The Crossroads

by Alexandra Diaz

  “Yes. A few weeks ago.”

  Lights flashed on Sean’s watch and a second later the bell rang. From an old boat-size car, Carla and two family members burst out. The others dashed to the glass doors but Carla headed over to the three boys, who hadn’t moved.

  Diego shifted from one foot to the other as he thrust the sketchbook under Jaime’s nose. “Well, take this anyway. My dad will kill me if you don’t. I know it doesn’t change anything but, um, your drawings were really good.”

  The sketchbook seemed to call out to Jaime, begging him to run his hands over the striped cover. Would it be soft or rough? The book pleaded with him to leaf through it and take in the smell of the pages. When he finally caved and reached for the new book, he did it only because he didn’t want Diego’s dad to lash out. Then he’d be responsible for someone else’s murder.

  Jaime petted the cover (soft) and felt the thick texture of the pages inside. He passed it over to Sean and Carla for their approval.

  “I still don’t forgive you,” Jaime said

  “And I still don’t like you.” Diego snapped a photo with his phone of the sketchbook back in Jaime’s hands. Probably to prove to his dad he’d delivered it.

  Then he walked away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  On the day Jaime intended to activate his plan, Tomás and Ángela decided to take off first thing in the morning. In Tomás’s truck. How could he? Tomás knew how important this was. It could be what made the difference between Don Vicente getting out of jail and rotting there. Jaime texted his brother to see where they were and when they’d get back, and got no reply.

  “Do you think Meester George will let you drive his truck?” Jaime asked Doña Cici as she placed a bowl of hot farina cereal with cinnamon sugar and toasted pecans in front of him.

  “No, and I wouldn’t want to. That thing is huge and I’d be scared to dent it.”

  “Is there another car we can use?” Mel and Lucas had a car but Jaime hadn’t seen it parked at the side of the barn where their trailer was. The only other vehicle Jaime knew about was the tractor, and he doubted Doña Cici wanted to drive that down the highway.

  “Be patient. We’ll go when they come back. Now eat, you’re still too skinny.”

  He had just washed his bowl (after two helpings) when the sound of the truck through the open kitchen window got his attention. Jaime ran out to meet the old farm truck Tomás used, except it was Ángela behind the wheel.

  She turned to look at Jaime, lips pressed in determination, and because of her short height seemed to have more hair than eyes looking over the steering wheel.

  “I’m driving,” she said.

  “Good for you,” Jaime responded. “Now get out so we can use the truck.”

  “No, I mean I’m driving you and Doña Cici.”

  Jaime gasped. “You can’t. You’re not old enough—”

  “Driving age is fifteen in Nuevo México.”

  “You’re not allowed.”

  Ángela waved a card in front of his face. “Tomás and I just got my instructional permit. I can drive with a licensed adult in the car.”

  Jaime stared at the card in her hand in disbelief. “But you don’t have papers.”

  “A driver’s authorization card doesn’t require legal status but still allows legal driving.”

  “You don’t know how,” Jaime insisted.

  Ángela folded her arms over her chest. “I’ve been taking driver’s education since I started school.”

  “You never said that!”

  “You never asked.”

  They glared at each other for several minutes until Ángela rolled her eyes and sighed. “Mira, I want to help Don Vicente too. Please let me do this.”

  How could he refuse that? He’d forgotten how nice it was having her on his side.

  “Fine, just don’t kill us.”

  Ten minutes later, Jaime, Ángela, and Doña Cici piled into Tomás’s truck, with Ángela almost hugging the wheel.

  “Can’t you come with us?” Ángela asked Tomás.

  He shook his head as he leaned over through the window.

  “What if we get stopped and asked for papers?” Jaime asked.

  A heavy cloud came over Tomás’s face. Jaime could see he still blamed himself for Don Vicente. “That mostly happens within a hundred miles of the border. You’re not going anywhere near that mark. Ángela has her instructional permit, Doña Cici has her license. You’ll be fine.”

