Where I Belong

by Marcia Argueta Mickelson

  “Screw you, Millie,” says the two-time fifth-grader. He grabs his ball and walks into his house.

  Javi storms past me. “You ruin everything!”

  “You know what Mami will say,” I tell Javi, following him home.

  “Because of course you’re going to tell her,” Javi screams over his shoulder. He flings open the front door and runs to his room.

  Ceci is combing her Barbie’s hair with her eyes fixed on the Disney Channel. “Five minutes and homework, Ceci,” I say.

  “’Kay,” she says without taking her eyes off the TV.

  “Sele,” I yell out as I dump my backpack by the door.

  She comes into the living room from the kitchen. “What?”

  “Javi was outside playing with Justin.”

  “Sorry. He must have snuck out.” She walks back into the kitchen and sits down to finish her homework.

  I sink into a kitchen chair and sit there trying to guess the contents of the refrigerator, grasping at some idea of what to make for dinner. I eventually pull myself to my feet and start boiling water for spaghetti.

  Javi walks in a few minutes later, carrying his backpack to start homework. Normally it takes a half dozen requests and threats from me before he even starts. “I’m sorry, Millie. Please don’t tell Mami.”

  I sigh. “Javi, you can’t hang out with Justin anymore. You know how Mami feels about him, and I completely agree with her.”

  “I won’t. I won’t. Just don’t tell her.”

  I shake my head, knowing I will probably keep his secret. “Just do your homework.”

  The three of them finish their homework, and Sele helps me make meat sauce to go with the spaghetti. After dinner, they take turns showering while I start the dishes. The landline phone rings just as I submerge my hands in the soapy, warm water. I wipe them off on the terrycloth apron Mami made years ago.

  “Hello?”

  “Millie,” Mami says in a rushed voice. “I’m trying to call the Wheelers. I can’t reach them. You have to go down to Heritage Park to look for them. Mr. Wheeler is giving a speech down there.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Caroline hurt her arm. She was doing a cartwheel and fell on it. It might be broken. I’m taking her to the emergency room, but they need to meet me there. They’re not answering. I even tried Charlie’s phone. I think he’s down there too.”

  “Okay, I’ll go. I’ll get Chloe to take me.”

  “Tell Selena to watch the kids, put them to bed.”

  “I’ll tell her. Are you going to be all right?” I ask her.

  “Si, si. Fine. Just please hurry.”

  Five minutes later, I run outside, locking the door behind me, and climb into Chloe’s dad’s pickup.

  “Thanks for coming so fast.”

  “Sure,” she says backing out. “So, you said Heritage Park?”

  “Yeah. If you can’t find parking, maybe you can just let me out.”

  As Chloe drives, I fiddle with my phone in my pocket, hoping Mami will call to tell me she’s reached Dr. Wheeler and I can go back home. But there is no call, and I picture Mami having to wait in the emergency room with Caroline.

  Chloe pulls up behind the small plaza surrounded by old Victorian homes-turned-mini-museums. The parking lot is completely full, so I get out, and she says she’ll wait for me in the truck. I take off toward the crowd that is gathered around the hundred-year-old Victorian house in the middle of Heritage Park. I slow down as I reach the back of the crowd.

  Mr. Wheeler is at the top of the house’s steps. Dr. Wheeler and Charlie are standing next to him as he speaks into a microphone. Charlie’s looking debonair in his navy suit and red tie. There are TV cameras and lights glaring at the Wheelers. At least a couple hundred residents of Corpus have gathered to hear him speak on what is quite possibly the most humid night in any of their lifetimes.

  I weave through the crowd, working my way toward the front. I try to make eye contact with Charlie, but he doesn’t see me. There’s a tall man in front of me, with his arm around a woman, and his cowboy boots almost trip me. I walk around them, leaning low so I don’t block their view. “Mr. Wheeler,” I hear a reporter say, “what would you say to concerned citizens, here in South Texas, and also around the country, who question your opposition to current immigration policy, and your support of amnesty for illegal immigrants?”

