“How can you afford to be so generous?” The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them. Now he’d done it. If he’d learned anything being passed from one ungrateful relative to another, it was to never mention money. He prepared to give up the shoes, the clothes, and the trip to el otro lado, when she laughed.
“I’m not rich.” She gestured up and down at her faded jeans and T-shirt. “A few days ago, I made the choice to leave my old life behind and sell something I no longer wanted in order to get to El Norte one way or the other. I’m just getting what we need and hope I keep making the right choices to keep us safe.”
Finally convinced they had everything, María Dolores let Santiago lead them to the bus terminal. The bus route she settled on took five hours longer than the direct one but ended up saving her thirty pesos. But then she bought them two huge sandwiches, and a roll for Alegría, all bursting with different meats and oozing with mustard.
“The thing is,” she said, biting into her sandwich while they waited on hard plastic chairs for their bus to Capaz, “even though I don’t have much, I like to support hardworking people trying to make a living. I know what it’s like to survive on little.”
“I try not to take from people who have less either,” Santiago admitted, pleased that she talked to him like an equal, like an adult. “Where is Capaz anyway? Is that in el otro lado?”
“Nearly. It’s where we’ll cross. I’ve never been there, but my sister warned me it’s like any border town: filled with crime and corruption.”
“Sounds like my family,” Santiago joked. Except it wasn’t exactly funny.
María Dolores raised an eyebrow. “Trust me, my family is pretty screwed up too.”
Once on the bus, Santiago watched the familiar town pass by. With each tire rotation, he felt lighter and happier than he remembered feeling in a long time. Buses usually meant returning to la malvada’s house. This time, on this bus, he was traveling far, far away. If that wasn’t reason to smile, he didn’t know what was.
“Santi, can you read this for me?” Alegría pulled out a coloring book from her new brown-and-pink backpack. A few sentences at the bottom of each page told the story of the characters, some of whom still waited to be colored.
He leafed through the pages. With the disappearing light, even the images were hard to see. From what he could tell, it wasn’t a very interesting story.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he whispered in Alegría’s ear. She widened her eyes while nodding excitedly. “I’m not very good at reading.”
More accurately, he couldn’t read at all. According to la malvada, Santiago would never amount to anything, so what was the point in spending money to educate him? For the most part he got along fine not being able to read—he knew what the food packages looked like and was great at directions without reading the street names. But at times like this, when there was a book to read and share, he wished he could.
“I can read my name,” Alegría said. “And Mami’s. I’ll teach you.”
“I’d love that.” He smiled as he reached for a strand of hair that had come loose from her pigtails and tucked it behind her ear. “So, why don’t we make up the story? It’s about two bears, right?”
“Yeah! And they’re scared of a bee.”
“Exactly. Because the bee thinks the bears stole his honey when really they didn’t.”
They added to their story, introducing characters and events that weren’t shown in the pictures, until the last page, where the bears and bee celebrated with a honey party.
“Again, again!” Alegría shrieked so loudly her mamá opened an eye long enough to see they were fine and shifted back to sleep.
“The same story?” Santiago whispered.
“Sí, por favor,” Alegría whispered back.
“Okay…” He pretended to sigh, as if Alegría would soon regret hearing the story again. She didn’t. She had him tell the story four more times, adding new elements with each telling.
When madre e hija were both sound asleep, Santiago leaned back on the rear bench and relaxed but didn’t close his eyes. The lights of each passing vehicle reminded him how lucky he was.
CHAPTER 6
They arrived in Capaz around three o’clock in the morning. Santiago held the sleeping Alegría with her arms draped around his shoulders and her head nestled into his neck. Even as he shifted her weight to follow María Dolores, who carried two of the three loaded backpacks out of the last bus, the little girl didn’t stir. For a second he missed his three cousins. Even when they would shriek and cause mayhem all day long, they would always cuddle against him at night.
Then he remembered the screams and continuous accusations from his tía. She never hugged him. No adult did anymore.
The bulbs in many of the streetlamps had burned out, while others had been smashed, making the trek through the unfamiliar town unnerving. From what he could see, the town was nothing more than run-down shacks closed up for the night. Heavy iron grates or sheets of metal blocked the storefronts. Santiago started scouting for a safe place for them to stay until sunup, some alleyway or even a dumpster if it would keep the ladrones away. Two gunshots went off close by. Santiago huddled closer to María Dolores, half wanting to protect her, and half to be protected by her.
María Dolores looked at her phone for directions. She seemed to have a plan, even though Santiago didn’t know what it was. They turned down a street to a tavern with a flickering green light that alternated between half-lit words. If it was anything like the tavern his uncle frequented, the place probably offered beer and beds.
The inside smelled of spilled alcohol, vomit, and unwashed humans. The bartender, bald except for some tufts of gray hair above his ears, looked up from his conversation with the only patron and jerked his chin upward to ask what they wanted.
“A room,” María Dolores said. Santiago noticed the lone man on the bar stool eyeing them. Or more specifically, eyeing María Dolores. Hopefully this would be a place where rooms came with locks.
