Don Marcelino sees me from across the courtyard. He breaks into a big, beaming smile and hurries over to me.
“Ana!” he says. “It’s so good to see you. I visited your mami at the hospital when I heard you had disappeared and your brother was hurt. Everyone thought you must be dead. Yet, here you are, safe and sound. It’s wonderful!”
I try to smile for him, but I’m not sure I manage it.
“And welcome back,” he adds, but his tone goes up at the end, betraying it for the question it really is.
My eyes rove once more over the lines of little kids.
“Thank you, Don Marcelino,” I hear myself say softly, “but I’m just dropping off my sister. I have some errands to run. I’m not here to stay.”
And before I can second-guess myself, or decide whether I mean that answer to be for today or for forever, I turn away from the disappointment on his face and let myself out the big blue metal gate.
16
I lean against the peeling blue paint and let the cold of the metal seep into my shoulder blades. I have no idea why being the oldest kid in the school unsettled me so much. No idea why I felt like I had to run. But here I am. I can’t go inside now. Better if I just take the day off, figure out what’s wrong with me, and come back when I’ve sorted things through.
A clatter to my right makes me turn. At the small mine entrance a few hundred meters from the school, ore carts roll in and out of the mouth, pushed by sweating boys not much older than I am. How did we ever think—Victor, Daniel, me, any of us—that we could escape this?
I let my gaze rove up the drab cliffs in front of me. My future looks as bleak as the rocks. When I was younger, I thought about that future all the time: what I would do, where I would live. But in the past few weeks I’ve grown up: I’ve buried my father and survived the hellish mines of El Rosario only to crawl out and find that my world has changed in ways I can’t control. I feel out of place in my new family; without a place at my old school.
Behind me, I hear the opening bars of the national anthem sung by an off-key chorus of high-pitched voices, led by Don Marcelino’s booming bass. The impossible weight of all the days stacked between my childhood and death feels heavier than a fully loaded ore bin pushed uphill.
For a few minutes I let myself stand there and wallow in sadness and aloneness. Then, as the scratchy blare of the anthem winds down, I push myself away from the gate and start walking.
I pause as I reach a fork in the road. One direction will lead me to my new home. The other will take me down and around the Cerro Rico, to Yenni’s house. I know I should go help Abuelita, but for just a few moments, I’m desperate to talk to someone whose life is working out and breathe air not laced with rock dust and regrets.
I turn left and start downhill to Yenni’s.
I have the parcel in my hands and a smile on my face when the door opens, but it’s not Yenni who answers the door, it’s Santiago.
“Ana!” He breaks into a beaming smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I—I’ve come to see Yenni,” I say. “I’ve brought the clothes she loaned me.”
“Oh, yeah, I washed your stuff for you too,” he says, pointing to a corner where Papi’s suit and my clothes are clean and folded, the helmet stacked neatly on top. “But Yenni’s not here. She’s working.”
I could smack myself. Of course Yenni’s not sitting at home waiting for me to return her second-favorite leggings. It’s Thursday. She has a good job in the city, working weekdays. So much has happened that it’s hard to believe we’re still in the same week that she found me. On Monday I was here, and she left early for work, and Santiago . . .
“What are you doing home? Shouldn’t you be in school?” I feel like a hypocrite, but I ask anyway.
Santiago makes a face.
“I’m sick,” he informs me. “Papi wouldn’t let me go today.”
I reach out and press my hand against his forehead, a reflex after so many years of worrying about Daniel.
“Stop it! One big sister is enough.” Santiago swats my hand away, but not before I feel how hot he is. He’s not faking it: he really is sick.
“Get into bed,” I say, ignoring his sass. “We can talk with the door closed and you lying down.”
Santiago climbs into bed without too much of an argument, a clear sign from any young boy that he’s not feeling well, and lies against the pillows with a grumble. I put Yenni’s folded clothes at the end of the bed.
“Was your mami happy to have you home?” he asks.
“Yes.” I smile.
While Santiago settles back into his blankets, I tell him how, after my adventures in the city, I got home to Mami and how I’m suddenly living in a new house with a man who used to be my boss but is now my stepfather. “I have a new stepsister too,” I tell him, “a little younger than you.”
“And what about your brother?” Santiago mumbles, tired after even that short time out of bed. His papi was right to make him stay home.
“Yenni thought she found him for me.” I get up and get him a glass of water from the barrel outside. “But it wasn’t the right boy. They did find my brother, though, back in the mine, while I was gone. You need to drink,” I say, holding the cup out to him.
Santiago makes another face.
“Now you know what it felt like to be me the day you pulled me out of the cave.”
I’m rewarded with a smile. He takes a sip of water.
“Happy?” he grouses.
“Soooo happy,” I joke, putting on a big clown smile.
Santiago snorts and curls up in the blankets. “Well?” he asks once he’s settled, showing I haven’t managed to distract him.
“The boy in town wasn’t my brother,” I start, “but he was a friend. He’s in trouble . . .” I trail off, not sure how to explain Victor’s situation to a sunny nine-year-old. “And my brother, they found him too, but he’s hurt. Really hurt. I . . . I wish I could make things better for both of them.”
