“Break it up!” I shouted. They separated quickly, Sam sitting up and putting his glasses on, Evian glaring at me sultrily, her lipstick smeared. “One of Sam’s friends was shot tonight,” said Evian defiantly. “And you are not going to tell me we can’t hang out and help each other process!”
“In fact, yes, I am,” I said. “I’m sorry, Sam, but you need to go home now. And Evian, so do you.”
Sam rose, murmured goodbye, and hustled out the door. Evian glared at me. “Someone shot our friend,” she cried. She crossed her arms across her unbuttoned shirt.
“Evian, we need to talk,” I said. I sat down on the couch, and she turned her back to me. On the television, a man said, “They call this a bedroom?” I picked up the remote and turned it off.
“Listen,” I said. “I want to help you. But you can’t live here anymore. I’m going to take you home to your mom now.”
Evian turned to face me. Instead of screaming or protesting, she seemed resigned. She sighed. “Okay,” she said.
The usual dogs rushed my car as we drove toward Evian’s trailer. I shuddered. “They’re dogs,” said Evian nastily.
The trailer was filled with light, and when I stopped the car, a woman with dark hair came outside. She looked exhausted. I took a breath, prepared to open my door. But Evian leapt from the car and ran into her mother’s arms. They held each other, then went inside the trailer. I was unsure about what I should do. Evian had surprised me more than once already.
Slowly, I got out of the car and gathered Evian’s things. The dogs barked at me as I piled them outside the door. Before leaving, I called, “Bye!”
Evian opened the front door. “Um, Ms. Conroe?” she said. “Thanks.”
Evian’s mother appeared. “I appreciate you keeping an eye on this wild thing,” she said. “I do.”
“Okay,” I said. “Well, goodbye.”
I drove away feeling as if something in me had been scraped out. It seemed strange that no one was mad at me—not Evian, for returning her home; not her mother, for letting her stay with me. The truth was painful to admit—I didn’t matter all that much to either of them. As I stopped at a red light on South First, my phone buzzed with a message from Evian: Can u take me to mall this wknd to get dress for Homecoming???
I texted back: You got it.
Jake’s truck was parked on Mildred. Happiness flooded my body at the sight of it. I heard Beau’s voice as I parked the car, and found Jake, Beau, and Camilla in our backyard. “Honey!” said Jake, his face alight at the sight of me.
“Honey,” I answered.
“We brought margaritas,” said Beau.
“The girls are asleep,” said Camilla. “I have the baby monitor in one hand and a margarita in the other. Is this bad parenting?”
“I don’t think so,” said Beau, touching her hair. We only had three porch chairs, so I sank into Jake’s lap. He put his arms on either side of me. I was home.
37
Carla
THE COMBI DROVE all night, and I tried to sleep. Although I was more tired than I had ever been, I stared out the window, unable to rest. We took back roads. At one point in the journey, we stopped to relieve ourselves. My eyes and mouth felt caked with sand. The night smelled of sage. I wondered if Junior had returned to the shelter. I tried to comprehend that I would never see him again.
After a few minutes, the driver said, “Get back inside.”
Marcos and his brothers filed quickly into the combi. They were professionals: sleeping every instant it was possible, completely alert and ready to run in a fraction of a second if necessary. I moved reluctantly. My brain was not well—I considered walking back down the road, finding Junior and telling him he was mistaken: I was not the kind of person who could leave her brother behind.
“Carla!” said Ernesto.
I stood and crammed myself into the combi. I was more afraid of the darkness than I was of becoming a stranger to myself.
When the sky was lavender, the combi dropped us in an alley near the train station. In Mexico City, the farthest north I had ever been, I looked heavenward and gave thanks. I was still alive.
I knew I should feel elated to have made it out of Chiapas. I was one more train ride from the United States border. But leaving my brother had given me an illness. Around me, my friends were in good spirits, but I felt achy and exhausted. Marcos told us to be patient and wait for the correct train, which would take us to Nuevo Laredo, located across the Rio Bravo from Laredo, Texas. “I have no Dodge Ram in California!” he said. “A train bound for Tijuana or Nogales does nothing for me!”
