Finding Miracles (18 page)

Someday, I kept thinking, I’ve got to write them all down!

I thought of these details as
milagritos
. That was the name given to the little medals Dulce had pointed out to me at the church in Los Luceros, pinned to the robe of the Virgin Mary. They were in the shape of tiny eyes or a foot or a heart or a house—a part of the body people wanted the Virgin Mary to heal or a symbol of some problem in their lives they needed help resolving. Each of these medals represented the
milagrito,
or little miracle someone was hoping would come about.

Just as my parents kept that box in their bedroom with my papers, I now had a memory box in my head. It was full of the little miracles that had happened to me in
el paisito,
the little country with the big heart.

One day, when I was ready to write, I would open that box.

Milagritos
kept happening even after my family arrived.

My family’s first night, the Bolívars invited us all over for a feast, a kind of repeat of my first night in the country—hard to believe that had only been ten days ago! A huge spread was laid out in the open-air patio, including a roast pig on a platter with a mango in its mouth. “Awesome!” Nate exclaimed, but his little face got an I-THINK-I’m-going-to-throw-up look when he heard this was
dinner
. Dulce and Mrs. Bolívar absolutely refused help from anyone, except from Esperanza and me. We were allowed to serve, clear, and order anyone who stood up to help to sit back down or else.

“Wait till you taste Tía Dulce’s
arroz y habichuelas,
” I said, squeezing in beside Kate. Supposedly, rice and beans had been our favorite food when we were both toddlers. We’d share a plate, picking up a bean and a few grains at a time with our hands.

“Who’s
Tía
Dulce?” Kate made a face, as if to say,
I don’t
know about you, but I don’t have an aunt named Dulce
.

Pablo glanced over at me, a slight lift to one eyebrow. He must have noticed, too. Kate had been especially quiet since she arrived—not her usual parading of her Spanish expertise. A couple of times, I tried asking her about her trip to New York.
Fine
was as much detail as she seemed to want to share with me.

Before we ate, Mr. Bolívar offered a toast to his wonderful friends from Los Estados Unidos. He was so “emotioned”—as he called it—that after a few words in English, he just automatically started speaking in Spanish. What he said would have been corny if it wasn’t so totally true— how families were made with the heart, how out of incredible tragedy had come the miracle of understanding and love, how we were all a
familia
now. Kate glanced over at me uncertainly, then looked away, tears in her eyes.

I almost started to cry a few times, too, but then Happy or Eli or Nate would ask me, “What’s he saying?” and my emotioned self would go out the window. Translating corny stuff was like when Em had to explain a dirty joke to me.

Meanwhile, Pepito began calling out swear words— which Mom wouldn’t let me translate for Nate at the table. In the middle of the meal: a crack of thunder, lightning— then rain began to pour on our dinner party, which was quickly moved into the small living room.

Nobody said a miracle had to be perfect.

There we stayed until late, finishing our meal, and drinking
cafecitos
. After a few shots of rum, Riqui and Camilo began talking in broken English about their revolutionary experiences. The Truth Commission. The hopeful but painful process of rebuilding the country. Nate had fallen asleep on Mr. Strong’s lap; otherwise, I think my parents would have insisted on leaving. Nate really was too young to listen to all this. As for Mom and Dad, they looked exhausted after getting up at four this morning in Vermont to make their New York connection. But this wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation you could walk out on. Kate was intent on listening, and turning and turning the new necklace I’d gotten for her on my first day here—a portable lazy Susan, at last. I figured it was a good sign she was even wearing it. At one point, I couldn’t stand the distance between us. I reached over and took her hand. She didn’t squeeze back, but at least she let me stay holding her hand.

Meanwhile, Happy sat at the edge of the sofa, shaking her head. “I had no idea,” she kept saying over and over. “Why, it’s like what my mother’s people went through in the Holocaust!”

“When we get back, we’ll have to call Senator Barney. He chairs the foreign relations committee,” she informed the Bolívar brothers. “I’ve given a lot of money to his campaign. Don’t you think that’s a good idea, Eli?”

“Indeed,” Mr. Strong agreed. “Terrible, terrible thing,” he added, I guess to show he had been listening.

Another
milagrito
.

