Authors: Luanne Rice
Those days, even though the
tías
were so kind, and said she would always have a home with them, Susana became her most important person. She came to the hospital every day and helped her think about her father.
Rosa was small for her age, the skinniest girl in her class, and she wore glasses with a special tint because the desert sun had burned her eyes and made them sensitive. When she looked at the picture of her family, she saw that her hair was the same as before: long, brown, and wavy. In fact, except for the glasses, she looked almost the same as she had in the photo.
Yes, the girl in that photo was “normal,” even special.
“Preciosa,”
her father had called her. Precious girl. She held the picture close to her face and kissed her father and great-grandmother. They were not alive, Rosa thought during her worst moments. If they were, they would have found her. But her heart told her that somewhere they
were
alive. She felt they missed her as much as she ached for them.
She’d had those feelings all along, even in the hospital. Closing her eyes, she went back there now: the bed with rails on the sides, tubes in her body, the constant taste of medicine on the back of her throat, the feeling she had to throw up. She had bandages all over: her feet, legs, hands, arms, and head. She had cracked ribs, sun poisoning, infected insect bites, and sores on nearly every part of her body.
They had bandaged her eyes with cool gauze pads, and changed them every hour. After a while they put on a bandage that allowed a tiny bit of light in, just so she could see enough to not be so scared. With that bandage people looked like shadows.
Susana had sat in a chair by the side of her bed. Her voice was warm and calm.
“Dime
. . .
Tell me . . . ,” Susana always began. “Tell me about your house at home.”
“It was beautiful,” Rosa would say. “I slept next to my great-grandmother. She prayed for us and I could hear her rosary beads clicking. My father slept in the other room, but he always told me a story before I fell asleep.”
“What could you see when you looked out the window?”
“Other houses like ours. And Popo.”
“Popo?”
“With the snowy hair, always protecting the girl mountain.”
“Popo is a mountain?”
“Sí. Sometimes smoke comes out his head.”
Susana and Rosa laughed at that, and Rosa heard Susana making scratching noises on her pad with her pen.
“What could you smell?”
That was easy and made Rosa smile—until she realized how much she missed it and then she started to cry.
“Tell me,” Susana said softly.
But at that time, Rosa could not. The memory was too beautiful to say out loud. It was her treasure, and she had to hold on to it, to let herself dream that she would smell the lemons again, stand at the foot of her father’s ladder while they talked and sang and he picked fruit from the tree.
“What else?” Susana would say. “What did you eat?”
“Beans and corn. Tamales for Navidad. Sometimes . . .” She stopped herself. She didn’t like to tell this part because she knew it would shame her father and abuela. “Sometimes they didn’t eat.”
“Why?”
“If it was too dry and there was a drought, there wouldn’t be any corn. And the orchard would not provide fruit to sell. At those times there wasn’t enough work for my father to make money.”
“So you had nothing to eat?”
“I always did,” Rosa said. Her eyes filled with tears, stinging behind the bandage. “But sometimes they didn’t. I tried to share my food but they wouldn’t take it.”
“They loved you,” Susana said. Those words were the happiest words Rosa had heard since waking up in the hospital. She sobbed to hear them. “I love them, I love them, I want them . . .”
“I know,” Susana said.
Susana didn’t make empty promises about finding her father. She helped by listening and visiting every day, by slowly and surely helping Rosa get stronger. Soon she would be discharged, and go to live with Marisol and her family. Bernarda and Ronnie would visit all the time, and they promised her that if she needed Susana, they would take her to see her.
Yes, Rosa wanted to do well in school and someday be like Susana. Help little girls remember the things that would help them, and not be so scared of the things too terrible to keep in their minds.
She sat at her desk, listening to the family in another room. The boys were playing video games, Marisol was cooking dinner, and Emilio had just gotten home from work and was showing Marisol some things he found in the trash. They were a good family and she loved them, but they weren’t hers. She had only one papá.
Some days after school she went to the square. It looked the same as it had the day she’d arrived in Altar with her papá. People bustled around, buses and vans pulling in and out, the same vendors selling backpacks, food, and water. Marisol said Rosa could only go to the plaza with Lita, and only if they stayed close to the Red Cross clinic.
