We Never Asked for Wings

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

  Mr. Everett joined him in the shadow of the ladder. “Hey—I’m sorry.”

  Alex shrugged. “I don’t even care about the stupid science project,” he said.

  But his teacher shook his head. “Yes, you do,” he said quietly. “I know you, Alex. You’d probably rather be expelled than withdraw your project.”

  Alex lifted his eyes, studying his teacher. “Then why did you do it?”

  Mr. Everett reached around and pulled something out of his pocket. He handed it to Alex. “Because I got this in the mail yesterday.”

  Alex accepted the folded sheet of paper and opened it slowly. It was water-spotted, like Mr. Everett had carried it through the rain. The ink had bled in messy splotches across the paper.

  But Alex could still read it. It was a letter from the board of the state science fair, dated the day before. We regret to inform you, it started, and Alex skimmed the polite nothingness that followed until he got to the heart of the matter. Alex Espinosa, lead scientist—Alex’s heart skipped a beat at the title he’d been given—has been disqualified from competition.

  “What?” Alex asked. “Why?”

  Mr. Everett pointed to the bottom. The above referenced project has been disqualified for the use of illegally gathered wild bird feathers.

  “I should have thought of it,” Mr. Everett said. “It’s illegal to so much as pick up a feather from the sidewalk. The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918.”

  Alex stood in shock as the information sank in. He crumpled the paper into a ball and stuffed it back inside his pocket. He couldn’t look at Mr. Everett.

  “I’m so sorry.” Gently, Mr. Everett touched his shoulder, but Alex wouldn’t look at him. “And not just for this. I never would have reported anything if I’d known then what I know now.”

  Alex remained silent.

  “I hope you believe me,” he continued. “I’m trying to make things right, and to keep you from being expelled. I only suggested it to Mr. Daniels because it had already been taken away from you.”

  It had already been taken away.

  All the work, all the hours with his father—Alex felt a wave of guilt and sadness, for letting him down. How could he tell Wes? Everything they’d worked for, gone. The midnight texts, the breakthroughs. There he’d been, going through life like he was special, like he might even win, and now it had been taken away from him, before he’d even started.

  He thought of Yesenia in Virginia somewhere, locked up, pictured barbed wire and cement floors and hundreds of kids cowering under foil-lined blankets, the images of detention centers he’d pulled up on his phone haunting him.

  All her life she’d been working hard, acting like it mattered. But it hadn’t. Her life had been taken away too, and long before she’d started.

  Letty sat on the window seat, her cell phone still warm in her lap. Her right ear burned from the long call, and she pressed it against the cool glass, looking at the porch and the winter-bleak rose garden beyond.

  Wes had called. He’d just gotten off the phone with the district attorney’s office, and in a breathless rush had told her the news: the DA had dropped the case. After their meeting with the principal, Mr. Daniels had decided not to press charges, and even though the state could have taken the case anyway, in the end they had decided not to, citing the school as a reluctant victim and the lack of any real harm caused.

  It was good news—as good as any Letty could have hoped to receive. Alex would have a clean criminal record. Sitting in the early-afternoon sunlight, she felt a flood of relief, followed almost immediately by dread. Alex wouldn’t care about his reprieve from the criminal justice system. If anything, it would make him feel worse. Yesenia was still gone.

  Letty glanced at her watch. It was almost noon. Rick would be there soon, to take them to meet with Carmen and an immigration attorney. If she wanted to tell him the news before she left, she would have to do it now.

  Standing up, she walked down the hall and gently knocked on the door. When Alex didn’t respond, she tried to push the door open, but for the first time, it was locked. She knocked harder.

  “Alex?”

  No response. Racking her brain, she tried to remember the last time she’d checked on him. Had it been before she’d taken Luna to school? Or after? Either way it had been hours.

  “Alex?” She pressed her ear to the door but heard nothing. “Alex! Open up.”

  Finally, the door cracked open. Letty made out one bloodshot eye in the darkness.

  Alex was drunk.

