The Orphan Daughter

by Cari Noga

  Spring frost killed the cherry crop in 2002, too. That was only a couple of years after I’d started Plain Jane’s, so I wasn’t as connected to the farm community. But I remember hearing about it as a fluke, once-in-a-lifetime event. Now here we go again, just ten years later.

  “Worse? How?”

  “This year’s hotter, earlier.” She sighs, pushing up the sleeves of her shirt past her elbows, as if just feeling it herself, before returning it to its window perch. “Sweets hung on back then, and apples. Not sure this time.”

  I nod. We all know Mother Nature doles out bad luck. Years when hail pulverized the fruit right before harvest. Wet years when disease ran rampant through orchards. Dry years when the crop was small. But those times felt within the boundaries of normal. And there were always people who fared better—the storm passed them over or they had a well-drained site or irrigation lines or something. An across-the-board, preemptory elimination of the second season in a decade is another thing altogether.

  “Lucy and Miguel still gone?”

  “They’ll be back day after tomorrow.”

  She shakes her head again and starts the car. “Miguel won’t believe it. Again.”

  It’s that again that really makes this time worse. A recurrence, one that threatens life as I know it. No cherries and apples, no harvest. No harvest, no work. No work, no workers. People who’ve stayed, betting their futures like Juan and Esperanza, will leave. Most migrants won’t come at all. Too much of a risk to travel without work waiting for you.

  That threatens next season’s harvest, too, because once bitten, twice shy. Without the picking workforce, even if growing conditions are perfect, fruit could rot on the tree. Then, after a couple of bad seasons in a row, farmers start to think again about trading in all the work and pain and suffering for that developer’s offer. Instead of orchards sloping down to the bays, the view from my aerie could become condos, rows of soulless, twenty-eight-hundred-square-foot, two-story fortresses in three builder varieties.

  It’s almost physically painful to think about. Almost enough to make me forget what else threatens life as I know it, two thousand miles away at the quinceañera. Almost, but not quite.

  Chapter 63

  LUCY

  Miguel’s sister’s gauzy pink dress is the poufiest I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how she’s going to get through the door. She has a jeweled tiara in her dark hair that’s brushed shiny and fluffed out over her shoulders. She looks fancier than Mom when she went to the network awards nights, fancier than in her wedding picture, even. I look pretty fancy, too. Aunt Jane took the purple dress I borrowed for the banquet to a seamstress, who altered it to fit perfectly.

  “Mija, tan hermosa,” says Mrs. Esquivale, wiping her eyes as she comes into the bedroom where I’m sitting in a corner, watching Ana Maria and her friends get dressed. Damas, Miguel said they’re called, the girls who are Ana Maria’s best friends and all dressed up, too, but in white dresses, not pink.

  Seeing Mrs. Esquivale cry reminds me of Aunt Jane when we left. “Listen to Miguel, now. He knows what he’s doing down there,” she said.

  “I will.”

  “Only drink bottled water. Keep your passport with you at all times.”

  “OK. OK.” She went on for a few more minutes, until Miguel said we really had to go. When she hugged me, I saw tears in her eyes.

  The whole church service is full of crying. Way more than at Mom and Daddy’s funeral, and this is supposed to be happy. Crying when Ana Maria walks in with her father. Crying when the priest blesses her. Crying during the communion. Crying when it’s over and they all walk out in a big procession, Ana Maria and her damas and the priest, straight out the church door and outside, where the party is set up, right in the street, with a band playing and tables decorated with pink flowers and a delicious smell coming from under a white tent, where people are setting up big serving dishes. Finally, the fun part, and where I’m supposed to meet Aunt Bonita and Graciela. My heart is racing.

  “Lucy? ¿Eres tú? Lucy?” The voice is young, like one of Ana Maria’s damas, but close by, when all of them are across the street, starting to dance. I turn, and there’s the face I know from Facebook, the dark hair and skin like mine. Graciela, dressed up in a fancy turquoise dress. And behind her Aunt Bonita! Smiling and lifting up big sunglasses and crying just like Mrs. Esquivale. Then they’re both hugging me, tight, and it feels so good, and I cry, too.

  “Lucy.” Aunt Bonita pushes her glasses on her head and wipes her eyes, then grips both my hands in hers. “You look like your father.”

  “I do?” Everyone always said I looked like Mom.

