Lucky Boy

by Shanthi Sekaran

  “The dress, please, Silvia.”

  Silvia’s eyes cupped each portion of Soli—her breasts, her stomach. They rested on the two purple bruises that spread over Soli’s hips. She sucked her breath in.

  “It’s nothing,” Soli said.

  Her eyes settled on Soli’s face, and she gasped.

  “What?”

  “You’re having a baby.”

  “Stop it. Dress. Come on.”

  Silvia shook her head. “You’re pregnant.”

  And because Silvia was Silvia and never wrong, Soli looked down at her belly, as if searching for a stain she hadn’t noticed. She saw the puff of hair below her waist, her small, sure abdomen, and her breasts, on most days as pointless as two unborn mice. Now, they seemed on the verge of waking.

  “Whose baby is this?”

  She felt no different. She couldn’t be pregnant. And yet. The possibilities whirled and settled. “Checo,” Soli said. “It could only be Checo.”

  “Who the hell is Checo?”

  The answer felt foolish, so she said nothing.

  “Soli, Soli, Soli.” Silvia came closer. Soli saw something alive on her cousin’s face that she identified as emotion. She hadn’t seen emotion in days. She mistook it for love.

  “¡Idiota!” Silvia slapped her across the face. “!Pinche puta! What were you thinking? This is how you come to America? This is your big plan?”

  Silvia whipped the dress at her. The cotton caught her waist and stung.

  “Ai, Silvia. Stop it! I’m sorry.”

  “You’re sorry? Stupid, stupid, Soli. This is not what your papi spent all his money for!”

  Daniel and Aldo stood in the doorway. They’d probably never seen their mother whipping a naked relative. Silvia shooed them away.

  “Get dressed,” she muttered, and slammed the door.

  When Soli came out again, Silvia was in the kitchen, pulling something from the oven.

  “Sit down, food’s ready.”

  Silvia spooned rice and chicken onto her plate. And when she plopped down an extra serving of meat, Soli felt like maybe things would be okay. Her cousin tipped the boys’ uneaten rice onto her own plate, then sat down to eat. She hunched over her food in the old familiar way, smacking her thick lips and frowning. Soli, for a moment, could have been back in Popocalco, in an old adobe hut with Silvia and her family. While they ate, the kitchen grew warm and her troubles cool. Silvia looked up once, in the old Silvia way. Then she paused, put her fork down, and picked up her napkin.

  “We don’t even know,” she said, still chewing. “Have you done a test?”

  Soli shook her head.

  “So, we don’t even know. Maybe I’m wrong.”

  But Soli knew Silvia, and Silvia was never wrong.

  7.

  Her first Berkeley morning, Soli woke into a fog of remorse. If there was a right way to do things, she had missed it completely, and it was too late to start again. But the blanket was kind, the cushions forgiving. She lay still and took in the large television, a glass vase, the trappings of stability. In the other room, an alarm clock buzzed and the children came clamoring in.

  Before breakfast, she used Silvia’s calling card to phone Papi. She didn’t know what she expected, whether he’d be overjoyed to hear her voice or whether some tornado of revolution had hit Popocalco, where nothing could possibly be the same after all that had changed for her.

  “Solimar? Solimar!” Papi’s voice was edged with fear. She’d never heard him like this, and she’d never, she realized, been so very far from him.

  “Papi?” It was all she could say, stunned now by the realization that she couldn’t just go back home, that her mother and father were part of another life.

  “Why didn’t you call me, m’ija?”

  She tried to answer, but began to weep. She cursed herself for giving in like this, now that she’d arrived, now that her tears would only make Papi feel more helpless.

  “I’m sorry, Papi,” she managed, at last.

  “You’d better be, Soli. You don’t know what it was like over here.”

  “Is Mama all right?” She half expected him to say that Mama was gone, that she’d stopped eating or run away or burned the house down.

  “Mama’s fine. You want to talk to her?”

