Return to Sender (2 page)

“But it'd be like Gramps dying all over again!” Tyler was crying, even though he didn't want to cry. Gramps's ashes were scattered up in the garden by the old house Grandma still lived in. How could they leave him behind? And what about Grandma? Where would she go?

His mom explained that the plan was to keep his grandparents’ house, including a little plot beside it where Tyler's parents could build a new house. “We don't really have to leave the place,” Mom added. Now it was Tyler shaking his head. Mom had grown up in Boston, a city girl. She didn't understand the way that Tyler did, the way Gramps and Dad did, what it meant to be a farm family.

How could he explain to her that the farm was not just Dad's, it was the whole family's, going all the way back before Gramps, as well as forward, his and Sara's and Ben's, even if they didn't want it?

Tyler remembered something the Abenaki chief who had come to his school for an assembly had said: “My people believe that our land is not given to us by our ancestors. It is loaned to us by our children.”

“But it's not fair, it's not fair!” Tyler responded to his mom's explanations. And that was also what he said when she announced that Tyler had been invited to visit his aunt Roxie and uncle Tony for a month in Boston.

Now that
will
kill me, Tyler thought.

Aunt Roxie and Uncle Tony were peculiar in a way that Tyler didn't feel right complaining about. They were generous and always eager for adventure, and since they didn't have any children, they loved to spoil their niece and nephews. Sara adored them.

“Why can't
I
go for a month?” she asked as Tyler was being packed up.

“Trade you,” he offered in a whisper. But his mom heard him and gave him that time-for-another-math-problem look. So Tyler shut up. Besides, he would never have wanted to hurt his aunt's and uncle's feelings. They were like two little kids, except they were middle- aged, so it felt weird that they were acting his age.

In fact, Mom hadn't always let her kids go off with her sister and Uncle Tony. “Don't get me wrong, I love Roxie to death,” Tyler heard his mom telling Dad, “but she's a loose cannon, and he's not far behind, you know.” Aunt Roxie and Uncle Tony had done wild, crazy things that Tyler wasn't supposed to know about. “Like what?” he asked Sara, who had a way of finding things out.

“Well, for one thing, how they met. Aunt Roxie worked in a roller- derby bar.” Sara laughed, shaking her head, enjoying the thought. Tyler wasn't sure what was so funny. He was having a hard time putting the job together in his head: being on roller skates in a derby and serving drinks in a bar—all at the same time?

“How about Uncle Tony?”

“Ohmigod, don't even ask. He's done like a bunch of crazy stuff. He was the bouncer at the bar where Aunt Roxie was working.” A bouncer, his sister explained, was a big, tough bodyguard guy who threw rowdy people out of bars.

“Uncle Tony?” Tall, goofy Uncle Tony who was always cracking jokes?

His sister gave him a deep, know-it-all nod. “Working at that bar is where they got the idea of throwing parties.”

A couple of years ago, Aunt Roxie and Uncle Tony quit their night jobs to start a hugely successful party business, which, among other things, sold party products online. They were also party motivators, who flew to rich people's mansions and villas to help them throw the best parties, Christmas parties and wedding parties and birthday parties
and I-just-feel-like-having-a-party parties. Party Animals, they called their company.

Mom was glad that she didn't have to worry about her baby sister anymore, and that her kids now had an aunt and uncle on her side they could count on.

Uncle Tony and Aunt Roxie came up for the Fourth of July dressed in matching red, white, and blue outfits, Uncle Tony sporting a top hat like Uncle Sam's, and Aunt Roxie a Statue of Liberty crown. On their drive back to Boston, Tyler thought he would die of embarrassment every time a car passed them on the highway. But drivers slowed down and honked their horns, giving Uncle Sam and Lady Liberty the thumbs- up. No wonder their company was so successful.

The month- long visit was actually okay. The Party Animals offices were in the downstairs of their condo, so while his aunt and uncle worked, Tyler entertained himself. He played video games and watched movies on the giant- screen TV. Every weekend, there was a party to go to or an outing to an amusement park or—Tyler's all- time favorite—a visit to the Museum of Science. He'd gaze up at the planetarium stars and think about the universe, forgetting his farm wor-ries for hours at a time. On Fridays after work if the night was clear, his uncle and aunt would drive over to the museum so Tyler could look through the big telescope on the roof at the real stars.

But even though he was having fun, Tyler missed the farm so much. Often during the day, he would find himself
thinking about what was happening right then back home—the cows were being milked or the back meadow mowed or the bales stacked in the haymow as the swallows dove in and out of the barn. Tyler could smell the fresh- cut grass, hear the mooing of the cows as they waited for the feed cart to come by their stalls. Then, without warning, the thought would pop into his head—
the farm was being sold, and that was why his parents had sent him away
—and he'd start to worry all over again.

At the end of his visit, Tyler's mom drove down with Sara, who would be staying on for her very own one- week visit with their aunt and uncle. On the way back to Vermont, his mom surprised Tyler with the best news ever. “Honey, we think we've found a way to keep the farm after all.”

