Waiting for the Night Song

by Julie Carrick Dalton

  “I planned to open the store, but I don’t think anyone is coming,” Raúl said. It was almost noon.

  A car drove by and a man in a baseball cap hurled a rock toward the store, smashing a window. Raúl ducked and covered his head with his arms as glass shards sprayed inside the store.

  “Gramps!” Sal ran to Raúl’s side.

  “I’m fine.” He straightened up slowly.

  Sal pushed away from him when he tried to hug her. She stomped her foot hard on the loose boards. “I wish everyone would stop lying to me.”

  “About what?” Raúl said.

  “About everything. Things are not fine. You are not fine.”

  Raúl nodded slowly. He embodied a calmness, a steadiness that had always put Cadie at ease. His ready smile and the way he stood with his shoulders back gave the impression he was in control without ever appearing controlling. Even now, he did not appear flustered. Raúl had been waiting for Sal’s challenge.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay what?”

  “I’ll tell you everything,” Raúl said. Another car drove by and Raúl stared down the driver. “They kept me at the station all night because they identified the man buried in the woods, and they wanted to talk to me about it.”

  Don’t say his name. Please don’t say his name, Cadie pleaded silently.

  “It’s Juan Hernández, like everyone suspected.” Raúl blinked hard and continued. “They’re opening a formal murder investigation. Witnesses saw us arguing right before he disappeared twenty-seven years ago. I was the last person to see him.”

  No. Clyde was.

  “At least we can finally put Juan to rest,” he said.

  They were supposed to have one more day. Garrett had promised the report would not come back for at least one more day. The men in front of the fire station paced on the sidewalk watching Cadie, Sal, and Raúl. What were they talking about? What were they planning? Maybe Daniela had been right. Maybe they shouldn’t have trusted Garrett to protect Raúl.

  “Does everyone know about the ID?” Cadie asked.

  “I don’t know. Garrett argued with the chief that making the information public during all this mess would make things worse,” Raúl said. “But I don’t know what they decided.”

  “Just because you were the last one who saw that guy doesn’t mean you killed him. That’s totally circumstantial evidence,” Sal said. “What were you arguing about anyway?”

  “Nothing important. Juan added hours to his time card, and I told him I wouldn’t pay the extra time. He was furious at me for not believing him. I overreacted.” Raúl pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Dolores called me later. That woman can yell. She had given Juan the extra hours to help clean out the storeroom. I never got the chance to apologize to him. I should have trusted him.”

  “Police can’t charge you if they don’t have evidence. It’s unconstitutional.” Sal’s face was red and splotchy. She wiped her nose on the shoulder of her shirt.

  “But they can deport me.”

  “They can’t deport citizens,” Sal said.

  Raúl drew his eyebrows together. “I’m not a citizen. I never have been.”

  Basketballs bouncing on the courts behind the rec center echoed through the sleepy streets.

  “Yes, you are. You have to be.” Sal’s lower lip trembled.

  Raúl shook his head.

  “Mom lied to me. Again.” Sal clenched her teeth and narrowed her teary eyes. “She keeps so many secrets.”

  “Sal,” Raúl said.

  “Did they ask you about your immigration status last night?” Cadie said.

  Raúl shook his head and cast a glance down the street.

  “I’m the only person in this family who’s proud to be Salvadoran,” Sal said. “You and Mom and Gram, you pretend we’re sooo American all the time, like that’s the only respectable thing anyone can be. No one even taught me Spanish, and all the kids who speak Spanish call me coconut because I’m white on the inside. But guess what? All the white kids here think I should go back to where I came from. And I don’t even know where I come from.” Sal threw her scrub brush at the smeared letters. Go Home.

  Cadie’s tongue stuck to the top of her dry mouth. She did not belong there with Raúl and Sal. But she could not make herself walk away.

  “You’re right.” Raúl’s voice remained calm and quiet. The air around them stopped moving. “But there is a reason I never talk about El Salvador.”

  “What?” Sal said sharply, as if no answer could satisfy her.

