B0061QB04W EBOK (21 page)

Finally, Abuelita Chinta lit a cigarette and blew puffs of smoke all over Mami. The smoke settled over Mami like an invisible blanket. The cleansing was so soothing that she fell asleep, and Abuelita Chinta sent us all outside to let our mother rest.

“Hopefully now her soul can be at peace,” Abuelita Chinta said. I crossed myself at the altar on my way out the door and prayed for Mami to wake up without any more sadness weighing her down.

The next day, Mami sent Carlos to the neighbor’s house to buy water from them on credit so that she could bathe. For the first time since she’d been back, she stood in front of the mirror to put on makeup. She pursed her lips, and I imagined that she was kissing Papi through the mirror. With the bright red color on her lips, hot pink cheeks, and
dark blue eye shadow, Mami became a different woman, and I could almost see that other mother—the one she was before she left—peeking through.

She combed her black hair with her fingers and wrapped a bandana over her head to cover the area where the doctors shaved her hair to stitch up her cuts. She opened the dresser and took out the nicest dress she had, the burgundy dress she wore that bittersweet day when she picked us up at Abuela Evila’s house after she’d arrived from El Otro Lado. Then she sprayed on perfume that smelled of jasmine.

“Well, wish me luck,” she said to us as she left the house, and the four of us knelt at my grandmother’s altar and prayed for Mami to find a job.

She came back with a smile on her face. Don Oscar, her former boss, had given her back her old job at the record shop, although she would have to work the afternoon shift. “But a job is a job,” Mami said, smiling, “and beggars can’t be choosers.” Even Betty, only three, seemed to know it was a time to celebrate because when Mami reached out for her, Betty jumped into Mami’s outstretched arms.

Mami said, “Let’s go to el zócalo.” We washed our dirty feet and faces as quickly as we could and then went to the main road to catch a taxi. Unlike Abuela Evila, Abuelita Chinta would take us there once in a while. She never made us feel as if we were her prisoners. But we hadn’t been there in years with our mother.

Mami asked the taxi driver to drop us off at my aunt’s house. She lived downtown, close to everything. Tía Güera and my cousin Lupita came with us to el zócalo, and while she and Mami sat on a bench and talked, we played hide-and-seek with the other children. Across the street was the San Francisco Church, and food vendors lined the sidewalk, shaded by the tamarind trees. People sat on the benches located around el zócalo, some reading the papers, others talking, some watching us children play. I thought about how painful it had been to go there with Abuelita Chinta because I would see all those mothers and fathers sitting on the park benches watching their kids play.

How different it felt that day! While I ran and laughed and chased the kids around el monumento a la bandera, I would glance at the bench where my mother was sitting with my aunt, and I would wave at her because I wanted to make sure I was not just imagining her. When she waved back, I felt as if I were flying because it was so good to know that I was not dreaming.

On Mami’s first payday, she came home and said, “Let’s go to a matinee.” I’d never been to the movies, and I was still sad about the day we didn’t get to go see
La Niña de la Mochila Azul
with Tía Emperatriz, but that day we hurried to put on our best clothes.

We went to the theater, and Mami bought us a bag of popcorn smothered in chile sauce. We sat in the middle section, and we fought over who was going to sit next to Mami, but the fight didn’t last long because Mami said the youngest kids got to sit by her, which meant Betty and me! So I sat on her left, Betty on her right, and Mago and Carlos sat farther out. I knew Mago was mad because she stuck out her tongue at me right before the movie started.

The movie we watched was called
Mamá, Soy Paquito.
It was about a boy who was very poor and lived with his mom, who worked very hard to take care of him. But one day his mom died, and Paquito was left all alone and everyone treated him badly because he was a little orphan. His father didn’t live too far, but he might as well be living as far away as El Otro Lado for all the good it did to Paquito to have his father so close. His father was very rich. I thought about the distance between me and Papi, and I thought it was the same for Paquito. My father was far away, but Paquito was a world apart from his father because that is the way things are, between the rich and the poor, even if they live side by side.

I cried when Paquito went to his mother’s grave and sang her a song and promised to be a good boy. I glanced at Mami and saw that her eyes were as watery as mine. She reached up to touch her bandana. I wondered if she was thinking what I was thinking. If she had died in that car crash, what would have happened to us?