“How many beds?” the bartender asked.
“Two.”
The bartender grabbed keys from under the bar and told his comrade he’d be back in a minute. As they walked away, Santiago still felt the other man’s eyes on their backs.
The stairs creaked. Any second they’d fall through and land right back in the middle of the bar. Santiago shifted Alegría to keep her from slipping.
On the landing the bartender pointed out the bathroom and then the shower room. “Showers are extra, and you have to borrow the key from the bar. This is my place, so if you need anything else, the name’s José.”
Don José opened the door to a bedroom with two beds squeezed together in the shape of an L and no room for anything else beyond the space needed to enter. They received the key, and María Dolores handed him a folded banknote. Already what she’d paid for Santiago racked up to more than he remembered any family member spending on him.
María Dolores dumped the bags on one of the beds and eased Alegría from Santiago’s arms to carry the sleeping child to the bathroom.
“Dead-bolt the door behind me and don’t let anyone in,” she whispered. “A place like this, bedbugs will be the least of our worries.”
Santiago took off his shoes and plopped onto the free bed. It creaked when he shifted, his bottom sank into a hole in the middle of the mattress, and it smelled of old cigarettes. But it had a pillow. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept with a pillow, even a flat one like this one. He stayed awake long enough to see the two return from the bathroom and hear the click of the door lock behind them.
CHAPTER 7
Voices from the midmorning crowd stopped talking the second Santiago, María Dolores, and Alegría emerged in the bar. A few of the men raised their eyebrows or winked. Santiago reached into the pocket of his new jeans to grip his dull pocketknife. He’d seen eyes like these before: on dogs ready to attack a stray chicken.
“Didn’t your mamis teach
you it’s rude to stare? Sin vergüenzas,” María Dolores called out, but Santiago noticed her grip on Alegría’s hand tighten. In a no-nonsense strut, she went to an empty table and set down their bags, which they hadn’t felt safe leaving in the room. Once María Dolores sat, Alegría slipped into her lap and buried her face in her mamá’s chest.
“She’s right—shame on you all.” Don José emerged from the stairs after them. “So either you behave or get the hell out of my cantina.”
Everyone returned to their conversations, but Santiago could feel rather than see the late breakfast patrons still sneaking glances at them.
The old man shuffled to the bar and brought café con leche and a plate with three doughnuts to their table.
“I don’t get involved,” he muttered under his breath to them, “but I wouldn’t trust most of these men with anything. Especially my life.” Then he cleared the dishes from the neighboring table and wiped down the surface as the chef brought food out from the kitchen.
Alegría uncurled enough from her fetal position to enjoy a doughnut but didn’t leave her mamá’s lap. The hairs on the back of Santiago’s neck continued to send off warnings.
Two guys at the table to their left started talking in hushed whispers—whispers that were really too loud if they truly wanted no one to hear.
“They found six bodies in the desert the other day, fried to a crisp. It was that Domínguez. He tells these innocent people he can get them across at a good price and then abandons them in the middle of nowhere. Poor souls,” the first guy said with an accent only found in pretentious telenovelas.
“People are really stupid sometimes.” The second man spoke in a whiny voice.
Pretentious crowded closer to his friend, ready to divulge a huge secret. “We’ve got two spots left in the van tonight, but I think a pair from Puebla will take them.”
“Is that the new van with air-conditioning?”
“Yeah, it’s a sweet ride with Arizona plates,” Pretentious agreed. “Crosses the border without a glitch, and everyone’s in Tucson by the morning.”
“What do you charge again?” Whiny asked.
Pretentious shrugged and waved his hand aside. “Oh, you know me. I just want to help these poor people reach their destination. I’m sure we can strike a deal that’s, uh, comfortable for everyone.”
Santiago slammed his coffee mug on the table. They didn’t have to say it for him to understand they meant to take advantage of María Dolores. María Dolores narrowed her eyes; a quarter of the doughnut turned in her hand, like she wanted to chuck it at Pretentious’s head. To Santiago’s disappointment, she didn’t.
Two different men got up from a far table and walked to the bar to settle their bill. As they passed, one of them casually dropped a piece of paper on their table. María Dolores snatched it up, scanned it, and hastily crumpled it in her hand.
Santiago leaned in and spoke in a whisper that even Alegría, still on her mother’s lap, wouldn’t be able to hear. “What did it say?”
“It’s a marriage proposal,” she whispered back.
“¿Qué?” Santiago blurted. Half the men turned to look at them again.
María Dolores sent him a silencing glare before whispering the rest. “He claims to be a U.S. citizen and would like to marry me. For a fee.”
“¡Qué locos desgraciados!” This time he remembered to keep quiet.
“Agreed. I’m done here.”
She paid for their breakfast, and they gathered their things to take back upstairs. Once in their room, the door locked, they kept their voices low. From the next room they could hear everything their neighbor said on the phone.