  “I love my country. When I grew up we had a wonderful home. It was small, but—” Raúl paused and smiled to himself. “I used to chase my brothers in our yard. We had these goats—”

  “You have brothers?” Sal interrupted.

  “I had two older brothers, but they both died during the civil war. Your grandmother lived in our same village. She and her sister used to sell pupusas in the market. That’s where I first met her.”

  “I love Gram’s pupusas,” Sal whispered.

  “I joined the army after we got married.” Raúl’s voice was so low Cadie became conscious of the sound of her own breathing. “The government controlled the army, and during the war,” he paused and wiped sweat from his brow, “they used the army to do horrible things. They sent the military into villages with orders to kill people, civilians who did nothing wrong other than oppose the government.”

  “Did you kill people?” Sal whispered.

  “I didn’t know what they sent us to do. I was new and didn’t know better. We were a weapon used to quiet anyone who challenged the government.” Raúl’s voice gained strength. He straightened his back.

  “Why didn’t you quit?” Sal narrowed her eyes.

  “I would have been thrown in prison, or worse. Right after I joined, they sent us into a village. We were told to kill everyone there. But when we arrived, it was mostly civilians, women, and children in the village. They were unarmed. But we had our orders.”

  “No, I don’t want to hear it.” Sal put her hands over her ears, but Raúl pulled them down and clasped them in his.

  “I refused. My commanding officer pointed a rifle at me and told me to follow orders or he would shoot me for treason.” Raúl shifted his gaze far off in the distance. Cadie followed his eyes, but they were fixed on something she would never be able to see. “I raised my weapon and aimed it at a young boy, about your age, but at the last second, I turned and shot my officer instead. I shot my own commanding officer so I wouldn’t have to kill those people.” Raúl’s voice cracked. “But they all died that day anyway. It didn’t even matter.”

  “Did the officer die?” Sal said.

  “I don’t know for sure. I ran off and hid for days. If they had found me, I would have been killed.”

  Gooseflesh crawled up Cadie’s neck as she imagined Raúl hiding, fearing for his life. Raúl never had the luxury of choosing jail, like her own father had when he refused to fight in Vietnam.

  “At that point, I had no choice but to run, to leave El Salvador. It was more dangerous than simply getting to the border. So many people went missing during those years. When I asked Dolores to take Daniela and meet me at the border, I was asking her to risk her life and Daniela’s. They could have stayed and let me run alone. But that woman.” Raúl smiled. “That is one stubborn woman. I found out later that soldiers went to our home and burned it to the ground.”

  “How did Gram get to the border?” Sal leaned close to her grandfather.

  “She carried your mom on foot for three days. They slept under bridges and on the side of the road on the way to meet me. She is the strongest, bravest woman I’ve ever known.”

  “Gram,” Sal whispered.

  “But that is not the El Salvador I want you to know. That is not my El Salvador.” He shook his head.

  More people had gathered in front of the fire station. Raúl watched them cluster together, looking back at the hardware store every
so often.

  “We walked for so long. I don’t even know how long. Many people did not survive that journey.”

  “Just the three of you?” Sal asked.

  “We met up with a group of young men and teenagers and they let us walk with them. We felt safer in a group.” Raúl smiled faintly as he spoke. “The boys took turns carrying your mother on their shoulders. I don’t think we could have made it alone.

  “When we got to the US, we couldn’t seek asylum as refugees because, at the time, the US government supported the Salvadoran army because they saw the Salvadoran government as Cold War allies against the communists. They would have sent me back to face a military trial and probably execution. We used all our money to buy fake papers. Fake Social Security numbers. Fake names.”

  “Fake names?” Sal said.

  “My parents called me Juan.” Raúl’s voice cracked as he said his birth name out loud. “My name is Juan.”

  “Like that man they found in the woods,” Sal said.

  “Exactly like Juan Hernández.” Raúl’s voice hitched again. “Your grandmother’s name was Irís. We called your mother Luisa, after my mother, who was an artist, like you.”