  Ángela nodded and carefully checked her mirrors. “Seat belts.”

  “They’re already on.” Jaime tugged the strap around his lap.

  Ángela let out a breath. “Okay, where are we going first?”

  “To visit Sani.” Doña Cici waved her arm to the left. “He’s Vicente’s oldest friend.”

  When they got to the highway, Ángela continued as slow as she had on the bumpy dirt track.

  “You know, I can ride a horse faster than this,” Jaime pointed out.

  “Cállate.” But Ángela sped up and eventually drove faster than a horse.

  They made a few turns down various roads until Doña Cici pointed at a rutted driveway. The truck bumped and rattled as the passengers knocked into one another. They finally pulled up to an area with five houses made from adobe bricks and wood. A pack of dogs rushed out to greet them, barking and snapping their teeth at the wheels. Ángela gripped the steering wheel again and didn’t turn off the engine, as if she were afraid of being attacked.

  “I’m nervous,” Jaime said, though it had nothing to do with the barking dogs. He clutched the sketchbook Diego had given him to his chest. He knew what he wanted to draw in it and had worked all last night on the first image. It seemed fitting that Diego’s dad unknowingly helped his plan. “I really hope this works.”

  “It will,” Doña Cici assured him, but then she leaned over to the canvas shopping bag at her feet and recounted her jars of jam and cajeta.

  “I’m staying here,” Ángela said. Jaime didn’t even try to convince her. Before they had rescued Vida, Ángela had hated dogs.

  Jaime had to admit that these dogs didn’t seem like the nicest bunch. Doña Cici, though, had it all planned out. From her shopping bag, she extracted marrow bones and made sure each dog had one to gnaw on before exiting the truck herself, with Jaime right behind her.

  A man with long black hair came out of one of the houses and waved upon seeing them.

  “Cici, what a surprise. We’ll put some tea on. Are you here to see Sani?”

  “Yes, and all of you, of course,” she said in accented but correct English. Groups of twos and threes came out of the various houses. Some hugged her for minutes at a time while others greeted her with a smile. Doña Cici presented each person with a canned good of their choice.

  “You don’t have to bring us gifts when you come.” A woman with a long gray braid hugged the jar of jam to her chest. “Just having you visit is a gift. It’s been too long.”

  “My mamá always said it was rude to visit without bringing something.” Doña Cici smiled. “And I have too much for us to eat so you’re doing me a favor.”

  “Did you bring some cajeta?” a familiar voice asked. Jaime turned and found himself looking straight into brown eyes framed by purple glasses.

  “Carla! Your house?” Jaime waved to the cluster of buildings in front of them.

  “Yes, Sani is my great-grandfather. Come, I’ll introduce you.” She took a jar of cajeta and led the way to the oldest looking house, made from adobe bricks. In front of the door, a gray tabby cat cried as it rubbed against the doorjamb. Carla scooped up the cat and draped him over her shoulder like a scarf. The cat purred so loud, Jaime wondered how it didn’t hurt her ears.

  “No animals inside the house, Carla!” the woman with the gray braid still talking with Doña Cici called out. Carla pretended she didn’t hear.

  Inside the house the temperature instantly cooled from the hot outdoors. A man with long white hair and a wrinkled
face sat on the couch in front of a box TV that seemed to belong in a museum for the 1950s.

  “Sani, this is Jaime. He’s in my class and he came here with Cici,” Carla said with her head inclined slightly so her hair partially covered her feline accessory.

  The old man turned and Jaime took a step back, feeling his intense glare. He had to do this. He couldn’t back down now.

  “ ’ello, Meester Sani. I friend with Don Vicente and I—”

  The old man waved a hand to stop. He pushed himself off the couch and hobbled to the TV to turn it off by hand. When he spoke, it was in perfect Spanish. “You sound like you’re trying to sell me something and I hate people thinking they know what I want to buy.”

  Jaime gulped. “Perdón, don Sani.”

  “Sani is already a name of respect, you don’t need to call me ‘don’ or ‘señor.’ Now, what’s this I hear about Vicente getting himself in jail? How did those bastards catch him on a horse?”