“I don’t know what to do.” With a sigh of defeat, María Dolores crumpled onto the bed. “My sister said once we got here it’d be easy to find a coyote to take us across the border, but she crossed with her husband. I hate it, but I’m scared. This is going to be harder than I thought.”
“I don’t like it here, Mami.” Alegría sucked the leftover doughnut sugar from her fingers. “These men aren’t nice.”
“I know, mamita.” She kissed her daughter’s head before turning back to Santiago. “How can we find someone trustworthy?”
Santiago leaned against the closed door.
“Okay, how about this?” he said. The idea scared him, but the more he thought it through, the more realistic it would be to pull off. “I’ll help out in the kitchen, clear tables, o lo que sea. As long as I mind my own business, grown-ups don’t notice me. I’ll keep my ears open and find a coyote we can trust.”
“El viejo won’t pay you to work,” María Dolores pointed out.
“So? I’ll tell him I’m bored and you want me out of the room for a while.” Fear merged with excitement. He could do this.
María Dolores ran her fingers through her daughter’s pigtails. “I don’t know.”
“It’ll work.” Santiago bobbed his head. “Those men were obnoxious. But others might come in later who aren’t. I’ll check them out and report back.”
She sighed and agreed to the plan. “I’ve never had a brother, but if I did, I’d wish he were like you.”
He reached for María Dolores’s and Alegría’s hands, giving them both a gentle squeeze, then letting go quickly, not sure if he’d overstepped some invisible boundary. “You two are pretty cool too.”
He gathered himself to leave. At the door, his hand paused in midair above the handle. He turned, slowly. Madre e hija stared back at him.
“Will you still be here when I come back?” he asked.
“Of course!”
“¿Me lo prometes?” he whispered, addressing her for the first time as a friend, instead of a stranger.
María Dolores reached into her pocket and pulled out a black lava stone smoothed into a flattened heart. She placed it into Santiago’s hand. “This stone has been passed down for generations in my family and was given to me by my abuela when she died. It’s the most valuable thing I have, and I’d be heartbroken if I lost it. Hold on to it for me and give it back when you return.”
She closed his fingers around the stone. It warmed his palm, like the lava still retained some life. The hearts of her ancestors. He didn’t believed her story, but it was a nice stone. He could keep it safe for a few hours.
CHAPTER 8
Only a few heads turned when Santiago stepped down from the last creaky stair, and no one gave him more than a fleeting look.
Without asking, he grabbed a damp towel from the side of the bar and headed to the nearest empty table. He stacked the dishes into a neat pile, wiped down the surface, took the pile through the swinging kitchen doors, and set it in the sink. A plastic tub caught Santiago’s attention. He could carry more dishes, making fewer trips back and forth. And spend more time eavesdropping. Someone once told him it was easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.
“Mi hermana,” he told the owner, testing out the strange word and enjoying how natural it felt rolling off his tongue. “Wants privacy and—”
“Do you hear me complaining?” Don José carried plates of enchiladas, tacos, posole, and rellenos to a large party crammed into one table. “Wipe that chair down too. I see beer dripping down it.”
Conversations flew from all directions. He tuned out the ones about family members and life outside of Capaz and focused on those about crossing. As he moved his cleaning rag and gray bin from one table to the next, no one paid him the slightest attention.
A man to Santiago’s right slapped a newspaper onto the table. “What the pollos don’t understand is that there’s nothing out there. No food, no water, no shelter.”
His companion grunted in agreement. “Exactly why we don’t need a wall out here. The sun takes care of everyone that doesn’t know where he’s going.”
“Oye, flaco,” called a different man from another table. “I thought we lost you to the desert, hombre.”
“You almost did, you jerk.” The two embraced like brothers. “Los azules pi
cked me up and threw me in jail, thanks to you.”
Santiago moved his bin to a table where a boy not much older than himself was drunk and weeping like a baby. “The bodies. Every time I close my eyes I see them. They were only out there for a half a day and hadn’t even crossed the border.”
“That’s why they need someone like you who knows the way, knows how to survive in the desert.” His friend pushed another drink in front of him.
The crier took a swig. “But I don’t know the way, and I don’t want to die. I can’t do this!”
“Sure you can. Come with me a couple more times and you’ll know the route in no time. But it’s always good to show the pollos the skeletons so they know they can’t do it on their own.”
Santiago had heard enough. Heaving the bin onto his hip, he headed to the kitchen. Anyone who talked so callously about dead bodies and used them to get business was not a coyote they would hire.
“Unload and come back out.” Don José pointed to a table where four men sat with a clutter of empty dishes. These men, most likely brothers, shared similar features with sunken dark eyes and square jaws. Their haircuts indicated money, and the way they sat with their shoulders back showed their place in the world. A gold watch shone on each brother’s right wrist.
Like the others, they didn’t stop their conversation as Santiago approached and began collecting dirty dishes. Like he wasn’t even human.
“We have to do something about Domínguez. He’s out of line,” said the bearded brother.
The oldest brother, and the one with the most jewelry, waved the concern away. “I don’t think he’s taken that much business from us. Especially after his incident.”
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