True North

by Nicole French

  “So my twenty-one-year-old daughter is suddenly pregnant and engaged. And now Bibi tells me she’s in Cuba,” Cheryl says. “Alone.”

  She looks up, and her blue eyes pierce through me, just like her daughter’s. It’s unnerving, if you want to know the truth.

  I hang my head. Hating myself for letting her go to Cuba without me. Hating that I don’t know where she is. If she’s safe. Fuck, I really am the worst person in the world.

  “Which is why,” Cheryl continues, “I told Sergio to do the right thing and follow her.”

  I practically fall off the counter when she says that. I smack my hand on my forehead, causing my baseball cap to fall into the sink. “What? Is he there now? Can we call them?”

  Cheryl sighs. “I’ve been trying. But the last time I tried to call him, he was already gone. He should be in Santiago by now.”

  I slide off the counter. “Jesus. I mean, geez,” I correct myself. It’s not like Cheryl hasn’t heard me swear or anything, but I figure I shouldn’t test my luck.

  She taps her fingernails on the table and slides her lower lip around her teeth. It’s another habit she gave her daughter, and it’s unnerving as fuck to watch another woman do it.

  “Yes. Well. Apparently he does love his daughter after all.” Cheryl turns that deceptively deep stare of hers on me again. “And now I think you had better tell me exactly what my daughter is marrying into that requires her to fly on your behalf to a country where Americans are not supposed to go.”

  I tell her everything and then some. After all, she’s right. Layla and I are family, even if we aren’t married yet. There’s a piece of me growing inside her, so no matter what, her family and mine are linked forever now. They might as well know.

  To her credit, Cheryl doesn’t say anything while I tell her my mother’s story. She just takes a calm seat at our scratched dining table and listens, occasionally cocking her head a little when I come to an exciting part.

  And at the end, she asks only a few questions. Who is Ileana? Where exactly were we getting our information from? And when exactly was the court date? Once she has that information, she picks up her phone and proceeds to hire our family a real lawyer. The other stuff––the baby, the engagement, the fact that I’ve been living with her daughter in sin––will have to wait for later.

  ~

  Finally, I can’t take the waiting any more. Gabe watches curiously when I get up and start pacing around the room. I can’t sit still. I feel like a trapped animal, about to go nuts.

  “Nico!” Maggie hisses at me. “You look like a psycho. Stop!”

  “I can’t help it.” I really can’t. I don’t know if I’ve ever been this worried in my life.

  Christina looks over with an understanding smile. “You know, we probably have about an hour or more.”

  At the end of the row, Cheryl catches my eye, and a slim, blonde brow rises. Cheryl seems to read me well for someone who barely knows me. Too well. Maybe it’s in the genes.

  “Go take a walk,” she tells me, in words that barely float down the row to where I’m about ready to combust. She holds up her cell phone. “Stay in the building. I’ll call.”

  I hesitate, glancing at Ma. With her hands clasped in her lap, avoiding Cheryl’s gaze, all of our gazes, she watches me with tired eyes. She’s scared too, a lot more than me, and suddenly I feel bad for going as crazy as I am. But I also see plainly that I’m not helping shit treading holes through the cheap carpet. A walk would be good––for me and for her.

  “Okay,” I say. “I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  “Take thirty,” says Christina.

  “Take an hour,” mutters Maggie, causing Gabe and Selena to laugh. Even Cheryl quirks a smile.

  I decide instead to jog up and down one of the big concrete stairwells on either end of the building. I zigzag up, then back down, doing it again until I land on the second floor and start walking, not really knowing where I’m going.

  I need her here. Layla always knows how to cool me down, how to find my center. But what if something happened to her? What if she’s lost somewhere in Cuba, with no money, no phone, no way to get back? What if she’s hurt? What if someone hurt her?

  The nervous energy doubles and triples over again. Fuck. Maybe walking wasn’t the way to go.

  I stop in front of an office, but it takes me a second before I can actually read the words written on the glass door: “Marriage Licenses.”