Now that I had failed my brother, I began to feel that my journey was without value. If I showed myself to la migra, told them I was Honduran, I would be sent on the so-called Bus of Tears to Tegucigalpa. I would not be crying, however. I would be thinking of Humberto and the life we could begin. We would not have much for food, and there was the smell of the dump, but even so, it was heaven on earth compared to Mexico City.
The harsh morning illuminated ugly Lechería Station. I looked at the violent graffiti (Jesus stabbed with a knife, for example, or a gun against the head of a child) and knew that evil people watched us, waiting to see what they could take. My will to move forward was small. I was afraid.
In a shop window, I saw myself for the first time since I had left Tegu. My eye was swollen and ringed in bluish brown where I had been hit on the train. A large cut—almost healed—had left a scar on my cheek. I was so skinny you could see the bones beneath my face. I looked like a starving mongrel. I stared at the glass. What had I become?
We spent a night by the tracks, and still the correct train did not arrive. It felt like a sign. I had forsaken my brother and I hated myself. I watched the dirty sky through eyes covered in grit. What was the point of this?
Finally, my head on discarded newspaper, I dreamed. I thought of Humberto—his arms, his hands, and his lips. He would not have to know I had been raped on the train. I could never tell him of my shame—I would be cast out of my village if anyone knew, and Humberto, much as he loved me, could never make a good life with me, marrying (as we had planned) in Maria Auxiliadora Church.
But there was no one to tell him, now that Junior was lost. I could stand at the altar in a white wedding gown. I felt that God would forgive me. And when Humberto touched my body, it would be healed.
I woke with a feeling that there was something left for me. I found Ernesto next to Juliana and told him I was going back to Tegu. “Why, when we are so close?” he asked.
“I’m sick,” I said. “I need to go home.”
Juliana put her cool hand on my forehead. She shook her head. “No fever,” she said. Her eyes were kind. “Don’t you understand?” she said.
“Understand what?” I said.
“Carla,” said Ernesto, “we have no home.”
38
Alice
FOR THE FIRST weeks of September, life was wonderfully ordinary. When I woke in the morning, Jake had gone to Conroe’s and Pete was curled up in his place. We went for walks around Lady Bird Lake or just to work, passing Chávez Memorial and waving at whoever was outside smoking or watching the smokers. Grupo told me the injured student was recovering at St. David’s. He’d been shot in the leg and was expected to be fine, though he wouldn’t play football for a while. The shooting had been gang-related, and when the Gang Prevention Task Force came in on Wednesday evenings, I served them the best brisket, which I’d set aside.
Marion was stopping kids in the hallways, she said, making them change their gang-colored shirts, dragging them into her office and handing them tees she’d gotten from Goodwill and Savers. Jake gave her a few boxes of Conroe’s shirts, and we got a kick out of seeing students walk by with our logo on their chests. The girls wore the XXLs belted with leggings.
As Homecoming—always held on the first weekend of October—approached, Marion presided over meetings late into the night. She stopped by our house some evenings, stayin
g for a beer and telling us how conflicted she felt. “On the one hand,” she said, picking at her Shiner label, “it’s just stupid to go ahead with the Homecoming football game. And the dance. It’s dangerous. A big fat invitation to disaster.”
“That’s true,” said Jake.
“On the other hand,” said Marion, “what do these kids have to look forward to? Some of them won’t graduate. Only a very few will go to college. This weekend—it’s the best night for some of them.”
“Good point,” said Jake. He looked wistful, and after Marion left and we lay on the couch, I ran my fingers through his hair. “Was Homecoming your best time?” I asked gingerly.
“Of course not,” he said, clasping my hand. “But you never feel things so deeply—so strongly—as you do in high school. You know?”
