Return to Sender (25 page)

One day, the
coyote
chief's wife showed up all the way from México. For some reason, that woman was furious to find Mamá in the house. It was the only time Mamá saw that
coyote
gangster afraid. The wife made her husband move Mamá to one of his other houses with instructions to contact relatives and collect payment for her delivery. “Get rid of her one way or another,” the wife said. Mamá was sure that this was her death
sentence. Especially when she heard from her new jailers that you, Papá, and my uncles were having trouble coming up with that much money.

Then, from one day to the next, it was like the Virgen de Guadalupe had been sent to the rescue. (All those prayers I said and candles I lit!) Mamá and some other Mexicans in the house were told to get ready, as they were leaving in an hour for Carolina del Norte. They all had to lie down in the back of the van, covered with a false floor for three days while the
coyotes
drove and drove. From the commentary among the others, Mamá learned why there had been this urgency in moving them. One of the gang's houses had been raided, and the orders from on high were to deliver the cargo as soon as possible.

When the Mahoneys’ car stopped at the motel parking lot, both Mamá and I looked up, confused. We had both been so involved in her story, as if we were in that van together, trying to breathe enough air. But here we were, safe and together, surrounded by friends! I felt such a surge of relief and happiness. “Thank you,” I said with all my heart to everyone in the car.

“Gracias, muchas gracias,”
Mamá agreed. “Tell them,” she told me in Spanish,
“que les debo a ellos mi vida.”

“My mother says she owes her life to you,” I translated.

“Were they really going to kill her?” Tyler asked in an awed voice.

I turned to face him. “I better tell you later,” I said quietly.

Tyler's blue eyes looked directly into mine and I could see he was getting it: I could not talk in front of Mamá, even if it was in another language.

The aunt turned around in the front seat. “I think we should call your father,” she reminded me. “I know he must be waiting to hear from you.”

We reached you just as you were all sitting down to lunch together. I don't have to tell you how joyful that call was! Very thoughtfully, the aunt and uncle and Tyler and Sara slipped out of the car, leaving us to our private reunion. All of us cried and laughed and talked, taking turns. It was you, Papá, who had to remind us that we must not abuse the generosity of our friends in lending us their cell phone.

Their generosity has not stopped there. That very afternoon, the aunt and Sara and Mamá and me got dropped off at a mall, which made Sara very happy. Tyler was okay because he got to go to the Museum of Life and Science with his uncle. The aunt bought Mamá some underclothes and a toothbrush and little things she had to leave behind in her bag. Mamá kept saying that she didn't have any money, but the aunt shook her head not to worry. Later, the aunt and uncle took
us all out to a Mexican restaurant for dinner so that Mamá could have food she might really like. She needs to eat and get strong.

Over the last few days, I've seen her slowly calming down like one of those wild barn cats that you stroke and stroke until it lies in your lap purring. And remember those letters, Papá, that you asked me not to mail to Carolina del Norte? I had brought them along. Mamá has read them half a dozen times already, and each time, she smiles softly, so proud of my stories.

It's only at night that we lose her again. Mamá keeps crying out with a nightmare. We shake her awake, and it takes her a minute or so to realize where she is and who we are. And then she cries again. I feel bad because I know that neither the aunt nor Sara has gotten a good night's sleep the whole way home.

On the drive back, the aunt and uncle had arranged a wonderful surprise for Tyler. They had planned for us to spend a day and a half in this nation's capital after all. I was so glad, because I knew that Tyler had given up his birthday wish to help us bring Mamá home. Now he could get a little bit of what he had wished for.

Papá and Ofie and Luby and Tío, I hope someday all of us can visit this beautiful capital city together! There are so many grand buildings and beautiful gardens and fountains and museums
filled with everything you can imagine. Tyler's first choice for a visit was the National Air and Space Museum. We saw the most incredible show in this theater called a planetarium that felt like we were zooming toward the stars. Mamá kept gasping and making the sign of the cross. Afterward, she was full of questions.

“¿Es verdad?”
she kept asking after each fact I translated. Was it true that the universe began with a big explosion? That those stars were millions upon millions of years away from us? It makes me sad that Mamá and you, Papá, were not able to stay in school past sixth grade, because you are both so eager to learn. You would have been A-plus students!

We even went on a tour of the big white house where the president lives. Mamá could not believe she was inside a president's house, not to clean it, but as a guest! It was hard to pay attention to what the guide was saying, because at every turn I was expecting to bump into Mr. President. I kept wondering if he had received my letter—not that I would dare ask. But we never saw him or his wife or their pretty twin daughters. Later, the aunt and uncle explained that the tours just take you to the rooms open to the public. You never go near the living quarters of the president and his family.

We spent the rest of the time walking around
the city. Even Sara didn't complain or ask to go shopping. But we didn't see any demonstrators like we had seen on television. The streets were calm and full of people enjoying the beautiful spring weather. Everywhere there were so many flowers, like Nature was celebrating its
quinceañera.

At first, Mamá clung to my hand, afraid she'd be picked up. But soon, she, too, relaxed as if she realized this was not just the capital of one country, but the home of everyone who loves freedom.

