A flicker of worry crossed my mother’s forehead. She suddenly got very busy pushing buttons on the oven.
I didn’t want to add to her stress, but I had to know. So I pressed. “Well, she said that Dad needed prayers… to help him make it back. What did she mean by that?”
“Oh…” My mother pushed at the temperature buttons so many times that the oven started beeping.
“Mom! You bake at three-fifty. Not five hundred.” Even I knew that! I moved her hand away and adjusted the temperature, set the timer.
Ignoring me, Mom reached for the Bundt pan. It slid from her hand and started careening off the counter. I caught it just in time. “Mom! Tell me what’s going on!”
“Not now, Liliana.” She wiped her hands on the embroidered towel—a gift from Tía from three years before—hanging from the refrigerator handle. “Finish the cake?” She opened the oven door for me before leaving the kitchen. A moment later I heard her bedroom door click shut.
13
Safely, Tía had said. Tía, who was visiting for whatever reason. Safely. The thought began pricking at me. What if things weren’t as simple as straightening out paperwork? Would Dad have to sneak across the border to come back? Literally climb an actual wall? No, no. My dad was smart. Street smart. He’d find a way to get back to us without putting himself in danger. I mean… right? But Tía had said make it back.…
So Mom wasn’t going to dish the info. Fine. I’d just have to get it out of Tía Laura. But first, I peeked in on my brothers. They were sniping at each other about who knows what in the living room. Poor kids. They basically escaped to the video game world probably like I did with making miniatures, or writing. Right before I walked in, I overheard Benjamin say to Christopher, “How long are they staying here? And when’s Dad coming home?”
“Hey!” I called out. Benjamin glanced up.
“What?”
“You guys want to… wrestle or something?” I had a flashback of Dad pretending to wince in pain as one of the boys pinned him down, and I gave my head a shake.
Christopher narrowed his eyes. “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” I said, all enthusiastic-like. “We can…” I paused to think of a way to make it more fun.… Ah! “Put pillows in our T-shirts and wrestle sumo-style. Want to?”
They looked at each other and with their twin ESP thinking came to a silent decision, because Christopher picked up the remote control. “Maybe later.”
I tried.
An hour later, in the kitchen, Tía Laura was drinking beer, a fan of cut limes in front of her. Tía liked her beer. And she was talking nonstop and sort of yelling-laughing to my other aunt on the phone. Mom had gone to the corner store to get stuff for dinner. Tío R. was taking a pre-dinner siesta, not to be confused with his jet lag siesta. He’d eaten half the Magdalena cake for lunch. He sure was comfortable here!
“¿Con permiso? Tía?” Normally I wouldn’t interrupt an adult on the phone, but it sounded like she was about to get off.
She didn’t hear me, just kept talking a mile a minute.
“Tía?” I repeated, louder.
She turned and blinked at me as if trying to remember who I was. Maybe she was more buzzed than I thought.
“Te llamo después,” she said into the phone, and hung up, just like that.
She popped a thick wedge of lime into her mouth and sucked on it, smiling with her eyes as I joined her at the table.
I actually really liked Tía Laura. Usually I caught like 80 percent of what she was saying. Her Spanish was fast and full of slang, and she was funny. I liked how her whole body laughed when she laughed. Her arms would fall to her sides, and she’d lean over like she was about to fall, but at the last second she’d straighten herself up and let out an enormous laugh that was, no lie, contagious.
“Tía? So… by any chance… have you been in touch with my dad?”
“You know…” She paused to take a sip of her beer. “You should talk to your father before—”
WAIT. It was possible to talk to Dad? Had Mom talked to him? How often? And she didn’t she let me, or the boys?!?! Slow down, slow down—I needed to play this cool.
“If I knew his number, I would love to talk to him,” I said, as in HINT, HINT—do you want to call him, like right now, and pass me the phone? I picked up a knife and began to cut a lime peel into tiny pieces.
But Tía stayed quiet, set down the now empty beer can. I got her a second from the refrigerator.
“Gracias, mija.” She cracked it open, letting loose that great little hissing sound.
I eyed her. “Tía, can I ask you something?”
She shrugged. “Ask or don’t ask, but don’t ask whether you can ask, mija.”
I picked at a hangnail. “Okay, well… What did you mean when you said you hoped Dad would make it back safely? Is he in, like, danger? Is this why… you’re here?”
She twanged the pull tab on her beer can. “I’m here to get money, to bring back to Guatemala, sí, for your father.”
Got it. Money. So… did that mean she got to see him? That she’d seen him?
And of course that was when Mom barged in the front door, yelling, “Come help with these bags!”
Tía whispered, “Mija… he is paying a coyote to help him cross.”
Boom.
14
“Earth to Lili.” Holly poked me in the arm.
“What? Oh—sorry!” I gave my head a shake, trying to refocus on whatever it was Holly was talking about. But my mind was on the bomb Tía had dropped the other night. Dad had hired a coyote. Normally I was not so bad at compartmentalizing home and school, but this—this was major.
“Am I boring you?” Holly now verbally poked. “You’re like spacing out here!”
“I know. I’m so sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind. My aunt and uncle are visiting from Guatemala, and they’re kind of… making me crazy.” So—not true, but not entirely a lie. What Tía had said was making me crazy, worrying.
Holly now looked at me, her lips pursed. “You need a break, is what’s up. Why don’t you come over after school?”
“You mean to your house?”
“No. Not my house,” Holly said, throwing some snark. “Come over to my cardboard box under a bridge. Yes! To my house.”
Sunlight pushing through a tall window in the cafeteria made her hair glow. And she’d just invited me to her house. And suddenly I was wondering how big her room was rather than how you even hired a coyote. I wondered what snacks she had in her kitchen. Of course I wanted to go! But, hello—my mother…
“I’m not sure I can, because my aunt and uncle—well, they need lots of entertaining.” I looked over my shoulder. It was a weird thing that I’d caught myself doing all day. It wasn’t like I was worried Dad would show up with a coyote in the hallway or anything, but—I don’t know. I felt nervous now, like down to my toes, ever since Tía had told me about my father.
Holly nudged me. “So? It doesn’t have to only be you doing the entertaining.”