“I guess,” I said. I couldn’t have cared less about Homecoming—Ouray High didn’t have a football team. I remembered hiking Mount Sneffels by myself instead of going to the school dance, trying to get closer to my mom somehow by getting higher, by going to one of her favorite spots (albeit one she’d forbidden me to climb to alone—or at night). It hadn’t worked, and I’d made my way down freezing cold, hating her for leaving me, vowing never to let myself be such a sucker again.
“We played Del Valle,” said Jake. His voice was far away. “It was a close game, and in the last quarter I fucked up.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” I said.
“It was a series of fuck-ups, but we didn’t play like we could have. I caught a pass and tried to run it, trying to be the big shot. I should have passed the ball, but I ran, and this big guy brought me right down. I blew it.”
“That was a long time ago,” I said.
“I still feel like an ass about it,” said Jake. “And my girlfriend at the time, Francine LePour, she got really drunk at the after-party and I had to hold her hair back while she puked.”
He looked up at me, and I was surprised to see how upset he’d become. “It’s all over now,” I said. “Everything’s fine now, honey.”
Jake sat up. “I’m not asking you to fix it,” he said sharply. “I’m just saying it sucked. Can you listen to me, for once?”
Tears sprang to my eyes. “I don’t understand what’s wrong,” I said.
“I just feel like—” Jake began. My phone buzzed, and he stopped talking. He met my eyes. The phone rang again. I picked it up and saw that it was Jane’s husband, who had never called me before. “It’s Dennis,” I said.
Jake shook his head, made a disappointed sound in his throat. He stood and went into our room. Pete followed, climbing into his crate at the foot of the bed. Jake shut the bedroom door with more force than was necessary.
“Dennis?” I said, answering my phone. “What’s going on?”
“Hi,” said my brother-in-law. “Listen, I … it’s bad news. I’m calling with bad news. I wanted to let you know … well, we lost the baby.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Oh, Dennis, no.”
“It happens sometimes,” said Dennis. “But Jane’s taking it hard. I just thought you ought to know.”
“When did this happen?” I asked. “What can I do?”
“Night before last.” Dennis sighed heavily. “Jane started bleeding and just … it wasn’t meant to be. The doctor said there was probably something wrong with the baby. It’s early—this just happens sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“It’s been crazy, Alice,” said Dennis. “Jane just got home a few hours ago.”
“I’m coming,” I said. “I’ll get a flight out tonight.”
“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Dennis.
“I’ll call when I land,” I said.
“I don’t mean to be …” Dennis stopped, sighed again. “Listen,” he said, “Jane said to tell you she’ll call you when she wakes up. You don’t need to come here. To be frank, we could use some time as a family.”
“I am family,” I said, booting up the laptop.
“You know what I mean,” said Dennis.
“Okay, I’ll see you soon,” I said, hanging up the phone.
After a short Internet search, I booked a flight to Denver. I’d arrive by morning, and could deal with getting to Ouray from there. It was a six-hour drive; I could rent a car or grab a flight to Montrose. I thought about waking Jake, to tell him what had happened, and what I felt I should do. But I was afraid of him telling me I should wait, call Jane in the morning. I didn’t want to hear about how I had to stand by, feel my feelings, process. Moving simply felt better than being still.
I tossed a few things in a bag, went into the kitchen, and jotted a note on the pad we used for grocery lists. Then I called Austin Taxi and headed out.
39
Carla
MARCOS LED US from the Nuevo Laredo train station along a wavering path to a bank of reeds, beyond which was a campground. From the campground, I could see America. The enormous river was all that separated me from my mother and my second brother, Carlos. The only ones in the world who had to love me were just across the water. Unhappily, the Rio Bravo was guarded by men in gleaming SUVs, men equipped with cameras, spotlights, even helicopters. Keeping me—and all those like me—out of America was an important operation, I could see. I felt despised, a cockroach.
We arrived at nightfall. The campground smelled of shit. It was full of drug addicts, goats, thieves, and migrants hoping to enter the United States. Marcos insisted it was safer here than in the city, which was full of la migra and every other sort of problem and depravity.
