The Only Road (26 page)

Obstacles came into view only seconds before Jaime was upon them. Twice he came close to colliding with a cactus as tall as him. He kept a close watch on Conejo, trying to follow his path.

He kept his ears open for the slightest hint of the helicopter coming back, but all he could hear was Ángela's jagged, struggling breath. He gripped her tighter and kept running.

Then, as if it had appeared out of nowhere, a dark blue car stood in the empty landscape. A lady not much older than Ángela with dark hair and blue eyes sat waiting in the driver's seat. She looked like she had just been to a party with her perfect makeup and dressy clothes. She acknowledged them with nothing more than a glance and a quick exchange of money with Conejo.

The trunk popped open, and Conejo motioned for the Salvadoran who had complained about the money and the Mexican who'd almost drowned to climb in. Over them he then set the hard plastic cover meant to hide the spare tire.

Jaime was sent to the backseat with the other man and Vida; Ángela was ordered to sit up front. The driver stayed put, tapping her egg-yolk-yellow nails on the dash in boredom. Jaime figured you'd have to be really
bored to paint nails that ugly shade. Or completely color-blind.

The car was one of those fancy ones that didn't make much noise, and they were off before Jaime knew the car had turned on. He looked through the window behind him, but Conejo had already disappeared into the night as if he never existed.

They drove without headlights, bumping over shrubs and rocks, not even following a visible path, until reaching a paved road. Now, headlights on, speakers playing some twangy tune, they were driving along as if they were normal people in a normal car.

The tranquility didn't last long. Lights flashed up ahead. The driver swore as she slowed down. From under the seat she grabbed a silky shirt and hairbrush and threw them at Ángela.

In half English and bad Spanish she turned to each one of them.

“You.” She pointed to Ángela next to her. “
Mi amiga.
You,
dormir
.” She pointed to the man next to Jaime and implied she wanted him to pretend to be asleep. “And you, with bowwow.”

Vida barked back as if to say she got it. Jaime wished he felt as confident. From what he gathered, the lady wanted him to pay attention to the dog. In other words, act casual. Like they lived here. Right. Even though the driver with
her blue eyes was the only one who looked like she lived, and belonged, here.

A uniformed man swaggered up to the car carrying a flashlight. As he got closer, Jaime let out a gasp. The man was short with strong arms and broad shoulders. His black hair was combed to one side, his eyes hidden in the shadow of his large nose, and his skin shone brown in the flashlight glow. He looked so familiar, he could have been a distant uncle. The nametag on his uniform said “Rivera.” Yup, he could definitely be related.

“Hi ya.” The lady rolled down her window and smiled at the man. She waved a manicured hand and set it down against the car as if she wanted him to touch it. “How's it going?”

Jaime couldn't stop his eyebrows from rising. He'd understood her words. And understood what she was doing. Flirting.

A low growl came from Vida's belly, and Jaime remembered he was supposed to act casual. He placed a reassuring hand on Vida's head and she licked him. She turned away from the officer and wagged her tail as if to say she had his back and could play it cool.

Jaime had no choice but to keep petting Vida. He missed what the officer had asked but heard Ángela's response.

“Yeah,” she said. Just like a
gringa
. She also looked
different now with the flashlight on her. Pretty. Her hair brushed and out of the ponytail as if she hadn't gone weeks without washing it. The silky shirt made it look like she had come from a party too. She smiled at the officer like the driver had, like she used to smile at Xavi.

Whatever she had responded to was the right thing to say. The officer smiled back with a wink and waved them by.

“What did he ask?” Jaime asked as soon as the window was rolled up and they'd driven away.

Ángela turned in the seat to look at him. This time her smile wasn't flirtatious but pleased. “He wanted to know if we live here, so I said yes. Which is true. We do. Now.”

The safe-house they were taken
to was in El Paso, Texas. Had there been no border to cross, no wall, no security to avoid, they could have walked over the bridge and been at the house in twenty minutes. Instead the journey had taken most of the night. But what did it matter? After all this time (weeks, or even months?) since his parents had woken him up in the middle of the night, they had finally made it.

Two stories high and impressive, the safe-house looked exactly like its neighbors on the quiet street, as if the builder had lacked creativity after the first one. Still, they must have been in a very rich neighborhood because there were no bars on the doors and windows, and each house had a small garden up front with planted desert flowers bordered by neat gravel.

Doña
Paloma, a stout Mexican woman who ran the house, glared at Ángela holding Vida in her arms.

“You're not coming in here with that dog.”

“But—” Jaime and Ángela started to say, but Doña Paloma shook her head.

“Has she been vaccinated? Has she been treated for fleas and ticks?” Doña Paloma raised an eyebrow, though she already knew the answers to her questions.

“So, what are you going to do? Are you sending us back?” Tears welled up in Ángela's eyes. Jaime squeezed her hand tight and hoped she understood his message: if Doña Paloma threatened to send them back, they'd run away. Under no circumstances were they getting sent back to Guatemala now that they were here.

Doña Paloma rolled her eyes and sighed. “I'm strict but not heartless. Tie her up in the back. Don't let her bark and clean up her messes.”

“
¡Gracias!
”

When Jaime and Ángela entered the house, after a long reassurance to Vida that they weren't leaving her for long and that she had to behave, Doña Paloma lined them up behind the other three who'd been in the car. The closed door in front of them led to a shower.

“The water is on a timer for three minutes. There's lice shampoo and disinfectant soap in there, which you must
use,” Doña Paloma commanded. “Once you're clean, you can pick out a new set of clothes.”

