Belén forces me to go to the soccer game, even though I tell her I have a hatred for sports that is located deep inside my entrails. She says it doesn’t matter, that’s not the point of going. Soccer games are where young people hang out and hook up. There’s not much else to do in Los Ojos. Stare at the mountains? Chase chickens? Shoot bottles?
We sit on the top bleachers with Belén’s friends, a group of mildly attractive girls who wear way too much makeup. Although they don’t say anything petty or snarky, I can tell right away that they’re jealous of my cousin. I don’t know why I always notice these types of things. There’s something about the way their eyes outline her body and settle on her face, a sort of longing. It’s not that they want her; it’s that they want to be her.
After Los Tigres score their first goal, a dark guy in a cowboy hat comes toward us with bottles of Coke and plastic bags of pork skins slathered in red salsa. He distributes the drinks and snacks to everyone in our group and squeezes between me and Belén. All the girls laugh as if it were the funniest thing they’ve ever seen. I can feel the beads of sweat form on my upper lip.
“How are you doing tonight, Señorita Reyes?”
At first, I wonder how he knows my last name or who I am, but then I remember everyone knows everyone’s business in Los Ojos. Tío Chucho says you can’t even fart without the whole town finding out.
“Medium,” I say, looking at the field, trying, for once in my life, to understand a sport.
He laughs. “Why won’t you look at me?”
I shrug. I’m mute all of a sudden.
“Don’t mind Esteban,” Belén says, smirking. “He can be a little pesado sometimes.”
I wouldn’t call him pesado, but he’s definitely assertive. I can’t keep myself from staring at his dark and veiny forearms. I imagine how they would feel against my fingertips. I cross my legs so they don’t brush against his.
After the game, Belén and her giggling friends flee before I can ask them to wait for me.
“I guess I should walk you home.” Esteban smiles. His teeth are bright and perfect.
“Yeah, I guess,” I say, remembering what Belén said about walking alone at night. The sky is beginning to purple. I can see the sun and moon at the same time.
Esteban makes me feel as if something were filling my chest with warm syrup, as if all my bones were being slowly removed from my body. For a second, I wonder what Connor might be doing, if he still thinks about me, but I remind myself that things are over between us. I have no idea why, but even though I just met Esteban and know virtually nothing about him, he makes me feel all goopy inside.
A truck blasting a narcocorrido wakes me from my reverie.
When we get to the corner of Mamá Jacinta’s block, Esteban takes my hand. “I’ve liked you since you got here.”
“Well, I’d never seen you before, so that’s kind of weird.” I’m too nervous to look at him. Why do I have to be such an asshole, even when I don’t want to be?
“You don’t remember seeing me that time you and Belén came into the fruit store? That’s where I work.”
I knew I had felt someone looking at me that day, but I didn’t bother searching for the source. It’s funny how your body knows things before you do.
I shake my head. “No, I didn’t see you.”
Esteban’s dark skin glistens under the streetlight. It reminds me of coffee. I want so much to touch his face, but I don’t.
—
We sit in tía Fermina’s backyard gnawing on figs we picked from her tree. Tío Raul and tío Leonel are inside watching the news. The sky is full of stars, and I stare at it in awe for such a long time that everyone notices and laughs at me. How could I forget the nights were like this?
“Poor city girl,” tío Chucho says, smiling. “She probably never sees stars in Chicago.”
“Not really. Maybe three or four at a time, if I’m lucky,” I say, and pick a tiny leaf from my sweater. I look back up and think about how some stars don’t even really exist anymore, that seeing them is seeing the past. It’s hard for me to wrap my brain around that. What a mind fuck.
The ground feels good under my bare feet. Tía Estela sits behind me in a chair and braids my hair, her fingers cool against the back of my neck. Her hands in my hair are soothing. She’s gentle, doesn’t yank my hair like Amá used to when I was a kid.
“Dios mío, mija,” tía Estela says as she holds the braid up for everyone to see. “You have so much hair. How do you walk around like this? Doesn’t your head feel heavy?”
