Return to Sender (12 page)
Authors: Julia Alvarez
The bus had come and Mr. Rawson was leaning on his horn. “I better go.” Tyler heaved the hugest sigh, like he was off to a firing squad to be shot to death for a crime he never committed. “Come back after school!” I called to him. When he twisted around, he looked like I had just granted him a pardon.
During the day we watched through the windows as different members of the Paquette family came and went. They walked all around, calling and calling “Ma! Ma!” just like the baby calves do when they are weaned from their mothers. It made me sad because I understood
what it felt like to be missing your mother. Midday as we were eating lunch, the
patrón's
sister, Jeanne, and her husband, Byron, came to our door. It turned out that this husband knew some fancy Spanish like in a textbook. First they said they were very sorry about Tío Felipe. Then they mentioned about the grandmother and how worried they were. Had we maybe spotted her walking in a certain direction?
Virgencita, we all looked down at our shoes like they were suddenly the most interesting things in the world. And though a second later Papá shook his head, the lady knew we knew something. Her eyes were all wet and worried. “It's all my fault,” she explained. “You see, I've been worried to death about her, and I'm afraid I pushed the envelope.”
The husband translated everything the lady said for Papá and Tío Armando into his fancy Spanish, which made it hard to understand. But then I hadn't understood this lady's English, either. Why would pushing an envelope make her mother run off?
“I just want to know Ma's safe,” Jeanne explained, dabbing at her eyes.
Tío Armando spoke up.
“He says your mother is fine,” Mr. Byron told his wife. “I told you so.”
“Oh thank you, thank you!” Jeanne sobbed. “I've been so worried. Please tell us where she is, please. We're not going to hurt her.”
“You must promise not to send her from her home,” my uncle went on once the husband had translated. “We know what that is like,” he added to soften the fact that here he was telling the
patrón's
family what to do.
Virgencita, to bring this letter to a close, by the time Tyler came back from school, heading straight for our trailer without even stopping at his own house first, we had seen Grandma unloaded up at her house from her daughter's car. The brother Larry's car was up there, too, and the Paquettes had walked on over. As soon as we gave Tyler the news, he flew out the door, calling for us to come, too. But Papá and Tío Armando were in the barn milking and we had the strictest orders to stay indoors. All I could think as Tyler raced up the hill was how sweet it is when a family is reunited and the lost ones brought back into the fold.
Which brings me back to my petition, Virgencita de Guadalupe, that you help deliver Tío Felipe out of prison, even if he has to go back to México. Perhaps because we helped them find their grandmother, the Paquettes have promised us they will do everything they can to help our uncle.
I do have one more petition. In two days it will be a whole year since Mamá left us. It's not that I've stopped believing she will come back. But that moment in the
patrones’
kitchen when the phone call was not from Mamá, I began to feel a tiny bit of doubt. I have to keep believing or that little candle at the window will go out! So,
por favor,
Virgencita, return Mamá and our uncle so that we can be a united family in the United States or in México, it does not matter anymore, as long as we are all together.
Now that I am getting ready to close, I have begun wondering how I will deliver this letter to you, Virgencita. In México, and even in Carolina del Norte at the church Mamá always took us to, there was a statue in your honor. People always left you petitions and letters and photographs of their sons or daughters who were sick or sad or in the military. But here, we do not have such a church. The grandmother has wanted to take us to her church but Papá has refused. “They are Protestants,” he explained. “They do not worship our Guadalupe.” I was surprised to hear Papá say so, as unlike Mamá, he has never been a churchgoer.
But then, right after Thanksgiving, on our way to school on the bus, I noticed a big Nativity scene set up outdoors in front of a big church that might be Catholic. I am going to ask Mr. Rawson
if I can run up and say a real quick prayer while the town kids are getting off and crossing the street. I will bury this letter under Mary's robe, as Mamá always said you were one and the same Virgin.
Meanwhile today for the first time since she came back, we visited the grandmother. She embraced us and told us that her children have promised her that she will be carried out of her house feet first. I'm not sure why she would want to be carried out that way, but, Virgencita, when the grandmother wondered out loud how her family found out where she was hiding, I told her we had made her daughter promise that she would not force her mother to move.
“So I owe it all to you!” she said, smiling and hugging us.
No, I told her. She owed it all to the Virgin of Guadalupe, who has a special place in her heart for mothers and grandmothers—and, we hope, for our uncle, too.
Please,
por favor,
Virgencita,
grant both my petitions,
María (named after you!)
CHRISTMAS TEARS FARMIt's going to be the worst Christmas ever! Tyler is dreading what lies ahead in the two weeks that school will be out.
One eighteen-year-old brother grounded and the keys to his car that he paid for himself taken away. One fifteen-year-old sister not allowed to ride around in her boyfriend's car. One- third of your workforce in prison and the other two-thirds on pins and needles every time the milk truck pulls up to the barn to collect the day's milking, thinking it's the po-lice coming to haul them away. All the ingredients of a holiday from hell without even adding the fact that it'll be the first Christmas without Gramps.
At least, Grandma is back. “I'm sure glad I'm somebody's silver lining,” Grandma says when Tyler tells her how happy he is to have her next door, given how bleak things are over at his house.
Another thing Tyler feels bad about is the closing down of their Christmas tree farm. It isn't really a whole farm, just three acres that Gramps set aside to plant evergreens in rows, now going on ten years, which means some of the trees are sizeable, candidates if not for the White House at least for the statehouse down in Montpelier. Blue spruces and balsam firs and Scotch pines.
