In the Country We Love

by Diane Guerrero

  No way was I going with Mami, and as one week stretched into three and she kept pressing me about that during our phone calls, I resented her for even proposing that I leave the States. Aside from loving my homeland, there was another reason I didn’t want to go: I was so scared that my dad and brother might kill each other. I thought I needed to play mediator, the way I’d seen Mami do for so long. I couldn’t relocate. I needed to keep my remaining family in America intact.

  In the days following Mami’s deportation, my greatest fear began coming true. Eric and my father fought nonstop; the arguments nearly turned violent a couple of times. “No!” I’d scream, wedging myself between them. “Stop it!” My father, who was usually the cooler head, was in no state to tolerate Eric’s BS. And there was plenty of it: He’d mouth off to my father. He’d come and go as he pleased, with no regard for the rules. And when Papi confronted him, things would get so tense, I would try to distract them by making myself look crazy by screaming and pulling my hair, just like I did when I punished myself for being a “bad” girl. I didn’t want for them to fight, or for my brother to leave the house in danger.

  A couple of weeks after Mami had gone, someone broke into the house during daylight and stole our TV and stereo. “I bet it was one of those punk friends of yours,” my father spat at Eric. My brother denied it and slammed the door in my father’s face. Papi was so livid that, on a couple of occasions, he came close to socking Eric in the face. I’d never seen him like this, so close to the edge. In between his wars with Eric and his many hours at work, he sat hunched over the couch and stared blankly at the television. He was physically there but emotionally wrecked.

  I turned inward. I just wanted to finish up the school year and keep the truth hidden from my classmates. I tried to talk to Eric a few times, but he was just as overcome with grief as I was; his way of showing it was to cause more trouble around the house; my way of showing it was to pretend it hadn’t happened. For hours, I’d disappear into my fantasy worlds, into my television shows, into my music, into my little New Testament Bible. Into anything that would temporarily make me forget the sorrow that hung over my family. For that first month following my mother’s departure, I bet Papi and I didn’t exchange more than ten words. Other than the same old “You cannot tell anyone what’s going on”—and my answer of “I get it, Dad”—we hardly spoke.

  Mami called frequently from Colombia. “I miss you so much, Diane,” she’d tell me over and over. “You should come here.”

  I noticed a strange optimism in her voice—one that had been absent when she’d been in prison. “If you came here,” she told me, “we could start over. Things are a little better here now than they were before. We could get you into school.”

  In hindsight, I now understand where Mami’s hopefulness stemmed from. In her first weeks at home, she experienced a Colombia she hadn’t known previously. Danger and poverty and violence were still rampant there, but she was buffered from it when she initially returned. She’d been away since the 1980s, and upon her return she saw her homeland through a honeymoon lens. Her family, many of whom she’d been sending money to for years, gave her the royal treatment. People were throwing parties for her. She was reconnecting with old acquaintances. The love was flowing. And she was feeling nostalgic. Don’t get me wrong: No one was riding around in limousines. But her family was offering her whatever extras they had, like the finest meals they could prepare to thank her for all those years of financial assistance. The cruelties and hardships of daily life hadn’t quite set in. So it makes sense to me now why she wanted me to come there so badly. For the first time, Colombia seemed like a place where she could build a life. But the only way that it would be a happy existence is if I, her only daughter, were there to share it with her.

  That’s crystal clear from where I sit now. But back then, every time she brought it up, my neck became extremely hot. “Instead of asking me to move there,” I told her one evening, “you need to come here.”

  “I wish I could,” she told me. “I would do anything to go back. But it’s impossible right now.”

  I knew that was true. But while she was setting up her new life there, I couldn’t help but be pissed that I was in charge of keeping World War III from breaking out in our house. I was like, Are you kidding me right now? My life sucks without you, and if I have to deal with these assholes one more day, I am going to explode. That didn’t stop her from bringing up the idea of me going there. It got to the point that, whenever she called, I told my father to pretend I was asleep.

  No one had prepared me for this. I’d always known there was a possibility that one or both of my parents would be taken, but what was the contingency plan? “You have to be strong,” Papi would always tell me. I got that part. But what would happen after I put on a stiff upper lip? Would child services pick me up? Would I go back to Colombia with one or both of them? There were no answers, only possible eventualities Papi and I still weren’t talking about.

  I went mute. I also stopped eating much. Dad would offer me rice and beans in the evenings, and I’d push aside the plate. I got this weird tic in my neck that was probably from stress. And ever present was the thought that haunted me as I tried to get to sleep every evening: Did I do something to cause this? Did I displease You, Heavenly Father? I’d tried to be so obedient. I’d followed the rules. And yet God had allowed the very thing I dreaded to happen. And I didn’t understand why.

  * * *

  Mami had been away for a little over two months when Papi came home with some news. “Your mother’s coming back,” he told me.

  I glared at him. “What?” I asked.

  “She found a way to get back into the country,” he said blankly.

  “But how?”

  “I don’t know all the details,” he said in a matter-of-fact way that told me there was more to the story but that he wasn’t going to share it with me. “She’ll be here tomorrow,” he told me.