  She nods. “I brought pictures to show you.”

  “Señora Ortiz?” Miguel’s voice carries across the street, away from Ana Maria and the rest of the party. Aunt Bonita’s eyes drift away from my face, and then she lets go of one hand, reaching out to shake Miguel’s.

  “Sí. Llámame Bonita. Thank you for bringing Lucy today.”

  “De nada, de nada. Was your trip”—Miguel hesitates—“all right?”

  “Yes, gracias a Dios.” She squeezes my hand. Why does she have to thank God?

  “¡Vamos a bailar!” Graciela says, tugging my other hand, toward the dancers. “I’ve been in the car for hours and hours.”

  I hesitate. I want to stay and talk to Aunt Bonita and dance with Graciela, too.

  “Ve con Graciela, hermosa.” Aunt Bonita pats my shoulder. “Have fun.”

  So I follow Graciela’s dark hair and turquoise dress across the street. We dance a few songs, but then the music changes and everyone seems to kind of melt away until only Ana Maria and her father are left in the middle.

  “El baile padre-hija,” Graciela says.

  Ana Maria’s father twirls her around the dance floor, looking very serious, like he’s afraid he’s going to forget the steps and mess up. Daddy wouldn’t be worried about something like that. He’d know exactly how he was supposed to do it, and make it look easy, too. Wait, would he? Did he and Mom ever go dancing? They never talked about my quinceañera, not to me, anyway. Would I have had one? Would we have had a padre-hija dance?

  “Only a year until mine,” Graciela says into my ear. “I can’t wait! You can be one of my damas.”

  “I can?”

  “¡Claro!” Graciela sways to the music.

  Of course. Her words stick as the father-daughter song ends and we all start dancing again. Who else would she pick but familia? And then Graciela will be one of my damas, in two and a half years. Maybe some friends from boarding school, too. I won’t know nearly as many people, though. Will Miguel come to mine? Jared? Aunt Jane?

  “¡Tengo hambre!” Graciela leads me to the food lines, and we carry our plates back to the tent with tables, where Aunt Bonita and Miguel are sitting. Aunt Bonita’s arm is stretched across the empty chair next to her, and when I sit down, she squeezes my shoulders, exactly like Mom or Daddy would have. I drain half my water bottle. It’s so hot for March. My party will have to be inside, someplace air-conditioned.

  “She looks well. It’s such a relief to see her happy and healthy.” Aunt Bonita is talking across me, to Miguel. “I am so grateful my niece has found a new home.”

  “Um. Aunt Bonita? I—”

  “Perdón,” says a voice behind me. Twisting around, I see Miguel’s mother is back, with another girl in a fancy ruffled yellow dress. “Lo siento. I must claim my son,” Mrs. Esquivale says. “So many friends and family he hasn’t seen yet. You remember Rosa Alvarado, Miguel?”

  “Rosita?” Miguel sits up straighter. “Not Esperanza’s little sister?”

  “Sí,” the girl in the yellow dress says, smiling. She’s wearing a bunch of the beaded bracelets like Esperanza’s.

  “Get Rosa a drink, hijo,” Mrs. Esquivale says, sitting down next to me. “Now Lucy, or Luisa, it is, sí? Hábleme about Traverse City. I miss it so.”

  “You do?” After she was deported?

  “¡Sí! E
l agua limpia, las escuelas, las oportunidades . . .”

  Clean water, schools, opportunity. So she’s really talking about the United States, not Traverse City. I look at the bottled water. So what if I have to drink it this way. Schools? Graciela’s boarding school will be fine.

  “Oh, I never showed you the pictures of Luis. I’ll go get them from the car,” Aunt Bonita says, standing up suddenly, pulling her sunglasses over her eyes, even though it’s evening now. Wait! I yell silently. I want to chase her, but Mrs. Esquivale is still talking.

  “¿Cuántos años tiene?” Mrs. Esquivale asks.

  “Twelve. I’m in seventh grade.”

  But no pets allowed, Graciela said. I’d have to leave Lexie. No boys, either. Jared’s face pops to mind. We have two classes together this semester. No Miguel as bus driver, either.

  A boy asks Graciela to dance. Now it’s just me and Mrs. Esquivale at the table.

  “And your tía has a farm that you help with, Miguel says,” Mrs. Esquivale goes on.