  Mr. Wheeler nods as if he expected this question. “Let’s be clear. Many of the people who are trying to enter this country are fleeing crushing poverty and terrible violence. And they’re arriving at the U.S. border without documentation because our current policies make legal immigration an extremely complicated and long process. These people’s lives are in danger; their children’s lives are in danger. They’re coming here because they have no choice. They’re simply seeking a safe place where they and their children can work hard, study hard, and contribute to society. I don’t think that’s too much for them to ask.”

  I keep pushing through the crowd. I’m at the front now. I don’t want to climb the short set of stairs to where the Wheelers are standing, but I can’t seem to get their attention. I wave at Charlie, but he doesn’t see me. I take tiny steps forward until I reach the banister and place my hand on it, gripping it tightly. I do another small wave, and all three Wheelers look down at me.

  Mr. Wheeler stops speaking for just an instant before continuing. Dr. Wheeler joins me at the bottom of the steps.

  Perspiration has accumulated under her blond bangs, and she wipes it away with her hand. “Millie, what is it?” she whispers.

  “My mom’s been trying to call you. Caroline may have broken her arm; they’re on their way to the emergency room.”

  “Oh no.” She grabs for both pockets of her ivory-colored jacket, feeling around. “My phone. I left it inside.” She turns to look at the house, and Charlie gives her a questioning look.

  Dr. Wheeler turns to a woman standing near the bottom of the steps. I recognize her; she’s one of the Wheelers’ friends. They whisper together for a minute before Dr. Wheeler turns back to me. “Jane is going to give me a ride. Can you tell Charlie where I went and tell him to grab my purse and phone? They’re inside.”

  Before I can answer, Dr. Wheeler and Jane dash around the side of the house toward the parking lot.

  “. . . hardworking immigrants,” Mr. Wheeler is saying, “can achieve great things. For instance, my housekeeper’s family—they were undocumented when they first came here, fleeing violence in Guatemala. They applied for asylum and were among the lucky few to receive it. They’ve spent their lives working hard, hoping to achieve the American dream for their children. And now, eighteen years later, their daughter is a U.S. citizen about to graduate from high school. A straight-A student, and she had her pick of universities.”

  I’m frozen in place. I feel strangers’ eyes on me, scrutinizing me, even though none of them could possibly know that it’s me he is talking about. The man with the cowboy boots is watching me, or at least I feel like he is.

  Mr. Wheeler continues. “That’s why so many undocumented immigrants, so many asylum seekers detained at the border, are risking their lives to get here. They want to work hard and give their children the education, the safety, the futures they deserve, so that they can make their own contributions to our country.” I look around, and it feels like everyone is staring at me, but they’re watching him.

  I can’t move. Instinctively, I want to run away from this crowd, from Mr. Wheeler’s words, but I can’t. “Our country is better with them in it. That’s why I oppose current policies at the border, and that’s why I’m in favor of a path to citizenship for undocumented young people who attend college or join the military. They’re here to work. They’re here to serve. And we need to let them do just that.”

  Tremendous applause follows his last statement. The man in the cowboy boots whistles with both his pinkies in his mouth.

  I turn and sprint back toward the street, wher
e Chloe is waiting for me in the truck.

  “Millie, hang on,” I hear behind me.

  I spin around, and Charlie Wheeler catches up to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asks me. He tugs at his collar and tie.

  “What is wrong with your dad?” I burst out. “How could he do that to me?”

  “He didn’t mean anything bad by it,” says Charlie, plainly confused. “He was praising you.”

  I turn away from him. “He shouldn’t have said something so personal about me.”

  “But everything he said was positive.” Charlie pops up beside me, matching my stride. “And, I mean, nobody knows it was you. He didn’t use your name or your mom’s.”

  I shake my head, focusing on the pickup truck ahead of me, its lights illuminating the street. Suddenly the humid air feels even more stifling. I let out a breath I’d been holding since I heard Mr. Wheeler start talking about my family.

