“You said you owed Elizabeth. What do you owe her?”
Another trait Sarah had warned her about. The coach often answered a question with a question.
Alicia hated dredging up the same old story. If only she could have had normal parents.
“You know about my father. He was married to Elizabeth, but also ... well ... he was with my mother. He told her he loved her but couldn’t leave Elizabeth because of Sarah.” The familiar, golf ball-sized mass choked her throat, making it difficult to speak. “He ... uh ...” She started to pace again. “Got my mother pregnant. Then he died.”
He’d left everyone in a tangled mess.
She hated talking about this.
“It must be very difficult for you,” Carol said. “Your parents were living a lie for a very long time. You didn’t have anything to do with their deception, but I can understand its impact on your life.”
She perched on one of the rocks that edged the parking lot and stared at the fog-enshrouded shoreline. Far out in the bay, the sun cut through the mist, shining on the roiling water.
The steel hand on her chest loosened.
“Elizabeth told me that your mother asked her to give you a job when you became pregnant, and she did,” Carol continued. “Is that what you mean by owing her?”
“Yes.”
“So ... she’s only kept you on because of obligation. You haven’t provided any value as an employee or a person? You never see her outside of work?”
That was ridiculous. Of course she did.
“I was at Elizabeth’s last Friday night.”
“Ah.”
Silence.
New ideas inched into her head. “Do you think I only want to own a day spa and cosmetic store because of Elizabeth?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“But I wanted to work in one in high school. That’s why my mother went to Elizabeth in the first place.”
“People change, Alicia. What we thought we wanted as young people very often shifts when we experience reality. What do you want right now?”
A longing for something filled her heart, but she couldn’t define it. Her vision was as shrouded as the valley below. “I don’t know.”
“Let’s see if we can do some work to figure it out.”
Alicia remembered the other thing Sarah had warned her about. “You want me to journal.”
Carol laughed. “Word travels fast. Yes, my dear. At least three pages every morning before you get out of bed.”
Alicia tried to come up with a good excuse as to why she couldn’t do the journaling, but she knew there weren’t any.
“One other thing,” the coach said. “You talk about Elizabeth, but not about your own mother. She did a very brave thing by asking for a job for you. Aren’t you close to her?”
“I don’t like my mother.” She stood and started pacing.
“Why not?”
Her feet pounded the blacktop as she tried to find an acceptable answer.
“Are you judging your mother for what she did?”
Back to the other end of the parking lot. Unease pulled at her. Of course she was judging her mother. She’d committed adultery.
“Look. Can’t we leave it at ‘I don’t like her’?”
“For now, maybe. But I think it’s something we’re going to have to address, don’t you?”
Not if I can help it.
• • •
Later that evening, Alicia seated herself in an aisle desk in the last row of the sociology classroom.
What would it be like?
“Hi.” A familiar-looking boy slid in beside her. “I’m Josh. We met a few weeks ago when you were signing up for the semester. Alicia, right?”
“Sí.” She pulled her notepad from her bag. Glancing at Josh, she saw he’d set up a slim tablet with a keyboard.
What was she doing here? How was sociology going to get her one step closer to independence?
Chair legs scraped on the linoleum floor as other students took their places. Like Josh, many of them set up tablets. A few pulled out notepads.
Susan Walker, the instructor she’d met when she registered, strode to the front of the room.
“She’s supposed to be good but tough. No easy grade here,” Josh said.
“Welcome, class. I’m Dr. Susan Walker, and you’re in Sociology of the Family. If this is not your final destination, please deplane now.”
A current of nervous laughter flowed through the classroom.
“By the end of our time together, I hope you’ll have a firm grasp of the internal and external dynamics that mold a family, influences beyond the people inside the construct, as well as how the nuclear family interacts and influences society.”
What was she talking about? Tension gripped the veins in Alicia’s temples. If she couldn’t understand the first things Dr. Susan said, how was she ever going to pass the class?
I need to drop it. Get my money back. Take another business class so I can finish sooner.
“As some of you may have heard, this isn’t a cake class. There’s a great deal of reading and three required papers. But I also want you to succeed, so I’ll be available to meet with you for whatever help you need.”
Dr. Susan paced in front of the classroom and made eye contact with each student. “Ah, my friend who enjoys the view from the top of the stairs as much as I do. Welcome, Alicia.”
Everyone turned to stare.
She wanted to slink into her chair.
Dr. Susan moved on. “I’m going to ask you to take a good, clear look at your family of origin and whatever relationships you have right now and compare and contrast them to what we learn from our text.” She smiled. “You may learn things that surprise you.”
Great. The last thing Alicia needed was any more surprises about her family.
“My office hours are posted on my door down this corridor. However, I know many of you have jobs, families, and other obligations. If you need to see me for any reason and can’t make my hours, please make other arrangements. I’d rather see you before you have problems than flunk you out of this class.” She leaned forward on her desk. “And make no mistake. If you don’t do the work, I will flunk you.”