“Sometimes, when it’s wet,” I say, and wonder what it would feel like to chop off all of my hair. What would I look like? I’ve had long hair my entire life. When I was born, my hair was a ridiculous shock of black. Amá said the doctors and nurses had never seen anything like it.
I feel Belén stare at me from across the yard. I think she’s used to being the beautiful one and doesn’t appreciate the attention I’m receiving. It’s both uncomfortable and satisfying at the same time.
“Beautiful hair runs in the family,” Mamá Jacinta says. “Though you wouldn’t know, looking at mine now.” She runs her hands through her short gray hair and smiles.
Tío Chucho grins and shakes his hair as if he were in a shampoo commercial. “It’s true. I look like a movie star.”
I’ve eaten so many figs that my stomach hurts, but I can’t stop. I love the taste of the sweet flesh, the crunch of tiny seeds between my teeth.
The night is always perfect here—never too cold, the air smelling of dirt and leaves. I think I almost get a whiff of the river, then remember it’s practically dried up. A phantom smell, I guess. I can’t think of anything more calming than the sound of crickets and the rustle of the fig tree. If tía had a hammock, I would ask to sleep here every single night.
The white and yellow roses planted in old buckets are thriving despite the drought, because tía Fermina cares for them as if they were children. Their persistence makes me feel hopeful.
Andrés gets up from his chair and approaches a cactus in the corner of the yard. I wonder what he’s doing, but I don’t ask. He presses his finger to the bud and whispers something. After a few seconds, he turns to all of us and says, “This one never bloomed, and the season’s almost over.” He frowns.
“What kind of flower is that?” I ask.
“Nocturnal cactus flower. Forgot the name, but this one is a flop, I think.”
“I’ve never heard of that. That’s…that’s…amazing.” I run out of words. A flower that blooms only at night sounds like something out of a fairy tale.
Tía Fermina comes out from the kitchen with a jug of agua de jamaica and pours each of us a glass. “This is good for digestion and high cholesterol. After eating those carnitas tonight, we all need it.” Tía Fermina is the oldest and always trying to take care of everybody. It’s almost hard to believe that she’s Belén’s mother, because Belén is kind of selfish, mostly concerned with how pretty she is. The first night I got here, tía Fermina gave me a small cloth bag full of paper worry dolls. She told me that before I go to sleep each night I should tell them all my worries and put them under my pillow. They’re supposed to disappear by morning. I never told her it didn’t work.
The agua de jamaica is tart, sweet, and refreshing. I pour myself another glass. If the night were made into a drink, it would taste like this.
—
Tía Fermina takes me to Delicias, three towns over, to buy some cheese. Supposedly, it’s the best in the whole state, and I think I might agree, because it’s sharp, creamy, and melts perfectly. It tastes amazing in enchiladas. A cheese worthy of a pilgrimage.
Tía complains about the drought the whole ride over. “It’s ruining all the crops,” she says. “The cows are emaciated. People don’t know what to do anymore.” The land is definitely drier than I remember. The trees are yellow and brittle.
Everything in the desert hunkers toward the ground. The huizaches that dot the mountains are short, and the twigs are armed with spines. Everything protects itself with needles here. Once in a while, a pregnant cloud hovers and teases the land with a trickle of rain.
Tía Fermina is a few years older than Amá, and though they look so much alike—same black hair, light skin, and bright red lips
—she’s just not as pretty. That doesn’t mean she’s not attractive, though; tía has a captivating face, like all the Montenegro women. It’s just that hardly anyone is as beautiful as Amá. I wonder what it was like for them growing up. Did tía always compare herself to her? Was she jealous? Did she ever wish she had crossed to the other side like her little sister?
We park the truck at the bottom of a hill because it won’t fit through the narrow streets. I suddenly have déjà vu; I know I came to this town with Mamá Jacinta once, long ago, but I don’t remember why exactly. Did it have something to do with a goat? Or am I making that up? Sometimes my memory feels like a smeared photograph.
“How is your mother?” tía Fermina asks as we pant our way up. “Have you talked to her?”
“She called me yesterday. She sounds okay.”
“How was she before? You know, when she lost Olga.”