  “He just told everyone in that crowd something very private about my family. That’s nobody’s business.” I can’t stop my voice from rising. It’s hard enough to know that people look at me differently because I wasn’t born here, but it’s even worse for them to know I was technically an undocumented immigrant when I first arrived. Papi applied for asylum right away, which gave us legal status, and we got green cards soon afterward, but people will hear undocumented and jump to their own conclusions.

  “I’m sorry if it upset you, Millie. My dad loves your family. He was just—”

  “Stop it, Charlie!” I look back at the crowd, still cheering at whatever Mr. Wheeler is saying. I don’t hear his words anymore; I just drown out his voice.

  Taking a deep breath, I suppress the urge to scream at Charlie. “My mother is in the ER right now with your sister and her broken arm.”

  “Wait. What hap—?”

  “And I left my siblings home alone so that I could chase your parents down, and then your father stands in front of hundreds of people, on camera, and talks about my family like he has a right to tell our story.”

  I turn away from him.

  “Oh, and your mother said don’t forget her purse and phone. She left them inside.” I don’t wait for him to answer before I run the rest of the way to Chloe.

  I fill Chloe in on what happened as she drives me home.

  “Wow,” she says, “Mr. Wheeler said all that without getting your family’s permission first? What was he thinking?”

  “He wasn’t thinking. It’s like he assumed that just because he was saying positive things about us, he had a right to make us a talking point for his campaign.”

  “What’s your mom going to say?”

  “Nothing!” I say, throwing my hands in the air. “She never gets mad at them for anything they do.”

  “I’m sorry,” Chloe says. “You going to be okay?”

  I shrug and lean my head against the window. I am filled with shame, and I don’t even know why. I haven’t done anything wrong.

  Chloe doesn’t say anything the rest of the drive. She probably doesn’t know what to say. She was born in Texas. She’s always been an American. She doesn’t speak Spanish and neither does her mother. Chloe is my friend, and she knows I’m hurting, but she doesn’t truly understand why.

  I stare out the window at the passing houses. Small, weather-beaten homes lifted up on cinder blocks, no foundations. These are the homes we live in. The Wheelers don’t know what it’s like. They live in a house that’s rooted firmly to the ground, with a cathedral ceiling reaching high into the sky.

  ≈

  I’m lying on the couch when Mami comes in. My physics homework has long been abandoned on the floor.

  “Mija, thank you for your help tonight. It turned out that Caroline’s arm isn’t broken, just sprained. Caroline was really scared, though. She wanted her mother.” Mami sits on the couch by my head and runs her fingers through my hair, smoothing it down.

  I want to tell her what happened at the park, but the words don’t come easily. My lungs are burning as though I’m swallowing mouthfuls of water. Shame is pressing down on me, even though I haven’t done anything wrong. And anger, but I’m not sure whom it’s directed at. Mr. Wheeler, I think, but not just him.

  “Que paso, mija?” she asks.

  My tears come quickly, which brings more shame because Mami never cries. Except for three years ago, right after Papi died.

  I manage to tell her what happened, how Mr. Wheeler told everyone about our lives.

  “Mija, eso no es nada.” She says it’s nothing, but to me it is everything. Everything about me has been exposed for strangers to hear. “He told the truth about where we come from, why we’re here. That’s something to be proud of.”

  How can I be proud of something like that? I know what others think of people like us. Wetbacks. Mojados. Illegal aliens. No matter how complimentary Mr. Wheeler was, those words will still follow me. I shake my head, but don’t say anything. She doesn’t understand; she can’t understand. She made the choice to come here, to bring me here. I had no choice.

  “Mija, Mr. Wheeler is trying to help people like us—people who don’t have our luck, who don’t have their papers.”

  Why does being helped feel like crap? I want to ask her. “I know that, but why did he have to bring me into it?”

  “You said he didn’t use our names, though. Nobody will know he was talking about you.”

  “Plenty of people could figure it out! It’s not a secret that you work for him.”

  “But why is it a problem if people know it’s you, mija? Everything he said about you is true.”

  “I just . . . I just don’t want people thinking of me as only an immigrant.”