It started out as the worst day. August 15, my family’s first full day in the capital, just so happened to fall on my “birthday.”

I
hated
my birthday. Was I really supposed to celebrate the day I was given away by someone who was obviously not celebrating having me be born? And it wasn’t even
the
day I was born! Every year, I’d always get wicked PBS, pre-birthday syndrome, which reached its awful climax on August 15. Honestly, I didn’t know why my family insisted on celebrating the day I was at my worst.

Since we were so far from home and away from our usual routines, I was hoping—against hope, I know—that everyone would sort of forget my “birthday.” But, of course, Mom and Dad told the Bolívars, and that morning I woke up to my whole family
and
all the Bolívars singing “Happy Birthday” and
“Las Mañanitas”
(a birthday serenade song) on the patio just outside my window.

I pulled the sheet over my head. Maybe if I pretended to fall asleep, they’d go away.

“Yoo-hoo! Milly!” Mom finally called. She knew I couldn’t sleep through the phone ringing on the first floor in Vermont. For sure, I was awake.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Dad joined in. Then someone was tapping at the window.

Grrrrrr! If I hadn’t been a guest staying at the house of the parents of the love of my life, I would have used some of the swear words I’d learned from Pepito this past week.

But I tried to be gracious when I came out and all my family, Kaufmans and non-Kaufmans, broke out into yet another round of each song. Pablo threw me a helpless look. He must have tried to stop this. Meanwhile, Kate was cheering like crazy. Great, I thought. Finally, Kate was being friendly, doing something I detest.

When I got a moment alone with Mom and Dad, I whispered that I wished they hadn’t spread the news around.

“Oh, honey! It’s your birthday. We want to celebrate
you
!”

“But it’s not my birthday. It’s not even close. Sor Arabia at the orphanage said I was probably four months old when I got left on their doorstep.”

“We told you that, honey,” Dad reminded me. I knew they must have, but it was funny how sometimes you didn’t register something your parents told you over and over until someone outside the family mentioned it once.

Meanwhile, Mom was all curious about the orphanage. “Sor Arabia? What orphanage? You mean the one you mentioned on the phone?”

That was how the idea got started of visiting CRI. First, it was just Mom and Dad going, but the visit soon turned into a group outing. Everyone, including Grandma, wanted to see the place. On the way, we stopped at the bakery and bought the biggest cake on hand, a sheet cake with coconut frosting. “No, it’s not a birthday cake,” Mom assured me. “Just a treat for all the kids.” We also ordered a wedding cake to be picked up in a week. It turned out that Happy and Eli would not be getting married until the end of the trip because the paperwork took that long, even with Camilo, a lawyer, helping us. Happy winked at Eli. “We get to live in sin, darling.”

Eli blushed the color of the hibiscus on another one of his loud shirts. How many Hawaiian shirts had Grandma bought him? I wondered.

We arrived at El Centro de Rehabilitación Infantil with the cake and a carton of sodas and a big bag of ice we picked up at the
supermercado
. Sor Arabia was beside herself with gratitude and welcome. She claimed to remember Mom, who said that of course she remembered Sor Arabia. I could tell Mom was just being polite, and later in the van, she admitted that the only nun she remembered was Sor Corita, and that was only because over the years she’d been able to refresh her memory with the pictures in my box. “I was so in love with my two little babies, I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to anyone else. You know how it is when you fall in love with someone. . . .” Mom’s voice trailed off. She could tell something was up between me and Pablo, but we hadn’t had a private moment, just the two of us, to talk.

Meanwhile, Sor Arabia couldn’t get over Kate. “You haven’t changed a bit!” she exclaimed. Oh, come on! Kate had been less than a year old the last time Sor Arabia could have seen her, right before my parents left this country. I thought nuns weren’t supposed to lie. “Those same beautiful brown eyes and that sweet smile.” Sor Arabia looked fondly at Kate, who was eating it up.

They hooked arms, and finally, Kate’s Spanish was unleashed. During the ensuing tour, Kate asked all sorts of questions about the orphanage and whether they accepted interns. I felt that old gnawing of jealousy and competition in my gut. I tried reminding myself that this was Kate’s way of showing interest in my past. A first step. But still, the heart feels what it feels, as Pablo might say. Ms. Morris once said basically the same thing when we were reading Anne Frank’s diary, and someone said something like, “Jeez, there’s a Holocaust going on and this girl’s complaining about her mother?!” Well, here I was in the middle of an orphanage, having an attack of sibling rivalry.

