“The Pumas will lose every game without you,” Paco tells Emiliano.
“Excuse me,” Emiliano says abruptly. He stands and walks out the front door. Paco follows him.
Emiliano and Paco stand in the front yard next to the statue of the Virgen de Guadalupe. Emiliano takes the key to the Vespa out of his pocket and hands it to Paco. “Take care of it. It’s not mine, so don’t wreck it. I’ll be back for it soon.”
They both look up when they hear the sound of a helicopter flying overhead. After a while, Paco says, “Remember when they caught you stealing that camera and they were going to put you in jail? They let you make one phone call and you called me. How come?”
“How come what?”
“Why did you call me? You knew I was going to call Brother Patricio. Why not just call him?”
Emiliano plucks a leaf from a nearby rosebush. He rolls it and throws it away. “I was too embarrassed to call anyone else.”
“So why are you embarrassed to tell me about what you’re into now?”
Emiliano thinks. It would be so helpful to tell Paco about Mr. Reyes, about Perla Rubi, about Javier, but there’s no way that Paco would understand or approve.
Paco waits for Emiliano’s answer. When it is clear that there will not be one, he says, with kindness, “Maybe going to Léon and leaving whatever it is you’re into is for the best.”
A wave of anger rises in Emiliano’s chest. “Why do you assume that whatever I’m into is bad?”
Paco only smiles. It’s as if the anger behind Emiliano’s words is all the proof he needs. “Let’s go back in,” he says. “I’ll put the scooter in the shed, where it will be safe. It’ll be waiting for you. Or write me a letter and tell me where to take it.”
“Sorry, man.” It’s not you, he wants to tell him. It’s what he’s losing.
“Just be careful. I hate funerals.”
Inside the house, Sara and Joel are standing by the door. Mr. Cardenas is on the sofa while Mami sits in a chair. The television is off. “It’s okay that she was upset. A mother needs to know,” Mami tells Sara.
“I hope so,” Sara responds, but she doesn’t sound too sure. Then to Emiliano: “The woman from the State Police is on her way. She’s taking us to a safe house until we can go to Léon.”
“I just called Felita Lozano,” Mrs. Cardenas says, walking into the living room, agitated. “She was washing dishes, looking out her kitchen window, when she saw a brown car park in front of your house. Four men jumped out with machine guns. They opened fire for about a minute. In broad daylight! They didn’t care who saw them! Chuy Lozano saw them go in the house and fire dozens and dozens more shots. They were in there about ten minutes. The Lozanos thought they had killed all of you. Anyway, they’re gone. Chuy saw them get in the car and drive away. He even got their license plate and called the police. Lots of good that’s going to do.”
“Do you think they’ll be back? I would like my rosary and maybe some things to wear,” Mami says.
“I can go,” Emiliano says.
“I’m coming with you,” Sara adds.
“I’ll drive you,” Joel tells them. “We’ll make sure they’re really gone first. I’ll get the keys to the car.”
“Where are you going?” Mrs. Cardenas says to Paco, who is following his brother down the hall.
“For my shoes. I’m going with them.”
Emiliano and Sara walk outside and stand by Joel’s car. Sara puts her arm around Emiliano’s dejected shoulders. “I’m sorry.”
“I don’t want to go to Léon.”
“I know. I’m not crazy about the idea either. I still have nightmares about that parrot that lives in Aunt Tencha’s bathroom.”
“Bartolomeo.”
“Yeah, that guy. He gives me the creeps, the way he turns his head and looks at me with one eye while I do my business.”
Emiliano shakes his head. “What do we do? We can’t go live there.”
“We do whatever Mami asks us to do. It’s as simple as that. Don’t even question what she says or struggle against it in your mind. We owe it to her to go where she wants us to go. At least for a while.” She looks down. “I know you’re losing a lot. Your Perla Rubi. Your friends. Your school. I’m losing what I love the most—my job. Going to wherever Mami wants us to go is a sacrifice that we will make for her. A sacrifice. There’s no other word for it.”
Emiliano sighs. Sacrifice. That’s what you call doing something even though you don’t feel like it. That’s the thing his father didn’t do.
“Come on, let’s go see what we can rescue from our home.”
“Our ex-home,” Emiliano corrects his sister.
They drive the two blocks to their house in Joel’s car. He parks in the alleyway in back. If the bad people return, they can run out the back and jump in the car. They get out and walk to the front, where a group of neighbors is standing.
No one speaks. There are no words to describe what they see. It is as if they are seeing what the house would look like if left unattended for a hundred years. Sara always imagined that bullets made small holes, but the cinder blocks of the house have cavities the size of baseballs. Every piece of glass from the two windows that faced the street has been blown out. Behind one of those windows is Mami’s bedroom. If Ernesto hadn’t called, she’d be dead.
Neighbors come up to them and offer their help. Oásis Revolución was a quiet neighborhood of working-class people. It had survived unscathed through even the worst of the cartel wars. Sara feels as if she just poisoned the existence of all these good people who have worked so hard to live unnoticed by the violence that surrounds them. She wants to tell them all not to worry, that she’s not coming back. Their family will disappear and children can play on the street again.
Emiliano is the first to go in. Sara follows with Joel and Paco behind her. She stands in the hallway for a few seconds, looking at the devastation in the kitchen and the living room. The shooters opened up their machine guns inside the house. Mami’s china blasted to pieces. The rocking chair, the TV, pictures on the wall, all shattered. As the tears fill her eyes, she sees Emiliano turn around quickly and dash into his room. She knows he needs a private place to rage.
“We shouldn’t stay long,” Joel says. “They could come back.”
Sara goes to Mami’s bedroom and searches for her rosary but can’t find it. Through her teary vision, she sees the bed, Mami’s dresser, the nightstand, all full of white dust and pieces of plaster and glass, and she knows she hadn’t fully understood the reality of Hinojosa’s threat until this moment. It had all been words, an abstraction. But here it is, palpable, shown through bullets meant for her and her family. Sara had never realized fear could be so physical, how it invades all of your body, from the top of your head to the tips of your toes. She can even taste it. It tastes like metal.
“We better hurry,” Joel says from the doorway.
Sara takes Mami’s old cardboard suitcase from the top of her closet and packs a few clothes for her. Then she goes into her room. It’s clear that they were looking for the cell phone. All the drawers and books are on the floor. The mattress is upright against a wall. Every container that can hold something is broken. If she had left the cell phone in the room so it could be found, would Hinojosa and his people leave her family alone?