Marcos would leave in the morning—he had the money to pay a coyote to get him over the river and past the immigration authorities. He would bring along his family, and perhaps Ernesto. But this place, with the soiled mattresses and trash, was where I would remain. At the edge of the trail, I leaned over and tried to throw up. There was nothing inside me, but still I heaved.
We sat around a campfire. In the middle of an awful place, the flames were hot and beautiful. I stared at them. I held my hands out. Marcos explained the ways to get into America. You could try to swim the river, but you would drown. He had seen bloated bodies float past in the water; he had seen people stopped halfway across by American police, then put in jail, then sent back to the country they had started in. Even as we sat by the fire, people were trying to make it through the rushing water. INS agents with bullhorns stood on the far shore, telling the swimmers to turn back in both English and Spanish. It was like having a campout in the middle of one of the action movies we used to watch through the window of the PriceSmart electronics store. I imagined that the loud, disembodied voices were Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger (who had also been an immigrant, I knew). The idea made me smile. It is helpful to pretend a horrifying scenario is not your real life.
Marcos said that some rode inner tubes to a resting place covered in vegetation, an island in the middle of the water, halfway to America. They waited there, sometimes all night, for a split second when they were not watched. If that moment came, they might make it across. “But then they are on a muddy bank in wet clothes, surrounded by police! This is stupid, and it is foolish, though your hopes will tell you otherwise.”
Marcos knew what he was talking about, and I nodded. Across the water I could see American houses. I could hear cars at the border checkpoint. I was so close, and Marcos was right: a part of my brain said, Just go, Carla! Just swim across!
“There is a Catholic church in Nuevo Laredo,” Marcos continued. He told me how to get there—it was not too long a walk from the camp. “At the church, you will get food cards worth fifteen meals,” said Marcos. “Are you listening, Carla?”
I turned to him, the man who had helped me so much already. I took a breath, then made my plea. “Please,” I said. “Take me with you.”
He shook his head sadly, impatiently. “My employer pays our fee to the coyote,” he explained. “He takes it from my first paycheck. If you are not coming as a labo
rer, he will not pay for you. Juliana will cook for us while we are there, and if Ernesto wants to work very hard, he can join us.”
Ernesto looked up, wonder in his eyes. He looked younger than the day I had met him. He was smitten, I saw now, if not with Juliana, then with her family. He had someone besides a gang to love him now.
“Is there something I can do there, in Texas?” I asked, desperate not to be left at this place on my own. In the firelight, I saw waves of red ants along the ground, the kind that sting.
“Listen to me,” said Marcos. “I will introduce you to the coyote—he is trustworthy. I have used him before. He knows the way across, and he has contacts to get us to the truck. He costs two thousand U.S. dollars a person, but he will not take the money and leave you dead.”
“How will I get two thousand dollars?” I asked.
“You will call your mother,” said Marcos. Solemnly he whispered, “Give me your hand.”
Marcos was sitting next to me. When I let my hand near his, he put a card inside and closed my fingers around it. “You are in danger now,” he said very quietly. “You have a possession many others want. Use this as soon as it is light. Tell your mother to wire the money before your fifteen meals run out.”
I nodded, too frightened to speak.
I felt surrounded by menace from that moment on. We had no food, so did not eat. I lay down on a soiled blanket near the fire. I did not open my hand. Sometime in the night I felt a kiss on my forehead. I sat up, terrified, but it was Ernesto.
“Adios, Carla,” he said. He knelt by my side.
“Ernesto,” I said, “please. Don’t tell anyone what happened to me on the train.”
He nodded seriously. “I promise,” he said.
“Do you love Juliana?” I asked.
“We are leaving,” he said.
In the shadows, I could see Juliana, Marcos, and their brothers. Beside them was a very thin man with a beard. “This is El Serpiente,” said Marcos, approaching. “You will pay him when your money arrives. Until then, he will keep you safe.”
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