I leaned my head against Mami’s arm, and she reached out and played with my hair.

Then a few weeks later, Mami came home full of excitement. She said, “The government is giving away land!” and hurried to gather the things she thought we would need to become squatters.

So Mago carried Betty, Carlos carried a rope, I carried a blanket, and Mami led the way with a shovel and a flashlight in her hands.

We hurried to keep pace with Mami as we headed to the river. On the other side of the river was a grove of mangoes and tamarind trees. We came to a big meadow. There were people there already staking out their piece of the land the government was going to give away. Mami chose one of the few available spots, and she had Carlos gather some branches to use as posts. Once they were in the ground, we tied the rope from one post to another to create one big square. Mami walked into the middle of the square, put a blanket down, then sat and smiled. “Here is where we’re going to live,” she said. “I’m going to show your father that I can build my own dream house, too.”

Mago, Carlos, Betty, and I sat next to Mami. All around us were families, who, like us, were there because they also had a dream. They were building tents out of torn sheets, cardboard, branches, and pieces of corrugated metal. Some had a fire going and were cooking a meal out in the open. I caught a whiff of beans, and my stomach growled. We hadn’t brought a single thing to eat.

“So what happens now?” Mago asked.

“We wait,” Mami said. “They didn’t say when exactly the government officials are going to be coming by to give us the deed to the land, but it shouldn’t be long. For now, we can’t go anywhere or we’ll lose our spot.”

I turned to look behind me. The river was only about fifty feet away. I thought of my cousin Catalina. I didn’t want to live this close to the river that cut my cousin’s life short. I thought of La Llorona, and how she always roams rivers, canals, and creeks. I didn’t want to live anywhere close to water.

“I’m hungry,” Betty said.

“Me, too,” Carlos said.

“Me, too,” Mago and I said. Mami shook her head at us.

“Think of this as an adventure,” Mami said. She grabbed a stick and got up. “Here is where my room will go. Where do you kids want your room to be?”

Mago got up and ran to a spot. “Here, over here, so that I can get a nice view of the river.”

Carlos said he wanted his room to face the mountains.

“Do I get my own room, or do I have to share it with Mago?” I asked.

Mami said, “You can have your own room.”

So I got up and walked around and thought about where I wanted my room to be. I chose the spot next to Carlos because I didn’t want a view of the river. But I did love the mountains.

“And here is where the kitchen will be, and the living room,” Mami said, tracing the lines on the dirt with her stick.

But we could not be adventurous for long with an empty stomach. We sat under the hot sun with nothing to eat or drink. Finally, Mami couldn’t take our complaints anymore, and she got up and said, “Let’s go home so you can have your dinner, but only you girls. Carlos, you will stay to guard our land.”

Carlos groaned. “But I’m hungry, too.”

“Don’t you dare go anywhere, not even to use the bathroom. I’ll come back with food and water for you.”

As we headed down to the tracks, I turned to wave goodbye to Carlos. He didn’t see me. He was sitting on the ground scratching the dirt with a stick. I wondered if he was drawing the furniture for his bedroom. He wiped his forehead once and kept on scratching the dirt.

Because he was the only male in our little family, Mami appointed Carlos the head squatter, which meant he was responsible for watching our land. On the days that followed, Mago and I went to school while Carlos stayed by himself down by the river. He built himself a tent using branches, an old blanket, and pieces of cardboard Tío Crece found outside Doña Chefa’s store. As soon as we got back from school, Mago and I rushed over to Carlos with food. By the time we got there, Carlos was about to pee himself. He rushed into the nearest bushes while we laughed.

“Why won’t they hurry up and give us the land?” Carlos asked. “I don’t want to be here much longer.”

“Is it really scary?” I asked him. Carlos had been sleeping out there by himself at night. Mami wouldn’t let Mago or me stay with him because we were girls. Sometimes, Tío Crece would come over with his dog to keep him company, but he never spent the night. He said he might be crazy, but he was not crazy enough to be sleeping out in the open and on the ground where a scorpion, a centipede, or a tarantula could crawl on him and sting him. “I have my hammock at home,” he said.