  “Wait. Mom? If Mom doesn’t have real papers…” Sal’s eyes stormed. “So you all lied to me. My whole life.”

  “Yes, I guess we did.”

  “If you get sent back to El Salvador, what will they do to you?” Sal said.

  “The military does not act kindly to deserters. Especially ones who shot an officer. But it was a long time ago, a different government. I don’t know what would happen now.”

  “Can’t you explain all that to our government now? Wouldn’t they understand?” Sal said.

  “I’ve been using a false Social Security number, false name. I’ve paid taxes every year, never been in trouble. But I’ve been living under a false identity the entire time.” Raúl put his arm around Sal’s shoulders. This time, she did not fight him. She leaned into his chest and wiped her face on his shirt. “Laws are laws, and a lie is still a lie.”

  They sat silently for a few minutes. Cadie’s pulse ratcheted up with every car that drove by. Cadie had been so afraid of exposing Dolores. But Raúl’s revelation changed everything. His vulnerability presented an even more dangerous threat than Dolores’s.

  “And if they figure out you don’t have papers, they’ll know about Gram and Mom,” Sal said, her voice barely above a whisper. “What would happen to me?”

  “Nothing will happen to any of us,” Raúl said, but he didn’t look convinced or convincing.

  “I can’t just sit here anymore.” Sal jumped up and threw a scrub brush into the bucket. Milky blue water splashed the wall. “I’m getting a Popsicle.”

  “Don’t tell your mother,” Raúl said.

  “About what? That she has a fake name? That you’re wanted for murder? What don’t you want me to tell her?” Tears rolled down Sal’s cheeks.

  “Don’t tell her about the ice cream bar. We’ll talk to her together about everything else, okay?”

  “She doesn’t know?”

  “She knows most of it. But not about why we left. I never wanted any of you to know what I’d done. But I think it’s time to stop keeping so many secrets,” Raúl said.

  Sal’s eyes softened. “You’re the best man I’ve ever known.” Sal pecked him on the cheek before walking inside. “I won’t tell Mom about the sweets.”

  Raúl arched his back and cracked his neck.

  The group of men in front of the fire station had grown to ten. Stripped of its quaint veneer, Maple Crest looked ugly, gray.

  Raúl wiped his brow with his sleeve. “I’ve spent most of my life trying to hide who I am. What if someone finds out? What if I go to jail? Or worse, what if they send us back? But there are always consequences for our choices, even when we don’t think they are fair.”

  “If you could go back, would you have done anything differently?”

  “That is a pointless question.”

  “No, it’s not. Given the choices you had, I think you should be proud. Your family is safe, healthy, and thriving because you and Dolores made a difficult, brave decision.”

  Ryan’s sister Claire, pushing a baby stroller, approached the hardware store. She waved and pulled a brown paper bag out from under the carriage.

  “I saw what happened last night.” Claire stayed back at an awkward distance, too far away for a comfortable conversation, but too close to be ignored. She looked over Cadie’s shoulder at Raúl, then at the broken window.

  “The store’s closed today,” Raúl said.

  “I’m dropping off some tomatoes and corn from my garden. I promised Dolores I’d bring them by.” She held up the paper sack. “I put in a couple of zucchini and onions, too.”

  Raúl walked toward her and took the bag. “That’s very thoughtful.”

  “It’s the least I could do. Dolores babysat a few times this month and she won’t let me pay her.” Claire looked behind Raúl to the smeared but legible words on the wall. “Do you need any help cleaning up?”

  “We have it under control,” he said. “But I appreciate the offer.”

  Claire looked down the street at Ryan, then turned back to Raúl. “He didn’t do this. I know he can be an ass when he drinks, but he wouldn’t do this.”

  “I know he didn’t,” Raúl said. “We spent the night at the police station together.”

  “He feels really bad.”

  “He should feel bad,” Cadie said.

  “I’m sorry, too,” Claire said.

  “You didn’t do anything,” Raúl said.

  “That’s what I’m sorry about.” Claire dragged her foot in the dust, forming a small cloud around her feet. “This isn’t our town. You know that, right? With the farms going under and this god-awful heat, everyone’s on edge, not themselves.”