“She couldn’t get out of bed. Just when I thought she was doing better, she’d go right back to sleeping for days and days. She hardly ate or drank anything. It scared me. She hasn’t done that in a while, though.”
A man walks a blindfolded bull across the street. “Buenos días,” he says, and tips his hat. That’s the thing about Mexico—you have
to say hello to people you don’t even know.
“My poor sister. And all of us here, useless, unable to help her. Ay, Diosito.” Tía Fermina sighs. “Every time I called her, she’d tell me she was fine, but I knew she wasn’t. Of course she wasn’t. How could she be fine without her daughter? That’s the worst thing that could ever happen to you. I can’t even fathom it. God forbid.” She crosses herself.
“She wasn’t fine, and neither was I.”
“Ay, mija, I can’t imagine what it’s like to lose your sister.” Tía turns to me and touches my face. “Pobre criatura. And what about you and your mother? I know you two have fought a lot over the years. She’s always said you were very terca.”
That’s how I’ve been described my whole life—terca, necia, cabezona—all the synonyms for “stubborn” and “difficult.” A gust of wind carries the smell of burning garbage toward us.
“Yeah, we don’t really understand each other.”
“You need to try harder, especially with your sister gone. You’re all she has, Julia. She loves you so much. Maybe you don’t see that, I don’t know. Just please, don’t make her life harder. I ask you as your aunt, as your mother’s sister, please be good to her.” Tía Fermina is out of breath now. She stops and wipes the sweat from her face with her forearm. I don’t think Amá told her I tried to kill myself.
“You don’t understand, tía. I try. I really do. We’re just so different. She thinks I’m wild and crazy, but what I want makes sense to me. I want to be independent. I want to be my own person, with my own life. I want to make my own choices and mistakes. And she wants to know what I’m doing every second of the day. It makes me feel like I’m drowning.”
“Ay, mija. There is so much you don’t understand.”
“Why does everyone say that to me? I know I’m young, but I’m not stupid.”
“That’s not what I mean. It’s that your mother has had such a hard life. You can’t even imagine.”
“I know. She reminds me of it all the time. She’s always telling me how hard she works and that I’m ungrateful.”
Tía Fermina doesn’t say anything for a long time. “Tía? Are you okay?”
“I’m only telling you this so you can understand, so you can have more compassion.” She looks at the sky. “God, forgive me for doing this.”
My muscles tense. I’m suddenly overwhelmed with thirst. “What? What is it? Tell me, tell me now. I want to know now.”
Tía finally looks at me. “You know how your parents crossed the border?”
I’ve heard the story several times. Amá left with Apá against her mother’s will. They crossed with a coyote. When they got to Texas, a man stole all their money. They stayed in El Paso with Apá’s distant cousin and worked at a restaurant until they were able to save enough money to take the bus to Chicago. It was in the middle of winter, and they didn’t have jackets. Amá said she had never felt so cold in her life. She thought her eyes would freeze inside her head. That’s all I knew.
“Your mother, el coyote…” Tía looks like she’s trying to untangle what she needs to say. She begins to cry. “He took her…”
“He took her where?” I scream. I don’t mean to, but it just comes out that way. “Where did he take her? What did he do?” I squeeze her hand so hard, I think I might break her fingers.
Tía can’t get the words out. My brain is pounding. A tattered gray cat darts past us.
“I can’t say it. I shouldn’t have told you this. God, forgive me.” Tía Fermina covers her mouth with her hand. She doesn’t have to finish.
“And Apá? Where was he? What did he do?” I can’t stop screaming.
“They held him down with a gun. There was nothing he could do.” Tía Fermina shakes her head.
“No. No. That can’t be true. No. I can’t…” I sit down on the ground, near a mound of red ants, but I don’t care. My body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. I picture my mother’s face streaked with tears and dirt, my father bowing his head in defeat.
“And Olga? What about Olga? She was…She was…” I can’t get the words out.
Tía Fermina clasps her hands to her chest and nods. “See, mija, that’s why I want you to know. So when you and your mother fight, you can see where she’s come from and understand what’s happened to her. She doesn’t mean to hurt you.”
