In my room, crying all stupid, my mouth wet, I shoved my bed in front of the door. I went to the shower and turned the cold knob as far as it’d go. The journal got wet when I opened the first page and the letters began to smear. I was about to tear it into pieces so that no one could ever figure out what I’d written. But something stopped me. I threw it out and it landed on the sink. Then, under the shower, I turned the knob to hot and grabbed it with both hands. I wanted to hit my head against the wall but I was too chicken, then I was mad for being too chicken. My skin turned pink, and to keep moving I grabbed the shampoo and covered myself with it.
Larry and the officer banged on the door, over and over again, until I screamed as loud as I could. “THIEVES! You hear me! THIEVES!”
And then they stopped.
EL MUNDO
There was a photograph from their wedding day in a frame under the television. You can tell it was Papi who took the shot, the way Mom is running away from him, looking back, the veil between her and the lens. When you look at the photo you know he’s smiling too. You can sense it. Entre ellos no hay nada en el mundo que no tenga sentido.
Tencha gave me a photo of myself the other day and I tried to remember being a two-year-old sitting on the counter with flour on my face. My hair was red then, which is weird because now it’s black. The ones who love me say, Sí, mija, eres tú. I have no choice but to believe them. In the photograph, the girl has a smile over her face, her mouth is half-open, and there’s a pasty white mess between her fingers.
EL NEGRITO
This is what Julia said to me this morning.
“Larry thought it might be a good idea if I was the one who spoke to you. I know it’s been awhile since you’ve been here and that’s what I’d like to talk to you about.”
I was sitting by the window with hot chocolate in front of me steaming out of a cup.
“I want to apologize,” she said. “We’re sorry, everyone is very sorry about your notebook. It was very inconsiderate of us and we should’ve asked your permission. We had no right, but I want you to know, Luz, we thought your notebook would help your father. But—”
Silencio.
She didn’t have the balls to explain how wrong she was.
“We’ll never take it again. I promise. It’s yours, and we’re deeply sorry.
“I want to speak to you like a grown-up because I think of you that way, Luz. The way you’ve coped has been more mature than some of the teenagers here. You’re a big girl, and we want you to be protected. Do you understand? It’s important for us to provide a good home for you.”
I know she wanted me to look at her or respond, but I didn’t. I looked down and cleaned the dirt from under my nails.
“Luz, your father has pleaded guilty to aggravated assault of a police officer. The D.A. decided there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him with anything else. And that’s good news, Luz. He might, or rather, he could get out of prison in three years and live with you again. You can visit him whenever you want if you stay.”
Silencio.
“Because there is no legal guardian who can take custody of you, and you are an American citizen, we would like to transfer you to Casa de Esperanza. We know your Aunt Tencha has been trying to get her residence permit, but . . . we have to find you a home. You need someone who’s going to look after you and take care of you. Luz, you can’t live with your aunt here in the United States. She doesn’t have a resident permit, and we’ve been told by immigration that she’s never applied for one. She mentioned you might want to go back to Mexico. Is that true? Would you want to go back to Mexico? If you don’t want to live at Casa de Esperanza, we have decided, for your well-being, to give you the option to return to Mexico with your aunt. But only if you want to. I’m sure your grandfather would love to see you. And you could come back whenever you want and visit your father.”
Más silencio.
“Do you understand, Luz? If you want to go visit Casa de Esperanza, we can arrange that for you. We’re here to help. You know that, right? Do you understand? Do you have any questions?”
The hot chocolate steamed even after she was done talking. Not until it was cold did she get up and leave me alone.
EL PESCADO
I dreamt of Angelitos negros last night. The movie about the mom who has a black baby girl and hates her because she’s black. Not until the end of the movie does she find out her “real” mom is the black maid she’s had all her life. But in the movie the girl is not even black. They paint her skin with dark makeup and it’s obvious she’s white. There’s a moment in the movie the girl covers herself in flour, and they ask her, “What are you doing?” She says, “I want my mother to love me.” And she makes this pouty expression like Shirley Temple. In my dream I was the actress playing the girl, but I was late for work. I didn’t have time to put the makeup on, so only half of my face was dark and the other light. I didn’t want to get fired, so I ran to the set where we were filming and did the scene anyway. The director said something looked different. Something was off. “No, no, nothing’s off,” I said. “I think you forgot, you said we’d be shooting underwater today. So maybe that’s what it is.” He said, “Oh yeah, let’s move it!” We all packed our things, lights, costumes. Pedro Infante and I talked about where we were going for lunch, hoping this one taco vendor was going to be near the parking lot in his usual spot during break. Then, all of a sudden, we were all underwater and I couldn’t hear at first, let alone see, but we moved through the scene as if it were normal, like if we’d done it before. And down there, the makeup came off anyway, so it didn’t matter. I told the director, “This is so much better, it makes so much more sense,” with bubbles around my face. And he tried to tell me something too, so I leaned in closer to him, but I was talking and he was talking and there were bubbles everywhere. I felt his fingers on my lips like if he were trying to tell me to shut up and listen, but his fingers were thin. And slowly, the bubbles floated away and right in front of me was Mom. She was looking at me, holding my shoulders in place, keeping me still and staring at me like if I were in a fishbowl. There was a white light coming off of her and I started to feel happy, without saying anything at all, just feeling happy because she was giving me tips in a movie I was in, directing me here and there, saying don’t cry so much in this part, don’t move around so much when people say their lines. I nodded at everything she said because I understood, and I wanted to make her happy. I wanted to make her proud. As I looked at her, all quiet, all still, I saw the dark blue fingerprints around her neck, like two hands wrapped around her throat that had become stained on her skin. And when she saw me looking at them she grabbed my chin and lifted it, then pointed with two fingers to her eyes. Like if to say, “Look here, look up here.” And then we floated to the surface as she slowly disappeared.