An F in her first class? Definitely dropping out.
“Okay. Let’s begin. What’s a family?”
A mother, a father, two children, and a dog. Nothing like my mother and me.
Josh raised his hand, and Dr. Susan nodded at him.
“It can be any group of people who make a commitment to each other. Traditionally, it’s a man, woman, and their offspring, but there are lots of different kinds of families these days.” He sounded like he’d not only read the textbook but memorized it.
“Good,” Dr. Susan said. “In order to be good sociologists, we need to look at reality, not some stereotypical picture.”
Alicia glanced at Josh.
He winked at her.
“What kind of family do you have?” Dr. Susan asked.
Josh chuckled. “Mom, Dad, younger sister. Pretty classic.”
Dr. Susan turned to Alicia. “And you?”
“About as opposite from that as you can get.”
The professor waited.
“My grandmother. My mother. Me. My son.” Stark comparison.
“And it’s still a family from a sociological point of view.” Dr. Susan walked to the board. “So let’s delve into the idea of family more.”
Now that the instructor was talking at a human level instead of sounding like an academic paper, Alicia became absorbed as she talked about how different families interacted. Her own family had been molded by their culture and the expectations of other Mexicans, as well as Anglos’ views on Latinos.
How different Josh’s experience was from hers. She’d never looked at how culture affected the interactions between two people before.
Her pulse quickened as she thought about the implications.
What about Raúl? What little she knew about fieldworkers—and
there’d been many of those families in and around Los Banos—told her those families experienced a lot of hard labor for very little pay, while she’d grown up relatively comfortable. Between the money her father had left and her mother’s job as a paralegal, she’d never wanted for anything.
From what she’d learned from Raúl, his childhood had been nothing like hers. Yet he’d been more than kind to her.
Maybe she should go out with him. Get to know him more. See if they had anything in common besides running and Luis.
Questions bombarded her. How did people with different backgrounds communicate? When people fought with each other, did they know what they were actually angry about? What if they disagreed about important things? How was that ever resolved?
Dr. Susan’s words wormed their way into her mind and hooked her.
She wasn’t going to drop sociology. She was going to ace it.
“When’s your next class?” Josh asked at the end of the session.
“I’m done for the day. I have to get home to my child.”
“Oh. When are you here next?”
“Thursday.”
“Can we hook up for coffee?”
Alicia hesitated. She didn’t want to encourage Josh, but she didn’t want to be standoffish. Part of going to college was meeting new people.
“Just friends.” He held up his hands, his smooth-skinned palms white in the overhead fluorescent lights.
“Sure.”
“Great!”
After he left, Dr. Susan called out to her. “Alicia, I wanted to reiterate my offer of extra help whenever you need it. With a little one, it can be hard. I don’t mind if you bring him or her with you to see me if you need to do that.”
Alicia shook her head. “Thank you, but it’s best to do it without Luis. He’s ... well ... difficult. He doesn’t like to go to new places.”
“I see. I imagine you have a job as well.”
Alicia nodded.
“Yes. Well. Remember I want to help you succeed.” Dr. Susan placed her hand on her arm. “You seem to be an intelligent young lady. You could go far.”
Alicia didn’t know what to say. The earth that had seemed so solid a few weeks before was turning to sand beneath her feet. “Thank you.”
Pausing at the top of the stairs, she stared at the bay. Who was she becoming? A change that had begun when she signed up for a class on a whim had cracked through her life and, like the hull of a sailboat through the waves, propelled her to an unknown destination.
• • •
“Dr. Mendez, they said you would look at my son. I don’t have much money. I can give you this.” The mother, sun-aged beyond her years, held out a much-folded twenty-dollar bill.
Although it pained him to do so, Raúl took the money and put it in one of the pockets of his white coat. To do anything else would have been an insult. “Sí. Gracias. It is enough.” He’d add it to the jar in his office, already stuffed with coins and bedraggled folding money. Someday he’d figure out what to do with it.
“Let’s see what’s up with you.” He checked the child’s heart rate and lungs, the blank stare in the young child’s eyes twisting his heart. His eyes were sunken, his stomach distended, and yet his ribs were evident through his thin skin.
When Raúl pressed on the boy’s abdomen, the child let out a moan, giving a clue to the problem.
“Does this hurt?” Raúl pressed a different spot on the belly, using slightly less pressure.
The boy nodded.
“Does it itch when you poop?”
Again, the nod.
“I think he has a tapeworm,” Raúl said to the woman, smiling to ease the news. “Common for these kids to get because they run in the fields barefoot in the summer. Did you bring a stool sample?”
“Is it bad?”
Bad encompassed so many things. Hurtful to her son. Time-consuming. Expensive.
Raúl shook his head. “We’ll run some tests. It’ll take a few days. If it’s what I think, I’ll help you with treatment. You’ll have to keep him indoors for a while, though, even after he starts to feel better.”