  I stare at them for a long, long time. I don’t know how long it takes to get a marriage license in New York. Maybe they’ll make us wait months. Years. Maybe they’ll want her to have enough time to think it over, decide it’s a terrible mistake to marry a bad idea like me.

  Except I’m not. For once, it’s not Layla’s voice saying that––it’s mine. It’s the one thing I’ve come to understand since I met her. To Layla, I’m somebody, and the longer I’ve known her the more I’ve realized that I’m somebody to other people too. She did that. She does that every day. And now I’m actually starting to believe it.

  I push open the door.

  There are four other couples in the waiting room for the judge––three of them dressed in their little white dresses and rented tuxedos. They look gooey and in love. It just makes me miss Layla even more.

  “Can I help you?”

  I turn to the desk, where a clerk is looking at me impatiently over a pair of aviator glasses straight out of the seventies. I approach the desk nervously.

  “I, um. I’d like to apply for a marriage license.”

  The clerk looks around. “Who you gonna marry, honey? Yourself?”

  I swallow. I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing here, but now that the words are out of my mouth, I know what I want.

  “No,” I say. “I have a fiancée, thanks. I just wanted to get the forms, so we could, you know, do this?” I chew on my lower lip for a second. “Can we do this today?”

  The clerk tips her head and gives me a smile, the kind you’d give a little kid pretending to be a policeman. “You can twenty-four hours after you’re granted a license,” she tells me. “Your fiancée. Is she here, honey?”

  I shake my head, pulling on my hat. “No. But she will be. Could we…could we just get it started?”

  The clerk gives me a look like she feels sorry for me, then reaches out and taps my hand. “Sorry, hon. The law says both parties must be present to apply for a license. No exceptions. When she gets here, come back. In the meantime, take the application and fill it out so everything is ready to go.” She looks me up and down, takes in my uniform, the jacket with the FDNY patch, the letters embroidered on my hat. “Tell her to hurry too, honey. Because if she doesn’t want to marry you, I just might take her place.”

  I gotta give it to her––the lady can make me grin. I tip my hat, and take the application to a table to fill out, while the giggly couples get called back, one at a time. I smile at them as they leave, thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe, that might be me in twenty-four hours. If she wants a big wedding, wants to spend every penny we have on dresses and cakes and flowers and food, we’ll do it. Because I don’t want to wait. I want Layla Barros to be my wife as soon as fuckin’ possible.

  If she can just get here.

  As I finish the last line of information that I can, my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s a text from Cheryl: It’s time.

  “Thanks,” I tell the clerk as I take off at a jog. “I’ll be back.” And she smiles, like she knows I will.

  ~

  I enter the formal courtroom just as my mother is sitting down at the table in front of the judge on the other side of the barrier. The lawyer sits next to her, while a government attorney sits on her other side. The lawyer already explained to us how today would go. The judge would confirm the claims of the state and confirm that they were there in response to the charges. Ma would have to sit in a witness stand, like it’s a trial, and from there she would be questioned by both attorneys. The judge would the
n decide whether there needs to be another hearing, or if the case could be dismissed.

  I slide into another pew (I can’t think of them as anything else) next to Gabe, then turn around to greet the other members of my family who have arrived: Alba, K.C., Flaco, and a few other extended aunties and uncles who have shown up to support my mother. This isn’t anything compared to everyone in New York City who considers Carmen Soltero family. If this were the final hearing, I know that half of New York would be here to speak on her behalf. She doesn’t just have a village––she’s got a city of millions. The knowledge gives me faith that everything is going to be all right.

  In a bored voice, the judge announces herself to the court, then, just as Christina said, confirms the case and then has Ma swear in. The representative from ICE stands and drones a quick statement about Carmen Soltero entering the country illegally and requesting deportment proceedings to begin. With every word, my mom shrinks into her seat. And at the end, she’s practically a child again, that little girl who first came off a plane in the sixties, following a family who had adopted her because she didn’t have any of her own.

  “Counselor?” The judge turns to Christina, who stands.

