Yours to Keep (31 page)

“He’s asleep. What’s wrong?” She held the door open and let him into the living room, where the smell of his sweat and hair cream crowded her into a corner.

“I just heard that immigration raided the first shift at Sleekers.”

It knocked the breath out of her.

How strange, she thought dumbly, that she could still react. So much bad news in such a short time; you’d think it would stop bowling her over. That she’d become braced against it. Frozen inside.

Apparently, that time hadn’t come yet. She only hoped it would come soon, because she wasn’t sure how much more she could take.

Ernie was telling her what he’d heard. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had shown up a few hours after the first shift started. They’d rifled the files, cross-referenced info and Social Security numbers, and detained thirty-three workers.

“Who?” She couldn’t think immediately of anyone she knew on first shift, but she knew there must be a few.

“Eduardo Perez.”

Her stomach clenched. “No.” Eduardo was Ricky and Ernie’s friend, a scrawny light-skinned Dominicano with a bland, friendly face. He had a girlfriend and two kids by different mothers.

“I know.” His face crumpled. He turned away from her. When he looked back again, his face was blank. “Mary Solorzano was the other one I knew.”

“Don’t know her.” But she felt no sense of relief. She knew Mary, too, had family, friends.

“She went to East Hawthorne. She’s Guatemalan.”

“She have kids?”

“A baby.”

“Is the baby with her?”

“No. With his grandparents.”

ICE officers often left behind children who were U.S. citizens when they detained and deported parents. That had always been Cara’s greatest fear.

“Immigration raided the files, too,” Ernie said. “Ricky didn’t leave any real info, did he?”

She couldn’t seem to take a whole breath, and the room was starting to shrink on her. “You’d better sit down.”

She sat on the edge of Ricky’s armchair. The world pulsed, went staticky gray for a moment. She dropped her head to her lap until the nausea passed.

Ernie squatted in front of her. “Ricky knows not to put his real contact info. Right?”

She was remembering one time that Ricky had missed work on payday. His supervisor had shown up at the apartment with his paycheck. Otto was a nice guy. He knew that some of the guys were illegal, but he looked the other way. One time he told Ricky he was glad to keep good guys employed. He said he wished the government would get its head out of its ass and grandfather in everyone who was here, start from scratch.

Still, who knew what the supervisor would say or do with ICE breathing down his neck? He knew where Ricky lived, even if the files didn’t say Ricky’s real address. And maybe they did. How else would the supervisor have known it that day?

“We gotta wake Ricky,” she said.

They went into the back bedroom and Ernie shook Ricky awake. His eyes flew open. “What?”

Ernie told him, a more detailed version than he’d told Ana. Some of the ICE guys had come in with their hands on their holstered weapons, scared the shit out of the first shift. Guys had cried. One had tried to run and was overtaken near the lacing machine.

“Shit!” Ricky sat up.

Ernie told him about Eduardo and Mary.

“¡Mama guevaso!”

That was filthy even by Ricky’s standards, but she didn’t chastise him. She could see
from the wild look in his eyes that he was beyond governing himself.

“Who else? Anyone else?” Ricky demanded.

“No one we knew,” Ernie said.

“Did they have our address, Ricky?” She dreaded the answer.

He glared at her. “Do you really think I’m that much of an idiot?”

For the first time in five minutes, Ana drew a full breath. “Your supervisor came to see us that time.”

“I’d bet my life he won’t say anything.” He catapulted himself out of the bed, landing with a thud. He was wearing a white T-shirt and torn navy sweats. “Still, we should probably lie low. We can stay here, but I’m the only one who answers the door, and only if I know who it is.”

He began circling the tiny room, agitated. “Fuck!
Hijo de la gran puta!
Ana, Ana, I’m sorry,
hermanita!
I’m sorry.”

Ana gazed at him, stricken. His face was twisted in an expression that looked like rage—only she thought it was grief.

“I need your money,
hermanita.
” He said it so quietly that she barely heard. “I’ve got nothing. No rent, no groceries.”

“Today is payday,” Ernie explained.

That’s probably why ICE had chosen today, the sons of bitches,
thought Ana. They knew they’d catch the most workers, and they knew they’d hurt the most workers they couldn’t bring in.