One of the places we visited was this stone wall engraved with the names of thousands upon thousands of soldiers who fought and died in a war not long ago. The stone was black and shiny, so you could see your reflection as well as the blooming trees and the clouds in the sky. We walked quietly down a winding path beside the wall, as if into the earth itself, to thank the soldiers who had died for us. Every once in a while, a visitor would stop, head bowed, touching a name, whispering a prayer. It was beautiful in a sad, solemn kind of way. The same feelings as when we sing
“La Golondrina”
and think of a home we might never see again.

Mamá seemed to understand this place even before it was explained. “Each of those names left behind a grieving family.” She sighed and stopped
to stroke the wall herself. Maybe she was thinking of all those she had left behind. I know I was thinking of how we grieved for her during her absence. But unlike the names on that wall, she has come back to us.

We drove north the next day, and as Mamá and Sara dozed in the backseat, I gazed out the car window. The leaves were retreating back inside their stems, the green meadows were becoming brown, the windy sky steel- gray and cloudy. Spring was turning back into winter.

I kept thinking about Mamá and all she had been through. How we have to be patient with her. How we have her now in our hands but her spirit is not yet with us. How she is like the
golondrina,
still lost in the blowing wind, looking for a safe harbor.

But unlike the swallow of the song, Mamá will come back to us. Please,
por favor,
believe me, Papá, Tío, and my
hermanitas.
All we have to do is wait. Like the spring that has not yet arrived in Vermont. But I have seen it and it is coming.

And so are we!

Mamá sends her
besitos
and kisses

along with mine,

Mari

RETURN-TO-SENDER FARM

Spring is Tyler's favorite time of year on the farm, but it doesn't arrive until May in Vermont. Oh, there are warm days in April, little crocuses poking up on the south- facing section of lawn around the house. Mom hangs out the wash and the wind blows it dry by noon. Dad starts mending fences, so that he can put the calves and heifers and dry cows out to pasture.

One morning, the air is full of twittering, and when Tyler meets Mari at the mailbox to wait for the bus, they both say at once, “They're back!” The swallows have returned, right on time. “I think they're chirping in Spanish,” Tyler jokes.

“¡Primavera, primavera, primavera!”
Mari singsongs. Spring, spring, spring!

But like the phrase stamped on an envelope with an index finger pointing back to where the letter came from, this is Return-to-Sender spring. A cold front blows in from the north, dumping a snowstorm. Frost beheads the daffodils. The puddles in the fields turn to ice, reflecting the gray sky.

This year, Tyler feels especially impatient for spring to get here. Maybe it's because he already started spring by going south to North Carolina, only to return to winter as they headed back to Vermont.

But finally, really and truly, May rolls in with day after warm day. The only problem is the constant rain, which makes it hard to get the fields planted. But even rain can't dampen Tyler's high spirits. All winter long, the farm is in hibernation mode, only the milking parlor and barn hum-ming with life. But come spring, the farm unpacks its animals and its smells and its sounds and spreads out on all sides. Then a farmer's second job begins: growing the food to feed his cows during the fall and long winter.

School is a drag, because there's so much that needs to be done on the farm. Tyler has to scale back his hours at Mr. Rossetti's. One afternoon a week, he cleans the yard, rakes out the garden, gets the flower beds ready for the bulbs Grandma brought over to improve Mr. Rossetti's property.

Weekends, he helps his dad and Corey and Ben (whose classes have already ended!) out in the fields. Meanwhile, the milking and barn chores are left for Mr. Cruz and his brother. The two groups cross paths at night as one comes from the fields and the other from the barn, briefly exchanging whatever information is needed before heading home wearily to supper, maybe a little TV, and bed.

It's at these times that Tyler notes how sad Mr. Cruz looks, not at all what Tyler expected after the ecstatic reunion a few weeks ago. The minute the car pulled in the driveway that late Sunday afternoon, Ofie and Luby came racing from the trailer and their father from the milking parlor. Tyler thought they'd knock Mrs. Cruz over. They practically carried her back to the trailer, and Tyler and his dad agreed to finish up the milking with Armando so Mr. Cruz could just feast his eyes on his skinny wife.

But according to Mari, the stories Mrs. Cruz has been telling her husband about her captivity must be truly awful, because Mari is not allowed to even know what they are. “I hear them sometimes at night in the kitchen—my mother talking and crying, and my father crying right along.” Then, for days afterward, her father walks around with a fierce look in his eyes, his jaw tense, and his hands in fists. Any little thing and he blows up at Mari and her sisters. “It's really terrible at home,” Mari admits. “I mean, it's great that Mamá's back, but I thought, I don't know, I thought it would be different.”

Tyler nods. He knows exactly what she means. Maybe this is what grown- up life is all about? Sad and happy stuff all mixed together. His old hand- blinker routine no longer works. He knows too much inside his own head. “You yourself said, Mari, you just have to be patient and wait,” he tries consoling her.

“I know,” Mari admits, but it doesn't seem to lift her spirits in the least to say so.