Cartel Wives

by Mia Flores

  Still, seeing their dad in prison wasn’t always easy for them. In fact, for Brandon, it was actually painful.

  Mia

  Brandon would break down every weekend, and Peter and I felt terrible watching it. We’d hear a cry that’s hard to describe; it was like he was hurting inside, and that feeling was screaming to come out.

  Olivia

  Brandon was the only baby who remembered his dad outside of a prison wall, so he took it the hardest. He understood what it was like to miss someone so much that it physically hurts.

  Mia

  Life with their dads in prison was all the babies had ever known. And for my new baby, it was going to be the same. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to keep our family close given the circumstances, but I kept telling myself, This is your life now, and this is just what you have to do.

  Sometimes, it wasn’t so bad. Compared to so many women who get pregnant with no steady partner and no support system, I had it good. In fact, Peter was already bending over backward to be involved with my pregnancy, and he had been since the beginning.

  Because I couldn’t call Peter in prison, I had to wait for him to call me. To feel more involved in family life, Peter always noted all my appointments in his calendar, plus our family events and little occasions like the day Bella got her first tooth. The first few months after I found out I was pregnant, he stored up all his phone minutes, knowing he couldn’t waste them since I had big doctor’s visits coming up. The day I found out whether we were having a boy or a girl, I sat on my hands for what felt like forever till he called. I knew he’d marked it in his calendar; he just hadn’t been given the opportunity to use the phone.

  Then my cell rang, and before he even had a chance to say “hello,” I started talking. “Are you ready to teach your son how to play basketball?”

  “I’m having a son?” he screamed.

  He was so loud the whole prison probably shook, and hearing him so happy made my heart sing. Right then, I needed that pure joy, that crazy excitement, because what I refused to tell my husband was that I was having a really, really hard time living with his family in Alabama.

  Olivia

  Everyone’s lives had completely changed when we left Mexico, but Mia and I rolled with it. Sure, it was hard, but not because we didn’t have the material things we were used to, and certainly not because we regretted what Peter and Junior had done. We were proud of them! We just missed our husbands terribly and worried constantly that we were going to be killed by the cartels, who had the money and the means to track us down.

  Peter and Junior’s family, on the other hand, couldn’t stand the fact that they started working for the government. While it brought out the best in us, it was just the opposite for them.

  Mia

  Peter and Junior had been their family’s meal tickets. With them gone—and in such a shameful way—their parents and siblings complained all the time. There was constant fighting. When Peter and Junior told their family they had to get jobs, like normal people do, I heard my in-laws complain.

  “What kind of job do they expect us to do?” they asked, genuinely confused and angry. They were just paralyzed, sitting around the house doing next to nothing.

  Olivia

  Junior and Peter had enabled their family members. They were so used to living in Mexico, where you pay cash for everything. In the United States, you have to have credit, and you need references to rent a house. Peter’s dad was a convicted felon who’d been a fugitive for years. He wasn’t a landlord’s dream tenant, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get a credit card to make him look better on paper. Credit was for poor people, not him.

  Mia

  I don’t blame them for being so self-involved, but I hated that they couldn’t see how depressed I was. They complained constantly to me, assuming that I could do something, when all the while I was thinking, How can I fix anything when I’m as lost as you are?

  My parents were so overprotective when it came to me and Bella, and I knew they would have come and packed me up in a day if I’d asked them to. But I was too ashamed to tell them that I was at my very worst. I even shied away from talking to Peter about it since I knew all he wanted was for me to be happy.

  Adrian and Daniela would check on me from time to time, but they had their own lives. I felt so alone, living in my apartment with Bella, and I struggled every day. Bella was a huge baby. I’m tiny, and she was half as big as I was. People would see us out and say, “Is that your baby, or are you babysitting for someone?” With my belly, I could hardly pick her up. In that awful heat, I’d be pouring sweat. The best I could do was just let Bella float in a little raft in the pool all day to cool us down and tire her out. At night, I’d cook a healthy dinner for myself, we’d take a long bath, and I’d read to her. Then I’d turn on the television, let Bella fall asleep in my arms, then cry silently to myself.

  In the morning, I could hardly get up, but I’d force myself to pick up Bella and go out and run errands. As soon as I put her in her car seat, she’d already be dripping in sweat.

  Yet no one in Peter’s family offered to help me. No one.

  Olivia

  They just didn’t understand why Junior and Peter were doing what they were doing, and it consumed them. It was like they didn’t have time and energy to consider anyone but themselves, and they couldn’t see the big picture. They didn’t think about Peter and Junior, that if they hadn’t made the decision they had, they’d be dead or in prison for life.

  My father-in-law took it the worst. To him, Junior and Peter becoming snitches was the most horrible thing they’d ever done. When he’d found out his sons were cooperating, he’d screamed, “You’re both cowards!” and stormed out of the house. They were the last words he’d spoken in the months before they’d turned themselves in, and since their dad never visited them in prison, it was one of the last memories they had of him. It hurt them—deeply. Peter and Junior knew that what they were doing was right, but the little boys inside of them still wanted their dad’s approval.