“I bought a car.” Ricky strode out of the bedroom and into the living room, went to the window. Ana and Ernie followed. “Look.” He pointed down at the street. There was an unfamiliar car parked down there, a small maroon sedan, rusted in places, dented in others. “That’s mine. I was thinking maybe I could do it without taking your money, Ana.” He groaned and buried his face in his hands. “But I still owe the guy a couple hundred, and there’s none left for anything else. And rent’s due on the first. I was figuring, we’ve been so good about it, he’d cut me some slack this month, but—”

She put her hand up. “Ricky. You can have the money. Of course you can have the money. The money was always yours.”

“It’s your money.” All the heat, even the pain, had gone out of his voice. It was flat.

“It’s the family’s.” She heard the same flatness in her voice.

Ernie had begun backing toward the door. He backed right out, his belly the last thing to disappear. “I’ll be outside.”

Ricky was shaking all over.

She went to him, put her arms around him. He was so big that her fingers didn’t meet around him, and he was still the smell of safety, of childhood. He shook in her arms. “I should have made Mama renew!” he cried. “I knew it was time.”

In all these years since their mother had died, she’d never known that. Never known that he held himself responsible. “You didn’t make this happen,” she said fiercely. “This is not your fault.”

She brushed his hair tenderly off his forehead, thinking, as she did, that Ricky was so hell-bent on taking care of all of them—even when they didn’t really want him to—that no one ever took care of Ricky. No one had, not since he was Theo’s age. And that was too young to be in charge. Too young altogether. “You did the best you could.”

She guided Ricky back to bed and tucked him in as if he were a child. He didn’t resist. He turned over and buried his face in the pillow, and she closed the door behind her and went down the stairs to where Ernie sat on the stoop. She didn’t want to sit next to him, so she stood on the curb.

“I can’t take this anymore,” she said, more to herself than to him. Though she was grateful that he was there. Listening. A car went by behind her, thudding bass, and she stepped away from the edge. “There’s nothing we can take for granted.”

Ernie ducked his head. “It’s the way it is.”

“I know. We broke the law. And I haven’t done a good job of trying to get back on the right side of the law. The price seemed too high. The idea of getting sent back—” She shook her head. “But now I don’t know. I don’t think I can do this. Keep getting sent back to the starting line. One step forward, two back. I’m still young, but I’ll wake up and I won’t be young and it’s not going to get any easier.”

She looked at Ernie, but he was looking at his feet. “I was going to get married. To get legal. But it—it didn’t work out. It got complicated, my fiancé had second thoughts. I love him, but I don’t think he felt the same way.”

Ernie made a sound, as if he was going to interrupt, but Ana barreled right past him.
“And the high school won’t match me with students who need tutors anymore. Because some lawyer told them not to. And there’s Ricky’s job, and the money—God!”

Ernie lifted his head, but he still didn’t look at her. “Maybe your fiancé had a good reason. I’m sure—” He stopped, gazed at her contemplatively. “I’m sure he must have had a good reason.”

“Ah, whatever. Maybe he’s just an asshole who didn’t know a good thing when he saw one. The point is—”

She paused.

“The point is I’ve had enough.”

And she took her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed the phone number for the Law Offices of Harold Abrams. When the receptionist answered, she said, “I need to make an appointment with Mr. Abrams.”

It took awhile the next morning for her to explain to Harry Abrams that, no, she wasn’t getting married and, yes, she did want to pursue the status change anyway.

“Without the marriage, you won’t be able to get cancellation of removal. You’re almost guaranteed to get barred from returning for ten years,” Abrams told her. She sat in the worn chair with the wooden arms and the ugly plaid seat across from his desk. “You don’t have a spouse or a child who’s eligible to petition for you. Your ability to self-petition is almost nonexistent. I can try, but—your chances of success are slim. And, even if you beat the odds, you have to be prepared for ten years of exile. The possibility of never coming back.”

Ten years. Her entire adult life so far. Without her brother, without her sister. Without her niece and nephews. Away from the place she’d come to love as home.

To a place where whatever she built would be hers. Whoever she loved would belong to her and she to him.

