mole, hamburguesas . . .”
“You make him hamburgers?”
“He orders them when we go to Omar’s restaurant.”
“El restaurante de Omar? You talk like he owns it. Is he still busing the tables?”
“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it.” The only thing Elda hated more than arguing with her mother was agreeing with her. If her mother only knew how many times she and Omar had fought about this job he insisted on keeping. Three years, and his wage had gone up by just a dollar, for a job with a title with the word “boy” in it. “It’s because even a child could do it,” she’d once said, and tried adding (too late) that Omar was better than that.
Her mother whispered, “It’s just odd, isn’t it? That he likes it so much.”
“He says the owners are good to him, and that that’s hard to find. It’s true. He and his wife are very considerate.”
“And everyone else that works there? You’ve met them?”
“Unless they hired someone new yesterday, I’ve met everyone.”
“No one of interest, then?”
“No, Mamá. No one. And even if Sophia Loren was waiting tables in a skirt, I still wouldn’t be worried.”
“Don’t exaggerate, Elda. That’s just foolish.”
She sighed. “Tell me about you. How is your back?” Her mother had taken a bad fall last summer when she slipped and landed on her tailbone. It was the first and only time Elda had spoken to her father since they had moved, and his voice was unrecognizable. She had thought it was a prank at first; Yessica was always warning her about scammers who would try anything to get money out of immigrants worried for their families back home.
Only after he cleared his throat—phlegm and rage comingling as they always did—and yelled, “¡Puta! Is this how you repay your family? By forgetting us?” did Elda understand. They wired money for her mother’s hospital bills and medications, and when the prescriptions ran out, she sent bottles of aspirin and heating pads with neighbors who traveled home.
“It’s not how it used to be, but it’s fine. I’m older now. Maybe it’s just what God intended. I have the back of a woman never meant to carry her grandchildren.” Her mother took a deep breath and tried to laugh, but it wasn’t funny.
“Mamá . . .”
“You should go. Our fifteen minutes were up ten minutes ago. Kiss the babies for me and send my love to Omar. Te quiero mucho, hijita.”
The hardest thing was not the goodbye, but the silence that followed. It left Elda feeling disoriented, like she had been plucked from one place and left alone in another.
It was still two and a half hours before Omar and Julio would be home. Elda ground coffee beans into the percolator and called Yessica over. It was late enough that her building was finally at rest. The neighbors’ dogs had exhausted one another trying to bark through walls, and the group of teens that often spent the evenings in the parking lot, sitting on car hoods and tossing empty beer bottles into trash bins, had moved on to quieter, more intimate pursuits.
“You’d think they’d be the moaning, screaming types, with all the noise they make leading up to it,” Yessica said when Elda opened the door, rolling her eyes in the direction of the dark green Mustang that rocked gently in place.
“I’m not about to complain,” Elda said. She cleared Julio’s bedsheets from the couch and folded them so she and her friend could have a place to sit.
“Where’s Don Juan?” Yessica asked. Omar’s cousin had been trying to flirt with her since he’d arrived. “I almost didn’t come over until you told me he wasn’t home.”
“I might’ve gone over to your place if he was.” She missed having her own space. When Omar was at work and the kids were at school and her in-laws weren’t coming in and out for a meal, she would sit on the couch and read the paper. Now with Julio around, there was never a quiet moment to collect herself. “He and Omar should be home soon.”
Hours passed. The first few glances at the clock were to see how much longer they had before the men arrived and Yessica would go. Soon Elda began making excuses—perhaps there was traffic, or maybe they stopped somewhere for a drink—and she knew her friend would stay up with her. There was nothing lonelier than waiting. Nothing worse than the ebb and flow of hope as footsteps approached and passed them by.
While they sipped cup after cup of coffee, Yessica told her about a sign she had seen at the management office, indicating they would soon begin fining litterers. They laughed, because management was always giving false threats and promises. They spoke of school, how ridiculous it’d become that lines of cars stretched for blocks when parents arrived to pick up their kids.
“I wish Sam could just take the bus, like Martin,” Yessica said, and Elda nodded, pretending that the child her friend spoke of was her own. Yessica stared into her reflection in the cup she held with both hands. “I spoke with my mother the day before yesterday. I could hear Agustín in the background, calling ‘Mami, Mami.’”
“That’s sweet,” Elda said.
Yessica shook her head. “He didn’t mean me. He was calling to her. Mami, cuelga. He wanted her to get off the phone and play. With his new Lego set.”
Elda had gone to the toy store with Yessica to buy that Lego set. They had spent nearly an hour choosing the one Agustín would like best.
She placed her hand on Yessica’s knee. “One day he’ll know who’s sending the toys and clothes and the money for school, and he’ll be grateful.”
“At least I chose a toy he loves, right?”
Before Elda could think of something to say, Omar rushed into the apartment, slamming the door behind him.
“Is he here?” He ran into the hallway, and then the bathroom.
Elda stood so fast she spilled her coffee on the couch. “Who?”
“Julio. He’s really not here?” Omar lowered his voice. A long trail of sweat marked his back and underarms, and his face was flushed.
“He hasn’t been back all day. I thought he was with you.”
“He dropped me off at work so he could use the car.”
“You lent him the car? Without telling me?” Ou
t of the corner of her eye, she could see Yessica stirring, gathering her purse. Elda held a hand out for her to wait.
“There has to be a reason he’d take so long,” Omar said.
“None are good,” Yessica said, and without another word, they all understood.
Hours later, Elda woke, startled by the sound of Omar’s fingertips cracking open the blinds. Somehow, the trembling shushhhh of the thin white metal strips registered before the sirens did. Their piercing cries seemed far away until suddenly they weren’t.
“There’s the car,” he said, starting for the door.
Red and blue lights splashed over his face. They grew brighter and closer, one color chasing the other through the windows and against the walls, until the sirens stopped, and the lights filled the apartment.
“They’re making him get out of the car,” Omar whispered.
She let herself look. There were two police cars, two officers. One stood by the hood of his squad car taking notes while the other paced behind Julio, whose face she could barely make out as he leaned against the driver’s side.
Somewhere behind her, she heard Yessica cooing, “It’s nothing, nothing at all.” She heard Martin asking what was wrong.
“Stay here and don’t open the door for anyone,” Omar said, pulling on a jacket.
“Don’t. You’ll only make things worse.”
“Trust me.”
Elda felt a cold rush of wind and noise as he left. She twisted the lock behind him and leaned against the door.
In the living room, Martin stood by the couch, with all his sleepy weight against it and the back of his hair ruffled. He scanned the walls slowly, in awe of the lighted spectacle that’d befallen his home in the nonexistent hours of the night.
“Is it a spaceship, Mamá?”
She knelt close to him. “It’s a special game, just for you. See the blue and red lights? That means we have to hide. And you can’t come out until the lights are gone and I’ve called time. Not even if someone finds me before they find you, okay?”
Martin smiled, and she could see his wet teeth shimmering, his wide eyes plotting where to go.
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