  I didn’t know what to feel because I loved my father-in-law, but I felt terrible for what he’d said to Junior and Peter. Being called cowards broke their hearts. But I didn’t hold it against my father-in-law; it was just the way he’d been raised.

  Mia

  In my family, we always greet each other with a hug and a kiss. That’s just what we do. We say goodbye with a hug and a kiss, too. My dad’s never been anything but affectionate and loving with me, always smiling and pleasant to be around. Sure, he gets upset about things and speaks his mind, but he’s not an angry guy. He’s manly, but not macho.

  That’s the opposite of Peter’s dad. Señor had this way about him that I feared right from the first time I met him. He never smiled, and at dinner he’d get really stern and pound his fist on the table when he’d talk. I’d think, Oh, my goodness, is he mad? He wasn’t—or usually wasn’t. He was just passionate.

  For the first year or so I knew my father-in-law, our conversations consisted of “Good morning!” and “Good night!” That was it. There was no small talk. There was no “Hi, are you having a good day?” And there was certainly no hugging or kissing when we saw each other. We were all business. At the time I thought, Maybe he’s so unfriendly because he already has so many sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, and having another is no biggie? But now I realize that’s just the way he was. He was set in his ways.

  Peter understood this, and he went with it and spoke to him like a friend. They’d sometimes argue, usually about money, and I’d keep my mouth shut the whole time. When it was over and his dad had stormed off into another room, I’d say, “Look what just happened! You can’t get out of line with your dad.”

  Peter would laugh. “That’s just how he is, Mia. He’s not really mad. It’s just how he is.”

  Olivia

  My father-in-law was a typical old-school Mexican man. He was completely different than my dad, who was encouraging and supportive and wan
ted me to be smart and independent, like my mom. Still, I got along with my father-in-law, and I actually really understood him. I never judged him, and I grew to love him.

  When I first came on the scene, I wasn’t afraid to be as strong as him. I spoke my mind, and over the years, I’d call him out if I thought he did something wrong. Sometimes it wasn’t pretty, but I think he appreciated that someone was having a real conversation with him, actually paying attention to him, even if it was more of a debate. He wouldn’t really argue with me; he’d just smirk and smile to himself. He thought I was funny.

  Once, he woke up my mother-in-law after one of our late night debates.

  “Olivia is muy cabrona,” he said, meaning I was a real bad-ass bitch who didn’t take no shit.

  My mother-in-law just smiled, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

  Mia

  Despite my initial hesitation, I grew to love my father-in-law. Not just because he was family, but because I started to understand him. He began to seem like a normal person, not the stereotypical macho Mexican guy he tried to make himself out to be.

  When I first moved to San Juan, Peter started buying horses. His hobby soon became my hobby, and our bonding time began to involve us driving to different ranches to look at horses. Nine times out of ten, his parents would come with us. Once we all traveled together to a ranch about two hours away. As we drove up to the front gate, Señor was greeted by a worker who opened his arms up to him.

  “Oh, Margarito! Buenos días! How are you?” the man said.

  “Very good and very excited to be here!” My father-in-law looked genuinely thrilled.

  We got in the back of the worker’s pickup truck and drove into an overgrown field. The ground was so tangled up with grass that you couldn’t really see where you were going, but we got out of the truck and started walking anyway.

  About ten steps in, the rancher opened his palm, which he’d filled with oats. All of a sudden wild, beautiful horses came out from behind the trees, like magic, and began making their way through the grass toward us. I looked over at my father-in-law, and I saw his eyes light up. He began to smile, completely in awe. I don’t think I’d ever seen him melt like that. Right then and there I saw his softer side, and for the first time, I felt close to him. Even though I was so scared of him most of the time, at that moment, we were close.

  I try to remember those moments now when I think about him.

  Olivia

  My father-in-law loved his grandchildren, especially Benjamin and Bella. In Mexico, when you’re light-skinned or have blond hair or blue eyes, people are like, wow. Benjamin and Bella are fair-skinned, and my father-in-law would always stare at them and say, “They’re beautiful. Like porcelain dolls.” He loved to hold Benjamin and hug him, and he’d sing to Bella until she fell asleep. He was the perfect grandfather to them at a time when they didn’t really have their fathers, or at least, that constant male presence.

  That’s why I didn’t understand why he wanted to leave. He had everything: a family, grandchildren he loved, and most of all, safety. No one knew where he was in Alabama, and chances were good that no one was going to come after him. But he was angry with his sons for being snitches, for taking him away from his other family, and most of all for making him flee from his home.

  Mia

  When you live in Mexico, you realize pretty quickly that there are people who never want to leave. They love their town, and they love their country. That’s how my father-in-law was.

