The Orphan Daughter

by Cari Noga

  Chapter 60

  JANE

  Gently I nudge Lucy’s door open. She’s asleep, Lexie curled up in the crook of her knees. I pull the blanket up over her shoulder. She stirs and twitches away from my touch. My heart feels like lead. Even involuntarily she retreats from me. I deluded myself these last few months. Yes, we had a few close moments. But I should have tried harder, sooner. She’s not happy, and she deserves to be. I swallow hard. I have to call Bonita Ortiz.

  Still I put it off for a week, hoping that Lucy gets a lift from returning to her school routine—Miguel driving the school bus, the ever-devoted Jared, whom I told the Livingstons to go easy on. It was Lucy’s idea, after all, that he just helped execute. I putter around the house, trying to occupy myself with the usual Plain Jane’s winter paperwork. But I keep returning to the folders in Matt’s room, rereading Gloria’s letter and Lucy’s files, looking for clues I missed. One afternoon both Sarge and Lexie interrupt, rubbing against my legs, drawing my attention to their empty dishes. Lucy must have forgotten to fill them before school. Not like her. I reach underneath the sink for the cat-food bag. The water dishes are empty, too.

  We’re getting an early January thaw, the icicles dripping steadily, but Lucy seems frozen. The next day, I detect a smell from the mudroom. Opening the kitchen door, I close it just as fast. The litter box. First the food dishes, now this. She never forgets the cats.

  She never forgot.

  By the time Lucy gets home from school, the litter box stench is overpowering, but she doesn’t seem to notice, kicking off her boots in the middle of the floor. “Lucy, the litter box is way overdue for cleaning.”

  “What?” She looks over at it and wrinkles her nose slightly. “Oh, OK.”

  “Yesterday I found their dishes empty, too. Both food and water.”

  “Oh.” She looks at the floor, where the melting snow from her boots is already puddling. Deliberately I reach down and pick up the boots, putting them on the tray next to mine.

  “The boots and water, we can clean that up. But the cats depend on you to remember.”

  “I know. I’ll do it.” But she makes no move to clean out the litter box, instead going the other way, into the kitchen, dragging her backpack, dragging my heart.

  I have to call.

  Miguel comes over for the phone call as interpreter backup. Bonita understands English but speaks less. She’s stunned to find out about Lucy’s runaway plan.

  “She is very eager to meet you and her father’s family,” Miguel says.

  “Meet us?” A sharp intake of breath, between a gasp and a sob. “¿Mi sobrina?”

  “Let’s be honest,” I say. She needs the truth. “Lucy wants to move to Mexico.” I steel my voice against the quaver.

  She understands that, all right.

  “Move? Live here? ¿En serio?”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “No.” Her voice is just as steely as mine. “No hay futuro en México. Luis was trying to get us out. I think he was close to getting the papers, but then there was the accident.” Her voice breaks. “He was the last of my family.”

  What is she talking about? Close to getting what papers? And what does she mean, the last of her family? “I thought you had another brother,” I say, recalling the bio Langley shared. “A bit younger?”

  “Fernando.” Her voice hardens. “He’s been dead to me for years.”

  Fernando. Nando? From Gloria’s letter? Dead—to Bonita? What in the world does she mean?

  “Díganos, señora,” Miguel says.

  “When he joined the gang. Got mixed up with narcos.”

  “Drugs?” My grip tightens on the phone. Watch out for Nando.

  “Sí, drugs. He wanted to go to los Estados Unidos, too. My parents told him he had to wait. After Luis graduated, they needed to save more money. Luis was trying to help, sending back practically all his paycheck.”

  Sending back all his paycheck. Next would come all his savings. The pieces are falling into place.

  “But Nando got bored waiting. He didn’t really want to go to school, anyway. He pretended he got a job, a legitimate one. He started giving my parents money. They were proud. Then we found out all the money was sucio.”

  “Dirty,” Miguel whispers.

  “My father told him to quit. Get out. But it was too late.” The edge is gone from Bonita’s voice. She only sounds sad now. “They owned him. And we all pay. Mi padre, they said it was a heart attack, but he died of a broken heart. I know.”