During his turn, Jaime scrubbed himself and rubbed the smelly shampoo into his scalp quickly before spending the remaining eighty-four seconds enjoying the lukewarm water pouring down his head. Back home, with no indoor plumbing in his house, showers meant standing outside in the rain. This really was the land of dreams and opportunity.

One room held bags of donated clothes heaped on top of a long table. Most of the things were old and frayed, but compared to what he'd been wearing during their whole journey—a shirt he'd cut to bind Ángela's ankle and the ink-stained jeans that almost fell off and had a rip in the thigh, anything “new” felt like a treat.

He picked out a red-and-white-striped shirt, a faded but intact pair of blue jeans, and some white socks that looked new. His shoes he kept; they were smellier than rotten cheese but still worked. The Batman underwear he picked was a bit tight on the waist, but sometimes you needed to sacrifice comfort for coolness. His old clothes went into a heap where they would be washed, mended, and offered to someone else.

Ángela chose mid-calf aqua-green pants, a flowery shirt, and sandals. After having worn plain, blending-in colors, she wanted something pretty.

They hadn't slept all night, but there was something else they needed to do before crashing in one of the three rooms crammed with bunk beds.

The mantra Jaime had memorized in Tapachula came back to him as he tapped his leg in rhythm.
5, 7, 5-5-5-5, 21, 86.
Doña Paloma let everyone use her phone for two minutes to call anywhere in los Estados Unidos. Jaime swallowed a few times to clear his dry throat. He could feel his heart pounding through his whole body. He couldn't do it—they'd have to communicate a different way. E-mail maybe. Something where he could plan what he would say. He had never made a phone call in his life.

Tomás's voice recording sounded foreign as he asked callers to leave a message. At least that was what Jaime guessed he said. The recording was in English, and he called himself “Tom.”

Jaime licked his lips and took a deep breath to calm his nervous heart. What if Tomás didn't get the message? What if he never came? “Ah, hi. It's me. Jaime. Your brother. We're here. Me and Ángela. In El Paso. 2910 Wee-Joo—”

“You pronounce it ‘Willow,' ” Ángela interrupted over his shoulder.

“Ah, Wee-Lo Estreete,” he corrected. “See you soon?” And he hung up quickly, his face red and heart hammering in his ears like he'd just crossed the border again.

Ángela chuckled and pushed him playfully on the shoulder. “You really need to work on your English.”

•  •  •

They woke up at lunchtime to some very strange food. Doña Paloma had prepared sandwiches with some kind of salty brown nutty spread and sweet red
mermelada
. When they asked her what the sandwiches were, she said, “Peanut butter and jelly.” Jaime wasn't sure if he liked the combination—salty, sweet, and sticky—but ate it anyway. His abuela would have been proud.

The sixteen other people staying at the house huddled around the giant television watching English soap operas and talk shows, but Jaime and Ángela spent the afternoon outside with Vida. Doña Paloma had a nice backyard with a high fence that kept out peering neighbors who might report the suspicious amount of “cousins” she always had at her house. After spending weeks outdoors, it was strange being confined inside a house that reeked of bleach and insecticide.

Jaime rescued his old holey socks before they were thrown away and managed to wad them up into a lumpy ball. Once Vida got over the fascinating smell, she learned to play fetch quickly. Every once in a while she'd leap into the air with a great twist, flash the blue belly stitches Ángela said still needed one more day, and land squarely on four paws with the sock ball in her mouth. Jaime could scarcely
believe this was the same dog who'd survived a murderous dogfight, had been found with half of her innards showing, and then had been stitched up by kids before traveling across a dangerous country. It was a lot to go through, and most dogs wouldn't have made it. Most people wouldn't have either.

“I was expecting two of you, not three,” a voice came from the backdoor.

They both jumped and turned to the shape emerging from the shadows of the house.

Jaime's face went from
caramelo
brown to
café
with lots of milk. Ángela went even paler.

“Miguel,” she gasped.

The figure at the door smiled, one side of his mouth going higher than the other. His eyes were so dark they couldn't be seen in the shadow except for the bright white surrounding them. He brushed his shaggy hair out of his face just like Miguel used to do. Everything like Miguel.

But it wasn't Jaime's cousin.

“Tomás,” Jaime whispered, but couldn't move any closer.

Vida wiggled toward the stranger with her tail wagging, licking his legs as if he were a long-lost member of her pack.

The figure stepped into the sunlight. Wrinkles scrunched
around the corners of his eyes; a scruffy beard grew on his cheeks. While in the shadows he could have passed for a twelve-year-old, now in the sun he looked older than his twenty-five years. But still it was him. Jaime's brother.

“Well, are you two going to say hi?” Tomás's smile widened to become more lopsided.

Jaime and Ángela ran the few paces to him and jumped into his arms, something they hadn't done since they were four and seven.

Tomás hugged and kissed them both, then kissed and hugged them again. “I can't believe you're here. Do you two know how lucky you are?”

Images of others flashed through Jaime's head—the Salvadoran woman on the bus, the man under the bridge without any legs.

Xavi.

He thought of little Joaquín, Eva and Ivan from the train, and even crazy Rafa, and hoped they had been lucky as well.

“We . . .” Jaime paused to look at Ángela. Mothering responsibilities forgotten, she still had her arms around Tomás, her head against his chest, like a little girl. “We had help from many people along the way.”

Pancho with his sacks of used clothes; Padre Kevin, who liked ridiculous outfits; Señora Pérez. All of whom
seemed to have been sent especially to help them.

Jaime glanced up, the other two following his example, and stared at the pale blue sky without a cloud in sight. They stood there, feeling eyes looking at them from above, until Vida yipped and returned them to the backyard of a safe-house in El Paso.