The officer had my mami behind that parking garage for at least a half hour. It was agonizing waiting for her to come back. Ernie and I just sat behind a parked car. We couldn’t move a muscle. We couldn’t ask questions or look concerned, and we certainly couldn’t shout and plead, Give us back our mami!
Even though that’s exactly what we both wanted to do.
Mami did come back. Only, when she emerged from that back alley, she looked a thousand years older. Her jeans were scuffed at the knees and had bits of gravel flaking off. Ernie and I both ran to her and wrapped our arms around her so tight.
“Mami! I thought you weren’t coming back!” Ernie wailed into her chest. She told him of course she was coming back and everything was okay, but I could see that the edges of her eyes were wet as she ushered us away from the building. Ernie was only seven at the time, so I wasn’t about to explain what I thought that man had done to our mami in the alleyway. Instead, I clung to Mami’s side, desperate to get us home. Mami didn’t speak for the rest of that day. I tried to make her an arepa and some coffee, even though I knew she didn’t want it. She was stuck in a horror I couldn’t pull her out of. I made sure Ernie and I gave her some quiet. We swept the floors and carried our trash to the dump and turned on the lights when it got late. Because otherwise, I think Mami would have just sat in the dark until the next morning.
We never discussed what had happened. From that day on, Mami delivered our water payments after hours so no one would be scanning at Town Hall. She lived carefully, vigilantly. Never looking back; only forward. This is what it took to survive.
I, on the other hand, felt like I was suffocating just remembering that day. As I headed toward my bus for school, I kept looking around to see if I was being watched. I had this image of my family being in some sort of bubble or snow globe while the world—or at least California—was catching fire. As I got on the bus, my fears swirled around me so fast, I forgot to breathe. My legs buckled.
“You okay?” asked my best friend, Kenna. She always got on at the stop before me and saved me a seat.
“Yeah. No. I mean . . . how about you?”
“Same.”
Kenna was tall and skinny, with the most gorgeous ebony skin and a smile that took over her entire face when she was happy. But she was barely opening her mouth to speak this morning. Her arched eyebrows were taut with worry.
I was so thankful for Kenna. She and I had been best friends since I moved to Southboro. We were also both juniors at Morrow Magnet High School, across town. Even though Kenna was born in the States, she got me. Her parents were both from Nigeria and undocumented. Kenna was the only one outside my family who knew my status. She was brilliant at coding and told me she was going to design a foolproof fake chip one day. I just needed her to do it soon. Like, today.
As we sat side by side, I wanted to grill her on what footage she’d seen of the border last night or if she had possibly heard any updates. But I wasn’t about to ask her anything while we were on public transportation. I just had to keep moving forward.
“Everything’s fine,” I said, trying to sound as cool and impenetrable as Mami.
The buses that stopped in our neighborhood were small, with just a handful of benches for seating. Ernie called them R2-D2s because they were from the first fleet of driverless commuter vehicles and they scuttled along the outer loop of Southboro, making creaky noises when they turned too fast.
It was such a weird experience, driving through these different sections of Southboro. Like we were gliding through some alternate universe. While our side of town had been on water rations and electricity curfews for close to a year now, most of the homes closer to Morrow had drone irrigation, freshly painted storefronts, and real meats and vegetables in the grocery windows. The people strolling by were so clearly wealthy and white. Their homes looked sturdier; their grass looked thicker. They belonged here.
We did not. The only reason Kenna and I were on this bus heading to Morrow was because of blind admission exams and our kickass test scores. But I was sure the government would find a way to put an end to blind admissions soon too.
We were just a few blocks from our high school when the bus slowed down to pick up a group of exhausted-looking farmhands. They’d probably been spraying pesticides all night; their faces were slick with sweat, and their clothes reeked of burnt chemicals.
“Hold up!” called a sharp male voice.
“Comin’ through,” boomed another.
Two men dressed in gray combat gear—bulletproof vests, helmets, and everything—cut past the workers and boarded our bus.
“Good morning to you all,” the taller one said to us passengers. “This won’t take more than a minute.” He had some sort of protective shield covering his eyes, but I could see a gleaming smile that made me feel nauseous. There was a sudden, cold hush.
He pulled a handheld scanning device from one of his holsters and started grabbing people’s wrists for inspection. This had never happened before. Scanning whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted. I couldn’t watch the tired, terrified faces of everyone on the bus as the officers charged through. When one of them approached me, I tried to look interested in a broken branch outside the bus window. It was the only thing I could do to hide my terror. The gray monster stood in the aisle right next to me, waiting for me to stick out my wrist. My skin was clammy and trembling, no matter how much I willed myself to be still.
I heard it. The sweet relief of the scanner clicking, registering my data. Then the click as it registered Kenna’s data too. A warm sigh escaped through my lips. I heard the scanners clicking up and down the aisles, until . . .
That hideous chirping sound cut through the quiet. There was a dreadful pause before one of the officers shouted, “Illegal!”
Illegal! Illegal! the other officers joined in.
Kenna and I squeezed each other’s hands, and I tasted my breakfast at the back of my throat. One of the workers was cuffed and shoved off the bus. He was a thin, stooped man. He didn’t protest. He didn’t even cringe as both officers shouted at him about the integrity of this nation and all the diseases and drugs that people like him had brought into our society. I wondered what he was thinking or feeling or wishing he’d said to his family the last time he saw them. The last time he’d probably ever see them.
I thought of Papi sleeping on the floor of that detention center for months. His voice on the phone sounding more like echoes than actual words. The overworked lawyer who’d taken our life savings and tried her best to help but, in the end, stopped answering our phone calls. The ICE officer glaring at me over his mustache as he took my mami toward a back alley.
Why did all these people hate us so much?
Kenna and I watched as the man was shoved into a windowless gray patrol car, practically folded in half so he’d fit. Then the taller of the two gray officers turned around with a sickening smile on his face.