  Me, help with the farm? No way. Unless he told her about the farm stand. That’s different. That was more like my own store, or business. Setting it up just right, talking with the customers. I didn’t have time to get any of Esperanza’s jewelry to sell last summer, but maybe this summer.

  Wait. No, this summer I’ll be here. Or not here, but in Mexico. At Aunt Bonita’s house. Where did she go, anyway? Mrs. Esquivale finally leaves to talk to someone else. At last, I see Aunt Bonita coming back. Right away, she notices Graciela’s empty chair.

  “¿A dónde fue?” Her eyes dart around the tent.

  “To dance with someone. Aunt Bonita—”

  “Someone? With who?” She starts walking toward the dance area, weaving around the tables fast.

  “I don’t know. A boy.” I follow her as fast as I can. “Aunt Bonita, I really want to talk to you.”

  But now we’re right on the edge of the dancers, and the music is loud, so loud we can’t talk. Aunt Bonita has her arms crossed, and she’s leaning forward, then to the side, then up on her tiptoes as she searches the crowd. It’s like I’m not even there anymore.

  The song ends and some of the dancers leave. There’s Graciela, smiling up at a boy in a white shirt. He has his hands wrapped around her waist.

  “There she is.” I tap Aunt Bonita’s arm and point. “Over there.”

  Graciela sees Aunt Bonita stalking across the floor, and her smile disappears. The boy drops his hands. Aunt Bonita pulls Graciela back over to me, whispering in her ear. Now Graciela crosses her arms and looks mad. When they get back to me, the music is starting again. Aunt Bonita pastes a smile on her face. “We came here to meet su prima. Baila con Lucy.”

  Graciela takes my hand and pulls me out to dance, but I can tell it’s only because she wants to get away from her mom.

  “Mama makes me so mad!”

  “What was his name?” I ask, looking where the boy disappeared.

  Graciela shrugs. “He didn’t say. He didn’t even have a chance. It was just a dance. She never lets me do anything! I’m fourteen, after all. Look, here she comes.” Graciela sighs angrily. Aunt Bonita’s carrying her purse and has her sunglasses on again, even though it’s nighttime, and a scarf over her hair.

  “Vámanos, Graciela,” she says.

  “¿Ya? ¡Mamá, no!”

  “Already?” I say at the same time. I never got to talk to her!

  “Sí. I’m sorry, Lucy. Tenía miedo . . . we can meet you mañana. For breakfast. I’ve arranged it with Miguel.”

  Miedo. Afraid. Afraid of what? But of course, I don’t get a chance to ask her. She kisses my cheeks and swoops Graciela under her arm, and they’re gone. She never showed me the pictures of Daddy, either.

  That night when I fall asleep I dream about Aunt Bonita in her sunglasses and scarf, searching the dance floor, pacing all around, stretching up high, bending down low. Finally she sees what she’s looking for, and her face gets all bright and excited as she rushes ahead, and then it’s me who she sweeps up in her arms, not Graciela. For a long minute I hug her back, feeling so safe and happy. But when we pull apart and she takes off her sunglasses and scarf, the face isn’t Aunt Bonita’s, but Aunt Jane’s.

  I wake up by myself, on the floor at Miguel’s parents’ house. Automatically I reach down to pet Lexie, but my hand just brushes the blanket I kicked off in the night, since it was so hot. The quinceañera is over, and I only have one more chance.

  Miguel and I meet them at a café. It’s hot again, even before breakfast. Graciela smiles but still looks upset with Aunt Bonita, who’s wearing another scarf and sunglasses. She shows me the pictures of Daddy, all from before I was born. He looks so young! I never saw him without a mustache. Aunt Bonita’s in some of the pictures, too, but not the other man who was in the picture in Daddy’s box.

  As the waitress takes our orders, I work up my nerve. It’s now or never.

  “Aunt Bonita?”

  “¿Sí?” She has taken off her sunglasses and is looking at the pictures with a sad, lost kind of look on her face.

  “There’s something I want to ask you.”

  “Of course.”

  I gulp a big breath, feeling Miguel watch me. “I . . . I’d really like to stay here in Mexico.”

  “And go to school with me,” Graciela adds.

  Even before Graciela has finished, Aunt Bonita is shaking her head, so fast it looks like a blur. “Lucy. I wish I could take you. Your father did so much for me, for us. But you are better off in the United States. He was so proud of you. ‘Mi niña americana.’ He sent pictures.” She pulls out another envelope and starts rifling through. I see the citizenship day photo at the Statue of Liberty, the Disney World photo with Mickey Mouse.

