The Same Sky (23 page)

We arrived at nightfall. The campground smelled of shit. It was full of drug addicts, goats, thieves, and migrants hoping to enter the United States. Marcos insisted it was
safer here than in the city, which was full of
la migra
and every other sort of problem and depravity.

Marcos would leave in the morning—he had the money to pay a
coyote
to get him over the river and past the immigration authorities. He would bring along his family, and perhaps Ernesto. But this place, with the soiled mattresses and trash, was where I would remain. At the edge of the trail, I leaned over and tried to throw up. There was nothing inside me, but still I heaved.

We sat around a campfire. In the middle of an awful place, the flames were hot and beautiful. I stared at them. I held my hands out. Marcos explained the ways to get into America. You could try to swim the river, but you would drown. He had seen bloated bodies float past in the water; he had seen people stopped halfway across by American police, then put in jail, then sent back to the country they had started in. Even as we sat by the fire, people were trying to make it through the rushing water. INS agents with bullhorns stood on the far shore, telling the swimmers to turn back in both English and Spanish. It was like having a campout in the middle of one of the action movies we used to watch through the window of the PriceSmart electronics store. I imagined that the loud, disembodied voices were Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger (who had also been an immigrant, I knew). The idea made me smile. It is helpful to pretend a horrifying scenario is not your real life.

Marcos said that some rode inner tubes to a resting place covered in vegetation, an island in the middle of the water, halfway to America. They waited there, sometimes
all night, for a split second when they were not watched. If that moment came, they might make it across. “But then they are on a muddy bank in wet clothes, surrounded by police! This is stupid, and it is foolish, though your hopes will tell you otherwise.”

Marcos knew what he was talking about, and I nodded. Across the water I could see American houses. I could hear cars at the border checkpoint. I was so close, and Marcos was right: a part of my brain said,
Just go, Carla! Just swim across!

“There is a Catholic church in Nuevo Laredo,” Marcos continued. He told me how to get there—it was not too long a walk from the camp. “At the church, you will get food cards worth fifteen meals,” said Marcos. “Are you listening, Carla?”

I turned to him, the man who had helped me so much already. I took a breath, then made my plea. “Please,” I said. “Take me with you.”

He shook his head sadly, impatiently. “My employer pays our fee to the
coyote
,” he explained. “He takes it from my first paycheck. If you are not coming as a laborer, he will not pay for you. Juliana will cook for us while we are there, and if Ernesto wants to work very hard, he can join us.”

Ernesto looked up, wonder in his eyes. He looked younger than the day I had met him. He was smitten, I saw now, if not with Juliana, then with her family. He had someone besides a gang to love him now.

“Is there something I can do there, in Texas?” I asked, desperate not to be left at this place on my own. In the
firelight, I saw waves of red ants along the ground, the kind that sting.

“Listen to me,” said Marcos. “I will introduce you to the
coyote
—he is trustworthy. I have used him before. He knows the way across, and he has contacts to get us to the truck. He costs two thousand U.S. dollars a person, but he will not take the money and leave you dead.”

“How will I get two thousand dollars?” I asked.

“You will call your mother,” said Marcos. Solemnly he whispered, “Give me your hand.”

Marcos was sitting next to me. When I let my hand near his, he put a card inside and closed my fingers around it. “You are in danger now,” he said very quietly. “You have a possession many others want. Use this as soon as it is light. Tell your mother to wire the money before your fifteen meals run out.”

I nodded, too frightened to speak.

I felt surrounded by menace from that moment on. We had no food, so did not eat. I lay down on a soiled blanket near the fire. I did not open my hand. Sometime in the night I felt a kiss on my forehead. I sat up, terrified, but it was Ernesto.

“Adios, Carla,” he said. He knelt by my side.

“Ernesto,” I said, “please. Don’t tell anyone what happened to me on the train.”

He nodded seriously. “I promise,” he said.

“Do you love Juliana?” I asked.

