Finding Miracles (8 page)

“I feel like I should make a wish or something,” I said, trying to lighten my nervousness. Really, I felt ready to cry. I took a deep breath. “Okay, here it goes.” I lifted the lid, then made myself look down.

I don’t know what I was expecting. A teensy baby? Body parts? Or what? The stuff inside looked boringly normal: a bunch of envelopes, folded-up newspaper clippings. I started taking stuff out, then just dumped the contents on my bedspread.

We pored over each little thing.

“Look at this,” we kept saying to each other.

Em held out a coin with a star on one side and a picture of what must be some famous person from the country’s history on the other. “He looks like Pablo,” she noted. Usually I don’t agree with Em about who people look like, but this time she was right. This famous person had Pablo’s same strong jaw and intense eyes.

Inside an envelope, we found a locket of wheat-colored hair braided together with dark black hair. My birth mother’s and father’s? Another envelope was full of old photos, which I hoped/dreaded would be of my birth parents or the place I’d been born. But most of them turned out to be shots of a little baby being held by a short, fat nun in a white habit with what looked like a seagull sitting on her head. There were some later shots of a young-looking Mom, holding Kate and me on her lap. Kate looked humongous compared to me. Then another of me in Dad’s arms, arriving in the United States with a little American flag in my hand.

“Oh my God, you were like this gorgeous Benetton baby!” Em gushed. “You were so cute!”

“Hmm.” I studied the photo. I hate it when people talk about how cute you
used
to be.

At the bottom of The Box, I discovered a tiny florist-type envelope. I pulled out a piece of paper that looked like it’d been folded and refolded often. MILAGROS, it read, written in big block letters.

Em was craning her neck, trying to make out what was written on the paper. “What does that mean?” Em’s mother insisted she take French, on account of her ancestors had once been royalty over in France before they became poor French Canadians living in Vermont.

“Miracles,” I said. “
Milagros
means miracles.”

“Mi-la-gros,” Em sounded it out. “That’s so neat. It’s like it’s a miracle you survived.”

What Em didn’t know was that Milagros had been my name at the orphanage. But when my parents adopted me, they decided to make Milagros my middle name and give me Mom’s mother’s name, Mildred, instead. Not only would it be an easier name for my American life, but Mom wanted one of her daughters to carry my grandma-I-nevermet’s name. I can’t say I loved Mildred—Milly’s okay—but I definitely hated Milagros, and so I never used my middle name. The last thing I wanted was someone asking me, “Where did you get a name like Milagros?”

Before Em and I put everything back, I skimmed over all the official documents from the orphanage.
Mother
was listed as unknown, so was
Father
.
Place of birth
was also blank. I had hoped that maybe somewhere in all the documents I would find the name Los Luceros.

We carried the box—no longer the scary Box of capital letters—back to my parents’ dresser. “Thank you, Em,” I said as we turned to each other. “I couldn’t have done it without you.” And then, I don’t know why exactly, but we both burst into tears. It felt so good to stand there, sobbing and hugging each other. Whatever distance we had felt between us had evaporated. Close and best friends. We could handle anything.

5

elections

GIVE JAKE A BREAK. JAKE & SHAKE.
Walking into Ralston High, I felt like I was in a bad rap video. Jake’s posters were everywhere!

One poster showed a picture of Jake looking off into the Green Mountains: JAKE FOR THE EARTH’S SAKE. (This to win the “green” granola vote.)

Pablo made one showing Jake wearing a
sombrero
with a bandanna tied around his neck:
JAKE: UN HOMBRE SIN-CERO.
(Everyone kept asking him what it meant, so Pablo wrote the translation in tiny print below the caption: Jake: an honest man.)

Em and I did one together. We took a photo of Jake surrounded by some posters and bumper stickers of his favorite causes:
SAVE THE WHALES. DON’T LAUGH AT
FARMERS WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL. PEACE IS NOT SOMETHING TO DIE FOR. LOVE MAKES A FAMILY. TAKE VERMONT FORWARD.
Our caption read:
VOTE FOR JAKE, A
LOT’S AT STAKE.