But sometimes Rosa slipped away and walked to the church. She would sit on the steps, scanning the crowd for a tall man with short dark hair and a neat moustache. She looked for Miguel, her father’s cousin, but he wasn’t there. The old coyotes sat in the same place, but Rosa wouldn’t go near them, not even to ask about her father. Then Lita would come running, grab her by the arm and shake her, ask if she
really
wanted to be abducted and sold for sex and never see the family again, because that’s what happened to her friend Monica.
Rosa had homework and was supposed to write a story. It could be about anything. She knew it would be about her childhood, when she had lived with her real family and been happy. Because when she wrote stories about it, she could live in the world where she used to be her father’s
preciosa,
where the lemon trees were beautiful, and all the goodness of life was right there.
chapter twenty-two
Roberto
At night the parking lot of the medical center at Pais Grande was nearly empty. When he and Julia pulled in, he stayed in the car while she went inside to talk to someone. He looked around for Leary’s SUV, but it wasn’t there. The night was pitch black, the way he remembered it being when he crossed. But when he looked up at the sky, even with the medical center lights, he saw stars burning—white swaths of stars, the constellations standing out so bright, reminding him of the myths his grandmother had taught him, and that he had passed on to Rosa.
He glanced at the door. It killed him not to be inside, but he didn’t have long to wait. Julia walked out as soon as she’d gone in.
“What did they say about Rosa?” he asked.
“The woman at the desk said they have no record of her being here.”
“And Leary?”
“She said they had a big emergency here today—if he stopped by, she didn’t see him.”
Roberto closed his eyes for a moment, trying to hold himself together.
Julia dialed Leary’s number and put the call on the speaker.
“I was about to call you,” Leary said.
“We’re in Pais Grande.”
“I thought you and Roberto were waiting in Malibu until I had real news.”
“Roberto had other ideas. Where are you?”
“In Mexico,” he said.
“Why?” Julia asked.
“Because that’s where Rosa is.”
“Rosa?” Roberto asked.
“She’s alive, Roberto. And she’s asking for you.”
Roberto’s heart seized, and he started to cry.
“Can you bring her here?” Julia asked, glancing at Roberto. She knew what he knew—their lives were about to change forever.
“You know I can’t do that,” Leary said. “She’s Mexican, Julia. If he wants her, he has to cross the border and come back.”
“But . . . ,” Julia began.
Roberto took her hand. He held it as gently and lovingly as he could. He wanted all the love in his heart to flow into hers, so she would know and understand everything he was feeling for her as he said out loud, so both she and Leary would hear, “Yes. I am coming for her. Where is she?”
“Have Julia drive to the checkpoint in Nogales. We’ll be waiting on the other side.”
Julia
This was everything she had wanted, to see Roberto and Rosa together again, but it felt like the end of her world. Driving to Nogales, she felt Roberto’s hand on her back, her shoulders, stroking her hair. His eyes glistened with tears that wouldn’t stop.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m so happy for you,” she said.
“Gracias, amor.”
“Oh God, she’ll be so overjoyed to see you.”
“This is all happening because of you,” he said.
“Shh,” she said, because she couldn’t bear to hear it. Her bones ached inside, as if they might just give out. When they’d first met, Julia and Roberto both believed they would never see their daughters alive again. Being so close to finding Rosa made Julia ache for Jenny even more.
To find Rosa, she had to lose Roberto. Why had she not known that? The road through the desert was pitch black.
Signs for the Mexican border were everywhere
. TEN MILES AHEAD. FIVE MILES AHEAD. LAST EXIT BEFORE LEAVING THE UNITED STATES.
She saw a roadblock on the opposite side of the highway, stopping cars and vans to check for migrants hiding in the back or in the trunk. Her heart was breaking because they were about to say goodbye.
“It’s happening so fast,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“We really found her.”
