Santiago's Road Home

by Alexandra Diaz

  “Other what?” Santiago asked.

  “Other people traveling with you? Or anyone else you’ve seen?”

  Santiago knew he should say they lived here, belonged here. That their car had broken down and they’d gotten lost. But that would only bring questions he couldn’t answer.

  “There’s no one else.”

  “Are you sure?” the man insisted. “The desert can take a life in a matter of hours. If there’s anyone else out there, you’d be killing them by not letting me know—”

  “It’s just the three of us,” Santiago confirmed. He didn’t like these questions, like the man was trying too hard.

  “You’re lucky we found you when we did. I don’t think you would have made it the rest of the day.”

  “Will Ma—my sister be okay?”

  “Too soon to tell.”

  Santiago’s head wobbled, and his eyes began to droop. Already Alegría was sound asleep with her head against his shoulder. He could feel the drool through his shirt. Good, a sign of rehydration. He yawned.

  The truck began to move. Deep in his brain, something called for caution. Of what? Or why? Except his brain had already proceeded to go into hibernation. It had been given fluids, food, and a cool environment. Not as much as it needed, but enough to let his guard down.

  CHAPTER 19

  A hand shaking his shoulder woke Santiago up. Outside, the sunset lit the vast landscape of nothingness: scrawny, shade-less bushes; spiny, inedible cacti; and a distant mountain range that had only led to disappointment. He couldn’t tell if they’d crossed the border again and been sent back.

  The tan truck sat in a parking lot surrounded by a tall chain-link fence topped with razor wire. A gray building loomed in front of him. The two flags, one with stars and stripes and the other with a golden sun, waving high above the entrance confirmed they weren’t in México.

  Why did he get the feeling he and Alegría were being sent to jail? Or was that just how hospitals looked over here?

  “What’s happening? Is María Dolores here?” Santiago asked. Panic rose inside. He had to get them out. Away from the danger. But their rescuer blocked the open door.

  “No, she’ll stay in the hospital for a while. She suffered from much more extreme heatstroke than you did. Her condition is still critical.”

  “So why are we here?” Santiago held tight to Alegría’s hand.

  Jorge leaned against the doorframe. “You’re kids without an adult in our country illegally. They’ll take care of you until your situation is reviewed.”

  What situation? Santiago could take care of himself, and Alegría. He didn’t need adult supervision. Especially not in this place that resembled a prison. “How long? Until María Dolores gets out of the hospital?”

  “I honestly don’t know. It varies. Vamos. We have to go in.” Jorge shifted aside to let them out.

  Santiago didn’t move except to look at Alegría, the girl he’d promised to take care of. “There has to be another way.”

  “Sure.” Jorge shrugged. “I drive you back to México, and you can see how the police down there treat you.”

  No police, no going back. Not just for himself, he couldn’t do that to Alegría.

  “Of course, if you return to México,” Jorge continued, “your sister might never find you.”

  They’d been played. Presenting an option ten times worse than the original one to cover the fact that there wasn’t really an option. Being admitted into this facility was inevitable.

  Santiago slid out of the car before grasping Alegría in his arms. Jorge led them forward with a hand on Santiago’s shoulder. So much for being a friend.

  “How’s Princesa doing?” Santiago asked Alegría in a falsely cheerful whisper.

  “I don’t know—she’s missing.” She said the words, but they didn’t surprise him. Somehow he’d known that this place barred all invisible entities.

  “She’ll come back. But until she does, we need to be brave.”

  Three wide steps led to glass doors at the entrance to the facility. Jorge’s hand dropped from Santiago’s shoulder to press a button in the wall and speak into the receiver in English.

  Panic and adrenaline fused with minimal nourishment fueled his desperation. Now, go! Santiago leaped down the three steps like a colt on a racetrack, clutching Alegría to his chest for dear life. His vision blurred, but he didn’t slow his pace, blinking hard, forcing himself to keep going. One last chance.