  The smell hit her first. Sharp and stale, a scent she associated with bloated bar mats and poorly cleaned spills. She pushed the door in so hard it knocked Alex to the floor, his body stretching the whole length of the room. He didn’t try to get up. Crouching beside him, Letty shook him hard.

  “Get up!” she yelled. At the foot of the bed, a bottle of tequila leaked in a dark pool onto the bedspread. She grabbed it, but not before it was almost empty. There was no way to tell how much he’d had to drink. But by the way he lay there, unmoving, his neck twisting at an angle that would have been painful if he hadn’t numbed his body to the point of near unconsciousness, she could tell it had been way, way, way too much. With both hands under his armpits, she pulled him up to sitting and leaned him against the bed frame.

  “What were you thinking?” she demanded.

  His eyes tried to track hers but ended up somewhere around her ear, his head weaving back and forth on a weak neck. He mumbled something unintelligible. Reaching for the empty bottle, he held it up, studying it the way he’d studied the beakers in the orange glow of the porch light, all those months ago. Letty’s heart stopped completely in her chest. She’d done this; she’d introduced him to alcohol as oblivion. Letty had the urge to stick her finger down his throat, to bring it all up and out of him right there on the floor, but instead she went into the kitchen and returned with a glass of water, pressing it to his lips.

  “Drink,” she said. He pulled the water in, a slow sip, his eyes rolling back in his head. When he gave up and slumped over, Letty ripped the glass away from his mouth and threw the water in his face.

  He startled, his eyes wide, water dripping from his lashes.

  “Wake up!” She shook his shoulders. “Oh, my God, Alex, you could kill yourself, drinking like this.”

  Something passed over her son’s face, and Letty could tell her warning was something he’d already thought of, and something of which he was not completely afraid. Numbly, she went back to the kitchen for a second glass of water, and when she returned he pulled himself onto the bed, his back straight. He drank the water slowly, and when he was finished, Letty dried his face with a towel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “You scared me.”

  Alex nodded. She’d wiped the water away, but his eyes were still full. She sat down next to him, wishing he were ten and she could pull him into her arms and make it all go away, the way Maria Elena could always make it all go away when she was that age, everything from mean jokes to skinned knees. This was much bigger than that, and Alex was too old to be comforted anyway, she thought, but then she felt his head fall onto her shoulder, and heard the loud release of a shudder-sigh.

  She wrapped an arm around his back and pulled him closer.

  “You okay?”

  Alex lifted his shoulders and let them fall.

  “The charges were dropped.”

  When he still didn’t say anything, Letty leaned away, tilting his face up so that she could read his expression. If he’d understood the consequences of what she’d said, he made no sign. His eyes held a combination of defeat and exhaustion, and looking at him, she was transported back in time, looking at herself in the mirror, watching her body change and every future she’d ever dreamed for herself falling away. Then, and for years after, she’d worn the same empty expression Alex wore now.

  She sighed heavily. “Alex?”

  It was a long time before he responded. “Yeah.”

  �
�I want to tell you something. And I want you to listen.”

  He nodded into her shoulder.

  “You made a mistake. One fucking enormous, stupid mistake.”

  A sound like a hiccup crossed with a laugh escaped from Alex’s mouth, and it made Letty hopeful, that one bad word could still make her son squirm. She squeezed him tighter.

  “Did you hear what I said? One mistake.”

  “One fucking enormous, stupid mistake,” Alex whispered.

  “Exactly. That’s all.” She pulled away so that she could tilt his chin to look at her. “Now get over it. Buck up and fix it, and if you can’t fix it, keep going anyway. It’s the only way to live.”

  Alex sighed. It wasn’t that easy, his collapsed body said, and she wanted to tell him she understood—but she couldn’t, because the mistake that had derailed her had been him. She remembered telling her mother she was pregnant, remembered how Maria Elena had brought her breakfast in bed the next day and remembered also how she hadn’t gotten out of bed for a week. It wasn’t her mother’s fault. Maria Elena had loved Letty the only way she knew how, with impeccable care and unending generosity. But she’d never made her buck up and get over it, and Letty wondered if her life would be different now if her mother had.

