The Secret Side of Empty

by Maria E. Andreu

  “My paper is entitled ‘Seventeen Ways to Say Illegal.’”

  I hear a little rustle through the group and Mr. A shifts in his seat.

  “There is this song. It’s called ‘Seventeen Ways to Say I’m Leaving.’ It’s about a girl who is thinking about suicide. Which, I guess, I’ve kind of done.”

  Dakota casts a sidelong glance at Quinn.

  “I realize now, I didn’t really relate to it because I wanted to die. Just because I wanted it to stop. You know? My life, I mean. The way it was. Like I had no future. Not a future like you guys, anyway. Because I am an illegal immigrant.”

  More chatter. I am surprised just how good it feels to say it to this group of girls who have known me—but not known me—for so long.

  “So, my end-of-year essay is just a list, really. I am seventeen. And I thought it would be good to have one phrase for every year I’ve lived as an illegal immigrant. So, anyway, my Seventeen Ways to Say Illegal are:

  Broken

  Alone

  Not allowed

  Wrong

  Trapped

  Shunned

  Unwanted

  Not good enough

  Apart

  A secret

  On the wrong side

  Misplaced

  A threat

  A mistake

  Voiceless

  Unheard

  And last,

  Still here anyway.”

  Quinn’s eyes get wide and Dakota does a little clap until she realizes no one else is clapping.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath. The silence feels right somehow.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  My dress for graduation is cream colored and looks like something a secretary would wear. This one my mother made slowly, for months, but only gave to me a week ago. Like everything she makes, it fits perfectly. She also gets me a pair of cream-colored high heels. She believes that shoes make the outfit. I wish I’d given her enough notice so she could have scored me a pair for prom.

  We line up in the area behind the stage in the small gym that doubles as an auditorium. There are only fifty-four of us graduating. Still, we’re cramped. Ms. Cronell fusses with her NHS girls, straightening sashes and pins over gowns. I don’t wear either. I am still surprised it feels bad to look at them. I shift my cap. My bobby pins dig into my scalp. I am sweaty under my polyester graduation gown.

  Music starts and we file onto the stage the way we’ve practiced. We sit in chairs. Camera flashes start to go off like a rock star just stepped onstage. I look around and see my mother standing in a corner in the back, holding Jose’s hand. She waves. I smile blankly but pretend I’m smiling at nothing.

  There’s a lot of blabber, most of which I don’t listen to. Dakota gives the valedictorian’s speech. I wonder what mine would have been like if I hadn’t let my grades go. Hers is something about a responsibility to the future. She seems pretty lively. I wonder if she has her magic flask with her.

  Finally, The Moment We’ve All Been Waiting For. Sister Mary Augustus calls us up, one by one, hands us a diploma, and shakes our hand. We’re supposed to stop, frozen, photo op moment, her left hand on our right shoulder, as our eager parents stand at the foot of the stage and snap pictures. When she calls Chelsea’s name, everyone stands and claps. Chelsea’s mother walks up from the first row and accepts her diploma on Chelsea’s behalf, with everyone standing up and cheering. When my turn comes, I walk up to Sister Mary Augustus. We freeze, me with an uncomfortable glare, Sister Mary Augustus with her identi-smile. We pause there, awkwardly suspended. No one takes a picture. My mother is in the back, and waves again. She doesn’t know the rules. Also, she doesn’t own a camera.

  And I’m a high school graduate.

  We stand around and talk, girls holding big armfuls of flowers. Caps off now. Everyone is going to restaurants with parents, grandparents, cousins, siblings. A few people are having get-togethers at home.

  Quinn walks up to me. “Hey, Mouse, can I talk to you?”

  Every once in a while, when she wants to piss me off, she calls me by the kindergarten name. Strangely, it doesn’t make me mad today. It makes me almost wistful, like throwing away a tattered old toy I haven’t played with in years.

  “Okay.”

  She walks off to the side of the auditorium where it’s quiet. I follow her.

  “So that was quite the bombshell in class the other day,” Quinn says.

  “I guess.”

  “It kind of puts me in a confessional mood, too.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I mean, not so much a confession, I guess. Just . . . I want you to know that I didn’t call the cops to hurt you or anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When Chelsea told me what you said to her . . . I didn’t call the cops to be a jerk.”

  “Wait, Chelsea told you? And you called the cops?”

  “Yeah. You didn’t know?”

  “No.”

  “She was scared and . . . I guess I’m the resident expert on the subject, you know? She called me to ask what she should do. She’s so mad at me now. I told her to just tell you it was me. You hate me anyway. I didn’t want you to be mad at her. You shouldn’t be mad at her. I did it.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “Ever since that red marker.”

  “It was a silver crayon.”

  “Whatever, Mousy Rat,” she says and smiles. Then she looks off and the thousand-mile stare looks so funny on her little face. “You know, my brother gave all his comic books to his best friend and his bike to his girlfriend. The day before he . . . anyway, he told them all goodbye. Not me, though. Not my brothers. Just his friends. But none of them ever said anything to anyone.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yeah, anyway, so that’s why.”