  Olivia

  That longing for home started before he’d gone back to America. In fact, after my father-in-law returned from his kidnapping, Peter and Junior bought him and my mother-in-law a mansion near our home in Guadalajara. They convinced them to leave San Juan, saying it wasn’t safe. I completely furnished and decorated the mansion beautifully, and we threw a massive housewarming party for them around Christmas 2006, with a huge Christmas tree, a red, sparkly bow on the door, and a twelve-man mariachi band serenading them as they drove up to their new house. That night, my father-in-law was in tears, remembering how different his last Christmas had been.

  But days later, he soured. He started talking about how much he missed San Juan, and he began complaining about being away from home to anyone who would listen.

  Mia

  That was the way he was in Alabama, too. Never mind that he had a wife he’d been married to for almost fifty years, and grandkids who adored him and were there almost daily. From the moment he crossed the border into the United States, he began talking about going back.

  Something was calling him home, and no one was going to tell him otherwise.

  Olivia

  A few weeks after I moved to Alabama, I went over to my in-laws’ house. No one answered the door, so I walked to the back. There, I saw my father-in-law, sitting by himself in a chair in the garden. He was staring at some flowers, deep in thought. I considered going through the gate to talk to him, but I was afraid he was going to tell me how disappointed he was in his sons. I was always defensive when it came to Junior and Peter, and the last thing I wanted to do was say something I’d regret to my father-in-law.

  Suddenly, Adrian approached me. He’d come from the other side of the house, and he’d just seen me observing his dad.

  I looked at Adrian and lowered my voice. “He’s going to leave. He doesn’t want to be here.”

  “You’re crazy,” Adrian said.

  But I wasn’t. I knew what I knew, and I couldn’t explain why.

  A few days later, in late March 2009, Adrian called me.

  “My dad is gone,” he said. “He just picked up and left.”

  Margarito Flores, Sr. had packed a small bag and driven away in his car that morning. Adrian and I didn’t discuss it, but we knew where he’d gone and why he hadn’t taken much with him. Apparently, everything he needed was back home in Mexico.

  How could he do this to my mother-in-law? I thought. How could he do this to his sons? If something happens to him, they won’t be able to live with themselves.

  “He can’t go back!” I said to Adrian. “The cartels are going to find him and kill him! What the fuck is wrong with him?”

  “There’s nothing we can do, Liv,” Adrian said. “He’s a grown man, and he knows what can happen to him. You know how he is; no one could have changed his mind.”

  Even though I knew he was right, I still felt guilty for not trying. No one could tell my father-in-law shit. Not Adrian, and especially not me. When he had his mind made up about something, that was just going to be the way it was, damn the consequences.

  Mia

  He didn’t seem to mind that Mexico was a war zone. The cartel wars were raging, and in fact, they’d been escalating the entire time Peter and Junior had been cooperating.

  On May 9, 2008, Arturo Beltrán Leyva’s BLO army had sprayed Chapo’s son Edgar’s car with two hundred bullets, killing him. In retaliation, Chapo began an all-out battle on the streets of Culiacán, complete with firefights and shootouts, and there was a curfew so innocent people could avoid getting killed.

  But the danger now wasn’t just from random gunfire. Cartel members wanted to get revenge on Peter and Junior, and if that meant targeting their family, that was just fine.

  Olivia

  Margarito Sr. didn’t care, though. In Mexico, there was a little church he liked to walk around in. In Mexico, he could speak Spanish. In Alabama, he lived in the suburbs, and there was no corner store you could walk to. In Alabama, there were no people hanging out in the plaza. There were no stories. There was no past.

  He’d gone back to Mexico to have all of that again.

  Mia

  We didn’t hear anything for over a month. Then one of the US Attorneys called Peter and Junior.

  “We found your dad’s car in the desert in Sinaloa,” the lawyer said. “It had a note on the windshield warning both of you to keep your mouths shut.”

  There was no blood in the car, no bullet holes, and no othe
r evidence of foul play. But I know kidnappings; I’ve lived through one of my own and two of my husband’s. Kidnappers don’t kill you in your car. They pull you out, put you in another car, and take you somewhere else. Sometimes the police will find your body, but most of the time they don’t. My father-in-law fell into the latter category; he just vanished into thin air.

  Olivia and I visited our husbands in prison that weekend.

  “It’s all our fault,” Peter said. “We did this.”

  Junior was crying. “My poor mother. She’s all alone now, and it’s because of us.”

  “It’s not. Please, stop blaming yourselves,” I pleaded. I was lying, though. Their dad would have lived if they hadn’t become informants. He’d still be in Mexico, betting hundreds of thousands of dollars on the horses, enjoying his wife’s cooking, stealing hours here and there with his second family, sitting on the bench in front of his house on a beautiful day, and pounding his fists on the dinner table.

  I missed him that day, and I’ve missed him every day since. We’ll never know what happened—Margarito Flores’s death was just one of thousands that year during the cartel wars—but we just pray that he didn’t suffer. We hope that he went in peace.