Every year, folks have come by and left their fifteen bucks in a can by the shed, where they've picked up a saw and gone off to cut down their very own tree. One year, some guys from a fraternity at UVM came by on a Saturday afternoon with a twelve- pack, and before they left, they'd cut down Gramps's prized tamarack that had nothing at all to do with Christmas. That was when Gramps took down the sign on the road that read cut your own Christmas tree—$15. Then it was only word of mouth: neighbors and friends for whom cutting down their Christmas tree at the Paquette farm had become a part of their holiday tradition.
But this year, not only will there be no sign on the road, there also won't be a coffee can on the picnic table or saws in the shed. Grandma and Tyler's parents have decided it's too risky having a whole lot of folks coming on the farm and maybe spotting their Mexican workers going in and out of the barn. Not with one of them already in jail.
Of course, Aunt Jeanne and Uncle Larry have come to
get their trees. At the last minute, Grandma decides to put up a tree for the girls, who otherwise won't have one. Grandma has always been big on decorating for holidays and has boxes of ornaments up in the attic, as well as a file folder full of recipes for every kind of Christmas cookie you could think of. The church always holds a Christmas bazaar, stocked primarily by Grandma and her friends: baked goodies and caps and stockings and stuff they've made. This year Grandma has invited the youth group to come and cut down a whole bunch of trees to sell. Afterward, the field looks so forlorn, it reminds Tyler of a tree version of the French Rev-olution his class read about when lords and ladies got their heads cut off on a guillotine.
But the saddest of all is how the Cruzes next door are worried sick about Felipe, the younger uncle, whom Tyler likes the best of the three men. Felipe plays the guitar and knows more English than he lets on, plus he loves making jokes. Like the one about having a girlfriend, Wilmita, that turns out to be his guitar! Tyler's mom has called the sheriff's office so often that now no one is available to take her call except the operator, who has to since it's her job. Finally, through Larry's friend, they find out that Felipe is in a pickle of trouble, as Grandma calls it. Not only is he going to have to go through a criminal trial on account of he fled from the authorities, but after he's convicted and sentenced and served his time for that offense, he'll have to go through a deportation hearing as well.
“He'll be middle- aged by the time he gets out of there.” Mom is beside herself. She calls a group of lawyers up in
Burlington who help poor people in trouble for whatever they can afford to pay. She finds one who is willing to donate his services for free to see if they can't get Felipe deported without having to make him into a criminal first.
But even with a lawyer on board, it's the holiday season, so cases are stacking up and everything is moving a lot slower than it normally would. But the good news in all this bad news is that Felipe is actually being held in the local county jail, where prisoners can receive visitors on Satur-days and Sundays from ten to three, one- hour slots, first-come, first-served. Mom signs them up for the only slot left open, ten o'clock Saturday morning.
“But we can't go see him,” Mari reminds Tyler when he gives her the news. They're in the kitchen, helping Grandma make her gingerbread house. Going to the county jail without papers would be basically like turning themselves in.
Tyler never thought of that. Still, somebody will have to translate for Mom and the lawyer. “I know!” Tyler says. “How about Ms. Ramírez?” Their Spanish teacher was born in Texas, but her parents came from Mexico. It's a brilliant idea except her number isn't in the phone book.
“We could just go house to house asking for her,” Grandma suggests as she lays another wafer shingle on the roof of her gingerbread house.
Mari thinks Grandma is serious. “It'd be just like the
posadas.”
Mari goes on to explain how for a whole week before Christmas, Mexican kids have a kind of trick-or-treat where they go from house to house pretending to be Mary
and Joseph. At each house, they ask if there's any room at the inn. Everyone turns them away until the last house of that night, where they're let in and have a party and break a piñata with candy and treats for all the kids. The very last night of the
posadas
is on Christmas Eve and the last house that night has a really big party because it's the actual night the whole story happened. Grandma thinks
posadas
are a great idea, which she's going to bring up at the next church committee meeting as something the youth group can do right here in Vermont.
Although Ms. Ramírez isn't in the phone book, Mrs. Stevens is. Mari doesn't want her principal to know that her uncle's been picked up by the police. So Grandma calls Mrs. Stevens and tells her an elaborate story about how she wants to give her friend Martha Spanish lessons for Christmas, as their youth group is considering going to Mexico on their service trip next summer, and so can she please have Ms. Ramírez's phone number? For a churchgoing person, Grandma sure knows how to tell a good lie.
By the next night, it's all set, Ms. Ramírez and Tyler's mom and the lawyer from Burlington are all going to visit Felipe on Saturday, which happens to be Christmas Eve day. But get this. Visitors cannot bring any packages or presents or clothes or food or anything to the prisoners even though it's the day before Christmas!
“I feel just like Mary and Joseph at all the
posada
stops where they're turned away,” Mari says, tearing up. “No room for us in this country.”
“But there's room for you here on our farm,” Tyler tells
her. They are outside while Ofie and Luby help Grandma finish up the lawn on the gingerbread house. Tyler is teaching Mari the winter constellations. Orion, the hunter, wears his belt of three stars. To the west, a bunch of little stars glitter like teensy blue diamonds. “They're the Pleiades, the seven sisters,” Tyler says.
Mari is momentarily distracted. “Seven? I only count six.”
“You're not supposed to see all seven,” he explains. “One of them is so dim you can only see her with a telescope. She's supposed to be missing or hiding out or something.”
“Why?” Mari wants to know. Tyler has noticed this before, how Mari is always so intrigued when the subject of someone missing comes up. The day Mrs. Stevens and the school counselor talked to their class about missing children and the appropriate behavior if a stranger approaches you, Mari, who never asks questions, wanted to know all about what to do if someone was missing in your family. Mari has told Tyler that one of the things she likes the most about astronomy is how you can use the stars to guide your way, so you never ever have to be lost. “How come that sister star got separated from the others?”