  Mami absorbs this in silence for a moment before she says, “Are you ashamed of being an immigrant?”

  I don’t answer right away; I can’t tell her how I’m really feeling, because I don’t want her shame for me to match the shame I feel. “No. I’m just very private. That’s all.”

  She runs her hand over my forehead, smoothing down my hair and kissing the top of my head. “I’m sorry, mija. I’ll talk to Mr. Wheeler to make sure he doesn’t do something like that again.”

  I nod, thinking that there isn’t anything else that can be done about it. Mr. Wheeler’s words can’t be unsaid. They’re still hanging out there in the humid air, making their way around Corpus Christi for everyone I know to hear. “I’d better get ready for bed.” I rise up from the couch, wanting to be in my room right away because more tears are very near, and I don’t want Mami to see me cry.

  Mami gets up and walks across the room with me. “You’re such a good daughter, Milagros.” She doesn’t call me Milagros very often because she knows I don’t like my full name. She loves it, though, and I feel very loved when she calls me that. “I’m very proud of you, of everything you do.”

  The guilt stabs me again. I have to tell her about Stanford. Soon. But I don’t have the emotional energy for that conversation tonight.

  Chapter Five

  In the morning, I try to find a reason to stay home. I ask Ceci twice if her stomach hurts. Ceci has bouts of constipation sometimes. We give her medicine juice, as she calls it—apple juice mixed with a powdered laxative that makes going to the bathroom easier for her. She says she thinks she’s okay, but heads to the bathroom just in case. I silently plead with Ceci’s bowels to be stingy today, so that I can stay home with her as I’ve done in the past when she’s been sick.

  Javi’s on his back looking under the couch for his shoe, and I tell Sele to go help him, but she’s in the kitchen making her lunch. The cafeteria is serving fish sticks, and she hates fish sticks, so she’s making a sandwich. Javi and Ceci will just have to hold their noses while they eat fish sticks. I don’t have time to make lunches today.

  Mami leaves at seven-thirty every morning. She takes our neighbor Mrs. Rosario to work before heading to the Wheelers’ house. After she leaves, Sele and I walk Ceci and Javi to school and head to our different
bus stops. I already know we’re going to be pushing it to be on time. I kneel down next to Javi just as I hear the doorbell.

  I take a quick look under the couch before getting up. “Go check your room again,” I tell Javi.

  He growls and storms into his room, one shoe in his hand. “I already looked there!”

  When I open the door, Charles and Charlie Wheeler are standing there. I instinctively glance behind me, surveying the mess of backpacks, Barbies, and breakfast dishes on the living room floor.

  “Hi,” I say, but I don’t invite them in. I look over my shoulder and take a step to my left, attempting to block their view of pants-less, headless Malibu Barbie. “My mom just left. She’s on her way to your house.”

  “That’s fine, Millie,” Mr. Wheeler says. “I came by to talk to you for a minute, if that’s okay.”

  I want to tell him it’s not okay, but I don’t. We never tell the Wheelers it’s not okay.

  “I can’t find it!” Javi yells from his room. “Millie!”

  “I’m sorry,” Mr. Wheeler says. “I know this isn’t the best time, but I really wanted to apologize about last night. I feel terrible.”

  “Millie!” Javi yells again.

  “Sele, go help Javi,” I call into the kitchen.

  Mr. Wheeler rushes on. “Charlie told me last night how much I upset you, and I just really wanted to apologize.”

  I look at Charlie. He smiles awkwardly. It’s that smile, that look that says his full attention is on you. He has this way of making you feel like he’s actually interested in what you have to say. Which is possibly why so many of us think we might actually have a chance with him, until we realize that’s how he interacts with absolutely everyone.

  I refocus on his dad. “I just wish you hadn’t said all that,” I say feebly. All my feelings from last night come flooding back. Heat spreads to my face, and I feel my chest thumping. I suppress the angry words, letting them die before they fully form in my head. I want to say them, but I know I can’t. The man in front of me pays my mom’s salary. Everything that surrounds me comes from him.