LA BANDERA
I wrote most of the cards at the center. Now I’m writing La Bandera from a different room. I have three cards left, and I don’t know how it’s helped, but somehow I want to finish. Maybe this was a way for You to listen, which is really like listening to myself. A way for me to go to communion. I have to believe that if I keep playing it will be for something.
After Julia talked to me two days ago, I went to my room and packed my things and went to the office and said, “Julia.”
She was at her desk with her head in her hands.
“Call my aunt,” I said. “I want to go home.”
I’d talked with Tencha and tried to convince her that it would only be for a little while, then we could come back once she got her papers. If we could go, then let’s go. What are we waiting for? She looked at me and swayed, yes, no, yes, no, then said we could go down and stay with Buelo Fermín if that’s what I wanted.
The day we left you’d never know I was there for three weeks. In and out the days went, with those runny eggs in the morning and the television shows, and the other kids screaming. I didn’t leave anything for them to remember me by.
; Sometimes I wonder if they told Tencha what they read in my journal. I don’t think they did because I would’ve been able to see it on her face. Or maybe I wouldn’t.
She always said to me, “There’s nothing illegal about him. Es un buen padre.”
And I know he is, but what about me? Am I a good daughter?
Most of the time she was asking questions, “You writing? Did you write something like I told you to?” But she never asked what, not since they took it. Maybe if she’d read it she’d say, “No, No, No, that’s not true.” But that’s what we do, right? We tell our own stories. We have our own tablas.
We were out of the center and I didn’t look back, not even at my desk or that stupid chair. That stupid desk where I built houses of cards and blew them down.
We’d been in the car for about three hours and I started to feel lighter, like if there was wind beneath us. The escort officer stayed far enough behind so that it didn’t feel like we were on a leash.
“You know what’s missing?” I said.
“¿Qué? Missing with what?” Tencha said. She was sweating like a glass of cold water. The window was down and the day was all dusty orange. “In Lotería,” I said. “You know what should be part of the deck?”
“What?”
“An eagle. How do you say eagle in Spanish?”
“Águila.”
“Like Tony Aguilar.”
“Yeah, but without the ‘r.’ ”
“Instead of the first card being El Gallo it should be an American bird, not a Mexican. Because you can’t count on roosters.”
“Mama, what are you talking about?”
“Eagles can fly, Tencha. The only thing gallos do is scream loud and fight.”
We drove farther away from the city and the land became less and less of anything. There were small towns we drove through with posters of Mexican Duvalín outside the stores we passed. But I didn’t see anyone walking on the sidewalks or playing in the parks. It was like they knew we were coming and hid inside to avoid being seen.
“When do the hills start coming?” I asked. “When do we go up and down?”
“Not until after the border,” she said. “When we get to Mexico.”
“I’m not going to have problems, am I? Like you in the States.”
“No, mama. You’re Mexican,” she said. “They’re not going to say anything. You can stay for as long as you want. And you can come back whenever you want. Don’t worry. I have your birth certificate.”
“But I was born here,” I said. And she didn’t say anything.
We stopped at a small convenience store and bought two Cokes and some chicharrones. The lady behind the register spoke to me in Spanish, and I looked at Tencha like if I didn’t understand. “You better start practicing,” she said. “No one’s going to speak to you in English.”
In the car, the road rippled and warped like if it were melting. We had to stop at a checkpoint, a place on the road where cars were waiting for an officer to let them pass. It moved forward every two minutes, so it seemed fine, but I felt sick to my stomach. Tencha turned the radio off so she could concentrate, even though she kept saying it was all going to be simple and fine and there was nothing to worry about. We stopped and I could see the officers open the trunk of a car in front of us. They talked to each other for a long time, then called someone on their walkie-talkie.
I looked out the window and saw something in the desert. At first it looked like a black trash bag blowing between the bushes. But I had to squint because whatever it was, it fell over and got up again, then kicked the dirt. “Look! Can you see that?” I said. Tencha looked out and squinted. “¿Qué?” she mumbled. Before I answered, I squinted again and tried to focus. If it weren’t for when it opened its arms and took two steps, like if he were carrying a crucifix, maybe I wouldn’t have said anything.
“There’s a man out there!”
“I don’t see anything,” she said. “You’re imagining it.”