“We are leaving,” he said.

In the shadows, I could see Juliana, Marcos, and their brothers. Beside them was a very thin man with a beard.
“This is El Serpiente,” said Marcos, approaching. “You will pay him when your money arrives. Until then, he will keep you safe.”

I was too scared to respond. I cowered on the blanket. The Snake lit a cigarette and said, “Marcos, let’s go.” They followed him along the water, out of sight. I could sense men watching me, and I felt sick.

It was not yet morning, but I stood up anyway. I ran the way I had come, up the path, to the city. I ran for maybe an hour, maybe longer. Finally, I collapsed on a bench and opened my hand to see that Marcos had given me a phone card worth fifty pesos. I saw an old woman walking quickly down the dark street and I asked her where a phone was. She looked at me as if she, too, were afraid. I knew that some migrants were not kind, and robbed or stole to get what they needed to survive. The old woman shook her head and hurried away.

I found the church Marcos had told me about, and on its steps I curled into a ball to wait for morning. I had come so far, and I did not know what to do. I knew I was in danger. I knew my mother might not have the money. And I knew she might not send it; she had left me, after all. Did she love me two thousand dollars’ worth?

The good news here is that I had no more tears left. So I sat on the steps of Parroquia de San José until God brought the morning to me.

40
 

Alice

A
S SOON AS
I stepped off the plane in Montrose, I could feel the chill of impending winter. It was only September, and yet the light was low and gray, the sky steely outside the airport windows. In the baggage claim, my father waited, his summer tan worn off, his expression miserable. When he saw me, he nodded, unsmiling. I ran to him, saying, “Dad,” as I tucked my arms underneath his and held him.

“Come on now, honey,” he said, disengaging himself.

At the baggage carousel, he leaned in to grab my duffel. “I can do it,” I protested, but he ignored me. We walked across the parking lot. Montrose was flat, and the sky seemed stretched too thin to cover the distance from the clouds to asphalt. My father started the truck. “Chilly,” I commented.

He did not respond.

“How’s Jane?” I tried.

“Better today,” he said. “She’ll be fine.”

“I wish she’d get the test,” I said. “The test for the gene that …” My voice trailed off. I couldn’t say the word:
cancer
.

“Got a new boy in the stockroom,” said my father. “Bill Fernandez’s boy.”

“Oh,” I said. “How’s he doing?”

“Fine,” Dad said with a shrug. He turned on the radio, found a country-western station. We drove the forty-five minutes to Ouray without a word. “You staying with Jane or me or what?” Dad asked as we pulled into town.

“I don’t know,” I said. He did not respond. “Jane, I guess,” I said.

Dad pulled up in front of Jane’s house and parked, carrying my duffel to her door, then gathering groceries from the backseat. “What’s in the bags?” I asked.

“Jane likes those Sara Lee pound cakes,” said my father. He let himself inside Jane’s quiet house, put the cakes on the kitchen counter, kissed me on the cheek, and left.

Dennis had left a note saying that he and the children were at the store and that Jane was resting. I called for her. When she did not reply, I climbed upstairs. My sister was in bed, her hair unwashed and greasy on the pillow. I lay down next to her, and she turned to face me.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” said Jane. She started to cry. “I’m really sad,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

“You do know,” said Jane. “I’m sorry for being sad.”

“You don’t have to be sorry,” I said.

Jane nodded, still crying, and closed her eyes. This was how we’d bunked as children, in one bed. I brought my forehead close to my sister’s, and we slept.

“Our names are so
plain
,” said Jane as we sat in bed that night, waiting for the boys and Dennis to bring us dinner. “I mean, Jane and Alice? What could be more dull?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I like my name.” I’d changed into pajamas and we’d settled in for a long evening of watching Lifetime Television for Women. Jane kept the volume low so she could talk over the movie, which was about a waitress in a seaside town who falls in love with the fry cook, who, unbeknownst to the waitress, is also a serial killer.