—
That night, I don’t fall asleep until morning. I just lie there thinking about my parents and how little I know them. I wake up at noon, my body aching.
Because I don’t have anywhere to go, no real obligations, the days blend together; I can’t even tell them apart most of the time. I wake up, eat breakfast, help Mamá Jacinta cook and clean, and then lie around reading and writing. After Belén gets home from school, she and I wander through the town aimlessly, eating all the junk food that will fit inside our bodies. Well, at least when my appetite hasn’t disappeared. Sometimes we meet Esteban after he gets out of work. We either sit on a bench or walk around the square until we have to go home. Belén always leaves us alone for a while. She pretends she needs to run an errand, but I know exactly what she’s doing.
Esteban has never tried to kiss me, and it’s all I can think about. I imagine his thick lips on mine. I picture his hands running through my hair and down my back, his body pressed against me. I never do anything about it, though. I feel as scared and vulnerable as a plucked bird. I know he said he liked me, but what if he didn’t really mean it? What if he thinks I’m weird? What if I’m not pretty enough? Besides, how could I, with the whole town watching? I just sit there like a fool, making small talk and boring observations about stray animals, hoping I don’t embarrass myself with my limited Spanish vocabulary.
Today Esteban is wearing jeans, a faded Beatles T-shirt, and a straw cowboy hat. I like the combination.
“Where did you get that shirt?”
“My cousin left it at my house, and I kept it,” he says, smiling.
“Do you even like the Beatles?” “Not really.”
“You’re weird.” A mangy stray dog creeps toward us and begins sniffing me.
Esteban seems very amused by this. “Weird, huh?” “Yeah, everyone likes the Beatles.”
“Apparently, that dog likes you.” He points his chin toward it. “He’s not my type.”
Esteban laughs. “You’re silly, you know that? What exactly is your type, then?”
“I prefer them to be better groomed. Not so many fleas.”
Esteban smiles and pats my hand. I almost gasp and feel my eyes bug out with surprise. I’m so nervous I can’t even move. We sit like that for a few seconds until Belén comes out of the store with the sack of meat we have to take to Mamá Jacinta for dinner. I jump up and leave without looking at Esteban, my heart inside my mouth.
At dusk, Belén, my tías, Mamá Jacinta, and I watch telenovelas. That’s what all the women in Los Ojos do at that hour. They’re all glued to their televisions. I could probably run around with my hair on fire, and they wouldn’t even notice. During the opening credits of La Casa de Traición, a horrible show about a rich family with a shameful past, we hear shouting outside.
“iHijo de tu pinche madre!” a man yells. “You’re going to pay!” Belén mutes the TV, and we all stare at each other, confused.
I can’t understand the rest of the yelling. The only words I can make out are puto and piedras. Someone honks a car horn. Tires screech. A dog barks.
The commotion stops after a few seconds, and just when we think it’s over, the gunshots begin. Everyone drops to the floor, even poor Mamá Jacinta. “Again? I thought this had ended,” she says. “Why, God, why?” Tía Fermina rubs her back and tries to calm her down, but Mamá Jacinta whimpers and cries. She is distraught beyond consolation. Tía Estela crosses herself over and over.
Everyone crawls toward the back of the house. I’m the last one. I peek out the cracked door before I go. Two dead bodies are lying in the middle of the street.
—
Tía Fermina says she needs to give me a limpia to get rid of my susto. She says they can’t send me home like this after what happened. What would my mother say? My family members claim that “a scare” can kill you. I call that a “heart attack,” but whatever. I’ll go along with this if it makes everyone feel better.
Tía takes me to the storage room where Mamá Jacinta keeps her extra dry food. There are sacks of flour, beans, and dry corn scattered on the floor. I lie on a small cot, and once I get comfortable, tía Fermina makes little crosses all over my body with an egg, beginning with my head and working her way down to my feet. The cool shell against my skin feels comforting. When I was little, I was confused about the process of this spiritual cleansing. All I knew was that it involved an egg, so I imagined they used a cooked one—likely fried—which left the recipient greasy and smeared with yolk. Boy, was I stupid, but I figured it out when I saw them do it to my cousin Vanessa after she was almost hit by a car. The raw egg traps all the rotten crap clogging up your soul.