While tapeworm in the country as a whole was rare, the cases occurred frequently enough with fieldworkers’ children for him to keep a supply of medicine on hand. Once his suspicions were confirmed, he’d provide some of it to the woman at no charge, like he had for many others before.
He’d never be a rich doctor.
The woman grabbed his hand. “Gracias. Gracias.”
“De nada.”
Raúl signed the bill with the code that he and his partner had agreed to use when providing free care for those who couldn’t afford it and didn’t have insurance. Illnesses were much easier to treat when caught early.
Back in his office, he went through the short stack of mail that his staff had left for him. The first few letters were thank-you notes from grateful patients. Some had enclosed a few dollars to help with payments. Others suggested he stop by their vegetable stands for a box of their good food as repayment.
The return address on the second to last envelope came from “Americans to Protect Our Children.” Even before he opened it, he had a hunch he wouldn’t like its contents.
“As a medical professional,” the letter began, “I believe you understand what is at stake when you are forced to treat people who are in this country illegally. You worked long and hard to become a doctor, and you have the right to see who you want to see and when you want to see them. The government shouldn’t make you tend patients who won’t pay you.
Raúl looked at the signature. Joe Wilson. Had the man bothered to look at Raúl’s last name before he sent this piece of garbage?
The rest of letter continued in the same vein.
Proposition 187 failed to save our state infrastructure from being overrun by illegals because the federal government decided it was their job to handle immigration. Well, they haven’t been doing a very good job, have they? It’s time to find a way to ensure that health services American citizens pay for with their hard-earned dollars are restricted to American citizens. We cannot continue to pay extra from our own pockets to provide health care to those who don’t belong here.
Raúl skimmed down to the end of the letter. It appeared Joe Wilson was soliciting money from doctors to set up a fund to develop and launch a new initiative with a very narrow target: limiting health care to American citizens.
It made him burn.
But what could he do about it?
He tapped the edge of the envelope on the desk, the click sound beating in time with his rising heart rate.
He had his family to think of.
Who was he fooling? They weren’t coming back. Maybe it was time for him to start living his life instead of trying to repair a childhood that was gone.
Wilson was only beginning—still fundraising.
What if Raúl put together his own organization, committed to battling whatever the Joe Wilsons of the world dreamed up? Someone needed to see to the care of the people who grew and harvested America’s food—and their children—whether or not they were legal citizens. Why not him?
Because he still held out hope, no matter how slim, that he could get his family back to the States. He had to keep his head below the radar to convince the government to help him.
He tossed the letter on the desk and opened the last envelope—the one with a Mexican postmark.
“Sobrino,” the letter began.
We have some bad news. Juan has joined the vigilantes fighting the cartels. We haven’t heard from him in weeks and are afraid. So many men have been killed. The worry is aging your parents. If you hear from him, please tell him to call home.
Raúl’s chest tightened. So many things beyond his control. The only hope he could offer his parents was a prayer on Sunday for his brother’s safety.
If his brother could risk his life for a better Mexico, maybe it was time for him to take a stand for justice and compassion.
No matter what
the cost.
Chapter 7
Alicia slipped into one of the back pews, said a quick prayer, and waited for the Mass to begin.
“Mind if I join you?” The spicy scent of Raúl’s aftershave tickled her nose as he sat next to her.
“Not at all.”
The look in his eyes was probably inappropriate for church. “You look very nice,” he said quietly.
Heat prickled her skin. “Gracias.”
The rustle of hymnals being slid from the backs of pews and the smell of incense seeping from censers became the background for the connection developing with the man at her side.
As the people behind her stood, the cool current of air brought her back to reality. She and Raúl stood and bowed their heads as the crucifix passed. Behind the priests, latecomers scurried into pews.
Graciela squeezed into the space to Raúl’s left. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she whispered. “I took a little too long getting ready. I hoped I’d see you here, Dr. Raúl.” She glanced at Alicia. “Oh, hi, Alicia.”
Next to her, Raúl stiffened.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” the priest intoned.
Alicia quickly crossed herself, praying for the strength to be civil to her former friend and doing her best to concentrate on the Mass ritual. In spite of her resolve, she found it difficult to listen to the lessons, homily, and prayers.
“The peace of the Lord be always with you.”
“And with you,” the congregation responded.
A flurry of handshakes, hugs, kisses, and gossip waved through the congregation.
Graciela hung onto Raúl’s hand a few seconds too long.
When he turned to Alicia, he took both of her hands in hers. “Peace of the Lord.” His gaze was like the sun on her skin.
“And also with you.” She was having feelings no one should have in church.
“I’ll talk to you after Mass,” he mouthed.
Alicia’s nerves grew goose bumps on her skin as she waited for the remainder of the service to complete. She almost leapt out of her seat when the priest finally said, “The Mass is ended. Go in peace.”
“Thanks be to God.”
Indeed.
“The invitation is still open, Dr. Raúl.” The wheedling in Graciela’s voice raked like a nail on finished metal. “My family would love to meet the famous doctor.”
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