  “¡Alé, alé!” Alegría’s cheers encouraged him to stretch his legs and run faster. He wove through the vehicles, heading for the open gates.

  He could do it. They could do it! The open gates had to be a sign. Of possibilities, of freedom.

  Except the gates began to close. It had to be a trick, a hallucination. Another effect of his tired and starving body. No trick. Just as he reached the gates, they clanged shut.

  He rammed his shoulder against the metal gate before slowly crumpling to the ground with his back against it. Alegría unwound her legs from his waist and curled up in his lap instead. Gasping for breath, he banged the back of his head against the fence a few times. He should have run for it as soon as Jorge opened the truck door. They would have made it then.

  Stupid, stupid. His heart pounded as if any minute it would break free from his body.

  Their escort took his time ambling back to them, hands in the pockets of his tan uniform pants. When Jorge reached them, he offered his hand like he’d done when he first found them alongside the road.

  Alegría shifted to sit squarely on Santiago’s lap, faced Jorge, and placed her hands on her hips. A rumble came from somewhere. It took a second for Santiago to recognize it as a growl. Coming from Alegría.

  “Let us go,” she demanded.

  “You know that’s not happening. You either come willingly, get some more food and water, or I call two guys to pry you apart and take you both in a toda fuerza. Your choice.”

  Alegría reached behind her back and pulled Santiago’s arms to wrap around her. They stayed like that for a few minutes until Santiago, his breath still not fully returned, let out a deep sigh.

  “Mamita, I don’t know what else to do.”

  She dropped her defiant act and turned to curl up against his chest. She’d tried to save him. No one had ever stood up for him like that. He pressed his head against hers, taking in the last lingering scent of her fruity shampoo.

  Slowly, carefully, he eased himself up while his arms stayed wrapped tightly around her. Jorge fell in step with them, this time gripping Santiago’s bicep as they walked back to the reflective doors.

  Before getting to the door, Santiago looked over his shoulder, just once, to make sure the gates were still shut.

  They were.

  * * *

  Inside, a woman dressed in a blue uniform asked for their names and country of birth.

  With no proof, they couldn’t lie and say they were born in Los Estados Unidos. Plus, it would make it harder to be reunited with María Dolores. Their stories had to match. “Santiago García Reyes, and this is Alegría García Piedra. We’re Mexican. She’s my sister.”

  María Dolores would definitely declare him as a brother.

  Most likely.

  Hopefully.

  The officer demanded that they place their fingertips on some kind of screen. A light lit up, scanning their fingerprints. Like they were criminals.

  A different officer then waved them through the metal detector, which beeped. They confiscated Santiago’s pocketknife, lighter, and peso coin Domínguez had given him. It wasn’t until this point that Santiago noticed that Jorge had completely vanished.

  Once clear of the metal detector, they were escorted into a white room with bright fluorescent lights and several folding chairs. Four other people inhabited the room with them: a teenage girl with her arms crossed over her chest and face hidden in her sweatshirt hood, a boy older than Alegría hiding underneath two chairs and sucking his thumb, another boy curl
ed up across three of the chairs with his back to them as he tried to sleep, and a guard who occasionally looked up from his newspaper. On one side, the combined man/woman stick figures indicated a bathroom next to a water fountain. Besides the solid door they’d come through, another door stood at the opposite end of the room with a small window that had veins going through the glass in diamond shapes.

  Santiago set Alegría down in front of the water fountain. “Drink a little at a time. We don’t want to get sick.”

  Every few minutes they got up from their chairs for another sip of water. It gave Santiago something to do. It also helped to fill their bellies, which moaned with hunger.

  Soon Alegría tugged his sleeve. “I have to go pipí.”

  “It’s there.” He pointed.

  “Come with me.”

  He understood. He didn’t want to let her out of his sight either, though he doubted the bathroom had additional exits. He opened the door for her, and they slipped in just as the guard called out in Spanish, “Only one person allowed at a time.”