Tía Fermina whispers the prayers so faintly I can’t understand them. After she makes dozens of crosses all over my body, she says it’s time to see inside the egg, to understand what’s been stewing inside of me. Tía cracks the egg into a glass of water and holds it up to the light. The water turns thick and cloudy, and when we look closer, we see a dot of dark blood in the center of the yolk.
“Dios mío, mija,” tía gasps. “What’s going on with you?”
—
I have to go back home because Mamá Jacinta is afraid the narcos will continue killing each other. After a year and a half of relative peace, Los Ojos has erupted into violence again. She tells me I need to take the bus to the airport because it’s much less likely
that the narcos will pull us over. It’s especially dangerous for tío Chucho to drive, since the cartel has been after Andrés for years.
“Why did tío Chucho give that man an envelope?” I ask Mamá Jacinta before bed. “At Paulina’s party.”
She sighs. “It’s a bribe, so they’ll leave Andrés alone. They want him to work for them, and they come around every once in a while. Can you imagine working for those animals? Ni Dios lo mande. Those men have no soul, forcing a man with no money to pay them like that. Your tío is a humble truck driver who does his best to provide for his family, what’s left of it. Ay, Dios mío, my little town has turned to garbage.” Mamá Jacinta presses her palms to her eyes. “Please stop worrying about what happened, and try to get some rest. You’ll be home soon. I didn’t know this would happen, mija. I’m sorry. I thought the fighting was over. Nothing like this has happened in a long time.” She makes the sign of the cross and gives me a kiss goodnight.
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I say. Part of me wants to tell her I know what happened to Amá. It beats inside me like another heart, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say it out loud.
—
Esteban says he’ll miss me, and I tell him that he won’t. How could he? He hardly knows me. He just laughs, though. He laughs at nearly everything I say, even when I’m not trying to be funny.
“Maybe I’ll see you on the other side,” he tells me at the square. “I might be crossing soon. I can’t work at the fruit store forever. There’s nothing for me here. I’m sick of this place.” He looks around, disgusted, and kicks a rock toward the empty fountain.
“Be careful. Please. The border…The fucking border.” I feel a wildness spreading through me. “It’s nothing but a giant wound, a big gash between the two countries. Why does it have to be like that? I don’t understand. It’s just some random, stupid line. How can anyone tell people where they can and can’t go?”
“I don’t understand, either.” Esteban takes off his cowboy hat and looks toward the mountains. “All I know is that I’ve had enough of this life.”
“It’s bullshit, utter bullshit.” I clench my fists and close my eyes. Esteban cradles my face in his hands and pulls me toward him.
The whole town will probably find out within the hour, but I don’t
even care.
—
I cry quietly on the bus after I say goodbye to my family. I don’t look outside, because if I see Mamá Jacinta standing there staring at me, which I’m certain she is, I’ll probably start wailing. After she gave me la bendición, she handed me Apá’s drawing and said she trusted me to take care of my mother. “You are a beautiful young woman. You will do amazing things. Please just make sure you look after my daughter.” I never imagined I would have to protect and care for my mother—I didn’t know that was my job— but I said, “Yes, of course.” How could I not?
I try to sleep when the bus finally pulls away, but the man in front of me is snoring so loudly he wakes himself up every few minutes. His snores are so deep it sounds as if he’s being suffocated by his own flesh. I stare out the window and study the brown and brittle land. The worst drought in ten years, they say. Every few miles, I see a bright desert flower or white crosses with plastic roses on the side of the road. I wonder why so many people die here.
The sun begins to set as we finally approach the city. The colors are so beautiful they’re almost violent. I feel a pang in my chest and remember a line from a poem I read a long time ago about terror being the beginning of beauty. Or something like that. I don’t quite remember.
There’s a dead donkey in a field behind a barbwire fence. Its legs are bent and stiff, and its mouth is open, as if it had been smiling when it died. Two vultures circle above it.