I looked at her in that way she knew I was serious, but then, when I turned to him, he was gone. “He was there,” I said, pointing. “He must’ve fallen, but he was right there, I saw him.” She rubbed my thigh and said it was the heat. “Take a nap, mama. You’re tired. It’s the sun. Close your eyes.” I kept looking for him but I couldn’t find him. I knew I’d seen him, and so I opened the passenger door and stepped outside.
“Luz! Get in here,” she said, looking forward and back like if someone were coming. But I wanted to see him again, with his arms out to You. How could I not think of Papi at the sight of that man trying to walk? I was running away and trying to forget what had happened, but what if I couldn’t? What if I couldn’t forgive myself? I thought of Papi and how he made me, and how Mom made me, and how their blood is more mine than Tencha’s.
One of the cars in front of us made a U-turn and headed back from where we came from. The escort officer behind us turned his head to see it pass. I looked at the road we’d come from, the way it melted into itself from the heat, then looked at Tencha.
“What, mama?” she said.
I didn’t say anything because I didn’t have to. She knows me. Somos iguales.
“What are you thinking in that little head of yours?” she said, with a face that knew me more than I knew myself. Like if it wasn’t Tencha looking at me, but You.
I turned my head to the officer in front of us searching the trunk of someone’s car. Then to the car driving away behind us.
“What, mama?” she said. “What?”
I knew she might hate me and it’d be a long time before I saw her again. But it was either Mexico or the House of Hope. Maybe I was supposed to run away and open my arms and run through the desert like that man, looking up at You. The way Papi might be doing in his cell, not forgetting but trying to move forward. Trying to forgive himself. And maybe if I ran with my arms out You could take me and decide what to do with me. I looked at Tencha in that way you know us Mexicans know how, in the way You taught us. In that way that says I love you so much it hurts. So when I saw her looking at me like if she were seeing a ghost, I grabbed my backpack from the front seat and ran toward the officer behind us, waving my arms above my head and yelling as loud as I could, “KIKIRIKIKI!! KIKIRIKIKI!! KIKIRIKIKI!!”
And he must’ve thought for sure that I was crazy.
LA LUNA
I’m at Casa de Esperanza now, the house where hope lives.
Y me llamo Luz. My sister Estrella, The Star.
I figured I could keep waiting for Papi to get out since that’s all I’ve done. And when I’m done writing the cards, I thought maybe I’d send them to Tencha. That way she can read them and finally accept what happened. Because though I’m Papi’s daughter, I’m honest. That’s what she taught me.
When I think of Estrella I remember how she’d act silly sometimes when she was in a good mood, wet from the pool plopped on the sidewalk, looking like a girl watching television with her head up at the stars. I’d be like her, in the same position, supported by my hands with my butt on the ground, looking up at You. She said behind the face of the Moon, You were there. But she was acting silly and serious at the same time. She wanted to tell me You were right there between us. I looked at her face and saw You, the way she saw You in the Moon. She’d look at me, waiting for me to say something, then start singing “Pena, penita, pena,” and I could almost feel her heart come out of her skin. You and me and her, together in the way she looked at me.
It’s like that sometimes. I see You in people’s faces before they tell me something that means a lot to them. And that’s why I loved her, because I saw You there, in the way she looked at me. Maybe when she was looking at me she was looking at You?
One time, Tencha said to me, “Come here, come here,” like if I were some sort of dog. And I know love is expressed in strange ways, but still. Anyway, there I was, her little dog. She held me tight, and I couldn’t breathe. She said, “Te quiero, Luz. Lo sabes, ¿verdad?”
“
Yeah, I know,” I said. And we looked up at the Moon.
LA RANA
And who comes last, La Rana, the one who reminds me of the sounds we heard from the window when we were trying to fall asleep.
When we were little, when we were kids, we liked to sleep in Buelita Fe’s room whenever we got tired. We fell asleep with the television on in the living room while Papi and them were watching Siempre en Domingo. The wasps hit against the screen and the light outside turned lavender.
Buelita Fe had two beds. Hers was slanted because she had to keep her head above her feet, otherwise she’d snore and wake herself up. Luisa slept on that bed with me, and Gastón and Miriam slept on the other bed with Estrella.
We had never played the game before and I don’t remember who mentioned it. I think it was Luisa. All I can remember was her on top of me pushing her hips into mine like in the movies. That’s what it was, we were just acting like the adults in the movies. Her head tilted side-to-side like she was looking at puppies in a store window. Her tongue was out, and she kept asking, “Wanna make out?” “No,” I said. “You’re gross.” “It’s not gross if the actors do it,” she said. Then she’d get off me and tell me it was my turn, see if I could do any better. I looked over to Estrella and Gastón, and they were just looking. Gastón was lying on his stomach. He turned away like if I were going to flash him or something. But then he would turn around and keep looking. “Don’t act like you don’t want to do it too,” Luisa said. She opened her legs and squeezed me between her. And then I did it, because, so, we were just playing. We had our clothes on. But I was worried Papi was going to hear us from the living room and catch us. He was right there and the door was wide open. But the lights were out in the room, and we were in the dark.
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