  We all pay. “Is that where Luis’s money went?” I can’t help asking her, looking to pin down another piece to the puzzle that’s floated in my head since April. Of course Gloria and Luis would have wanted Lucy to stay in the US if his brother was a drug dealer. Cartels fighting each other, corrupt police and government, innocent bystanders victimized—I shudder, imagining Lucy in the middle of a newspaper headline.

  “You know about that?”

  “How did you spend it?” I have to know how Lucy became penniless. “More than three hundred thousand dollars in a year and a half.”

  “El dinero se nos va de las manos,” she sighs.

  “It goes like water,” Miguel translates.

  “First it was private school for my Graciela. To keep her away from the city. Away from her tío. Nando, he is smooth. Graciela is joven. Impressionable. So I needed to keep her away to keep her safe.

  “Then Mama. All the stress is not healthy. She already had diabetes. Walking is difficult. Then her blood pressure, it goes so high. She needed medicine, dialysis. But treatments here are not good.”

  Miguel is shaking his head as he listens. Has he heard this story before?

  “Luis wanted me to take her to Texas. But because of Nando, our family is on a government watch list. We cannot cross. That’s why we couldn’t come to the funeral, either.” I hear a sniff.

  “So he started working to get papers for all four of us. Mama, Enrique, mi esposo. Graciela. Me. To come live in America, too. Y eso es muy caro.”

  And that explains how retirement accounts and a half-million-dollar second mortgage goes like water.

  “Mi madre, she just died in November. Kidney failure,” Bonita continues. “With Graciela away at school, it is just me and my husband en casa. It is not supposed to be that way. La familia lo es todo.”

  Family is everything. I don’t need Miguel to translate that. Finally, I understand Luis and Gloria’s will. And her warning. But now what am I going to do about Lucy, whose dejection and isolation are as bad as they were in June?

  I talk it over with Rebecca, who stops by with her CSA deposit while Lucy’s at school.

  She sighs. “The decisions don’t get any easier, do they?”

  “Well, the decision is actually pretty easy. She can’t go, of course. It’s making her understand why that’s difficult.” She’ll probably think I’m just being mean old Aunt Jane again. But if it keeps her safe, I’ll live with that.

  “Could Bonita talk to her?”

  “I suppose, but I think Lucy would still fantasize about Mexico as some promised land.” Where her familia acts like family.

  “Right.” Rebecca drums her fingers. “She has to realize for herself that her future isn’t down there.” She hesitates. “Is a trip really out of the question?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Bonita said that Graciela went to a boarding school, right? Out in the country. What if they met there?”

  “After everything I just told you, you really have to ask?”

  “Lucy will. So you might as well practice the explanation on me.”

  She’s right. OK, then. “It’s not safe.”

  “Neither is driving a car. And you do that every day,” she retorts.

  “Driving a car is an acceptable, necessary risk. A trip to Mexico isn’t.” What if Bonita changed her mind when Lucy got down there?

  “You’re going to argue to Lucy, of all people, that driving a car is an acceptable risk?” Rebecc
a raises her eyebrows.

  She’s right again. But still. “This is an entirely different class. Drugs, gangs . . . there are State Department travel warnings, for God’s sake. I looked it up online. US citizens should defer nonessential travel.”

  “This may well be essential travel. You thought so yourself, before.”

  “And now I have new information to factor in.”

  Rebecca’s staring off into space. “Last summer. At Lucy’s birthday dinner. Miguel talked about going home for his sister’s quinceañera. In the spring sometime.”

  “March, I think. So what?”

  Rebecca raises her eyebrows again and looks at me meaningfully. Unspoken, her idea dawns.

  “What, you want him to take her down there? I couldn’t ask him to do that.”

  “Do what? Invite three more people to the quinceañera. Lucy, Graciela, Bonita. What’s the big deal?”

  “Oh, come on, Rebecca. The responsibility . . .” And the possibility of Lucy falling in love with her Mexican familia. Wanting to stay.