Every time I glanced at one of Jake’s posters, then looked over at Taylor’s—Taylor in his nifty Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt with this attitude written all over his face, like Hey, dude, vote for me if you feel like it, no big deal—I thought, poor Jake, trying so hard.

Actually, we were all trying too hard. The borderliners, I mean. Jake managed to talk most of his friends into running with him. Start a movement, why not? Alfie even came up with a campaign song, “You say you wanna start a Ralstonlution.”

The deal at Ralston was that anyone running for an office had to get twenty-five names on a petition. Then you could register to be a candidate and put up posters and stuff. There was a three-week period to get your name in. Besides president, every class voted for a vice president, treasurer, and secretary, as well as two senators, who basically did most of the work of student government and got a trickle of the credit.

Jake got his signatures and registered right off. Then the other borderliners started jumping on his bandwagon. Dylan, a math geek, was the natural for treasurer. Plus, his dad owns the car dealership in town, and being rich can’t hurt if you’re running for taking care of the money. Em kind of fell into the secretary spot, because, to be honest, none of the guys wanted to run for a position that sounded like it was for a girl. Will was going to go for VP, but then he messed up, smoking in the bathroom during one of the school dances (that’s all he got
caught
for), and so he couldn’t run.

Suddenly, everyone was looking at me.

“Don’t even think about it,” I kept saying. My friends knew I hated getting up in front of people.

But Jake was not one to give up—obviously, or he wouldn’t be running against Taylor Ward. One morning, he cornered me by my locker. “Here’s the deal, Mil. We really, really need you.” Jake put a hand on each of my shoulders—like a handler getting a boxer revved up to go into the ring and get beat up. His blue eyes were full of conviction. I couldn’t help remembering the crush I’d had on him in seventh grade. Back then, I probably would have done anything Jake Cohen asked me to do.

“You’d be super! Everyone really respects you.”

This was news to me. “Why’s that?”

“Oh, you know, the way you had all that tutoring, and you never complained or told us why so we wouldn’t feel sorry for you.”

I was trying to hear the reason for all the supposed respect people had for me in this depressing picture. Finally, I caught on. “Jake, do you mean because I’m . . . adopted?”

Jake sighed with relief. “I didn’t know if you knew I knew. Em told—”

I nodded. “I know. I’m just sorry I didn’t tell you myself.”

“I understand,” Jake reassured me. “This place is so white bread.” He held his arms out, meaning Ralston High, our town, Vermont—it wasn’t clear. “But that’s what I’m saying, Mil. You never used your adoption as an excuse for anything. I really admire that.”

This was a different spin on my secrecy—bravery instead of plain and simple shame and insecurity.

“And so, my friend.” Jake’s voice suddenly turned parental. Oh no, I thought. Here comes the pitch after the spin. “I’m making a personal plea that you join us. Mil, we are going to change this place! More and more people are saying they’re going to vote for us. We stand a real chance, we really do! But we need the best people in our class. And I know, I know—” Jake held up both hands. “VP’s a lot more than you bargained for. So, how about you run for one of the senators?” The way he proposed this option, it was like Jake was giving me a real break.

“Let me think about it, Jake, okay?” I was already feeling that familiar tingling in my hands.

“Sure,” Jake said, waving a hand in a no-problem gesture. But as he turned to go, he added, “I’ve already got your twenty-five signatures. Deadline’s tomorrow. Let me know.”

“I can’t do it,” I told Pablo that afternoon. Now that the weather was nice, we often walked home from school. Sometimes Alfie would pass us by on the bus and toot-toot some tune we’d try to make out.

Pablo had been talking about the elections coming up in his country . . . how his parents hoped the Liberation Party would win . . . how his brothers were running for local offices. I had stopped listening. Our Ralston election was all I could think of.

“Jake really doesn’t get it,” I told Pablo. “I just don’t have it in me to get up in front of people and make speeches.”

“Yes, you do,” Pablo said quietly, like he knew.

“No way, José!” Only after I said it did I wonder if Pablo would think I didn’t remember his name. But he seemed to know the expression and just kept smiling at me in an encouraging way.