  “I guess I should say thank you. But that would be weird.”

  “Yeah. But then you’re kind of a weirdo,” she says, smiles again, and walks away.

  For a minute I stand alone, playing it over in my mind. Then I go find my mother. She hugs me. “Congratulations, Monse. I’m so proud of you. You did it.” Then in English she says, “A high school graduate.” Her accent is so strong, but she gets all the sounds right.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get flowers. I didn’t know that was something you were supposed to do.”

  “No, whatever. It’s fine.”

  “These American customs. You know.”

  “I know.”

  “So are you going to go home now?”

  “I guess.”

  “Okay, I’m going back to work then.”

  “Okay.”

  Jose pulls on my graduation gown. “You look really pretty,” he says.

  I pick him up, hold him like I used to when he was a toddler. He’s still just about as light.

  “So what do you do after high school?” he asks. Like he’s asked a thousand times before.

  “I have no idea.” Like I’ve thought a thousand times before.

  Biking home in a dress is a real pain.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  It feels like we’re wading through soup, an angry bruise of a sky swirling above us as we walk home from the bus stop to the apartment. Jose, who rarely whines, is whining. I am holding my brand-new Argentinian passport in the back pocket of my jean shorts. My mom had insisted that we go into the city to the Argentinian consulate to get a passport of my own, separate from hers. I think it’s dumb, but I went along. Even though it’s not from the country I want it to be, I’m happy to have my first grown-up document. Add it to my high school diploma, and I guess I’m officially an adult.

  When we walk into the apartment, the atmosphere is even thicker inside. My father is sitting in the living room in a robe, staring off into space. As we step through the door, he says, “Where the hell have you been?” His mood is as dark as I’ve ever seen it. He is not used to my mother going anywhere without telling him
first.

  “Oh, hello, Jorge. I thought you were at work,” says my mom, and it’s more than a little bit of an accusation.

  “I said. Where. Have. You. Been?”

  “We went to get Monse her own passport.”

  “Well, isn’t that special. Your very own passport, huh? And now you’re a big high school graduate, too. I guess you must think you’re something,” he says.

  I look away. And wait for it.

  “I asked you a question!”

  “No.”

  “No? You don’t think you’re better than me?”

  “No.”

  “I think yes, you do. I see it in your snotty attitude. Look at me when I talk to you!”

  I look at him. I know there is no way out of this without a beating. I know the signs well—the twitch of his eyebrow, the menacing way he’s trying to look bigger. I can almost feel his mood, hot like the stagnant air around us. It breathes like pure frustration and hatred.

  I just want to avoid another beating. Not another one. I am done, so sick of trying so hard to get the formula that makes it stop, but never finding it. Not silence. Not defiance. Not truth. Not lies. Nothing makes the hitting stop when he decides he’s going to hit.

  I get up and go to my room. I put the passport on top of a stack of books. I will take it to Chelsea’s house tomorrow. It will be safer there.

  He screams, “Get over here.”

  I go back into the living room.

  “Where is your passport?” he asks. His face is contorted.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Why? Why? Because I asked, is why! You will go in your room, and you will hand that passport to me right now.”

  “No.” I don’t know where that comes from.

  He looks like I just shocked him with a taser or something. Little fish mouth. For a second it’s almost comical.

  “What did you say?”

  “No.” I don’t even care about the passport. I care about making a stand. Somehow I just know that today, here, is it.

  He gets ice cold, logical, like he’s about to explain a math concept. “This is how it’s going to go. You’re going to go in your room and get me your passport. You’re going to hand it to me. And if you don’t. I’m. Going. To. Kill. You.” Then he turns calmly to my mother. “And if you try to stop me, I’m going to kill you first. With my bare hands.”

  Quietly, his back and his little hands touching the wall, Jose starts to cry.

  My mother grabs my hand. “Monse, please, just go get your passport. It will be fine; just don’t argue.”

  I walk into my room. I’ve given up more before. The passport doesn’t matter. I close my eyes and say this to myself a couple of times. I walk over to the passport. I hold it in my hands and stare at it.

  It doesn’t matter. But even as I tell that to myself, I don’t believe it. It’s a strange little hill to hold, this passport. But maybe this passport is the only thing I have that says I’m me. The truth of me, that I am here.

  I won’t turn it over.

  I open it, and start to tear sheets out of it. I remember the woman at the consulate saying not to let any pages get torn out of it, because that makes it invalid. I know he is stronger, and he will get the passport. But he won’t get it in any usable form.

  My mother walks into my room and stands in the doorway. I look up at her as I tear out another sheet. She strangles a sob. “Oh my God, Monse.”

  The sound alerts him. He comes into my room and pushes her out of the way. His eyes land on my passport, jagged pages jutting out of it.

  “Are you crazy?” he screams. “Are you crazy?”

  “You wanted the passport. You’ve got the passport.” I hold it out to him.