  “He’s an adult. More important, he’s an adult who loves Lucy and knows the lay of the land down there.”

  I hesitate.

  “Just think about it, OK?”

  The next day she calls.

  “I checked, and the travel warnings are mostly restricted to a few border communities.”

  “Which she has to cross. Would have to, I mean.”

  “In an airport. With security all over the place. Where Miguel will be with her 24-7.”

  “Jeez, Rebecca. Whose side are you on?”

  “Yours. And Lucy’s. She’s been good for you. Now she needs to realize you’re good for her. Like I said, that starts with seeing that a future in Mexico is a dismal one.”

  But I can’t be sure Lucy would conclude that. I shake my head, staring out the kitchen window. “Are you telling me that you’d let Jared go, if the situation was reversed?”

  She pauses. “I can’t say absolutely yes. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite.”

  “Maybe?”

  “But the analogy doesn’t work. I can’t be you. Jared isn’t Lucy. What I can say is I trust Miguel implicitly. He would protect Lucy like she was his own sister.”

  She’s right about that. Am I trying to protect Lucy by keeping her home? Or myself? I draw a deep breath, trying to think clearly.

  When Lucy gets home from school, her boots make it on the boot tray, at least.

  “How was school?”

  “What?” She stands there in her sock feet, looking almost like she did back when she arrived, alone and bereft. She lifts her hair off her neck and pulls it into a ponytail. Her face looks extra sharp. She’s always been thin, but today the angles of her cheeks and her chin look starker than ever. Her skin looks pale against some dark circles under her eyes.

  “How was school?”

  She shrugs. “We got our report cards.” She reaches into the backpack. “I know they’ll email it, so I might as well just show you.”

  Her midterm card in November was pretty good, better than I expected from a kid at the front end of the middle of the pack, especially one with all the transitions Lucy faced last year. But this time the Digital Communications grade has dropped to a B and that’s the best grade on it. Her GPA is listed at 2.3. There’s a typed comment at the bottom. “Parent/guardian meeting advised. Please call to schedule.”

  Trepidation makes my hand tremble, and I dial the number wrong twice. Even though we discovered Lucy’s plan before she got to Mexico, I knew that running away meant I’d probably already lost her. What other evidence do I need? Peaked, unfocused. Withdrawing from the cats, school.

  Maybe the best I can do is help her move on.

  Chapter 61

  LUCY

  It’s freezing in Aunt Jane’s truck. I wanted to ride the bus like I always do, but Aunt Jane said that doesn’t make sense; she’ll drive me to school since we meet with the counselor at eight thirty.

  I miss Miguel. He’s like Lexie, well, kind of. I don’t have to worry about what he thinks. Sometimes we talk a lot; sometimes we don’t. He’s always in a good mood, but if I’m not, he doesn’t seem to mind. And the bus is always warm when I get on.

  Aunt Jane is, like, completely opposite. She’s always waiting for a chance to say something, or wanting me to say something. And if I guess wrong, she’s disappointed. I can feel her waiting right now, watching me out of the corner of her eye. I puff out a breath. I can still see it but only for a second. The truck’s getting warmer finally. I pull off my gloves and hold my hands up to the heater. Aunt Jane clears her throat. Knew it!

  “Is there anything that you want to tell me before we see the counselor?”

  I shrug, keeping my eyes straight, staring out the dirty windshield at the gray sky.

  “Are your classes too hard? Do you need extra help?”

  “Uh-uh.” I shake my head. We’ve had hardly any new snow since Christmas and the old snow and the cloudy sky blend into each other, both as dull and boring as this conversation.

  “Then how do you explain how your grades slipped so much?”

  “They’re not that bad.”

  Aunt Jane sighs.

  “They’re not! I got Cs. That’s average.”

  “But you’re not an average student.”

  I didn’t expect her to say that and can’t help but look over at her.

  “You weren’t in New York, and you didn’t start out that way here, either. Your midterm card was good.”

  I turn back to the window. We’re passing the gas station in Mapleton, halfway down the peninsula.