  Christina proceeds to inform the judge that under the terms of the Cuban Adjustment Act, my mother has every right to be in the United States. “As a national of Cuba and having resided in the United States for a duration longer than two years, she is legally entitled to permanent residency status under the terms of the Cuban Adjustment Act,” she states.

  The judge takes a deep breath, and with a raised brow, turns to Ma. “Ms. Soltero, would you like to say anything?”

  Shakily, Ma nods. Next to me, Maggie starts chanting the Hail Mary under her breath, and down the row, I catch Alba crossing herself. It’s tempting to do it myself. Ma’s English still isn’t great, but we’ve all been practicing with her––even Layla.

  “I come to New York when I am ten,” she states in a clear, shaky voice. “With a family from San Juan de Puerto Rico.” She turns and smiles at Alba, who waves. “That is Alba Ortiz, my sister from this family. Her parents are not alive anymore, but she come with me in the plane.”

  The judge looks between them. “But you were born in Cuba?”

  Ma nods. “Yes. I was born in Santiago de Cuba. My mother, she died when I was a baby. When I was two, almost three, my father had saved enough for us to take a boat. This was after Fidel came into power.”

  The whole room is silent as she tells this story, to the point where every shake of her voice vibrates through the air.

  “I don’t remember the boat except for the last part. I remember the ocean. The waves, they were very big. The boat, it went up and down, side and side.” She mimics the motions with her hands. “It make me sick. My father, he put me under the boat, in a tiny room. Then he go away. Maybe to help. I don’t know. But I lose him in that storm. And when we come to Puerto Rico, I was alone.”

  She blinks several times, and I can tell she’s trying not to cry. I’ve maybe seen my mother cry twice in my life. Once when I was sent away. Once when I came back. But now the judge is asking my mother to remember things she keeps buried. Stories she never wants to tell.

  “Alba’s family…I don’t know how I come to them. I remember being scared. And a woman bringing me to their house in San Juan.” She clears her throat. “They took me in. Make me part of their family. And when they come to New York, I come with them.”

  “Without identification,” the judge murmurs more to herself than anyone else. “And I don’t suppose you had a birth certificate on you at three years old.” She looks up. “How do you actually know you’re from Cuba to begin with? You were so young. A lot of people come by boat to Puerto Rico. You could be Dominican or from somewhere else.”

  “My father told the men of the boat,” Ma says. “They tell Señor Ortiz. He tell me.”

  She shrugs, but my eyes are on the judge. I wonder how anyone could hear this story and deny her is beyond me. But thousands of people have similar stories. How many people come here looking for a better life, trying to escape countries ripped up by wars and poverty, so much of it caused by this country and others like it? I’ve known plenty. New York is full of them.

  “I come to New York without a family,” Ma says, her voice a little stronger now. “And so I make my own. There they are. All my children. My granddaughter.”

  She turns around and points to us: me, Maggie, Selena, Gabe. Even Allie on Maggie’s lap. Maggie grips my hand hard enough that I’m going to bruise, and Selena is practically plastered to Gabe.

  “Please,” Ma says. “Don’t break up my family. In Cuba, I have nothing. Everything I have is here.”

  The judge looks over all of us, her eyes plainly sympathetic.

  “I’m sorry,” she says. “But, Ms. Soltero, unless you can provide documentation of the fact that you are a Cuban national, I cannot grant relief based on this evidence. Therefore, we will schedule another hearing to give you enough time to procure documentation––a birth certificate, for instance.”

  “But she has one!”

  The judge looks up, both curious and annoyed. A murmur rises in the court, everyone wondering who would have the balls to shout at a federal judge in the middle of speaking. But I know who it is. The second I hear her voice, a wave of relief washes over me. She’s all right. She’s here.

  I twist around, and there’s Layla, striding down the aisle with Sergio following behind her as she whips a yellowed piece of paper out of her bag. She jogs up, stretches across the barrier to hand the paper to the lawyer. With a brief clasp of my mother’s wrist Layla backs away until I can grab her hand and pull her onto the bench next to me.