Tyler felt like his whole life had just been given back to him, wrapped up like a present with a big bow on top! But wait, did that mean Dad had regained the use of his arm? Was Ben going to stay on the farm instead of going to college? Had his dad's brother, Uncle Larry, who also farmed, offered to join their two adjacent farms together?

All these questions were popping up in Tyler's head like one of those video games where the dark invaders jump out at every turn. But Tyler was not about to let them take over his feelings once again. He'd grab the good news and run. However his parents had managed to save their family's farm, he was just glad they had worked this miracle in the month he had been gone.

“While you were away,” his dad is explaining, “we found some folks who're going to help me with the work.”

“I was wondering,” Tyler admits. But he has promised himself not to ask a whole lot of questions and start worrying all over again.

“Those ‘trespassers’ are actually the reason we can stay on this farm,” Tyler's dad goes on. “They're the best helpers a man can ask for.” He smiles sadly. Tyler knows how hard it is for his father to ask for any help. Grandma always says that Dad should have been born over in New Hampshire, where the state motto is “Live free or die.”

“They're from Mexico,” Mom goes on. She is a far better explainer than Dad, for whom two and two is always four and that's the extent of it. Whereas Mom will go into how two is an even number, how if you multiply it by itself you get four, same as when you add it to itself…. The only bad thing about Mom's explanations is that they go on and on, and Tyler can't help feeling impatient.

“They came all the way from the south of Mexico, a place called Chiapas,” Mom is saying.

“You mean you went to Mexico to pick them up while I was gone?” No wonder Sara didn't make more of a fuss about coming to Boston with Tyler!

“No, son.” His dad shakes his head. “We didn't have to go to Mexico. They were already here.”

“Your uncle Larry had some on his farm,” Mom elaborates. “And he told us about them. Lots of them are coming up here because they can't earn enough back home to live on. Many of them used to farm. They're separated from their families for years.” It sounds to Tyler like their very own Trail of Tears.

“Best workers,” his dad asserts. “Put us all to shame.”

“Well, Dad.” Mom smiles fondly at her husband. “You do a pretty good job yourself.”

“Used to,” he mutters bitterly.

“So you see, they're most definitely not trespassers,” Mom says, ignoring the dark cloud but pulling out the silver lining. “They're like our angels,” she adds.

“I counted at least three guys,” Tyler mentions. He doesn't like this angel talk. Not with Oprah still on the screen alongside close- ups of a mangled car in some hor -rible accident that's reminding Tyler of Dad's tractor tipping over.

Besides,
angels
are just one step away from ghosts and the spooky thought that maybe their farm is haunted with bad luck.

“And there's also three little girls,” Mom adds. Dad looks up as if this is news to him. “They're going to be at your school,” Mom continues. “One of them's your age. She'll probably be in your grade.”

“You didn't say anything about little girls.” Dad looks alarmed.

“I didn't know myself until I went to pick them up,” Mom says, shrugging. Like Tyler, his mom probably didn't
want to ask a whole lot of questions when angels came to their rescue, even if they were disguised as Mexicans.

“One last thing, Tiger,” his mom says as Tyler is heading out the door. “We … Well … School's about to start.” She hesitates. “What we just told you is not—I mean, it stays on the farm, okay?” His mom glances at the TV, still on mute. It's as if Oprah herself is following Mom's orders.

Tyler must look confused, because his mom goes on, ex-plaining stuff that makes no sense. “You know like when there's a disagreement at home or we tell you something's private. You understand?”

Of course Tyler understands about privacy. Like the time his uncle Byron had his hemorrhoid operation. Or Uncle Larry's oldest son, Larry Jr., was caught with a girl in the barn. But why would hiring workers have to be kept private?

And then Tyler gets it. His father's pride! Dad doesn't want his farmer neighbors to know he needs not one but— Tyler counted them—three helpers. Not to mention that his parents are probably afraid some other farmer will hire these workers out from under them. Pay them more money, give them a house instead of a trailer.

“Okay.” He nods, grinning with relief. “If anyone asks I'll just tell them we've got us some Martians.” Actually, his classmates might just believe him! Back in fifth grade, Ronnie and Clayton, the two school bullies, used to chant “There's Ty, the Science Guy!” because Tyler was always talking about the universe and the stars in class. “We hired extraterrestrials,” he'll report. “Excellent help. You don't have to pay them. You don't have to feed them. All you
do is reboot them at night and they're ready to go in the morning.”

It's only as he's headed upstairs that it hits him. If the girls are going to be attending Bridgeport, how can they be a secret? He's about to go back downstairs and confront his parents, but then he remembers the promise he made to himself. No questions. No worries. Let those girls come up with their own explanation. It should be easier being Mexican than being an alien from outer space.

But remembering his mom's worried look and his dad's bowed head, Tyler wonders if maybe being Martian is a lot easier to explain than being Mexican in Vermont. One thing's for sure. Sometimes in life he just has to accept stuff he'll never ever understand.

15 agosto 2005