  I look at my lap. My stomach feels like it did in Mrs. Creighton’s office, after she told me about the car accident. The day I came to Traverse City, stuck in the hot truck with Lexie. In the ice-cream shop in New York, when Aunt Jane called Phoebe’s mom.

  “But you’re my family.”

  “So is Jane, Lucy.” Miguel interrupts. Aunt Bonita looks upset.

  “Believe me, linda. If we could, I would. But it is not so easy. There are things you don’t understand, things—”

  “What? What don’t I understand? Just tell me!” Mr. Langley said the same thing. It’s been almost a year, and no one’s explained it.

  “Please, Mama. School is safe. You told me so,” Graciela says.

  “Graciela. Enough.” Aunt Bonita speaks sharply as the waitress comes back with our food.

  As soon as she leaves, Graciela starts talking. “I always wanted a little sister, too. Por favor, mamá.”

  “Graciela, don’t start. There are things you don’t know, either.”

  “I do, too,” Graciela snaps, folding her arms and sitting up straighter. “It’s because of Uncle Fernando.”

  “What?” Aunt Bonita’s face pales and she lifts up her sunglasses. “What do you know about your tío?”

  “That he’s a narco. Buys drugs, sells them, probably uses them. And he has enemies, dangerous enemies. People would use us to get to him.”

  My uncle is a narco? Dangerous enemies? I look around the table. Aunt Bonita’s face is shocked, Graciela’s is mad. Miguel’s is sad, but not surprised. Did he know about it? Wait, Esperanza’s story, about his family being deported, hiding behind locked hotel room windows and doors because Ciudad Juárez was not safe from the narcos.

  “That’s why we had to leave so early to come here, and drive so far, to lose his gang,” Graciela continues.

  Now Graciela’s saying they might have been followed. They’re not safe, either? Aunt Bonita still doesn’t say anything, just gapes at Graciela.

  “And that’s why I go to boarding school. You’re hiding me, or trying to.” She slouches back in her chair, dropping her head so her hair curtains on both sides of her face, like she really is trying to hide.

  Aunt Bonita is crying and kind of hiccupping as she
tries to stop herself. “I know it’s not fair. Uncle Luis was trying to get us out. To go live in los Estados Unidos.”

  As I’m listening to them, an idea is growing in my head. A terrible, awful idea. If Daddy wanted to get them out of Mexico and Uncle Fernando needed them to stay—

  “But even he could not do everything. It was slow. And expensive. And then”—her voice breaks—“No tuvimos más tiempo.”

  Then there was no more time? Or did someone cut it short?

  Chapter 64

  JANE

  Miguel’s face is grim through the bus doorway the Monday after they return. He manages a smile for Lucy, but it’s gone as soon as she’s past his driver’s seat. He shakes his head at me, closing the door with a bang.

  The bus pulls away, belching exhaust. My own breaths are puffs of white. So this is it, then. This is how a harvest dies. This, with the thermometer reading twenty-nine degrees, is the stage-four diagnosis. This, under clear blue skies, not even a wisp of a cloud that might trap some heat, is the I’m sorry, chemo isn’t an option now. There’s nothing more we can do.

  But Lucy is home! Home to stay. It seems traitorous to Plain Jane’s to feel so happy now, but it’s the truth, as pure and simple as a fresh-picked apple. Nor has Bonita’s refusal sent her down an emotional spiral, as I feared. She seems preoccupied since they got back Saturday, but not upset or angry. Maybe having a final answer, even if it’s not the one she thought she wanted, was enough to put her on solid footing.

  Later Miguel stops by in his truck with Lucy’s suitcase, temporarily lost by the airlines. For the first time I can remember, his face is sober, not smiling. His step out of the truck is slow, not bounding. Under the brim of his cap, his eyes are dull.

  “That bad?” I say, handing him a cup of coffee.

  He nods, taking off his cap.

  “When I got to the bus garage, I told myself not to worry. It would be OK out here. The water would protect them.” He shakes his head. “But then, coming up Center Road, I knew I was wrong. I could see the frost, coating everything.”

  He bows his head, looking into his coffee cup. Hints of thinning hair startle me.