I felt annoyed. I needed Pablo’s support to stand up to all our friends. “How do you know what’s in me or not?” I folded my arms, tucking in my hands to hide the irritated skin.

Pablo shrugged and held my gaze. He was probably one of the signatures on my list of twenty-five supporters.

“I mean, this is just a stupid high school election. I know Jake makes it sound like it’s the beginning of changing the world...”

Pablo had this look in his eye like he agreed with Jake. “You are so fortunate in this country, Milly. You have always had freedom. You take it for granted.”

I sighed at the lecture. “So why don’t
you
run?” I confronted him.

“I am not sure I will be here next year, Milly.”

I took that in. The sadness of Pablo leaving before I even knew what he meant to me—brother, friend . . . something else?

“Milly?” Pablo was trying to catch my eye. Something tender in his voice drew my gaze to him. It was the same look I’d seen in the graveyard. This time, when I tried to look away, I couldn’t. “You have my vote,” he said. Then, giving me a little bow, he added, “And I would like to offer my services as your guardbody.”

“Bodyguard,” I corrected. I could feel myself caving in.

“Bodyguard at your service.” He spread his arms as if to shield me from adoring crowds.

I couldn’t help but smile. “Okay, okay.” I sighed. “I give up. I’ll run. I’ll change the world. I’ll save the whales. I won’t laugh at farmers with my mouth full.”

Pablo let his arms drop. He looked puzzled. “Milly, all you are doing is running for senator, no?”

“Oh? Is that
all
?”

Pablo nodded sincerely. I guess sarcasm isn’t always easy to get in another language.

Just then, as we were coming out the north side of the cemetery, Alfie went by on the bus.
Toot, toot, toot-toot-toot, toot toot,
he honked when he saw us. I swear I heard our campaign song, “You say you wanna start a Ralstonlution,” in those honks.

The night of their country’s national elections, we went over to the Bolívars. They had hooked up the old TV we had given them to the cable network so they could get the Spanish-language channels and keep up with news from their part of the world. Dad said that Mr. Bolívar had been a nervous wreck all day, hanging a door wrong side in, picking up a panel before the paint was dry. The future safety of his two sons as well as of his country was riding on the triumph of the Liberation Party. How could the poor guy think ‘remodeled pantry’ at a time like this?

Until tonight, I had put their elections out of my mind. Like everyone else at Ralston, I was caught up in our own elections. Incredible as it seemed at first, it now looked like the borderliners might stand a chance. Jake’s enthusiasm was infectious. In a desperate move, Taylor and his pals were throwing a big dance with a DJ at his parents’ lake house the Saturday before school elections. Everybody— except us—was invited.

The Bolívars’ apartment was above the hardware store near the town green. Mom and Dad and Kate and I marched up the stairs with sodas, a bottle of wine, and a flan Mom had made using Señora Robles’s foolproof recipe. Nate, who whined that he didn’t understand the Bolívars’ fast Spanish, had been dropped off for an overnight at a friend’s house. A worried but gracious Mr. Bolívar met us at the door. We could hear the hyped-up voice of the Spanish newscaster behind him.

Mrs. Bolívar and Pablo were getting up from the couch as we walked in. The small living room seemed even smaller with so many of us trying to find a place to sit. Except for our hand-me-downs, the Bolívars hardly had any furniture. A small wooden crucifix hung on the wall at an odd level, probably where there had already been a nail. The whole scene was making me sad, the bare walls, the sparse furnishings, the Bolívars so apologetic and helpless. It reminded me of those TV specials about poverty in the Third World: some scrawny mother and her kids crouched in front of a tiny hut, looking frightened. I’d start thinking about my own birth family. Maybe they were starving, too? Maybe they were sleeping on a dirt floor with nothing but rags to wear? Soon I’d be feeling guilty, like I had deserted them instead of the other way around!

While the Bolívars talked with Mom and Dad in front of the TV, Kate and I sat with Pablo on cushions on the other side of the living room, which was kind of like his room.