  Standing up, she pulled Alex to his feet. He wore the same clothes he’d worn to the meeting the day before, his shoes still on. Letty kneeled down to retie the laces.

  “Brush your hair,” she said. “We’re going to meet with an immigration attorney.”

  “Me?” Alex wobbled on his feet. “I can’t go.”

  From the kitchen she grabbed a mixing bowl and handed it to him. Now that he was standing, his face was an unnatural shade of yellow.

  “You’re going,” she said, and when he groaned she grabbed both his shoulders roughly, trying to make him understand. It wasn’t just one meeting. It was everything.

  He looked at her, surprised, and she was surprised too. She sounded like Maria Elena demanding ironed shirts, but this time it was Letty, and she was demanding something much more important: that he care about his own life.

  Shaking, Alex doubled over and heaved pure tequila into the bowl.

  —

  Ten minutes later, Letty led a still-reluctant Alex to Rick’s idling car. He was wearing a fresh T-shirt, and she had sprayed and brushed his hair, but he walked in a crooked line and clutched the mixing bowl to his chest as he stumbled down the stairs. Rick opened his mouth to say something, but Letty silenced him with her eyes, opening the back door and helping Alex inside.

  “Hey,” she said, climbing into the passenger seat. She leaned over, inhaling Rick’s cooking-oil scent. He was wearing his white chef’s coat, and Letty remembered he had class that morning. “Thanks for picking us up,” she said. “It means a lot to me.”

  Wes was working; Sara had done all the research to find the best attorney, but now she was at a conference, and wouldn’t be back for a week. When Letty called Rick to ask him for a ride, he’d said yes without hesitation—but now he turned away from her gratitude, and in a voice quiet enough that Alex wouldn’t be able to hear, said: “You need to know, Letty—I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for Yesenia. And for Carmen, and Alex, and Luna.”

  His words knocked the wind out of her. For days he’d answered all her calls on the first ring, and if he hadn’t been exactly affectionate, he hadn’t been cold either. But now, in their first semi-alone moment, he’d made himself clear. She’d waited too long. Sinking deeper into the seat, she thought about the day after Christmas, when she’d spent the entire morning with her phone in her lap, flipping it open and snapping it shut, over and over again. The decision whether to call Rick or Wes felt strangely like choosing between her two children, and though she knew in her heart who she craved, it didn’t seem like she’d earned the right to listen to her heart. She needed to do what was right for her family, and since she didn’t know what that was, she hadn’t called either of them. At work the next day, she’d waited nervously for Rick to arrive, but her manager said he’d taken the week off, and instead of calling to ask why, she’d agreed to cover his shifts, pocketing the extra cash like a Christmas present.

  Now, it was too late.

  “We need to talk,” she managed, her regret almost thick enough to trap the words in her throat.

  “We do,” he said with a sigh. “But now’s not the time.”

  He was right. The tragedy of their near-connection-turned-miss was nothing compared to the tragedy of Yesenia, sent three thousand miles away from her mother, and as much as she wanted to curl up in Rick’s cooking-oil scent and unwind her knotted web of insecurities, Letty knew that he was right. Now wasn’t the time. Now was about Yesenia.

  Rick turned the radio up, and Letty looked out the window, watching the trees thin out and then disappear altogether as they drove from Mission Hills to Bayshore and then, with Carmen sitting numbly in the seat next to Alex, all the way to San Francisco.

  —

  The four of them sat in a line, crammed inside a small office on the fifth floor of a nondescript building. Letty sat beside the only window. Across the street she could see the ICE detention center, the parking lot fenced with hurricane wire and a row of white, unmarked buses, waiting. The attorney—KATE MARTIN, the nameplate on her desk read—saw Letty looking, and pointed to where an armed officer led a middle-aged man onto a bus.

  “It’s the reason I chose this office,” she said. “So I wouldn’t forget.”

