Illegal Read online

  Illegal

  Bettina Restrepo

  For Manuela and Mimi—and the roots

  you have given me

  WE ARE ALL IMMIGRANTS.

  Contents

  Prologue

  1 Mensajes

  2 Velas Malolientes

  3 Los Lentes

  4 Banco de Nada

  5 Tipo de Cambio

  6 La Voz

  7 Aspirina y Aceite

  8 Cartas

  9 Las Decisiónes

  10 Via

  11 Highway 59

  12 The Lion and the Lamb

  13 Sanctuary

  14 Ponytails

  15 Eye of the Beholder

  16 Paper Products

  17 Wishing and Hoping

  18 Legal or Not?

  19 Pounding the Pavement

  20 The Patron Saint of Liars

  21 Mr. Mann

  22 Lessons Learned

  23 Food

  24 Still Here

  25 Translation

  26 Tough as Rock

  27 July

  28 Metro

  29 No More

  30 Brave

  31 Punishment

  32 The Truth About Tall Buildings

  33 A Cruel Joke

  34 A Smell in the Air

  35 Mr. Bubble

  36 Free Fall

  37 Frozen

  38 Unmarked

  39 Spitting and Stealing

  40 Qué Onda Guero

  41 Bonfire

  42 Telenovelas

  43 Lost and Found

  44 Sweet and Sour

  45 All Good Things

  46 Saying It Out Loud

  47 Pronunciation

  Epilogue—Next Year

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PROLOGUE

  THREE YEARS EARLIER

  “When will you be back?” I asked, holding Papa’s hand at the bus stop.

  Worry coated Papa’s face. “As soon as I can earn enough money.”

  “Should I get a job too?” I asked. “I could see if they need help in the church.”

  Papa’s eyebrows drew together over his glasses. “No. Your job is not to grow up until I get back.” He cupped my chin in his hand and his eyes brimmed with tears.

  I reached up and pulled off his glasses to clean them with the edge of my cotton skirt. “Ignacio’s papa never came back. Then her family left.” What if that happened to us?

  Mama shuffled her sandaled feet in the dusty road and cleared her throat. “Arturo, the bus will be here soon.”

  “Why can’t we go with you?” I felt the dryness of the land crawling into my throat. “I promise I won’t be a burden. Mama can stay here to take care of Grandma and the orchard. Please, don’t go.”

  Mama smoothed the stray hairs from my braid. “Nora, we talked about this. You can’t go with Papa. We all agreed this is for the best.”

  “I didn’t agree. I don’t even want presents for my birthday or a communion dress. We should just try harder. HERE!” I snapped at her.

  Mama’s face crinkled up in hurt. “It’s not about wanting. Please don’t make this so hard for him.”

  “I wish I could stay, but the buyers don’t shop the pueblos anymore. The drought. No jobs. We need the money, mija.” Papa pulled me close and kissed the top of my head. “I promise I’ll be back. I always keep my promises.” A small gold cross dangled out of his shirt. “I will. Even from far away,” his voice vibrated.

  “Do you really have to go away to make things better?” I asked.

  The bus turned the corner and Papa released me, picking up his black plastic bag. I tangled my arms around his waist. “Don’t go. Please, don’t go. I need you, Papa.”

  Papa tried to separate us. “Nora, there is no other choice. This is how I will protect us. Just for a little while.”

  “NO!” I screamed. “NO! NO! NO!”

  “I love you, Nora. Te amo, Aurora.”

  Mama squeezed between us to hug Papa, but I found that I couldn’t let go. Mama slowly wedged herself into my grasp, and he pulled away.

  “Nooooo!” Mama’s tight arms pulled me away and he boarded the bus.

  I kicked and scratched at her. “We can’t let him go. No, Papa, nooo!”

  The bus lurched away, leaving me sitting in the dirt with tears streaking down my face.

  CHAPTER 1

  Mensajes

  CEDULA, MEXICO

  A promise.

  Quinceañera.

  A promise that we would be together on my fifteenth birthday.

  I screamed into the trees. “¡Mentiroso!” A lone crow flapped his raven wings in protest. I adjusted the white barrettes on the sides of my head. Presents from Papa.

  I was answered by the thud of an overripe grapefruit hitting the ground. Even the fruit couldn’t keep their promises. It oozed into the dry dirt like roadkill.

  Infestations. Not enough water. No buyers. I don’t even know why we pick the last of the fruit just to watch it rot at the market. Things were going from bad to worse.

  “You can’t let it decay on the branch. Bad karma,” lectured Grandma inside our concrete house.

  “What if a buyer came and we didn’t have the fruit? Then what?” said Mama.

  The promises were becoming long, empty roads. No Papa. No money. No nothing. We knocked down the fence and sold the wood just to buy the fertilizer for the trees. Now, wild pigs rutted and chewed on the tender shoots that the bugs didn’t gnaw up.

