The Grief Keeper

by Alexandra Villasante

  “It’s disgusting,” Gabi says, holding her nose. I put my finger to my lips, and she’s instantly quiet. In a flash, we are back on the road, no longer safe.

  I count three minutes in my head. That is long enough for the guard to have moved on to the cafeteria to watch the kids. I know this is a chance that won’t come again. They don’t count us at meals, only at bedtime. I push Gabi out from behind the dumpster, and we start walking, then running down the road, staying as close to the scrubby bushes along the side as we can. After fifteen minutes of running, we slow down.

  She takes a minute to catch her breath. “Can we talk now?”

  “No.”

  “That’s talking.”

  “Will you shut up if I give you food?”

  “Of course,” she answers.

  I pull out the cookie I saved from Wilson’s snack. American cookies are giant, and Gabi loves chocolate. She breaks the cookie in half.

  “Toma,” she says, holding out half.

  “No, I already ate mine,” I lie.

  We walk, Gabi in front. It’s like we are back with the coyotes, afraid something will catch us. I imagine a thousand suns, a thousand eyes, a thousand hands behind me. It’s like a fire growing at my back, and I have to walk away, fast, to keep it from consuming me.

  I look at Gabi, nibbling on her cookie, making it last, and am thankful for one thing. She has this crazy amount of faith in me. I don’t know where it comes from, or how I earned it. But when I tell her that it will be okay, that we’ll make it, she believes me.

  If we are lucky, so incredibly lucky that it couldn’t be believed, we will find someone who can take us to New York, or at least in that direction. I know it isn’t that far from Pennsylvania to New York, but is it hours or days? How much luck do we have? I don’t know. Mrs. Rosen used to say, “I don’t believe in luck, sweetie. I believe you make your own luck.” Which sounds like she’s saying two opposite things. She doesn’t believe in it, but she does believe in making it. I never understood her. Now she’s dead, Dios la bendiga.

  “What’s the plan?” Gabi asks.

  I was so lost in my own thoughts that I forgot I needed to explain things to Gabi. But I don’t want to. She was starting to relax, even smile. I let her believe that we were finally safe. Now it’s all slipping away.

  “We need to find a way to New York.”

  She lifts an eyebrow in question. I’ve always been jealous of her eyebrows—of all the silly things to be jealous about when you have a beautiful sister—but they are so expressive. Papá used to say that Gabi’s eyebrows could tell a story with more drama than a telenovela.

  “The asylum interview didn’t go very well. We had to leave.”

  “But Mrs. Rosen was going to come get us. Won’t she be mad we’re not here?”

  I can’t tell her Mrs. Rosen is dead. Not yet. I can’t see the fear make a home in her eyes again. I will tell her on the way. Soon. “We’re going to where her house is, on our own.” In her letter to Mamá, Mrs. Rosen said she was living with her eldest daughter in a place in New York called Rhinebeck. We’ll go there and find Mrs. Rosen’s daughter. Somehow.

  Gabi doesn’t argue or ask me questions I don’t know how to answer. That’s almost worse. We walk in silence for a few minutes more, until there is another road that crosses this road. There will be more cars on the new road.

  “They won’t figure out we are gone until bedtime. If we find a car to take us now—even if it’s only going part of the way—we have a chance. Next car that comes, you hide and I’ll see if it is okay.”

  Gabi nods. It’s what we used to do at checkpoints with the coyotes, hiding from military patrols until the right car or SUV came to pick us up. When we hear a car coming, she flattens herself against the bushes. The first car that passes is too fancy; that means too many questions. Another car is driving too fast. When I see the third car, a mud-colored truck, I step out of the bushes and put my hand out, thumb up.

  My father, years and years ago, used to tell us about the feeling of gambling. We knew when he’d had a good night; his face was flushed dark red with drink and excitement. He started by saying that, of course, gambling was bad, that we should never gamble. But his eyes were as bright as stars as he told us what it felt like to put money down on a number or a card game.