  Jaime told the story of Don Vicente’s arrest and what he wanted to do to help. He handed the man the sketchbook and showed him the first drawing he had made and how he hoped to use it in the trial.

  Sani listened intently as he studied Jaime’s drawing. “I like your plan and I’m glad to help. I met Vicente at a mustang roundup, did he tell you that?”

  Jaime nodded. “He told me that’s what got him interested in horses.”

  “We were both young and stupid and agreed to work the roundup in exchange for a horse. Vicente didn’t care that he didn’t have a home or any way to support himself. He just wanted a horse, any horse. I worried what the elders would say if I came home with two horses and a new brother.” Sani readjusted himself on the couch. “Instead, he found a home with that gringo and came to visit us, his other family, every weekend. Different times then. Less roads and fences. Less people thinking they know how to run the world.”

  Sani went on with stories about Don Vicente, things the two of them did together. As he listened, Jaime sketched Sani’s words with quick lines and artistic notes that he would develop later into full drawings.

  Before he knew it, the truck horn blared. The clock said they’d been there for almost two hours and they still had others to visit.

  Jaime gave Sani his thanks and stepped outside just as Ángela sounded the horn again. Doña Cici exited one of the other dwellings, where she’d been talking with her friends.

  “Ya sé que eres la que manda,” he grumbled about Ángela’s demanding personality as he opened the truck door.

  Carla’s family saw them off with fry bread—a thick, deep-fried flour tortilla—that dripped with honey, before they left to visit the others Doña Cici said could help with Jaime’s plan. Some people weren’t home but the ones who were happily told Jaime what he wanted to know and sent their best wishes to Don Vicente. The sun was beginning to set when they finally returned to the ranch, Ángela complaining that her neck and leg were stiff from driving and Doña Cici lightly snoring on the other side of the cab.

  Once back in the trailer, Jaime dove into his sketchbook, transforming the sketches into actual drawings and adding details he hadn’t had time to draw. With each stroke, he wondered if this would be enough and whether he’d ever see his friend again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “What time are we going tomorrow?” Jaime asked Tomás as he and Ángela dried the dishes after their dinner of instant rice, canned garbanzo beans, and turkey slices.

  “We’re not going anywhere tomorrow.”

  Jaime blinked. How could he not remember? “For the hearing. May sixteenth. That’s tomorrow. What time?”

  “We,” Tomás emphasized and repeated, “are not going anywhere.”

  What was he talking about? “Meester George won’t let you go?”

  “No. I’m not letting you go.”

  “¿Qué?” He dropped the dish cloth on the floor in protest. Since when did Tomás play the strict guardian card? “Is this about missing school? I already told Meesus I would be absent. She gave me the extra homework and I’ve already done it. It’s okay.”

  Tomás shook his head. “No, it’s not okay.”

  “But I have to go, I’ve worked so hard. I have testimonies to present.”

  “And Don Vicente thanks you for that. I can present them if you’d like, but you’re still not going. Even Doña Cici knows better than to go with us to a detention center.”

  “You don’t get it—” Jaime begged, but Tomás grabbed the plastic plate from his hands and threw it across the trailer like a Frisbee. It bumped against the wall and dropped face down on the cushion that became Ángela’s bed.

  Tomás pointed a finger in his brother’s face. “No, you don’t get it. The hearing is held at the detention center. The same place they’ve been holding Don Vicente for three weeks and the same place they keep every other undocumented individual they find. You go in there without any papers and you might as well be turning yourself in.”

  This couldn’t be happening. Not after everything he’d done. “Meester George said with that Special Immigrant thing I won’t get deported.”

  “But we haven’t even filed that yet. I need to become your legal guardian first and we’re going to do all that after the hearing.”

  Jaime planted his feet on the floor and crossed his arms. “Well, since you’re not my legal guardian, then you can’t tell me what to do, and I want to go.”