  I crushed a few crickets hopping between the baskets, but winced at the crunching noise. I looked at my skinny bird legs and frowned at the scars. My heart felt like it had fallen asleep since my father had left. It tingled for a few months and then the burn began to spread throughout my body. I wished he would just come home.

  He said all of this would be for a better life, but it seemed like things were getting worse. The school closed, killing my hopes that an education might be a way of fixing everything. Without some sort of plan, I would continue walking around in circles.

  I punted the grapefruit like a fútbol and ruby red juice sprayed into the air like droplets of sangre.

  A promise is just a lie you don’t want to tell.

  CHAPTER 2

  Velas Malolientes

  Our tiny two-bedroom house smoked like a chimenea, and our scarred wooden table looked like an altar. Grandma performed a ritual before we left for the market. She liked religion. One white candle for God. One red candle for Mary. One green and red for Guadalupe. A blue candle for Papa. A somber picture of Jesus hung next to a gilded cross whose paint had begun to peel. The woven rugs were worn from years of sliding around on the floors.

  I looked at my cracked fingernails. How I wished for nail polish instead of the crust of dirt I could never remove. Maybe even a pink glossy lipstick to cure my chapped lips.

  “Hurry, light this pink candle.” Grandma stood over several chipped ceramic bowls of hardening wax.

  My eyes blurred as I lit the candle. “What is it?” I said, wrinkling my nose from the rancid smell. I noticed the dim light coming through the cracks in the wall near the foundation.

  Grandma beamed like a full moon. “I have been experimenting with the fragrance of grapefruit. This is a scented candle I’m going to sell at the market.”

  The wick burned fast, and the smell of burned fruit filled the air. “¡Que terrible!”

  Grandma swiped at the air, trying to move the smoke and smell outside the shabbily curtained window, but everything singed our eyes. “Get out!”

  We coughed and sputtered. I dumped the candle into the trough of water just outside our door. The hot
sizzle disappeared into the bottom of the rusty tin.

  “I don’t think you should sell those just yet,” I said to Grandma.

  “Well, maybe I could call them Cazar de Espectro. They could chase the bad spirits out of your house.” Grandma imagined the best out of every situation. She’d probably tell people in the market this is a new scent from Fabuloso.

  “Maybe you could sell it to kill the cockroaches,” I joked. I noticed a large black monster skitter next to our door.

  “You and that smart mouth.” She pinched my cheek. “I was going to call it the Birthday Candle. You light it each year to bring freshness and light to your spirit.”

  The tingle in my heart flared up as an image of my father holding me while I blew out my birthday candles flashed in my mind. Three birthday wishes wasted on wishing him home.

  “And the pink was for you.” Grandma brushed dust from my shoulder. “So cockroaches are out.”

  Mama honked outside from the truck. “Time to go, we’ve only got an hour.”

  The truck used to be Papa’s, but we sold it to Ignacio, the man who owns the land next to us. The money from the truck was paid to the coyote who took Papa away.

  No pickers to help in the orchard. No truck to drive—only to borrow. Our orchard was on its last legs. Next thing you know, Mama would begin to take the tin roof apart to pay the tax man.

  I ran inside to extinguish the rest of the candles. My eyes burned, and not just from the stink. The smoky scent reminded me of Papa’s shirt after a hard day in the orchard. Our family picture appeared through the gray smoke on top of the TV. Papa smiled at me, but I couldn’t smile back.

  A small mirror showed my reflection glaring at me. Full eyebrows arching across my forehead, highlighting the deep part in my hair from the braid.

  I had a strange feeling Papa was disappearing. I wanted something different for my life—to not be afraid, to have a future, to have my family.

  I pulled the rubber band out of my hair and combed my fingers through the plaits, shaking my hair free.

  I peered back into the reflection and swiped the tears away.

  CHAPTER 3

  Los Lentes

  The unpaved road looked extra brown and burned and it was only April. Without the water from the Río Bravo, no one had enough irrigation.

  The market was only a concrete block with a tin roof, but somehow it seemed ready to wilt from years of disrepair. A tattered blue tarp fluttered from the east side in the morning, and then moved to the west in the afternoon to keep out the scorching sun. I noticed the floors had been swept clean of the dirt, yet the spiderwebs in the corners still remained. How could I get ahead here?

  Each of the sellers had our plastic bins stacked with different fruits and vegetables. There was enough room to turn sideways between each stall. I wondered how their families survived, or were they slowly selling everything?

  The Lievano family, who used to sell cabrito, now only sold a little bit of milk and cheese. I remember how Pablo cried when they had to sell his pet goat for the meat. Then, two years later, Pablo left for the border to work with one of his cousins. He said, “If South Texas can steal our water, then it shouldn’t be a big deal for me to cross over.”

  The Gonzaleses only sold half the amount of vegetables the land could support because they didn’t have enough water. They always talked about the governor making a canal system to send us water. We were lucky when the electricity wasn’t out from the old power lines falling down.