Santiago hears the catch in my voice. “But . . . ?”
I want to pour all my worry and heartache out at someone’s feet—anyone’s feet, even Santiago’s—to not feel so alone with my problems. But seeing his young, feverish body hunched in the bed, I refuse to give him one more thing to carry.
“But life is hard and people are complicated,” I say, “and I’m not sure how.”
Santiago nods, as if that makes perfect sense.
I hesitate for a moment, but then I force the words out, admitting the terrible thing I overheard in the middle of the night. “And they’re talking about sending Daniel away, down to the lowlands, to some cousin of César’s.”
Santiago considers me for a long moment.
“Sometimes people can’t stay with you,” he says softly, “but they still love you and they’re still okay.”
I glance at him, startled, but Santiago is looking at his hands, twisting the blanket between them.
“My mami left us to go work in the capital because she couldn’t stand it up here anymore,” he says.
“Oh.” I put my hand over his. “I’m sorry.” I had wondered where their mother was.
Santiago shrugs.
“I was little,” he says, dismissing the old pain. “Yenni says she hates Mami for leaving us. But Yenni goes down to Potosí to make money at the posada and only comes home on weekends. She says she’s trying to get enough so that she can get a little place in the city and I can come with her. But most of the time I’m here, and she’s gone, just like Mami.” He sighs. “I mean, I get it. It’s bad up here. Sometimes the only way to survive is to get away.”
I have no idea what to say to all that. I know how it feels to lose someone. My life used to be like a three-legged stool: I was supported, in different ways, by Mami and Papi and Abuelita. Then, suddenly, Papi was gone. Now it feels like my wh
ole life is wobbling, unbalanced, likely to tip over at any moment and crash into a million pieces. Santiago’s mother and sister have gone to work in different cities. My papi is dead and my brother is being sent away. We’re both being left behind here.
I take Daniel’s little angel out of my pocket, where I put it this morning, and run my fingers over its cracked edges. Just like the rock dust clinging to the lines of César’s hands, the belief that my brother was going to be okay and that everything could go back to normal wasn’t something I could scrub away easily. But in the week and a half since the mine disaster, that hope has flecked off me, a speck at a time, without my even noticing. I realize, as I sit here with Santiago, that there’s none left. I know things will never go back to the way they were before. I will have to find a new way forward.
“You should get some sleep,” I whisper. “If you like, I’ll stay here and keep you company until you drift off.”
Santiago, tired from all the talking, lets the conversation drop. Not much later, he’s asleep, his fevered face flushed in the low light.
Leaving Santiago with a full glass of water by his head and Yenni’s folded clothes at his feet, I close the door behind me and walk slowly home, Papi’s helmet and suit tucked under my arm.
* * *
It’s early afternoon when César and Mami come into view. César is carrying Daniel on his back and Mami is one step behind them, supporting Daniel. I can’t help it. As soon as they crest the rise, I race out of the house.
“Daniel!”
I screech to a stop just in front of them, not sure what to do with my body. I want to throw myself at him and give him a giant hug. But I can see the strain on César’s neck from carrying him up the mountain and I don’t want to topple them all over. Besides, Daniel doesn’t look up for giant hugs. His arms are limp by his sides, and even though he hasn’t been walking, he looks as exhausted and sweaty as they are. His face is lined and pale and his eyes are half rolled back in his head. If Mami wasn’t holding him against César’s back, it looks like he’d fall to the ground.
“Is he . . . is he okay?” I ask, scrambling out of their way.
César grunts.
“Let’s just get him in the house,” says Mami.
I run and open the door wider. Abuelita stands by her cot, which she has cleared off for Daniel. Belén, home from school, stands well clear. César carries Daniel over to the cot and Mami helps lay him down. Daniel gasps in pain and slumps against the blanket. When César steps away, I can see the extent of his injuries. Daniel’s torso is mostly covered in gauze bandages. Huge bruises blossom under the edges and there are rusty spots on the white where he’s bled through. Worse, Daniel’s making far too much noise as he breathes, like a broken air compressor.
Abuelita hands Mami and César cups of water. For a long moment, none of us says anything.
“The surgery to fix his punctured lung went well,” Mami says into the silence. “They took out the chest tube yesterday. His lung has reinflated and they’ve reset his ribs. He’s to breathe as deeply as he can, and sleep propped up. It will take two to three months for him to heal all the way.” She recites these things robotically, as if she has been repeating them to herself all the way up the mountain like I used to with my memorized facts.
I rub tears out of the corners of my eyes. Daniel’s breath is fast and shallow. Mami goes over and wedges a blanket under his head and shoulders, lifting him at an angle. It doesn’t seem to help. Her shoulders slump.
“Ana,” Mami says softly. “Come outside with me. We need to talk.”
Abuelita takes her place at Daniel’s side and wipes his face gently with a wet cloth. He squeezes his eyes shut and wheezes. His lips aren’t the right color.
Numbly, I follow Mami out the door.
Mami finds a ledge away from the miners’ houses. She sits and waits for me to join her. Below us, the city of Potosí is laid out like a blanket, stretching to fill the valley at the base of the Cerro.