Roberto didn’t answer. Traffic stopped because they were approaching the border. The area was crowded with motels and businesses, and a freight line ran just alongside the highway. A moment later Julia saw the wall—a massive fence really, with thick steel bars twenty-five feet high. She could look through them, even from inside the car, and see Mexico. It was like looking into a jail cell.
Surveillance towers equipped with cameras and a guard shack rose at intervals along the fence. She saw a sign advertising
SECURE PARKING $5.00
and pulled into the lot.
“Roberto, if you stay here . . .”
“I can’t,” he said.
“But if you cross, they won’t let you back. Let me go, talk to Jack, and see if I can bring her to you.”
“Amor, you know I have to go to her now,” he said.
Julia nodded. She and Roberto got out of the car with Rosa’s doll and started walking toward a gate in the wall. A U.S. border guard stood there, checking documents.
Julia showed him her passport, and he stared from her to Roberto. He held out his hand for Roberto’s papers.
“What is your purpose for crossing?” he asked.
“To see . . . ,” Julia began, sweat breaking out because she noticed the guard watching Roberto carefully. He had one hand on his gun, and still holding Julia’s passport, he clicked a button on the radio hanging from his belt loop and spoke into a mouthpiece.
“Victor, get over here,” the guard said, not taking his eyes off Roberto. “We have a situation.”
“Hey, Dan,” came Jack’s voice through the fence.
The border guard turned quickly and smiled. “Jack Leary! Holy shit—what are you doing on that side?”
“Family business,” Jack said. “Let them through.”
“We’re waiting for Tonk here to show us some documentation.”
Tonk? Julia wondered.
“I’ll take care of it,” Jack said. “They’re with me.”
“Man, you’re putting me in a fucking bad position. I just called Vic.”
“I trained you both,” Jack said. “Glad to know you’re so thorough. This one’s mine, okay? One of my old cases.”
“Okay, but if there’s any blowback . . .”
“There won’t be,” Jack said.
Julia and Roberto pushed through the turnstile, then walked through the gate in the fence, and they were in Mexico.
Jack
“Tonk.” That word had made Louella sick, and hearing it turned his stomach now. It had been coined long ago to describe illegal border crossers and referred to the sound made by a sap hitting a skull. He put it out of his mind as he turned to see Julia and Roberto, clutching each other’s hands, coming toward him.
“Welcome back,” he said to Roberto. He wasn’t sure whether he meant it ironically or not. Roberto had kept one arm tightly around Julia and was craning his neck to look for Rosa.
“Is she here?” Julia asked.
“Yeah,” Jack said.
They began to walk toward the street where Jack had left his SUV. The town was lively as usual on a Saturday night, hopping with locals and Americans who’d crossed for the evening.
Small, flat-roofed, brightly painted houses rose on the hillside—local officials supplied free colorful paint to residents who wanted to spiff up their homes. Jack knew they wanted to make a good impression on people looking through the wall from the U.S. side.
He walked ahead of Julia and Roberto, feeling more emotional than he had expected. Louella would have loved this: bringing a family together. The SUV was parked two blocks away under a streetlamp—he’d wanted to keep the occupants completely safe, and you never knew what might happen in a border town on a Saturday night or any night.
Ronnie, Marisol, and Rosa had followed in their car, but he felt it would be safer to have the three of them wait in his. He slowed down as they walked toward the SUV.
“She’s been through a lot,” he said to Roberto.
“I’m sure,” Roberto said. He still hadn’t spotted the SUV. “How far is she from here?”
“We’re close,” Jack said.
“But where?” he asked, craning his neck. “I need to see her.”
“Where has she been living?” Julia asked.
“She got very lucky,” Jack said. “Three guardian angels found her—three sisters, all of them nurses. She’s been living in Altar with Marisol, the youngest, and her family. They’ve made sure Rosa’s had excellent care.”
“Altar,” Roberto said, his voice cracking. “Where we started from.”
“That’s what Rosa says,” Jack said.
The street was dim, but as they approached the streetlight, he could see his SUV—Ronnie in the front seat, Marisol and Rosa in the back. He waved, and saw Ronnie give a half turn. The back door flew open and Rosa jumped out. Jack looked at Roberto, saw the look in his eyes.