  So she talked to Mama, and he was right, she was fine. Mama sounded as tiny and distant as Papi, but wearier. “I’m glad you got there,” she said. For this small sentence, Soli was grateful.

  “Have you eaten?” her mother asked. “Is the food there okay?”

  Silvia tapped her watch.

  “I have to go, Mama.”

  “Get a calling card. Silvia can get them cheap.”

  “Te hablo luego, Mama.”

  Mama paused and seemed on the verge of words, but said nothing more. Soli heard the click of the phone, the dial tone. How are you feeling? her mother might have asked. How was the journey, and are you glad to be alive? Can you believe you made it? Was it all worth it and will you ever be the same? Her mother had asked none of these questions, but how could she have known?

  There had been a good deal she’d wanted to tell them about, like Manuel’s big sweaty lie, his plan for Soli to pass not over the border, but under it. But a few details would have summoned more questions, and she didn’t trust herself to keep her words at bay. Soli didn’t want to pass on the wounds, not to her parents, who’d be able to do nothing but feel them. So she closed her eyes and felt for the wind on her face, the demonic rumble of the train below, the rush of the valley speeding northward. She felt for Checo, his dusty hair between her fingers, his skin rough and moist. Was she angry with Papi for believing Manuel? Or with Manuel for his lies? How could she be? Without them, there would have been no Checo.

  Silvia was not wrong. Soli took her test the next day. She had pissed on many things during her journey, but never expected a reply. In Silvia’s bathroom the next afternoon, she pissed on a very expensive little stick that answered her with a plus sign.

  “Okay,” Silvia said. She stood at the kitchen counter, peeling a garlic clove. “Now we know. Now we can take care of it.”

  Soli knew what taking care of it meant. And she wondered if she would have considered this back in Mexico, this simple solution to a life.

  “What do they do?” she asked.

  “We go to a clinic. There’s one in town, and they won’t ask for much. I’ll pay, you’ll pay me back.”

  Soli was quiet for a moment. “But what do they do?”

  “What do you mean? You mean, what do they actually do?”

  She nodded. Silvia put the garlic clove down.

  “They stick a vacuum inside. They vacuum it out of you, and then it’s done.” She smashed the clove with the back of a wooden spoon. “Okay?”

  Silvia was right, Soli knew. She couldn’t start her American life with a baby inside. It wasn’t in the plan, and it certainly wouldn’t get her anywhere. And what would she tell Papi? If she were going to get pregnant, she could have stayed in Popocalco. The world was an ocean of opportunity for a girl seeking sperm. She could get knocked up anywhere, papers or no papers, no problem.

  That night, Silvia presented Soli with a notebook. Inside were hand-drawn columns labeled “owed” and “paid.” The “paid” column was empty, but soon it would contain Soli’s share of the groceries, bills, and rent.

  “I’ll help you with the bills, Silvia, when I get a job.”

  “I know you will.” Silvia softened, regarded Soli for several seconds, then rose and went to the fridge. She returned to the sofa with one glass of milk and one bottle of beer. She sat down.

  “So. Tell me.” The two sat across from each other on the sofa, like they had when they were girls and all there was to do in the world was talk and sit, sit and talk until the weak light of morning. Soli
talked about Manuel and his car, Checo and the trains, the flour and the onions.

  “You were lucky those gangsters stopped you,” Silvia said. “You never would have made it through that desert.”

  “I think you’re wrong about that, Silvia. I could have made it through anything with Checo by my side.”

  “And the baby inside you? You ever had a baby inside? Would the baby have made it?” Soli looked down again at the place where the baby lived.

  Silvia had a job the next morning, but left an envelope with cash, an address, and directions. When Soli got to the clinic, they made her wait in line. They spoke Spanish, and they didn’t look at her like she was a dirty stupid puta who’d ruined the plan.