  Raúl shrugged. “Thank you for the vegetables.”

  Claire walked past the fire station without acknowledging her brother.

  “Do you have any white paint?” Cadie asked Raúl. She pressed the bristles of her scrub brush into the clapboard until they bent. Flecks of blue-tinted paint fell to the porch floor. Her shoulders ached as she bore down. But no matter how hard she scrubbed, the blurred words remained. Go Home.

  “What kind of hardware store do you think I run? Of course I have white paint. But the rest of the clapboard is so dirty. Fresh paint will stand out too much.”

  “Then let’s paint the whole store.” Cadie stepped back and leaned on the deck railing. “If you step away, the blurred letters look kind of like a cloud.”

  “Excellent idea.” Raúl clapped his hands.

  “What?”

  “Paint a cloud. We’ll take their mess and make it beautiful. Make sure you put a silver lining on it.”

  “I’m a terrible artist. You should let Daniela do it.”

  “She’s working a double shift. She won’t be home until late. I want to fix this now.” He leaned against the railing next to her. “You fight off the vandals while I go get your paint and check on Sal.”

  “Tío,” Cadie called to him before he went inside. “When I was eleven, Daniela and I stole a can of spray paint from your store to touch up my bike.”

  “If you made it this far in life and that’s the worst thing weighing on your conscience, then I envy you.”

  A blister was forming on her right hand where she squeezed the brush. She scrubbed harder. Through the broken window, Cadie could see Sal slouched in a lawn chair, a Popsicle stick hanging out of her mouth as she tapped away on her phone.

  “You can work off your debt by painting that cloud.” Raúl returned with an opened can of sky blue paint and a brush.

  “A blue cloud?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why did you put yourself in the middle of the fight last night?” Cadie asked Raúl as he stirred the paint with a stick.

  “Why did you?” He waited for a response Cadie could not give.

/>   “Not speaking up against injustice is just as bad as being complicit. I’ve been quiet too long.” Raúl bent over to pick up a piece of broken glass. “How can I ever hope for forgiveness if I can’t stand up for other people?”

  Cadie would have given up any chance at her own redemption to ease the pain she saw in Raúl’s eyes.

  “Thanks for looking after Sal. I can take it from here if you have somewhere to be.”

  “I have to work off my debt, remember?” She pointed to the blue smear on the wall. If she worked quickly, she would make it to meet the fire crew with plenty of time.

  Raúl nodded and went back inside, leaving Cadie alone on the porch. Cadie watched through the window as he walked past Sal and ruffled her spiky hair. Sal grabbed his hand and kissed it without looking up from her phone.

  Cadie sketched the outline of her imperfect cloud on the wall, filled it in with pale blue paint, and edged it with a thin silver lining. She stepped back to survey her work. It looked like an eight-year-old’s painting. Daniela would have created a masterpiece. She could make art out of anything.

  “I brought stuff to make a map.” Daniela had burst into Cadie’s house one rainy morning that was too blustery to take their boat out. She had unfolded a piece of plain white paper with a light pencil outline of the cove and the islands.

  Daniela had unrolled another paper with clusters of blueberries painted in a thick, shiny ink. “I boiled a bunch of berries down last night and strained it through a pair of my mom’s pantyhose. She’s going to kill me.” Daniela pulled a small plastic container out of her backpack. She pried off the top to reveal the velvety, viscous ink.

  Cadie swirled the liquid, watching it coat the sides of the container and slide back down.

  “I’m going to trace the whole map in blueberry ink,” Daniela said.

  They spread the paper out on the damp floor of Cadie’s unfinished basement, the humidity softening the paper as they pressed it against the cold cement. The purple lines made Cadie’s mouth water. The scratch of the metal tip on the paper carved the indelible image into her memory.

  They would never get lost again.

  Cadie had dipped her finger into the leftover ink and licked it. Concentrated summer tingled on her tongue with a tease of adventure that made her teeth chatter.