Kate sidled up to me. “Do you remember any of this?” she whispered.

“Of course not,” I told her.

“Phew.” She sighed. “That nun had me half believing that I remembered her.” We exchanged a knowing grin.

Another step, I thought.

In the dining hall, the kids were waiting, super excited by the American visitors. The little guy who once ate up my cake was especially taken with Nate. He kept staring at this boy: his white skin, his blue eyes, and as it turned out, his baseball cap! Nate let him try it on, but then the little guy wouldn’t take it off. Nate was too afraid to ask for it, but some kids were quick to point out to Sor Arabia that the cap hadn’t been returned, and she made the little guy give it back.

After the introductions, the cake was brought in. The kids clapped. I beamed my family a
don’t-even-go-there
look when I sensed the birthday song wafting through their brains. This time they actually gave me what I wanted and didn’t sing it. We all sat down to eat cake, and this little guy wiggled in beside Nate. There goes Nate’s piece, I thought.

But the little guy didn’t ask for Nate’s cake. Instead, he nudged his own serving over and gestured toward the cap lying on Nate’s other side. Nate didn’t get it and shook his head, meaning
I don’t want more cake,
which this little guy took to mean that a serving of cake was no trade for a Red Sox baseball cap. So he dug into his pocket and out came a half dozen metal jacks to add to the bargain. What an outcry! The little girls at the table went wild. So that was who’d been stealing their jacks! I hated to think what awaited this little guy once we left. But I was so proud of Nate. As we stood up to go, he took off his cap and set it on this little guy’s head.

Meanwhile, Happy pulled out her checkbook and wrote out a donation. She handed it to Sor Arabia, who turned pale with disbelief.

“You always bring
milagros
when you come,” she whispered to Pablo and me as she bid us goodbye, adding, “New plumbing for the nursery.”

This
milagrito
almost didn’t happen.

There was a revolution—in the family—about plans.

After Aunt Joan and the cousins arrived, we stayed one more day in the capital. Next, we were supposed to head for the mountains. But it turned out that most everyone wanted to bypass the mountains and go directly to the beach resort.

We put it up to a vote. Only Mom and I raised our hands for the mountains. Dad was undecided because he was worried about driving conditions in the interior.

“We’re overruled,” Mom said cheerily, like she wasn’t that sorry to lose. By now, Dad had gotten her worrying about the bad mountain roads he had never been on.

But Happy—yes, Happy!—read the disappointment in my eyes. She came up with a new plan. Why didn’t she hire a driver to take me and Mom and whoever else wanted to go along on a mountain outing? Then we could all meet back at the beach resort. “We old folks need to rest up for our honeymoon.” This time, she winked at me.

“Where are you going to find an experienced driver?” Dad challenged. I had noticed he stood up to Happy a lot more now. “It’s not like we can just call up Roger.”

“This is not a problem,” Pablo explained. “You can hire a driver where we rented the van. They are very reliable. All the international agencies arrange for their transportation there.” How could Dad argue with that?

But when he had Mom and me alone, Dad tried a new tack. “I just think it would be nice for us to all be together. You know, a
family
vacation.”

“This is about . . . my family,” I said, coming clean. And then I told them why I wanted them to see Los Luceros, how it was likely my birth parents had come from there. I worried that all the stuff about the eyes was going to seem over the top to them. I mean, in the States, if you claimed that everyone from a certain town had the same eyes, people would think you’d been watching too many Spielberg movies. But Mom wasn’t that surprised. It turned out Mrs. Bolívar had told her about Los Luceros when Mom noticed that Dulce and Esperanza had “Milly’s eyes.”

But Dad was nonplussed. “Let’s get this straight,” he said, hands on his hips. “You
did
go on a search for your birth parents—” He stopped just short of saying “after you assured us you wouldn’t.”

My eyes filled. “I didn’t mean to,” I tried explaining. “It just happened.” The visit to the orphanage had led to meeting Sor Arabia. The trip to bury Daniel had led me to Los Luceros.