  He smacks it out of my hand. The pages flutter to the floor. The swing of his arm rips the model airplane clean off its plastic wire. I hear it clatter to the floor. A wing smashes off. He’s got a crazier look in his eyes than usual. He grabs a fistful of my hair. He starts to hit me in the back of the head. His fist hurts worse than anything I’ve ever felt before, like a rock pounding into the hardness of my head with the skin of my scalp caught in between, getting pummeled. I don’t think he’s ever hit me closed-fist like this.

  I’m not going to stand here and take it this time. I have to hit back. I swat at him, but he’s got at least half a foot of reach on me. From the angle he’s holding my hair, I can’t even twist around to hit back. He is hitting me hard. My mother is screaming. Jose yells, “Stop! Stop!” My father shifts his weight, knocks the lamp over. I feel things in my head rattling from his punches. It hurts, bones that aren’t supposed to move feeling like they’re scraping out of the way, little explosions in my head. It hurts.

  But suddenly, it doesn’t.

  It is the freakiest thing, but now I can’t feel it at all. I am numb, weirdly happy, at peace. The quiet sounds like you feel when you put your ears underwater. I float up to the ceiling, looking down on the whole scene. I see my room, my futon half open, the lamp knocked over where my father kicked it down. I see the passport pages scattered on the floor. I see Jose’s SpongeBob pillow on his bed. I see the stack of papers, scattered, the books all over the place. They don’t matter. Nothing matters. It is so peaceful here, by the ceiling. It is heavenly quiet. I watch a man punching a girl, her body doubled over while he punches. I have love for her, but I am free of her. I am free.

  And then the moment is over. My mother gives him a shove, and I’m not sure how, but she knocks him off me. I screech back into my body. All the sound comes back, and it’s ugly—screams, cries, grunts. My brother is hysterical.

  But there is something else, a juice that runs through me. I am alive. It feels amazing.

  I run.

  I go down to the first floor, to the Cheese Lady. I pound on her door. She opens. I fall inside, slam her door behind me.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks.

  “I need your phone.”

  “What happened?”

  “I just . . . I need to call the police.”

  I wait for the cops outside. They’re here in a couple of minutes. Nothing much happens in Willow Falls, so it doesn’t take them long. The back of my head throbs. I reach in my hair and pull out big handfuls where he held it.

  The cop walks up. He is enormously tall, with an upturned nose and icy blue eyes. He has hands the size of dinner plates. He is wearing scary storm-trooper pants. He only has about a quarter inch of hair buzz cut all over his head. In the friend-or-foe continuum, he definitely looks closer to foe.

  “What’s the situation?” he asks.

  I take a deep breath. “I just . . . my father was hitting me and I just needed help.” He gets some details from me—my name, address, my father’s name—and writes them all down. His badge and his uniform still look dangerous to me, like the enemy who could undo me. But I push that aside and try to find the real enemy in my mind. I calm down and tell him what happened.

  “Did you want to press charges?” he asks.

  “No, I just want you to go upstairs with me and stand with me while I get a few of my things.”

  “And then? You have somewhere to go then?”

  “Yes.”

  The policeman goes upstairs with me. My father is like a whole other person, back to that sinister calm self. “If you’re going to arrest me, would you give me a moment to put on some clothes?” he says.

  “One thing at a time now. Right now I’m just getting some information for a report. And the girl just wants to get a few things.”

  “You can’t take her out of here. She is a child and she’s under my control.”

  “Well, sir, according to her date of birth, it seems she just turned eighteen. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “That makes her an adult.”

  “In my country, the legal age of adulthood is twenty-one.”

  “I’m not sure how things are in your country, but in the United States she’s an adult at eighteen and she can
go wherever she wants.”

  I look around my room for things to put in my backpack. This time I know I’m really never coming back. But it feels good. I stuff in all the clothes I can fit. A few pictures. Nothing else matters. Everything else can be replaced.

  Jose, big booger trails running out of his nose, walks over to his bed and hands me the SpongeBob pillow. He is in full post-sob hiccup mode. I feel like I should argue for him to keep it. But I really kind of want it. I kiss him on top of his head, tuck the pillow under my arm, look up at the beanpole cop. “I’m ready.”

  I give him Chelsea’s address. Somehow he knows where it is.

  “Hey, kiddo, you okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You need to go to the hospital or something?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got two daughters, and I have to tell you, I don’t understand how people can hurt children.”

  I smile at him. I try to imagine him out of uniform, at his daughters’ sports games, a cheering father, not a potential threat with a nightstick and a gun and the phone number to the immigration authorities. He’s huge, filling up the cop car, his head almost touching the roof of it. But his blue eyes aren’t icy. They crinkle up around the edges, giving him an almost sweet air. His smile is very kind.

  “I don’t understand either,” I say.

  “But you know, you go out there and live a good life and don’t worry about all that.”

  “I will.”

  “You call us if you need anything else, or a copy of the police report. Anything. You stay safe now.”

  “Thank you.” He is nothing like what I thought he would be. He waits for the door to open before waving and driving away.

  Chelsea’s mother is the one who opens the door.

  “M.T., are you okay?”

  “I’m kind of not okay. Can I sleep over?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean . . . can I stay for more than just a night or two? Until I can find a place?”