  “Hey,” she greets me with a short, thorough kiss. The circles under her blue eyes are darker than normal. She’s tired, and not just because of traveling for three days straight, I realize with guilt.

  I pull her tight, nosing her and placing a hand on her stomach. “Hey, mami. You okay?”

  Blue eyes shining, she nods. “I got it,” she whispers fiercely as I wrap an arm tightly around her shoulders, eager to feel her body, know she’s safe. Know she’s real.

  “Shall we continue?” asks the judge in an irritated voice.

  Christina looks up from the document. “Your Honor, permission to approach the bench?”

  The judge nods, and Christina and the government attorney walk up to the judge. We strain to hear them, but none of their conversation is clear from our perspective. All that’s left to do is wait.

  After a few minutes, both lawyers return to their tables, while the judge continues examining the birth certificate.

  “All right,” says the judge. “In light of the evidence at hand, I believe we have a different outcome. I hereby cancel removal proceedings for Carmen Soltero and order the immediate processing of her application for permanent residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act.”

  With a bang of a gavel, she closes the session, and the bailiff stands up to call the next case. In the meantime, my mother gathers her birth certificate and returns to the gallery, where she’s immediately embraced by all of her children. Layla lets me go long enough to sweep my mother up in a bear hug. She’s crying. We’re all crying. Every single one of us a big teary mess as we shuttle out of the room so we stop interrupting the court.

  Once all ten of us are in the hall, my mother locates Layla and pulls her close. Layla’s crying too, her big blue eyes glossy with relief and happiness. My girl is part of this family too. She knows it. Everyone knows it.

  “Thank you,” my mother says, again and again as she strokes her hair softly, the same way she used to do to all of her kids when they were small. “My other daughter, you know that? I am so, so happy you come into my boy’s life.”

  “Me too,” Layla whispers as she returns the embrace. “Me too.”

  When at last she’s released, I pull her close and kiss her the way I wanted the second I knew she was there.

 
“I’m glad I came into your life too,” Layla says as I practically squeeze the life out of her.

  I nuzzle her, touching our noses and close my eyes. My heart might truly explode. I never knew this kind of happiness, this kind of peace, was possible, and it’s all because of this girl.

  “Me too, baby,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut as the tears keep coming. “Me too.”

  ~

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Layla

  If there is one thing Nico’s family knows how to do quickly, it’s throw a party. Literally as soon as we’re outside city hall, Alba, Flaco, K.C., Carmen, and all of the Soltero kids practically explode right there on the sidewalk, cheering and jumping on each other like it’s the Fourth of July.

  “You fuckin’ did it!” Nico cries as he lifts me into the air, then pulls me back down to kiss me again, longer this time.

  I’m immediately grabbed and hugged and kissed by everyone, their joyful tears rubbing on my cheeks as they pass me around.

  “It wasn’t me,” I’m finally able to get out with K.C.’s arm slung around my shoulder. He grew up with Nico. To him, Carmen is like a second mother.

  “What’s that, NYU?” he asks me, rubbing my head like a kid.

  “Easy,” Nico warns playfully, but he still pulls me back to that familiar place under his arm. I can feel his concern in the clutch of his hands––he’s still checking to make sure I’m here for real. My man was scared while I was gone.

  I turn to where my parents are standing awkwardly together on the sidewalk. They’re both smiling a little, bemused by the Solteros’ open displays of affections, but they’re like statues compared to the boisterous display of joy going on. They take in the movement of this family, and my mother in particular studies Nico’s mother and sisters. Why, I’m not so sure.

  “It was my dad,” I say, and when I say it, Dad meets my gaze.

  His dark eyes are as tired as mine, and he looks much different from his usual polished self. His clothes, after wearing them for two days straight, are as rumpled as my pants and jacket––his usual white button-down creased into oblivion, his gray slacks wrinkled terribly. He clutches his thin blazer around his body, a poor ward against the mid-February wind.