  Lolo’s children ran in between the crates with their puffy cheeks and skinny pigtails. Lolo was getting even thinner because no one bought her candies or yarn. Sandra, a mere husk of a woman, weaved baskets with her eyes staring off in the distance. Santino put out some new straw hats in addition to his peppers, which could burn holes in your stomach. I wondered where he got extra money to buy the hats.

  I opened the magazine I had received for Christmas—an American magazine that showed all things quinceañera. Beautiful girls wearing pink and white gowns. Embroidered elbow-length gloves. High heels that reached to the sky. Crowns to make any queen jealous. They were dreams printed on glossy paper.

  A few customers walked around, but most were dreaming of what they wished they could buy. Lolo’s daughters stared at my magazine and pointed to the girl’s long earrings. I turned my back and buried my head in the pages.

  I looked down at my tight jeans. It was time for bigger pants and a bra that wasn’t a hand-me-down from Mama. But I couldn’t ask for such things when we barely had enough to pay for groceries.

  Tucked inside the magazine was my postcard from Houston. It had a map of Texas, a red boot, and a shiny silver star. Papa had sent it specifically to me. “I love you. I miss you,” it said in a messy print. I wondered if he would even recognize me now.

  One of Santino’s new hats blew away in the hot breeze, and his profanity filled the air.

  “Watch your mouth in here!” screamed Grandma. “Go light a candle for your sins.”

  Santino caught the hat and mouthed off to Grandma. “Who are you, the village priest?”

  Grandma stood up. “Here is a candle. Go ask forgiveness in the church. You know better than to curse in front of children. What will the customers think?”

  The vendors chuckled. There wasn’t a single customer in sight. Santino took the candle and lit it next to his stall. Lolo’s children made a funny face from the smell.

  Grandma turned to me and whispered, “Sins never go unpunished. Always repent.”

  I giggled. Santino wouldn’t sell a thing with the nasty candle burning.

  Mama said, “Would you be a thoughtful girl and run to the bank for me?”

  Masa cooked on a nearby grill. My mouth watered from the delicious smells. “Mama, what’s for lunch?” I felt embarrassed for being hungry.

  Mama fussed over the fruit to hide its brown spots. “We’ll eat later. After the money comes.”

  I looked around. Tired women from other farms napped in their stalls. My stomach growled from the aroma of the burning grill. Grandma worked her fingers up and down the beads of the rosary.

  Mama moved the magazine away from my face. “If we don’t get something today, we can’t pay any bills or buy groceries.” Her face turned red. “Please be my lucky star. You always make good things happen for us.”

  I shuffled down the street, kicking stones and avoiding the boarded-up store where the church had been. Occasionally people still lit candles on the doorstep.

  The building glared at me. The nuns stopped coming, the church services and the school ceased. They were just more things disappearing from my life.

  When would it stop?

  CHAPTER 4

  Banco de Nada

  The bank, with its chrome and shiny glass, was the bright spot in town. It was the only modern building we had, with room for two shiny desks and chairs. A heavy safe sat in the corner next to one computer and a phone. It sparkled on our dingy street in an odd way. It just didn’t seem to belong.

  No one had enough money to keep at the bank, but it was the only way to get your money if you had family working in the United States. At least half of the men in our town, including Papa and the Lievano boys, had already left for the border. Soon the little boys playing in the doorway would disappear too.

  The bell jingled as I walked through. “¡Hola, Hector! ¿Cómo estás?” I said.

  Hector wore a navy striped tie. His short hair stuck out in six directions, refusing to obey all of the gel he used to slick it down. He was twenty years old and wore glasses like Papa. His wide face brightened into a smile. “Please tell me you want to open an account. The boss in Mexico City is begging me to open one account this month.”

  “Maybe we can fill out an application for Lolo’s pig. Do we need to get the old sow a voter’s card too?” I said, trying to be helpful. Hector gave me a dirty look.

  No one was ever in the bank. The town was trickling down to a few families. One day they would be h
ere, and the next, someone else owned their stuff and they were gone. There weren’t any more girls my age, either. No buyers or sellers meant no money.

  “Give me your glasses. They are a mess. You never clean them,” I said, as cheerfully as I could. Hector pushed his wire frames in my direction. “Besides, no one in town has any money,” I said while polishing the glasses. It felt good to talk to him, like the way I used to talk to Papa. I watched my callused thumbs rub the smudges away on the small wire frames with my shirtsleeve.

  He pulled out his dusty paperwork. “If we don’t get more remittances into this office, or even a few accounts, they’ll close this bank and consolidate it to the next pueblo. We don’t even have a stinking drug dealer in this town to spread the cash around. Nada.”

  Hector was right, but I hoped to one day have a fancy job like his rather than working for the rest of my life in the orchard, because picking was so boring. We would both be left to the fields and the white mesh bags of a picker. Sunburned, without hope, and full of bug bites. At one time I wanted to be a teacher. I could teach here in Cedula and never abandon my students.

  “Did you watch the new Brazilian telenovela last night?” Hector asked.

  Grandma bought a TV for us years ago when the citrus crop was better. “I wanted to, but Grandma likes to watch Mass at seven,” I said.