7
The first thing I did when I heard Mom and my brothers coming home was swing open the front door and offer to help with the bags. You know, get on her good side. But my brothers already had the bags, and were nonstop yakking… about cooking? Seems there’s this chef’s club for kids at the Y, and they actually liked it. Like, they were talking about making dinner… that night. My brothers! Mom was nodding encouragingly. Dad would have been dumbfounded (vocab word). And so psyched to know they could actually boil water without burning down the kitchen.
They were mad excited as they unloaded the groceries. Christopher looks more like Mom, so his eyes were all bright, but Benjamin totally has Dad’s exact eyes, sort of gentle and smiley, if that makes sense. Food I’d never seen them eat before piled up on the counter. Benjamin looked so happy, taking out some chili sauce. Christopher was saying, “Don’t forget. We have to wash our hands first!” Whaaa? Where was I?
Mom gave them each a kiss on the cheek, then disappeared into her room. I decided to wait to bring up the soccer game. Thing is, when she tucked away in her room like this, it was like she wasn’t even home, she was checked out. Like, my brothers actually wanted to do something besides play video games, and she barely noticed. Dad, he would have been all over it, asking them a million questions, making them explain everything so they could feel like big deals. But Dad didn’t know about the cool chef’s club. Didn’t know I ate sandwiches in the hall at this fancy school he apparently wanted me to go to. The thing with my dad is, if you talked to him about something, he always had an idea about how to fix it. What would he have to say about METCO? About Dorito Girl? About being froze out even by kids like me?
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After Benjamin and Christopher made chicken with chili sauce and broccoli (it wasn’t bad), and took off for their room to play video games (without washing any dishes!), Mom came into the kitchen, adjusting the belt on her robe. She seemed calm, at least. So I took my chances. “Mom. I want to ask you something.”
She stifled a yawn. “Por favor, Liliana. Vaya. What is it?”
“Okay.” I went for it. “Can I stay after school tomorrow… for a game?”
“No.”
“Mom! You didn’t even ask about what game or how long it is and if there is an after-school bus. Which there is, by the way.”
She began opening and closing her fists. This is what she did when she felt stressed—she must have read about it in one of her magazines.
“Liliana. I can’t be worrying about where you are. Just… just go to school and come home. Please.” Yup. Just like I figured. “I’ve got enough to worry about with your father in—” She stopped short. In? IN? Wait, wait, wait—did she know where Dad was?
“In where? Where is Dad?” I blurted out. She knew! I could tell!
Mom, suddenly pale, reached for the table as if to steady herself, then plopped into a chair.
“Mom?” I said, sitting beside her. “Just tell me.”
She looked at me so long, if I’d had a timer, it would have been a straight minute. It really would’ve.
Finally she took a deep breath. “Bueno…” She nodded, as if to convince herself it was okay to say more. “Your father… he’s in Guatemala.”
I sat stiller than still. Guatemala? Guatemala? What was he doing there? But I didn’t utter a syllable and risk her clamming up.
“Because… well. At first, and I’m sorry to say this, but I thought he was with another woman. There have been times, Liliana, when part of me wished that were actually the case.”
Whaaa? “Mom!”
Mom held up a hand. “Escucha. He got into some trouble. He didn’t do anything wrong! This you have to believe.” She lowered her hand. “At first, though, even I really thought he had done it.”
I grasped her arm. I was trying not to freak. “Done what? What are you talking about? And why didn’t you tell me before!”
“Oye. So, he and some of his friends went to a bar one night after work, and then they stopped for burgers at Wendy’s. No big deal, right? Then some old guy started in on them. Calling them spics and other stuff, telling them their days were numbered. One of your father’s friends got mad. He—maybe he’d had too much to drink, I don’t know. But he started pounding on the old man. The manager called the police.” Mom paused to inspect a worn spot on one of the place mats. She rubbed a finger over it, frowning, then went on.
“Once the police arrived, things got worse. Your father’s friend really got into it with one of the cops. Your father stepped in. How could he not? But then the old man started hitting your father!”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
I wanted her to stop.
I didn’t want her to stop.
“Anyway, de verdad, this is all on video, so they know it was self-defense, but they didn’t care.” She wiped at her nose with her robe sleeve.
“But, Mom, I don’t get it. What does this have to do with him being in Guatemala?”
She closed her fists, opened her fists, closed her fists, nodded, then whispered, “Liliana… your father was deported.”
I gaped at her. “What! But he can’t be deported. How can he be deported? He’s a US citizen! Right? Right!” I wasn’t hearing correctly. I couldn’t be hearing correctly. Could I be hearing correctly? But then I saw. Mom looked scared. For real. No, no, no.
Then she said it. “No, Liliana. He isn’t.”
I slumped back in my chair. Oh my God, what did this mean? Were… were… I had to ask. “Is he— Are you… undocumented?”
Mom plucked a napkin off the table and pressed her face into it. I couldn’t even do that. Honestly, I felt paralyzed, like someone had just covered me in cement. My father… my mother… my parents—they were undocumented. I had no idea what to say. And now Mom was sobbing.
I don’t know how long we sat there, Mom crying into the napkin and me just staring at the wall. The room felt like it was closing in. I brought my hand to my chest. Breathing? Okay. I was still breathing.
And as I sat there, so many images, so many pieces of the past that I never quite understood, came into focus, and suddenly made sense.
Like the time when I was eight and we got separated by a crowd at the South Shore mall. After she found me, Mom grabbed my shoulders, shook me hard, and told me that if anything should ever happen, I should call—not her, not Dad, but my Tía Carmen in Lynn.
And the time at a New Year’s party at some friend of Dad’s in Everett. Someone shouted that an immigration cop was on his way up the stairs, and everyone ran out the back door. Dad held my hand so tight, I thought it was going to snap off. We never stepped foot in Everett again.
Oh my God. Mom’s obsession with paperwork and envelopes and bills and filing… and her freak-out just the other day when she couldn’t find some letters! No wonder she was always a minute away from a nervous breakdown.
And… oh! Ohhhhh. Her inability to get a real job.
It all made sense now. Oh man.
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