  Santiago pretended not to hear him and closed the door behind them. “Go ahead. I won’t look.”

  The room consisted of one toilet and sink, and a mirror he avoided. He splashed cool water on his face, which stung against his sunburned flesh. Brown-and-red water whirled around the white sink before draining.

  Once the toilet flushed, he changed places with Alegría.

  “Wash your hands with soap. If you put water on your face, it both hurts and feels good.” He positioned himself to the side of the toilet so his back remained to her. Peeing stung worse than washing his face had, and it came out almost brown. There was also the feeling of not being able to get it all out. Like in a few minutes he’d need to go again.

  The whole front of Alegría’s shirt displayed a much darker color than normal, and the floor near the sink resembled a small pond. His own shirt also sported a wet bib. For a quick second he thought of cleaning up the mess after them, then decided against it.

  “Next time, only one person is allowed in the bathroom at a time,” the guard repeated as they exited.

  Santiago gave him a noncommittal nod.

  Upon their return to the holding room, the little boy who’d been under the chairs had left. The girl in the hoodie went through the windowed door next. A new boy, this one more man than kid with his mustache and tattooed muscles, entered through the admittance door. He did nothing but rest his chin in his hands, but with this new guy present, the guard looked up from his newspaper more often.

  The guards rotated before the next person got called through the windowed door. This guard stood against the wall with arms larger than Santiago’s body crossed over his chest. Santiago could feel his eyes on him every time he and Alegría went to the water fountain.

  Santiago turned his back to the guard, desperate for the “out of sight, out of mind” relief. The hairs on his sunburned neck said the guard maintained surveillance on him. A camera like a black eye hanging from the ceiling watched them as well.

  Ignore them and they’ll ignore you.

  He undid Alegría’s messy pigtails. Using his fingers as a comb, he carefully untangled every knot that had made her head look more like a rat’s nest than hair.

  “Tell me a story, Santi,” she whispered.

  As his fingers worked, he told her one he’d heard many times at her age about a princess who stood up to the wind spirit to save her people. “And she told the wind that she belonged with her people and her people belonged with her, and no distance would change that,” Santiago concluded.

  “So she saved the villagers?” Alegría asked as he gently arranged her hair back into two smooth, though still dusty, pigtails.

  “Of course. Because good, brave princesses who love their people are stronger than any spirit that tries to harm them.”

  An officer, different from the one who had checked them in, entered the room through the windowed door.

  “Alegría García Piedra,” she said.

  Santiago stood up, holding the little girl’s hand. Together they approached the officer.

  She shook her head. “No. Solo la niña.”

  Her Spanish wasn’t very good, her accent so strong, Santiago figured she must have used the wrong words by mistake. “I’m her brother. We go together.”

  Again the officer shook her head. “She needs bath and see female doctor. You not female.”

  His grip on Alegría’s hand tightened. That sounded like an excuse rather than the truth. “I don’t mind if a female doctor looks me over.”

  “No, they are the rules.”

  He lifted Alegría back into his arms. “I’m not leaving her. Her mamá is in the hospital. I’m the only person she has. She’s the only person I have.”

  A slight head tilt made it look like the officer had agreed to let them go as a unit. Santiago stepped closer to the windowed door. Except two big arms grabbed him from behind, wrenching loose Santiago’s hold on Alegría. The officer broke Alegría’s grip from around his neck, causing him to choke as she accidentally pressed against his throat.

  “Santi!” Alegría called out as her legs kicked at the officer behind her.

  “Alegría!” Santiago lunged toward her, but the grip on him didn’t loosen. The male guard lifted Santiago off his feet like a rag doll and pulled him away just as the female officer did the same with Alegría.

  “Please, she’s my sister. Alegría!” he choked out, the guard’s muscles crushing his body.

