“And remember to put your documents in the leather pouch,” Farid said.
The leather pouch had been a gift from Lucrecia at Transatlantic Travel. The travel agent had smiled first in surprise and then in admiration and at the end in plain congratulations when Ayelén had shown up every month with a white envelope hidden inside her math book to pay the plane fare, bit by bit.
All night long, a parade of family and friends, close, distant and twice removed, came to leave good wishes, all they could afford, to the first girl in three generations to leave the tree and branch out on her own. Although no one said it at the time, they left with the seed of wonder and possibility. That night, boys and girls all over the city dreamed that maybe they too could do impossible things. Mothers and fathers lay in bed, eyes wide open, thinking upon their lives and the dreams they’d forgotten in the day-to-day struggle of making things work, of rebuilding the country when it kept falling apart time after time.
Ayelén lay in bed too, waiting for a call from her padrino to send her off with his blessing. But although they’d finally paid the overdue bill, the phone stayed silent.
In the morning, the benteveos sang before the sun came up and burned the fog; fall was creeping in just in time for Easter. Ayelén got up to share the last mátes with her parents before the boys woke up. They drank the tea with sugar. Life already had too much bitterness. There wasn’t time for more last-minute advice.
Ayelén worried that she was betraying her family and country for having the outlandish dream of testing her boundaries and seeing how far she could go, but she had to be stronger than her doubts and unfurl her wings.
“Remember who you are,” her father said.
The truth was that she wasn’t sure who she really was. Wasn’t that why she was leaving? To find out?
When Helena wasn’t looking, the boys gifted their sister their favorite Ferrari Hot Wheels, the ones they’d gotten for Christmas like three years ago that still looked brand new. Her brothers watched with wonder as she headed downstairs, followed by a train of neighbors, who waved goodbye.
At the Rosario international airport, the family closed their eyes and huddled for a whispered prayer that Helena offered with contained emotion. She was trying so hard to remain strong. When Ayelén opened her eyes, she saw her cousin Daiana running in her direction, her black hair whipping behind her. Ayelén hugged the sister of her heart for the first time since Santino’s baptism. In the look they shared, they tried to tell each other that the years of competition had been the most fun they’d ever had. That although the journey was taking them in seemingly opposite directions, they were both moving forward. They were both so young.
“Send me pictures and call me when you arrive,” Daiana said, pressing a piece of paper into Ayelén’s hand. “I know it’s expensive, but my friend Florencia said there are calling cards. She’ll be there when you arrive—”
A speaker announced Ayelén’s flight, but Ayelén nodded so that her cousin would know she was grateful beyond words for Daiana connecting her to a friend who was studying in Utah, even though their fathers hadn’t been talking.
Her family gathered around her like chicks before the first gust of a storm, but Ayelén was ready to fly.
Her mother composed herself first and gently pushed her toward the escalator.
“Chau, chau!” little voices cried.
“Te queremos!”
“Make us proud!”
And last, “Don’t forget us!”
Her mother had told her not to look back. And so, like the maligned woman of the Bible story she’d studied in Sunday school, Ayelén fought the temptation to take one last look.
Before she stepped on the escalator, she lost the fight and turned around.
Love blazed in the faces of her loved ones.
Ayelén didn’t turn into a salt statue, but salt rose in her throat, and although she’d never seen the sea in her life, some part of her DNA remembered that tears tasted like sea water, the same sea that had brought her family to this land. This land she was now leaving.
Beyond the little huddle, Padrino looked at her with tears in his eyes. Ayelén waved him over. He hesitated for a second, and then as if he were wading through cement, he made his way to her. So did her father.
Ayelén took Padrino’s hand and her father’s. “It was never a competition. Remember, a victory for one is a victory for all.”
Both men lowered their heads, chastised. The weight they’d put on her shoulders was too hard for a kid to carry. When they let go of her hands, Padrino said, “You earned it all. Now go and be happy. We’ll be cheering for you.”
* * *
Once, Ayelén had asked her mother how she’d learned how to be a mother, how she’d learned what the twins’ cries meant and how to soothe them. Her mother had laughed and confessed she’d been pretending since day one.
“Fake it till you make it,” she’d said and continued making perfect gnocchi balls for Sunday dinner.
Fake it till you make it—that’s what Ayelén tried to do.
She faked confidence until she reached customs somewhere in Texas.
When the immigration officer asked her where she was going, she tightened her fist around her talisman: Daiana’s note with little drawings from Nadia and Selena, hearts that united a stick figure labeled Ayelén to a giant heart labeled Your familia.
In a clear voice, she replied, “I’m starting college next week.”
Maybe the brown-skinned, young immigration officer saw all the dreams flashing in Ayelén’s eyes. Without more questions, he stamped her passport and smiled. “Come on in,” he said. “Welcome to the United States.”
She could manage only to mumble her gratitude. She was in a daze.
When her final flight arrived in Salt Lake City and there was no sign of her ride, she pretended a primal fear wasn’t clawing at her chest. She pushed it down, until she calmed herself enough to buy a calling card so that she could dial the phone number Daiana had given her so long ago, when they’d both been young girls sunbathing on a rooftop without a care in the world.
“Hola?” said a young girl’s voice, and her heart leaped. Ayelén hadn’t been away for more than fourteen hours, and she already missed the sound of her language on her people’s tongues.
“Florencia?” Ayelén asked. “It’s me, Ayelén, at the airport.”
A pair of little boys were playing by the telephone, and she had to look away from them, pretending she didn’t miss her little brothers with an intensity that made her weak.