  I was stunned. A flood of questions filled my head. How could she have found a way to get back into the States? Had the charges been dropped? Was that paperwork somehow sorted out? What’s going on—and what isn’t Papi telling me?

  Papi didn’t seem thrilled. Nor did I. It’s not that I wasn’t happy to hear Mami was returning. But I feared that her return could put us all in danger of being arrested. I didn’t question Papi any further about it. By this point, we both recognized the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy we’d put in place.

  The next evening around seven, Mami pulled up in front of our house in a taxicab. Papi, who’d been nervously eyeing the clock as if he was expecting her at a certain time, rushed out into the driveway to meet her; I followed. “My princess!” she said, dropping her suitcase to run up and hug me. “Oh my goodness, it’s so good to see you both!”

  She and Papi embraced a bit halfheartedly, as if all the previous two months’ dramas stood between them. Mami didn’t look like she’d just been through a horrifying ordeal. Her clothes were cute. Her smile was broad. Her energy seemed open. I hadn’t quite known what to expect upon seeing her again. I’d imagined she’d be undercover, maybe in a hat and glasses or army fatigues. Incognito. Neither Mami nor Papi told me the specifics of how she managed to get back across the border. To this day, I still don’t know for sure. But I did know that only a mother who refused to live separately from her family would take the big risk of returning.

  My parents immediately began making plans for a move. With Mami back, staying put was out of the question. We’d move to New Jersey. We wouldn’t stay with my aunt and uncle—the authorities might find us there—but we’d find an apartment a few towns over and off the grid. That was the plan, and for a hot minute things seemed like they were about to come together for us. Until the day that, one week after Mami’s return, she was arrested. Again.

  That morning, my mother had been walking a couple of our neighbors’ children to school—a side job she’d done for years prior. Single mothers who needed to get to work
early would bring their little ones to our place before school. Mami would then feed them breakfast and walk them to class; in this case, it was summer school, which I’d also been attending. When I came home that afternoon, Lily was in our living room. Same spot. Same red eyes. Same look of exasperation. It happened again. We couldn’t believe it. My dad had no words.

  One of the children Mami was walking with was Lily’s son; when the ICE officer pulled up alongside her on the street and got out of the car, Mami began to cry; she knew what was coming. “Ma’am, we’re going to need you to come with us,” the officer told her. He placed her in handcuffs as another officer gathered the children. I’m not sure how or when Lily and the other mothers received word that their children were being held at a local ICE facility, but when they did, Lily rushed to pick up her son. She then came directly back to our house, called my school, and requested that they send me home immediately. When I walked through the front door, filled with dread that the worst had indeed happened, Lily was there waiting. I could tell by her stone face that the news was exactly as I’d feared. “She’s gone,” Lily said, pulling me into her arms. “Your mother has been arrested again.” This time, I was too stunned even to cry. Honestly, it felt like the biggest mindfuck ever. Was this really happening to us? What could we have possibly done to bring this on ourselves? How could my mother be taken not once, but twice?

  Following this arrest, Papi wasn’t taking any chances. “We’re moving,” he told me. “We’ve gotta get out of here.” We didn’t go far because we couldn’t risk going and getting a lease somewhere. So we rented the little dingy basement apartment of Olivia, a friend we’d known for years. She lived upstairs on the top floor with her family and rented out the lower floors. The one-bedroom was so tiny that we had to get rid of most of our stuff and bag up the rest. The only piece of furniture we brought was a small loveseat. Everything we didn’t sell, we boxed up—including all my dolls and costumes, and a lot of my clothes. Eric had chosen to move to New Jersey and try to start over there.

  I wasn’t expecting the Four Seasons, but this basement was scary. The ceilings were low. Dozens of boxes and storage bins lined the entrance. It smelled like mothballs. And the place was crawling with rats. Dad put my little mattress on the floor in his room, next to his bed. At nights, I could hear the rats scurrying and climbing inside the walls. I slept with one eye open and sometimes saw the biggest friggin’ rats in the world gnawing at a crack in the ceiling light above my bed. I was so scared the light would break and the rat would fall on my face. Believe it or not, that wasn’t the worst. The worst was when a rat would die in the walls, and the smell would permeate the entire apartment.

  I didn’t think my dad could get any more depressed than he’d been after Mami was taken the first time, but he sank even lower. For the first eight weeks, I think both of us were secretly hoping she’d magically reappear, as she had before. But two months came and went, and summer stretched into fall. No Mami.

  In school, I did my best to stay focused. Not easy, given all that was happening at home. My grades slid. My math teacher called Papi.

  “What’s happening with Diane?” he asked. “She doesn’t seem as interested in her work anymore.”

  “I’ll talk to her,” Papi promised. “I’m sure she’ll get back on track soon.” Of course, he didn’t dare tell the guy the reality—that our family was trapped in the very definition of a living nightmare.