“So what’s going to happen if the Liberation Party doesn’t win?” Kate asked.

Pablo sunk his head in his hands. I had never seen anyone our age do that.

Kate flashed me a panicked look. I could tell she felt really bad. “I mean, I’m sure everything will be all right.”

Pablo shook his head, ignoring Kate’s reassurances. “If the Partido de Liberación does not win, it will be
un baño
de sangre
. What do you call it, a bath of blood?”

“Bloodbath,” Kate offered in a small voice.

Mr. Bolívar had been cruising through the channels for any news of the elections. Suddenly, he hit on an English-speaking channel that was highlighting the country’s elections.
“Vengan, vengan,”
he called us over to watch.

The anchorman was giving an overview of the history of the country. Stuff Mr. Barstow had gone over, but in a long-winded, textbookish way, hard to follow. But this was history in sound bites, easy to digest. The anchorman explained how the dictatorship had been put in place by the military, supported by CIA operatives and funds. Whatever that meant.

But about seventeen years ago, the people’s movement had gotten started in the mountains, the anchor guy continued. The dictator tried to eliminate them. A state of terror reigned. There was some old, blurry footage of helicopters shooting into a village; a church in flames; bound men being shoved into trucks. My hands felt on fire. My heart raced. Maybe one of those guys was my birth father. But how would I even know it was him?

Finally, the movement got the attention and support of some U.S. senators. Their faces flashed on the screen behind the anchor guy. Let’s hear it for senators! I thought. A bill was passed cutting off any further aid. Under pressure, the dictator agreed to hold free elections. The rebels came out of hiding to campaign. Support for their Liberation Party was overwhelming.

I swear I almost jumped up and cheered. I had gotten so caught up in the story of this struggle.

The anchorman now turned to a screen beside him for a live report. A leathery-looking reporter with a phony-sounding British accent was interviewing an official at election headquarters. The guy looked very uncomfortable.

“There seems to have been a huge turnout in support of the Liberation Party,” the reporter observed. It wasn’t really a question, but he stuck the microphone in front of the official.

“
Actualmente,
both parties have received many votes. We are showing the world that we have a
democracia
here.”

“When shall we expect news of the winners?” the reporter wanted to know.

The official looked over his shoulder nervously. The camera took in a flank of generals in dark glasses standing behind him. “We, at headquarters . . . some returns have been lost . . . we must have a recount . . . a delay of several weeks.”

Mrs. Bolívar lunged toward the television.
“¡Criminal!
¡Mentiroso!”
she screamed. She seemed to have forgotten she was sitting in an apartment in a small town in Vermont, not standing at the polling center in front of this official. But then, if she had been there, she probably would not have dared call him a lying criminal.

“Ya, ya, Angelita, cálmate,”
Mr. Bolívar was saying. But he didn’t look all that calm himself.

The camera was now panning the tanks crawling down the streets of the capital. “We shall see if this nation is indeed ready for democracy,” the reporter signed off.

Mom had put her arm around Mrs. Bolívar, who was crying quietly now. Mr. Bolívar had turned off the TV and was pacing up and down the room. Poor Dad was staring down at his work boots like they might tell him what to say.

“We must have faith,” Mr. Bolívar finally spoke up. “For the sake of our sons, for the sake of our country.
El paisito
will liberate itself!”

Mrs. Bolívar glanced over at her husband, her face like that of a little girl just aching to believe some story she’d been told. But tears kept falling down her cheeks.

“Sí, Mamá,” Pablo agreed, his voice barely a whisper. “Like Tía Dulce says,
‘Milagros ocurren.’
”

I didn’t know who Tía Dulce was, but maybe because Milagros was my original name, I felt like Pablo was talking directly to me. Miracles do happen, I told myself. All I had to do was look around me. I’d found a friend in the person I thought would ruin my life. After years of secrecy, I was opening up about my adoption. My impossible grandmother seemed to sort of in her own way be trying to apologize, and I was sort of in my own way trying to forget about her rejection. Pablo and his Tía Dulce were right. Miracles do happen. But sometimes, like that old needle in a haystack, you just had to find them.