  The reminder appeared to be too much for Carmen. She covered her mouth with her hand, and Rick stood up to close the blinds. Alex glared at Kate as if she was personally responsible for the handcuffed man in the parking lot below.

  Letty wished she would hurry up and tell them what they needed to do. It was too much, being crowded into that tiny office with Alex’s guilt and Carmen’s fear and Rick’s focus, but the young attorney wasn’t in any hurry. With her dark, serious eyes moving steadily down the row, from Letty to Rick to Carmen to Alex, she spoke with as much passion as if Yesenia had been her own family member. Rick leaned into Carmen’s ear and translated every word.

  “The truth is,” she said, after explaining in the simplest terms possible what had happened to Yesenia, “it isn’t supposed to happen like this. Probation officers are only supposed to call ICE on perpetrators of violent crimes. But I’ve seen a kid face deportation after stealing a junk bike, so I can’t say it surprises me. Especially in Mission Hills.”

  “But why is she in Virginia?” Alex blurted. “Is she going to be deported?”

  Carmen closed her eyes against the word, rocking gently back and forth in her seat. Watching her sway, it was easy to imagine her with Yesenia in her arms, easy to imagine the warmth and strength of Carmen as a mother. Letty felt sick, thinking about Carmen sitting alone in her apartment now, waiting for Yesenia to call. She’d been cleared to call her mother, but only twice a week, and every time she called she said she was fine. But Carmen had told Letty she was not fine. The fear in her voice came through loud and clear from across the country. She didn’t understand where she was, or why she was there; all she wanted was to come home.

  As an answer to his question, Kate lined up her paperwork on the desk, pointing to the words unaccompanied minor written in red.

  “Yesenia wouldn’t give her mother’s name,” she said. “Which is common. Kids don’t want their parents to get in trouble with immigration, especially when they’re the ones who have done something wrong. So the Office of Refugee Resettlement got involved, and she was sent to Virginia, which just happened to be where they had a bed for a nonviolent fifteen-year-old girl with a pending felony charge.”

  Letty watched as each of them reacted in their own way to Kate’s explanation: Rick’s sigh, Carmen’s crumpled shoulders, Alex’s fear. It doesn’t matter that Yesenia is with nonviolent offenders, Letty saw him thinking. There was nowhere in the world Yesenia would be safe without him.

  As they lis
tened, Kate went on and on, talking about why the Office of Refugee Resettlement existed, explaining that immigrant kids alone in this country were some of the most vulnerable to predators, and that ORR was created to keep them out of the hands of the wrong people. Letty shook her head wildly at this, silently begging the attorney not to go into detail about these “wrong people”—or what they might want with Yesenia. Alex was beyond terrified already; anything else might put him over the edge.

  Rick must have had the same thought, because he interrupted Kate before she could continue.

  “Look at us,” he said. In his lap he pulled each finger until it popped, barely containing his frustration. “How can you say she’s alone? She isn’t even close to alone.”

  “I know she isn’t.” Kate shook her head and looked Rick straight in the eye. “I’m on your side, remember? I’m here to help you get Yesenia home.”

  The room was suddenly hot. Kate walked to the window and pulled the blinds, sliding the window open as far as it would go. The gray San Francisco day seeped through the screen, and Rick looked up at the ceiling for a long moment, gathering himself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you are.”

  Kate looked out the window. Below, an unmarked bus pulled forward, its brake lights glowing red. The windows were tinted. Men, women, children, babies; anyone could be on that bus, going anywhere. No one would ever know. “It’s okay,” she said, her eyes on the parking lot. “I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

  Sighing, she made her way back to the other side of the desk and pulled a packet of paperwork from the printer. She handed it to Carmen. Carmen, who hadn’t spoken a word since they’d entered the office, looked at her wide-eyed. Yesenia needed a sponsor, Kate said matter-of-factly. She would have the best chance of coming home quickly if her mother sponsored her. Men, family friends—she dismissed Rick with a quick look—were tricky. It would be a much longer, harder process if anyone but Carmen came forward.