  Silvia had warned her about these places, how religious people hung around with pictures of dismembered fetuses. She didn’t need a churchgoer to tell her this was a horrible thing to do. In the exam room, a nurse asked Soli if she knew what to expect. Soli did half expect to see a big dusty vacuum cleaner, the kind Silvia hauled to her cleaning jobs. She half expected the nurse to stick a Dyson up her you-know-what and slam her foot down on the pedal. But instead, the nurse showed Soli the thing they’d use, as if she’d take an anthropological interest. It was smooth and white and gleamed beneath the ceiling lights. It looked like a rocket to the moon. And maybe that’s what stopped Soli. Maybe if they’d trooped in a Mexican housecleaner with a big dusty Dyson, Soli would have gone ahead with it. But the thing they showed her? It was so clean, too clean a thing for the mess she was in. It didn’t match. It didn’t match her. The whole scene—the clinic, the nice people, the astronaut vacuum with its sterile, gaping eye. None of it was meant for her.

  The realization began at a low hum. They’d be sucking something out of her body that she had put there—something, even, that Checo had put there. She thought back to the warm pulse of his chest, their first early morning together, his hands on her waist, the graveled cheek. A desirous ache shot down her side. She stopped herself. Her memories of him she’d have to fold lovingly away, to be brought out the next time and the next, for as long as they would last. But this, she knew: What lived inside her—and the mere thought of it sent through her a throb of energy—what lived inside her was all she had left of Checo. Their together-invention. Boy beast, night spawn, prince of the rails.

  Already, she felt the thrust of new life inside her, the kick of her will. The answer rang between her ears. This was her baby, not Silvia’s. This was hers.

  And so she got herself out of there.

  She made sure to get the money back, because Silvia would be pissed as hell if Soli forgot. She was already preparing for Silvia to call her an idiot. And possibly, she wouldn’t have been wrong. But this wasn’t about Silvia not being wrong. This was about Soli being right. Once Silvia pointed out the truth of what was inside her, Soli knew it as surely as she’d known anything. This thing, growing inside and filling her breasts with promise, this thing was the same as her. It matched her better than anything or anyone she’d known.

  She spent that afternoon with Daniel and Aldo. They came home from school and she fed them cereal. Aldo and Daniel had a father whom Soli had never seen, in photos or flesh. Aldo looked like Silvia and Daniel looked like some man. Daniel’s hair was golden brown, and fell to his shoulders like a prince’s. He smiled easily and laughed at any joke Soli cared to lob his way. Aldo’s hair was black, his eyes two drops of molasses. He liked to walk around with his pants off, and Soli was struck by his tree-trunk thighs. If Daniel was a prince, Aldo was a warrior. The boys knew where everything was; they’d been feeding themselves since they were in preschool. But it felt good to make them something anyway, even if it was only Cheerios with milk and chocolate syrup. They sat on the sofa on either side of her, bookends around their hidden cousin, and Soli told them about Popocalco. She liked the way their eyes fixed on hers and watched her lips move. They burrowed into her stories, chewed them up and swallowed them.

  That evening, Silvia returned.

  “Did you do it?”

  Soli didn’t answer.

  “You did do it. You found the place? You took the money? Did you take the money I gave you?”

  Soli rose and found her bag. Inside was the envelope stuffed with cash.

  “Here,” she said. She held out the envelope, unable to hide the shake in her hand. “Now I owe you nothing.”

  Silvia looked at it, looked at Soli. She blinked rapidly. Her eyebrows dove into each other. The silence palpitated.

  There was nothing Silvia could do but take the money, count it, and fold it into her palm. Soli was certain she was angry, but there was no way of knowing whether to expect a hurricane or a silent freeze. So she locked herself in the bathroom to allow the reaction, whatever it was, to pass.

  At dinner, Silvia said nothing of what Soli had or hadn’t done. “I have a job for you,” she announced. “It’s with a family called Cassidy.”

  “What is it?”

  “Housecleaning. Every day.”

  “Every day?”

  “No weekends, unless they request it.”

  “Is that normal?”

  “No. This is a good job, Soli. Normally? You’d be cleaning four houses a day. Five. You’re my family, but you’ve still got to work.”