“Ana—” she starts.
“You’re sending him away,” I break in.
Mami shoots me a sharp look.
“I couldn’t sleep last night. I overheard you and César talking.” I glare at her. “How could you? We only just got him back!”
“I’ve spent the last five days at the hospital with him,” Mami says slowly. “When his breathing slows naturally overnight, it suffocates him, and he wakes up. He hasn’t been able to sleep in a week except for when they gave him pain medication and put an oxygen mask on his face.” She looks down at her hands, her face lined with sorrow. “We don’t have pain medication,” she says. “We don’t have an oxygen tank. I can’t watch him struggle for every breath, in agony for the next three months.”
Tears drip off my chin into my lap. This morning I was angry at her for even thinking of sending Daniel away. But that was before I had seen him. Now all I want is for him to hurt less.
“The hospital won’t keep him any longer,” Mami is saying, “and it will be months before he’s back to normal—and that’s assuming he doesn’t get bronchitis or pneumonia like he tends to. His lungs were so weak and scarred even before this. Now . . .” She trails off. Then she straightens her spine and continues. “César has a cousin who lives down near Sucre. That’s half the altitude of the Cerro Rico, only 2,800 meters above sea level. There’s much more oxygen in the air there. It’s like putting a free oxygen mask on his face all the time. I can’t get him more pain medication, but at least he’ll have an easier time breathing while he gets better. César contacted them from the hospital. They’ve agreed to take Daniel for the next few months, until his ribs heal.”
I don’t say anything, remembering all the times I wished that I could get Daniel better air to breathe. Now, because of César, we’re able to do exactly that.
Even though I know it’s the only thing that makes sense, the hurt feels real. Mami wraps an arm around me and holds me until my sobs still. I know we should head straight back inside, but there’s nothing we can do for Daniel at the moment, and I can’t quite face everyone else right now. I realize this is the first time, since I got home, that it’s been just Mami and me. I sit back and look at her.
“César told me why you got married,” I say. “He said you did it because you had to. To save Daniel.”
She smooths my hair out of my face and nods, waiting for me to go on.
“I get it,” I say, “and I’m glad he was able to help Daniel, but are you really okay with this? Papi only died a week ago. Did you even want to be married again?”
Mami lets out a slow breath. “I am very grateful to César. He put forward the money that saved my son’s life. He connected me with someone who can give him a safe place to heal. He has taken on the burden of caring for me, my mother-in-law, and my daughter. He is kind, and generous, and patient. He listens to me when I have something to say.”
I wait, but she doesn’t answer my question about whether she wanted to be married again after Papi.
“Is that enough?” I ask finally.
Mami looks at the house where César, Abuelita, and Belén are caring for Daniel.
“No,” she says, a small smile softening her face, “but it’s a good place to start.”
* * *
That night, even though we all pretend to, none of us sleep. Instead, we lie where we are and listen to Daniel fight to get enough air to make it to morning.
Since Daniel took her place, Abuelita is sharing the big bed with Mami. César is on the floor next to it, lying on a pile of folded blankets. Their door is open so they can hear if Daniel needs them. Belén and I are in our usual alcove, and Daniel is on the cot. Just like Mami described, whenever his breathing starts to even into sleep, he jerks awake, gasping and coughing. The pain from that on his healing ribs keeps him awake and panting shallowly for the better part of an hour. Then, when he finally settles down
, the whole process starts again. It’s awful and it convinces me, like nothing else could, that he has to leave.
The next morning dawns bright and cold, just like so many others. I feel like there should be some way to mark it, something to make it stick out in our memories. It should be raining, or snowing, even! Some kind of freak weather should mark this day as different. Instead, it’s just another mid-March day, as if Daniel leaving didn’t matter to the universe one way or the other.
As soon as it’s light enough to see, we all stop pretending to sleep and get ready to walk into town. The trip from Sucre to Potosí takes over three hours by bus, so César’s cousin won’t arrive before midmorning. We need to be ready to settle Daniel next to her for the immediate return trip to Sucre.
Abuelita says a murmured goodbye to Daniel while Mami packs his schoolbag with his clothes and things to send with him. After a quick breakfast, we’re ready to head out. Abuelita puts her hands on Belén’s shoulders. Belén gives us a weak wave. It’s Friday, so she’s off to school. Abuelita will stay home in case she’s needed.
Mami and I are going along so we can be with Daniel until the last possible minute. César will carry him. César boosts my brother onto his back and the four of us set off. With gravity pushing Daniel onto César instead of away from him, Mami doesn’t have to support him on the downhill walk. Instead, she carries his things. I feel useless with nothing to carry, but I walk next to Daniel the whole way down the mountain. I tried a couple of times last night to talk to him, but conversation was too tiring when he had to fight for every breath. Pretty soon, we gave up. Now I hang on to the laces of his tennis shoe like a three-year-old, wishing he didn’t have to leave us.
We need to stop a bunch of times to let both Daniel and César rest, but we make it to the bus station with twenty minutes to spare. César finds a bench against a wall and sets Daniel on it. I perch beside him while César and Mami head off to buy him a ticket.
Treasure of the World Page 19