  Papi worked even longer hours than before; he was sending my mother money in Colombia, plus supporting us. Suddenly, there was no distinction between a Monday or a Tuesday or a Friday. They all went like this: Papi got up. Left for work. Dropped me off with the neighbors upstairs, who gave me breakfast and sent me off to school. I’d sleepwalk my way through the day, and then return home at two thirty and fall asleep on the neighbors’ couch. “Do you want to watch TV?” Olivia would ask. I’d nod, and she’d turn on Peanuts. For whatever reason, Charlie Brown was a source of comfort. I’d sit there eating a massive number of Cheez-Its, one cracker after another, while peering at the screen. I was just passing time until Papi came home around six. In fact, I was just passing time until God found it in His heart to lift us out of this mess.

  Seventh grade is when things began changing for me physically. I was developing boobs; not gigantic ones, mind you—more like little apricots than grapefruits. But they were big enough for me to start pestering my father to buy me a bra. Normally, I’d never have such a conversation with Papi. Mami had always been the one to be sure I had the clothes and undergarments I needed. She’d buy me these cute cotton undies and girly dresses, which explains why, once she was gone, I started dressing like a preadolescent boy—sneakers, T-shirts, fuzzy hair. These weren’t ordinary times, so I had to get my father on the bandwagon.

  “Papi?” I said. I think he was startled that I was even speaking, given how quiet I’d been.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “Um, I need a bra.”

  “What?” he said.

  “I think it’s time for me to get a bra,” I repeated.

  Without looking at me, he shook his head. “Honey,” he told me, “I don’t think so. You’re good.”

  But I insisted. It was the most awkward thing in the world to be talking to my dad about a bra, but a girl has to do what a girl has to do. For a whole week, I begged him. It was the most conversing we’d done in months. Finally, just to get me off his back, Papi relented.

  He drove me to Bradlees, which was like a cheap version of Target. We headed straight to the preteen undie section. I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible—so I grabbed the first bra I saw.

  “That’s too big for you,” my father told me. “It’s not going to fit.”

  Embarrassed, I slid it back on the rack and picked up another. It was pink and cotton and lace-trimmed. “That might work,” he said. Before he could say another word (that someone might overhear!), I grabbed three of them in various colors and marched straight to the checkout. Talk about awkward.

  Later on, Papi called Mami and told her about our adventure; both thought it was rather funny and, in a way, so did I. “I’m so sorry I’m not there to help with this,” she said to me, half laughing—and half incredibly sad that she was missing my life.

  “It’s no big deal,” I told her. “Whatever. It’s just a bra.” That was my attitude about anything that actually did bother me. I wished my mami was there.

  I finally had my bra. Now I just needed a period to go with it. Mami had actually talked to me about my period even before she was taken the first time. “Has it come yet?” she kept asking me from Colombia. The answer was always the same: No. “Well, if it comes,” she told me, “tell your dad right away. And call me. You can also talk to Olivia.” It seemed every girl at school except for me had gotten her period. All I could do was wait. Every morning, I’d examine my underwear for any sign of red. Nothing. After a couple of months of paying close attention, I was so over it. I was like, This is never going to happen.

  And then one evening, it did. Papi was in the living room, glued to a soccer match, when I emerged from the bathroom with a weird look on my face.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “Um, I’m bleeding,” I told him. I began to cry.

  He turned off the TV and stood. “It’s okay, Diane,” he said, pulling me into his arms. “It’s natural. Don’t cry there, chibola. I’m here for you.” Never had I missed my mother more than I did in that moment.

  There’s only one thing more awkward than buying a bra with your father—and that is buying maxi pads with him. Dad was cool about it and tried to make me feel as comfortable as possible by keeping his mouth closed. Olivia had told him what brand to get. I think my dad was as nervous as I was, and he dealt with that by stocking up. Big time. We left there with every kind of maxi pad known to womankind: Panty liners. Regular absorbency maxi pads. A pack for heavy days. He might have even picked up some Huggies, my poor father. But all
good.

  Until, of course, I started flushing my pads down the toilet. No one had told me that I should wrap them in tissue and bag them up to dispose of them in the garbage. Furthermore, I didn’t realize I should let one get full before I changed it. If I saw even the tiniest trace of blood, I’d throw it away. Papi, who came into the bathroom after I’d just used it, noticed two things. First, the stockpiles of pads under the bathroom sink were already quite low. And second, he saw no sign of a pad in the trash can.

  “Diane, can I talk to you for a sec, dear?” he said. Crap. I nodded and stared at him.

  “You need to wrap your pads and put them in the wastebasket,” he informed me. “Oh, and one more thing: You should wait at least a couple of hours before you grab a new one.” Both of us blushed.

  By Christmas of my eighth-grade year, I’d fully accepted that Mami wasn’t going to return. I’d apparently done something so egregious, so unforgiveable, that no round of Hail Marys had been sufficient to block her recapture. This must be God’s will. Papi seemed to have accepted that as well, and he was going through the motions of just soldiering through each workday. He talked to Mami once or twice a week; I talked with her even less than that. We’d both relaxed into the reality that life would have to move on without Mami in it.

  And then she came back. For the second time. In January 1999. Not to Boston this time, but to New Jersey. I have no idea whether she told Papi she was coming; if she did, he certainly didn’t pass along the good tidings. She moved in with her sister’s son, my cousin whom I loved very much.