  “El mundo se abre, and you can see everything you’ve ever wanted—so near at hand, you can almost touch it. The wheel spins, or the cards turn over, and then every possibility you imagine transforms, like magic, into one reality.” His eyes glittered. Maybe he didn’t realize, or maybe he didn’t care, that he was making gambling sound so good. Like it was the only thing worth doing, the only thing making him feel alive. “It’s like praying and knowing your prayers will be answered,” he said before Mamá heard him and yelled at us, pushing us out of the kitchen and closing the door behind us. Pablo and I stood there, looking at the closed door and hearing their argument. In me, a fear took root that I might gamble away things that I couldn’t lose, the way Papá had been doing. In Pablo, I think, a different flower took root.

  The mud-colored truck doesn’t stop. Neither do the two other cars I think look okay. This is a gamble, I know. I can put my hand up and play, but I can’t control what we get or don’t get. Gabi peers over the bush, and in a moment she will come out and stand next to me. I know her so well. She is only good at listening for a little bit. Then she wants to do. I turn to tell her to hide herself again when I hear a car come to a stop. I forgot that my thumb was still out, that I was still gambling.

  The window of a black car rolls down. A woman with dark hair and eyes leans over to look at us.

  “Need a ride?” She has a little bit of an accent, and I’m trying to figure out where it’s from and if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, trying to process all the information and make the right decision. Only, I’m so tired. I feel thin as paper from keeping my fear from Gabi. My brain isn’t giving me correct information about this woman and her nice car. But my body moves back, without the rest of me knowing why.

  “Hi!” Gabi says, stepping in front of me. I grab at her sleeve but miss as the woman opens the passenger door.

  “I like your car,” Gabi says. It doesn’t seem like a very special car to me, but Gabi loves cars. Mr. Rosen let Gabi borrow all his Motor Trend magazines, just like he let me borrow any book in his library. The walls of our room at home are covered with pictures of shiny, fast dream cars.

  The woman smiles at her. “Where are you two going? I can take you part of the way if you want.”

  I hesitate, then look down the road. The sun will set soon. How long have we been gone? Are they missing us? We’re not important, not anyone special or dangerous. But still, they will look for us, won’t they?

  I make a decision quickly—that’s the only way to make it when you are running. I push Gabi into the back seat, then climb into the passenger seat. As she pulls onto the road again, I catch sight of a car behind us, black with darkened windows, and I freeze, convinced they have caught us, that I’ve been too slow.

  The woman slows down, letting the dark car pass us. “Assho—jerk!” the woman yells with a quick glance at me and Gabi.

  I settle into the seat, and the relief of being moved instead of moving is overwhelming.

  “So, where are you ladies heading?”

  “New York,” I say quickly. “We are meeting our grandmother there.”

  The woman glances at her side mirror, and I wonder what she sees, if anyone is coming. “I can take you as far as New Jersey. Is that okay?” Even though the sun is starting to go down, the woman slips on dark, expensive-looking sunglasses.

  “Are you rich or something?” Gabi asks from the back seat.

  “¡Híjole!” I yelp. Why does she have to be rude now?

  The woman looks at Gabi in the rearview mirror. “No. Why do you ask?” />
  “The car. The sunglasses. All of it is very expensive.”

  The woman laughs. “Not really. I only have a couple vices. Cars are one. Chocolate chip cookies are another. I’m addicted to them.” It’s like she’s read Gabi’s mind. As crazy as she is about cars, Gabi will do anything for cookies—the American kind, not the galletas Diana we get at home. The first book I read to Gabi in English, borrowed from Mr. Rosen’s library, was The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. I teased that she was like Edmund and his Turkish Delight with her American chocolate chip cookies. I can’t remember the last time I teased Gabi about anything.