  “Santi!” she called one last time before they passed through the heavy, windowed door. It clicked shut without another sound.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 20

  Youth immigration center

  Out of spite—Santiago was sure of it—they kept him in the waiting room longer than anyone else. Even another new boy was brought in and called immediately.

  That’s what he got for spending an hour screaming for Alegría after she was taken away. He stopped only when his throat became so raw, he could no longer make a sound. He even dared to look through the foreboding window but only saw a corridor. When he tested the door handle, it turned but didn’t open.

  Finally, exhausted, he hugged his knees to his chest and rocked back and forth on the folding chair, wide eyes staring at the door that took people away but didn’t bring them back.

  Another guard changed places with the awful, burly one. Except this one smelled of roasted meat and seasoned vegetables. Santiago’s stomach rumbled as he drank more water to stifle the hunger. Honestly, he didn’t know which guard he hated more.

  It felt like days before Santiago finally heard his name called. He jumped to his feet and rushed to the door. Alegría must be so worried. But he’d be with her soon. He’d make sure she never had to worry again.

  His escort couldn’t have been much older than himself, with a face full of pimples and a head of greasy, black hair. He led Santiago down the corridor and opened a door to a shower room.

  “Take off all your clothes and make sure to wash every single part of your body—hair, armpits, privates, feet. There’s soap on the wall.” His Spanish sounded Mexican, and Santiago couldn’t help feeling betrayed: This guard was turning his back on his own people by working in this facility.

  A curtain offered some privacy, but the guard’s looming presence behind it did nothing to reassure Santiago. Still, he did as he was told, the tepid water stinging his sunburned flesh. Dirt encrusted his scalp, and even with his very short hair, it took two scrubbing sessions for the water from his head to run clean. While he washed the rest of his body, the contrast between his arm and his stomach shocked him—almost black compared to the light brown it should be. He shut the water off quickly, not wanting to see more.

  The guard handed him a towel and a pair of flip-flops. Santiago’s clothes and shoes had magically disappeared. A sinking feeling suggested he’d never see them again. The last link to María Dolores, gone.

  Still dripping, he was d
irected into a room with an ominous-looking chair. Strange machines hummed and blinked as if communicating with the other occupant of the room: an older white man with white hair and a white mustache wearing a white coat. But with red eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days.

  The man spoke to him in English. When Santiago didn’t move, the man motioned him to remove the towel. Santiago trembled, not just from the cold temperature. Fear rattled his bones more than ever since arriving at the facility, such fear not felt since he’d last been at la malvada’s house. Every time the man approached him, he cowered; every time he was touched, he flinched. No one had ever examined him before.

  But nothing bad really happened. The man placed cold instruments on his body or in his mouth for a few moments and then removed them. A slight prick in one arm withdrew blood, and a few different pricks in the other arm injected stuff into his body.

  Finally the doctor handed him a salve and indicated that Santiago should rub it on his face, arms, and neck. Instant relief came to his sun-fried skin, and he liberally rubbed more on. The doctor motioned Santiago to wrap himself in the towel again and ushered him out the door.

  “You get clean clothes three times a week,” said the pimply guard waiting for him with a fresh pile of clothes. The mound of cotton and polyester weighed down his arms. Would he stay long enough to need new ones? White underwear and socks, gray drawstring sweatpants, gray long-sleeve shirt, and gray sweatshirt. The flip-flops apparently were the only accepted footwear.

  Once Santiago was dressed (the guard had to get him smaller underwear), they arrived at their final destination: a packed and partially lit room, where the temperature felt near freezing. The guard handed him a toothbrush wrapped in plastic and a large metallic thing that crinkled like aluminum foil. Judging by the shiny sleeping bodies clumped around the bare floor, the thing was apparently some kind of blanket. So strange that a sheet like that was expected to provide warmth. Instead, his eyes searched for two pigtails, or maybe just shoulder-length dark hair, now clean and splayed across the floor.