  “Now in two months your grade point has fallen a whole point. My concern is why.” Aunt Jane takes a deep breath. “That was when you started planning to go to Mexico. Maybe that distracted you. Or you thought there was no point in working here anymore since you’d be living down there.”

  Hmmpf. I don’t know. Maybe.

  “And now you have the disappointment of being back here, and nothing else to look forward to. No reason to bother anymore. Am I right?”

  I keep staring ahead.

  “I talked to your Aunt Bonita.”

  What? Why didn’t she tell me? “When?”

  “About a week ago.”

  A whole week ago and she hasn’t said anything?

  “What did she say?”

  “She’s worried about you. Just like me.” She pauses. “I can’t say that you can go and live with her. That’s her decision. But I can see you’re not happy here, and it’s getting worse. First you’re neglecting school, now the cats.”

  “Lexie’s fine!”

  “So I want to propose a deal,” Aunt Jane says.

  Huh? I swerve my head to look at her.

  “You bring your grades back up to a B average and”—she takes a deep breath—“you can go to Mexico.”

  “I can?” Suddenly, my stomach elevator is going up, up, up, climbing out of the basement. I thought it was broken and stuck forever.

  “For a visit.” She glances at me. “Miguel’s going to his sister’s quinceañeara in March, and he’s willing to take you along. You can meet Bonita and Graciela. You can start there, and then we’ll just”—her voice falters for a second—“just see what happens.”

  Now it’s not only going up but feels like it’s spinning, too. An elevator with a revolving door. It’s crazy. She’s going to let me go to Mexico? With Miguel? March is only a month and a half away! “Do you really mean it?”

  “If you bring up your grades. That means do what the counselor says, whether it’s extra homework or staying after school for help, whatever. And you keep up with your chores at home. No more empty cat dishes.”

  I can do that. The new semester just started, and I have Spanish this time. That’s an easy A already.

  “So—” Her voice falters again. “Do we have a deal, then?”

  “Yeah.” I nod as a little smile starts to spread over my face.

  Chapter 62
/>   JANE

  Coatless, I step outside. A hot breeze, the kind that makes me want to head for shade, ruffles my hair, but there is no shade. The trees are leafless. Eerie, that’s what it is. Just no other word to describe this in March. The two feet of heavy, wet snow we got the first week, the storm that downed the power lines again, gone within a week. Not melted into crusty piles or drifts, just simply gone, sucked into thirsty ground. The grass is still scrubby and brown, but warm enough for bare feet. In my beds the soil is in May-like condition, warmed and crumbly, a perfect cradle for the seeds it will nurture all growing season.

  But there’s the rub, right there. It’s not the growing season. Not nearly. I can bide my time for a while. The orchards can’t. Cherry and apple buds push forth every hour, aroused far too early. A day or two of seventy degrees we could survive. But since the day Miguel and Lucy left, temperatures have pushed eighty. Four days straight of pseudo-August weather. The tender green shoots swell from the branches, unaware of their imminent, indiscriminate peril. Frost.

  May 24 is the average first frost-free day up here, more than two yawning, gaping months away. As climatically crazy as this heat wave is, escaping eight weeks without the temperature dipping below thirty-two is as fantastical as Lucy’s runaway plan. Which I may have enabled, sending her to the quinceañera. Was that crazy, too?

  Both weather and waiting for Lucy’s return feel like another pair of deaths, in slow motion this time. With Lucy in Mexico, Martha’s the only person I talk to. Her face is as ominous as an oncologist’s as she sits in her car, elbow resting on the frame of the open window, waiting for me.

  She hands me a small stack. Looks like a couple of subscriptions, ads, the Internet bill. I see the newspaper on the seat beside her. “Growers pessimistic,” the headline reads, below the little weather icon of a full, mocking sun. Every day of sunny warmth the buds grow more vulnerable, the harvest more endangered. What about me and Lucy? Is every day with her Mexican familia endangering the fragile bond we forged?

  “Been almost a week,” Martha says. “Could even be worse than ’02.”