  She nodded.

  “This job I would have taken myself. But you can have it now”—she nodded at Soli’s middle—“because of that one.”

  • • •

  “WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS?” Silvia asked the next morning.

  Soli shrugged. She’d have two free days before the job began. “I’ll walk around. See things.”

  Silvia stood with her hands on hips, trying to find something wrong with this. “Okay,” she finally said. “But remember, 2020 Channing. All right? Don’t forget that address. A lot of these places look the same at first. I don’t want you calling me, lost.”

  “Okay.”

  “Write it on your brain.”

  “It’s written on my soul, Silvia.”

  “And don’t talk to the police. You need directions or something, ask in a store.”

  “Okay. Silvia?”

  “What?”

  “Where’s the tortilleria?”

  Silvia shook her head and laughed, then ushered the boys out the door.

  Soli stepped out to the sidewalk later that morning, and for the first time since she’d left Popocalco, she had a sense of being in a place, a fixed and real place that wouldn’t slide from under her feet with the next train or truck. The Mexican sun had slipped under the horizon to find a new life, and so had Soli. If what the sun found was Berkeley, then happiness was the only option. Everyone seemed happy in this green, misty place, and everyone as healthy as humans could be. How green the city looked those first days. How exuberant! Only later would she notice the smog that rolled between buildings in the humid autumn, the days when the fog refused to lift. For now, every breath was a surprise. Carbonated, almost, when a dizzying gust blew in from the ocean. The air in Berkeley sparked in her throat, awoke the hairs in her nostrils and whistled through her eye sockets until she was certain she could think more clearly than she’d ever thought before.

  • • •

  “I DON’T KNOW what you plan on doing now,” Silvia said the evening before she started at the Cassidys’, “but you can stay here as long as you want. This job is lots of money, and quick, so you’ll have no trouble paying your way. And you’ll look after the boys when I need you to. And then if you last, you might even have some money of your own.”

  Soli hadn’t known when she’d left Popocalco that she’d be paying Silvia back, and she wondered if Papi had known. Family was family, she’d thought. Family didn’t send one another bills. In any case, she was stuck, and before long, she would start to feel sick and exhausted, and she would have no one to turn to but Silvia. She feared she’d eventua
lly be too big to reach a dustpan, much less scrub a toilet. But she couldn’t think about that. The only option was to get started.

  “And, Silvia?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the coyote?”

  “What coyote?”

  Soli told her about the onion truck, the man who’d gripped her arm and known her name and her hometown, the three thousand dollars. Silvia shook her head, as if Soli were to blame again.

  “If they come,” she said, “we pay them. If they don’t, we don’t.”

  Silvia had done well for herself. She’d always been more a woman than a girl, and now she carried herself with the authority of someone much older than twenty-seven. After nine years in the States, she had an apartment and a television and a microwave. Every week, women arrived at her doorstep with envelopes of cash, which Silvia counted out. They were from Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Colombia. Silvia had found them at different times, struggling, nearly homeless, and went about rescuing each one, finding her a place to stay and a cleaning job, making life livable in this America, all for the good of her soul and a tidy thirty percent commission. They relaxed a little when Silvia handed back their share. Some of them even sat down, crossed their ankles, and talked. Mostly they spoke about this family or that, the married couples who slept separately, the children who never deigned to pick up their own toys. And they talked about the people they knew—so-and-so who’d been joined by a sister or nephew, or who’d been picked up and sent to detention, or who’d been blessed with another baby, or who was jobless now and living with his aunt. But aside from these short visits, Silvia seemed not to have friends. “I don’t have time for friends,” she had said.

  To Soli’s ledger she added $3,000, written clearly. The amount seemed insurmountable. It dwarfed the other sums, the thirty dollars per week for food, the ten dollars for gas and electricity, the spurts of paltry expense that appeared for Soli’s new shoes, for the two pairs of pants and three shirts designed to fit her expanding belly. Three thousand dollars.