  I struggle to tell the lady our fake names—the entire story of our lives that I made up to distract myself as we walked on the carretera. It’s a dream story about girls like us, if only we’d been lucky enough to be born in the United States. Some things are the same. That Gabi is fascinated with cars and loves to swim. That I love to read and won a prize at school for a short story. And then there are the lies that are too good not to tell. That we go to an American school. That our parents are legal immigrants with good jobs who go to school meetings and coach softball teams. I’m not even sure what a softball team is—I know it’s like baseball, but what’s different about it? Is the ball really just softer?

  These are the questions I used to pester Pablo about all the time. He’d been to America once, on a visit with Tía Rosa when he was seven. I asked him every question I could think of, to store up the answer, ready for when I would go to America, so I would be prepared for anything.

  But now, in the warm, expensive car of a stranger driving us all the way to New Jersey, I can only repeat the word softball over and over in my head until the road becomes a dark fuzzy line, and I fall asleep.

  Chapter 3

  I wake up with a pain in my neck and a feeling that I have run out of time. My face has been leaning against the window of the car. How are we in a car? Are we at the border? Will we have to stay the night in another shelter? Then I remember that we are in America. We made it. We only have to figure out how to stay.

  I look behind me to see Gabi lying on the back seat, asleep.

  “What time is it?” I ask the woman who picked us up. I remember that she told us her name, but I don’t remember what she said.

  “It’s late. Go back to sleep, Marisol,” she says. Her face is lit by the dials of the car. The heat is on, and it’s comfortably warm. We seem to be the only car on the road, and the hum of the tires is soothing.

  Then the bottom falls from my stomach as I realize I never told this woman our real names. I stiffen and pull back into the seat, but there is nowhere to go.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  She glances my way before returning her eyes to the road ahead. “My name is Indranie Patel. I work for the United States government,” she says, looking at me again. The panic in my eyes must make her speak faster. “There’s nothing to worry about.”

  “You lied to us.”

  “We lied to each other. I believe you said your name was Mary and your sister’s name was Jenny.”

  I won’t cry. I refuse.

  Indranie reaches over to touch my shoulder. “It’s okay. I promise. We can help each other.”

  I’m shaking my head because I’m stupid. Why did I think we could get away? Now they will punish us for trying to escape.

  “Hey, you know what?” Indranie keeps her voice low as she turns onto a big road. “I’m an immigrant too. I came here many years ago from India with my parents. I was only eight when I came.”

  I want to ask her if someone was trying to kill her in India. If her brother had been killed. But I already know the answer. There are immigrants and then there are immigrants, and some are easier than others. Gabi and me, we had so much more than the others traveling with us. We had English, and we had Mrs. Rosen and the money she sent. Now we don’t have anything.

  “Where are you taking us?” I ask. I pull at the seat belt that’s digging into my neck.

  “Listen. Don’t panic. I only want to talk. I promise.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “About you and your sister and what will happen next.”

  “Did you follow us from the detention center?”

  She hesitates. “Yes.”

  “I am so stupid.” I want to hit something, to scream. But it would be useless.

  “Not true. You’re smart. You’re resourceful. And you’re willing to take risks.”

  Risks, gambling. My father never talked about what happened when the gamble failed. Despite what I told Gabi, I knew we would probably fail. I just hoped that this time we could win.

  I look back at Gabi, who sleeps on, undisturbed. I don’t think we are in physical danger, and I don’t know what to do next, but the urge to run is tremendo.

  “Don’t try to get away, okay? Please? We’ll find you, but it will make my job a lot harder. And we have a proposal for you. A proposition. Do you know what that means?”

  I scowl at her to show that it is a stupid question.

  “When we get to our destination, I’ll tell you everything you need to know. Just be patient.”

  I try to make my body relax as my mind spins with desperate plans that lead nowhere. Nothing I come up with helps me do the only thing I must do: keep Gabi safe. Until I can figure out how to do that, for today and for always, I have to wait. Wait and be ready.

  * * *

  Indranie stops at a place to get gas and coffee. She tells me I can go to the bathroom, but Gabi will stay in the car until I come back. She knows I won’t leave without my sister. I spend a long time looking at my face in the cloudy bathroom mirror. This is the face they will look at today when they decide what to do with us. How can I make this plain face move their hearts?