“I just feel like Mom and Dad could have branched out some,” said Jane, waving her mug around. I watched her hand nervously, waiting to get a scalding slap of Nighty Night tea.

“Jane and Alice were their mothers’ names,” I said.

“That is my point!” said Jane, lifting her arm.

“Please,” I said, “can you watch your hot mug there, sister?”

“You watch your hot mug, sister!” she said. She spoke gaily but also seemed a bit unhinged. I did not point out that I was drinking a mug of whiskey, which Dennis had handed me without comment.

“Dinner’s ready!” called Rick, entering the room. He was so tall now, still thin as a rail, wearing athletic shorts
though it was cold outside. It was strange to look at him—so sweet, grinning at his mom—and realize that he was just two years younger than Evian and the other Chávez kids, who seemed so world-weary. Rick’s face, covered with pimples and rosy-colored from his culinary efforts, was open and trusting. I wondered if mine had ever been that way.

Part of me was glad to have learned the tough lesson early—life could take everything from you when you weren’t paying attention. So I watched. Like the Chávez kids, I was ready for disappointment. But looking at Rick, I felt a hot jealousy. I yearned to feel at ease but didn’t know how.

“Okay,” said Rick, his voice deeper than I remembered. “We have your broccoli here.” He gestured to a bowl of overcooked greens with a pat of cold butter on top.

“Oh my God, amazing,” said Jane.

“And I carried the noodles,” piped up Gilmer. He tried to climb on the bed with a bowl of spaghetti, and spilled only some on the floor and in our laps. The strands were clumped together, half cooked and seemingly without sauce or flavoring of any kind.

“I love noodles!” said Jane. “How did you know?”

“I brought the forks!” screamed Benjamin, throwing them in the air. We ducked, and the utensils landed safely at the foot of the bed. Jane reached for them and said, “You are so smart to bring forks, Benji.” He beamed and began to jump in place.

“Last but not least,” said Dennis, entering, “fresh trout.”

He placed a tray of fish, perfectly sautéed in garlic and butter, on the bedside table.

“Oh, man,” I said. “This looks delicious.”

When the children had gone, Dennis shooing them out of the room so they would miss the scene of the fry cook stabbing someone on a beach, Jane said, “He fishes every night now. It’s how he copes.” She sighed, all her goodwill spent.

“Napkins!” screamed Gilmer, throwing a roll of paper towels from the hallway. “I’m not allowed to come in!” he added.

With effort, Jane climbed from bed. She went to the door and kissed her son. “I was just asking Aunt Alice what we were going to do without napkins,” she said. Gilmer hugged her tight, clasping his pudgy hands together around her head.

“Gilmer! What’d I tell you?” Dennis thundered.

“Yikes, bye!” said Gilmer. Jane closed the door quietly and climbed back into bed.

“Who’s up for trout?” I said.

Jane was motionless, her eyes closed. “I’ll be fine,” she said.

I was quiet. I ate dinner and watched the movie. I knew there was nothing I could do but be next to her. Dennis checked in about an hour later, whispering that he was headed out to have a drink at the Elks lodge. I walked him to the front door. “Are you doing okay?” I asked, putting my hand on his arm.

Dennis squinted at the stars. I could tell it took force of will for him to keep from moving his arm away. “Yup,” he said.

My dad’s truck pulled up the road. “You’re going drinking with my dad?” I asked.

“Yup,” said Dennis, taking a can of Skoal from his jacket pocket.

My dad put the truck in park but left the car idling. “Dennis?” he called.

“Yup,” said Dennis, heading down the stairs.

“Hi, Dad!” I called. He nodded, waited for Dennis to climb in, and drove off.

I sat on the front steps for a while. I went inside and found Jane’s hidden stash of cigarettes just where she’d always kept it, in a basket atop the refrigerator. I went back outside and lit a cigarette. I took one inhale, feeling the false contentment nicotine always sent through my blood. Coughing, I put out the rest of the cigarette.