There were worse things than exile.

“I used to feel like I couldn’t go back there because everything I cared about and everything I’d worked for was here,” she said. “But I realize I’ve been living in an illusion that the things I think of as mine are really mine. They can all be taken away, anytime.”

Abrams listened patiently, nodding. She didn’t know what time the appointment was supposed to be over, but he didn’t rush her. She wondered if he had a wife and kids of his
own.

If she went back to D.R., she’d find her father and tell him what she thought of his failing to come for them. She’d let him know what they all thought of a man who would desert his wife and children. She’d tell him what he’d set in motion with his lies.

The thought brought back the reality of her family here. “Could they send my sister and brother away?”

“There are no guarantees in this business,” Abrams said. “But I think we can probably keep them out of this.”

“Then I want to try it.”

“Ana. Isn’t it … can’t you still …? Marriage is still your best option.”

She thought of Ed Branch. No way would she tie herself to someone like him, trading away one form of freedom for the faint hope of another. “That ship has sailed.”

“Could you find someone else? You’re beautiful, you’re young. I’m sure there is no shortage of men—”

She cut him off. “No.” Maybe she was the last of the romantics, but she knew now that she didn’t want to marry someone for the wrong reasons. Not even Ethan. She wanted to marry for love.

Abrams sighed. “At least think about it. Go home, take a few days. You don’t want to make this a reality unless you can see yourself making a life in D.R. Because—I won’t lie to you—that’s probably what’s going to happen.”

She got up, smoothed her long skirt, tugged her blouse down. “I’ll think about it. But I’m not going to change my mind.”

His smile was pained. “I don’t imagine you are. But I’ll keep my fingers crossed.”

Chapter 28

The next few days felt like a held breath, but no immigration officers arrived at their apartment. Ana went to work on Tuesday afternoon and taught her classes Tuesday night. She taught on Wednesday morning, too—her last classes before her few days off for Thanksgiving. While she was gone, Ricky went to see Eduardo’s girlfriend, Giselle. Eduardo was being held nearby, at the Federal Medical Center in Devens. That was good news. They could have sent him anywhere in the country, but he was still close. And Giselle’s family, which had some money, had helped her hire a lawyer.

The lawyer had been pessimistic, though, Giselle had told Ricky. Eduardo was pretty likely to be sent back to D.R. And—Ricky shook his head as he told Ana—Giselle was pregnant.

They’d exchanged stricken glances but, as if by unspoken agreement, hadn’t talked any more about the situation. As sad as Ana was for Giselle, for the unborn baby who might never meet his father, she knew Giselle would survive, like all the other single mothers in their neighborhood. There were so many other women doing that, and somehow they put one foot in front of the other—just as Cara had done. She figured Ricky probably hadn’t spared it much more thought, either. He was already busy looking for a new job, banging his head against a bad time of year and a bad economy.

“I can’t support us by myself,” Ana had told him, and he’d nodded.

All the rage and grief seemed to have gone out of him. “I was so close,” he said mechanically.

Her heart ached for him. She knew that he meant he’d been so close to starting the business. And now he’d spent all his savings, and all of hers, on rent and groceries. He might get some of it back if he could sell the car, but it would be years before he’d have enough cash to start over. She wanted to comfort him, but there was nothing to say.

On Thanksgiving Day, Ethan got up early to start cooking. The kitchen was too cold and too big and too empty, but he made himself do what needed to be done. He baked two boxes of
brownies from a mix then used canned pumpkin and frozen crust to whip up a pumpkin pie. Ever since his parents moved to their retirement community, hosting Thanksgiving had been his and Theo’s job. When he told Ana he never cooked, he’d forgotten about Thanksgiving, whose component parts he had slowly mastered after studying his mother’s recipes. Peeling potatoes. Stuffing and roasting the turkey. Steaming green beans. Making gravy. There had been a few culinary disasters, but he had a handle on the basics now. And Theo liked to help.

At least Theo liked to help in the past. This year, Ethan wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to get his son’s attention. Theo had soared off into la-la land, in the throes of total infatuation with Leah Abrams. He was asleep now, but Ethan was sure that when he woke up he’d start composing yet another rock ballad to her.