  When Mrs. Rosen still lived in Colonia Escalón, my mother would sometimes set curlers in her thin, gray hair. She would tell my mother, though I was standing right next to her, that I could be pretty if I lost a little of what she called “the puppy fat.” And if I wore makeup. My mother would nod gravely as if taking all those suggestions to heart. I’d want to laugh because I knew there was no way of turning a plain brown bird, un gorrión, into a songbird. The only place where miracles like that happened was on TV. Then I’d drifted back into the warmth of the kitchen, where a TV was always on. Mrs. Rosen liked to hear the voices of Americans throughout her house. She said it made her less homesick. She didn’t care what she watched, but I’d always switched the channel to SKY II so I could watch Cedar Hollow.

  I learned how to curse and insult someone in English watching Cedar Hollow. Not bad words, really, but words like Dammit! and insults like You worthless waste of space! I learned that when there is a pretty girl, there will always be two pretty boys wanting to be with her. I learned that, at least on American TV, those boys would never follow her down an empty street at night to grab her. Only the villains did that. And the villains on Cedar Hollow were usually from out of town, so you always knew who they were, right away. And many of them wore black jackets.

  The main character on Cedar Hollow was called Amber. She had blue eyes and golden blond hair that reached to her waist, as straight as a curtain. She was tan, like a peach that was ripe, but never too dark. The first night I watched Cedar Hollow, I sat at Mrs. Rosen’s kitchen table with a little notebook, writing down, as best I could, all the words I didn’t understand. Later, I would ask Mrs. Rosen to tell me what they meant. Soon, she got tired of answering and gave me a dictionary. Some words Mrs. Rosen didn’t know, and weren’t even in a dictionary, but I wrote them down and puzzled over them until their meaning became clear. The best part of Cedar Hollow was watching Amber. She was a good person, but she made bad choices. Sometimes I’d want to yell at the TV, at her, but I knew that was silly. She was beautiful. So beautiful it made my heart race. But I was ashamed too, to be spending so much time thinking about a girl
who wasn’t even real.

  I look away from the mirror, sick of my own reflection. Compared to Amber Brooks, my face is a disappointment. I have a tiny mouth, shaped like a fish looking for a kiss. My eyes are black, and there are pecas across my nose, a shade darker than the rest of my face. And unlike Gabi, my eyebrows are straight and don’t express much of anything.

  * * *

  Indranie, sipping from a huge cup of coffee, pulls the car out of the gas station and onto an empty highway. The sun has started to come up, or, rather, all the light that comes up before the sun. The purples and blues and pinks. We cross a bridge, the rippling water reflecting the light of the sky. Ahead of us, a city, a centro of some kind, unwinds. Old buildings, new buildings, and clean, so clean the city doesn’t look real. I sit up straighter as a building I recognize comes into view. A white dome.

  “Where are we?”

  “Welcome to Washington, DC.”

  We loop around the domed building. I have my hands against the window, making a smudge, I know, but I can’t help it. I feel electric. In the capital of the United States? Maybe this is good news after all. No one would bring us here only to deport us. Whatever the proposal is, it must be important.

  “Indranie?”

  “Mm-hmm?” she answers distractedly, the road curving into a circle of traffic as we cross another bridge, this time over other roads instead of water.

  “What is this proposal?” I picked the shorter of the words she said, proposal and proposition. I know what proposition means, of course, but I don’t want to say it incorrectly.

  “I can’t talk to you about it now. But it will all be explained when we get inside.” We drive down a ramp under a large building with many columns. We’re underground, in what looks like a parking garage. I shift my knees as she opens the glove compartment and takes out a badge to hand to the guard in the booth. They talk about a sporting team that lost last night and always seems to lose. The guard hands her badge back to her, and I hope to ask more questions, but Gabi inhales deeply, smiling and stretching.