She waits patiently for the right opening. There’s got to be a way to reach the Jipari in Emiliano, her fearless little brother who loves challenges. When at last he breathes out a long, pent-up breath, Sara says: “Maybe we can convince Mami about the dangers in crossing over to the U.S. I don’t think she knows how expensive it is to pay a coyote to take us across or how dangerous that is. I mean, so many people die at the hands of the coyotes. Maybe we could make it across the river without one, but through the desert? I don’t think she realizes the impossibility.”
“It can be done,” Emiliano says.
She makes an effort not to smile. “Where? Arizona?”
“Texas.”
“Really?”
“There’s places.”
“But how?” she says. “The Border Patrol is everywhere. How many days would we have to walk before we can get to a place where Papá can come get us?”
“Two, three days.”
“Three days! What about water? It must be one hundred degrees out there even now.”
“Stop it,” he says. “I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not as stupid as you think I am.”
Sara laughs, and he smiles despite himself. “You know, little brother, I’ve never once in my whole life thought you were stupid,” she says. He acts as if he doesn’t hear her, so she quickly adds, “Do you really think your Jipari training is good enough to get us across?”
“Yeah, I can get us across … if I wanted to.”
Sara nods thoughtfully. Her strategy is working. “Look, for me, the U.S. means a future I could get used to eventually, maybe, if I can learn to live away from the dirt and crime and packed buses full of sweaty, groping men—you know, all the things I love about Mexico.” She checks to see if she’s elicited a smile, but she hasn’t. “For you, I know, it would be leaving a future you love. You don’t know how sorry I am that you’re so affected by something I did. But here we are.”
“You did the right thing. You had to do what you could to save Linda.”
The way he says this, as if he would have done the same thing, makes her happy. “I have a solution. To you not wanting to go.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Take me across. Once I’m safe with Papá, you can come back. If you can travel north, you should be able to travel south.”
He looks into her eyes for a few moments. “And you really think Mami will go for that?”
“After I got my first death threat—you know, for the article about the joint task force—I said something to Mami about how I wished I was a journalist in the U.S., where I wouldn’t have to worry about what I wrote. Later that night, when we were watching TV, she said out of nowhere that if I wanted to, she could contact Papá. I could go live with him.”
“She said that?”
“I know, right? I couldn’t believe it either. Can you imagine what it took for her to suggest that?”
“She actually thought our dear father would take you?”
“He’s always wanted us to come. Besides, you don’t know Mami if you think she’d give him a choice.”
Emiliano chuckles. “You lost me. What does all this have to do with me coming back?”
“The only reason she wants you to go to the U.S. is because she believes in your abilities to get me there.” Sara knows that’s only partially true. Mami wouldn’t have said something about Emiliano becoming the person God wanted him to be if she didn’t have a good reason for it. “If you come back in a couple of weeks and tell her I’m safely on my way to Chicago, I think she’ll be okay … eventually.”
“And I would live with her and Aunt Tencha in León?”
“Isn’t Aunt Tencha better than living with Papá?”
“Any place is better than that,” Emiliano says without missing a beat.
“After you live in León for a while, maybe Brother Patricio can find you a place to live here like he’s done for other kids. Or you can live with Paco. I think Mami would be okay with you returning to Juárez if you’re back in school and living in a decent place. She may not say so right away, but deep inside she’ll be happy that she’ll have you close enough to visit. If we’re both in the U.S., she won’t see us for a long, long time.”
“If ever.”
Those two words stop Sara cold. She hadn’t yet processed the fact that she might not see Mami again, maybe ever. Should she fight Mami and insist on going to León with her? What will life be without her? And what about the loss Mami would feel? Maybe she should go back and tell Mami there’s no way she will leave her.
Then Emiliano speaks. “Mami’s right. At least about you. León, or any place in Mexico, is not the place for you. These guys who are after you will eventually find you, and you’ll never be able to be a reporter. I’ll get you across.”
“And you’ll come back?”
“Yeah. I’ll come back.”
“But maybe Mami is also right about you, about you not being able to be the person God wants you to be here in Mexico.”
Sara expects him to dismiss this idea immediately, but instead he seems to reflect deeply on it. Finally, he says, “A person is not meant to be anyone. Each person chooses who they want to be.”
“I think we are all meant to be the best person we are capable of being. You’re right that we need to choose to be that person. But sometimes, circumstances make it hard for us to make the right choice,” Sara says. “Do you really want to be the sort of person who hides expensive cars in the neighbors’ backyard and brings home fancy scooters? Is that who you want to be?”
He glares at her briefly and then looks away. “We’ll have to lie to her. She can’t know that I’m planning to come back.”
This is such an unusual thing for Emiliano to say that Sara is struck silent. There’s something like fatigue and maybe even self-disgust in his tone, as if he’s been lying already and now has to pile one more on top of the stinking bunch. But she has to admit he’s right: It would not work to tell Mami the truth. She would never agree to his return. Her comfort, if there is any comfort in losing her children, lies in the fact that Sara and Emiliano will be together. Sara makes a mental note to think more about his attitude later.
“Okay,” she says. “Let’s get some sleep.”
Emiliano, on the top bunk, is unable to sleep. He can hear Sara tossing and turning in the bed below, and now and then he hears a deep sigh coming from his mother. The whole family is awake. What are his mother and Sara thinking about? His mother got very nervous and worried when Sara told her they would cross the border by themselves without the help of a coyote. She calmed down a little when Emiliano explained he had a plan that was a lot safer than putting their lives in the hands of a stranger. His mother did not want to show sadness, but he could tell she was already feeling what it will be like to be separated from her daughter and son. He knows they are her life. How can she be so willing to let them go? And Sara—surely Sara is awake because she’s hoping that Linda will be found alive, wishing she could be there when she comes home.