  Tomás grabbed the collar of Jaime’s shirt and pulled him so close he could smell the turkey and garbanzo beans on his breath. “Absolutely not! That’s just a one-way ticket to getting you sent back to Guatemala and murdered the second you arrive.”

  Tomás let go of him, muttered some swear words under his breath, and then pulled out his phone. “Read this.”

  He tossed the phone to Jaime. Ángela rested her chin on his shoulder to read it too.

  Querido Tomás,

  Jaime and Ángela’s lives are in grave danger. If they stay here, they will die. If they go to you, they might survive. We must risk the lives of our treasured children to keep them safe. It sounds idiotic and perhaps it is, but please understand we think it is the only way. I know we’re asking more of you than any parent should have to ask of their son and nephew.

  We are desperate. Parents without another choice. Parents who love our children so much we have to let them go.

  Jaime scrolled the screen up and then reached for Ángela’s hand. She didn’t pull away.

  I feel like I’m losing all my children, but at least I know you’re safe and I want the same for Jaime and Ángela. We love you all so much, we’d rather not be together than lose anyone else.

  Please take care of them, Tomás. Please be the parents we can no longer be.

  With great love,

  Mamá and Tía Rosario

  “So they do care,” Ángela said in a small voice as Jaime scrolled the screen up to read the e-mail again. “I worried they didn’t. That they wanted to get rid of us.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Jaime agreed in the same low and ashamed voice. How dare Diego put that idea in his head in the first place? But mostly, how could Jaime have been so gullible to believe anything Diego said?

  “Forward this to my e-mail.” Jaime handed Ángela the phone after reading it a second time.

  “So you see?” Tomás said when he got his phone back. “They’re trusting me to take care of you. I can’t do that if you’re trying to get yourself in trouble.”

  “I don’t want to get into trouble. I want to help Don Vicente,” Jaime insisted. He knew what was at stake, the danger he would be in. But he hadn’t been there for Miguel and Abuela. No matter what everyone said, he did play a part in their deaths. With Don Vicente, he still had a chance. He could make things right.

  “Still not happening. Abuela would roll over in her grave and the fact would kill our parents if, despite all their efforts to keep you safe, you throw it all away.”

  Tomás swore and waved him off in disgust b
efore bolting out the door.

  Jaime stood there unable to move as he replayed the scene.

  Ángela put an arm around him, making him realize he was shaking. “He’s scared. Scared for all of us. Too much uncertainty.”

  Jaime understood that. He knew the fear, the helplessness. He remembered all too well what he and Ángela went through to get here—things they hadn’t even shared with anyone else because it was too painful. But he also knew he’d never forgive himself if he did nothing.

  “Can I sleep in your bed tonight?” he asked.

  “Brush your teeth and get your pillow.” She kissed him on the top of his head just like their mothers used to do.

  Her bed was meant for one person, not two adolescents and a dog. But Jaime had spent half his life sleeping at Ángela’s house, and the other half with her and Miguel at his house when Tía worked late. There was nothing weird about it. Instead, it was the most comfortable he’d felt in a long time. Except for that one miserable night he was sure he’d lost her for good, he’d slept next to her all through their journey. Now he realized how much he missed her gentle breathing and presence. When she brushed a strand of hair away from his face, a move their mamás had learned from Abuela, he wondered if she’d missed him too.

  He didn’t hear Tomás enter the trailer that night, but they heard him leave at dawn.

  “They’re heading to the hearing,” Ángela said as if she knew he wasn’t asleep either.

  He digested the statement for half a second then rolled off the bed, changed into his jeans, and pulled the hoodie over the T-shirt he’d slept in.

  “Take your phone.”

  He nodded, placing the phone in his pocket and tucking the sketchbook Diego had given him into his waistband.

  “My play is tomorrow night. Please don’t miss it,” Ángela said.

  “I won’t.”

  “Be careful.”

  He held her gaze for a second, looking into her eyes that were like their mamás’ but at the same time uniquely her own. She couldn’t be more family if she tried.

  “Te quiero,” he said.