It was written in Spanish, in small, round, perfect script, clearly not Mamá’s writing. Mamá barely knew how to print her name, and even then, it was in large, childlike letters. What unexpected path had Papá taken? Did his disappearance involve this letter?
Rosa was stroking my hair like the little mother she was to all of us. “Don’t cry,” she whispered, wiping tears I didn’t even know were falling down my face.
“But I don’t want to leave Oaxaca,” I sobbed. “It’s our home. It’s where Papá will look for us. Please stay with me here. Please!”
Rosa’s face hardened; her eyes, like slits, were barely visible. This was the extent of any signs of anger that she ever showed. She didn’t shout or rage, not even when the boy she liked made a baby with another girl and quickly married. No, she held it all in. Though she would never speak the words, I know she blamed herself because she would not let him do the things that made the baby. That’s when I realized there was another reason Rosa didn’t mind leaving Oaxaca, for to see him again with his new family was too much for her.
I had no choice but to pack my things and say goodbye to Oaxaca.
I sat in the back of the small dirty bus, away from them all, and cried until my chest ached from dry sobs. Like Mamá with her headaches, I curled up tight, burying my face behind the faded red rebozo that Papá had given me for my tenth birthday. “The color suits you, my little Dolores,” he had joked, for he told us that Dolores often dressed in red, the color of love, passion, and sacrifice. I clutched it to me and wept, my eyes shut tight. I could not bear to see my precious Oaxaca City through the filthy bus windows.
How I loved the gentle energy of this city. Though I would come to know much bigger cities, at the time this was large to me, especially compared to villages that I had seen with Papá. Though we always lived on the outskirts, I enjoyed traveling by bus into the heart of Oaxaca City—to the old zócalo, the magnificent centuries-old Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption, and the colorful Mercado Juárez. I especially liked watching the tourists from all over the world with their strange sounding languages. At a young age, I realized that there was a whole world out there that I couldn’t wait to explore, but traveling south to Chiapas was not what I had in mind.
Bumping along in the back of the bus, I tried to block vivid images of Oaxaca City from my mind, but all I could see behind my closed eyes was color, color everywhere! Streets lined with buildings in varied hues of gold, blue, and peach; paper flags strung across streets and along walls, red and green, pink and yellow, fluttering like glorious butterflies; and of course, at the Mercado de Benito Juárez, the city long block with colorful displays of food and fabric, trinkets and toys. ¡Los colores! All of these images blended and burst forth like the kaleidoscope Papá brought back for Ricardo years ago. I was certain there was a rainbow of tears streaming down my face.
It was a long tortuous journey, first by bus, then by pickup along winding mountain roads, and finally on foot up steep mountain terrain. There was color here as well. Green hills, trees, and brush, blue sky with thick white clouds hugging the tops of distant mountains, and brown, lots of brown, especially as we climbed higher and reached the stick house with a tin roof that Tito called home. Surrounded by dirt on all sides, it stood a few yards from a dilapidated chicken coop, its chickens running amuck. Goats bleated in the distance. A clothesline was strung between the house and a tree, and hanging from it were two faded men’s T-shirts and a ragged pair of pants, which matched the pair worn by a bare-chested, disheveled man who stepped out of the doorway, rubbing his eyes and approaching Tito with an outstretched hand. He was a friend, Tito joked, who was happy to get away from his wife and kids, while he kept an eye on Tito’s place. At the edge of the dirt yard, stacks of wood served as the base of a long table made from the same metal as the tin roof. Several buckets were scattered about the yard, as well as a few upended plastic crates that looked to be used as stools. In one far corner, a few white calla lilies stood tall and proud in the midst of this dreary sight. I was so physically exhausted and numb with emotion, I couldn’t cry. There was nothing left.
Rosa turned to me and swallowed hard. “We will make it a home, Alma. We will do our best.” Then a flicker of hope as she added softly, “At least for now.”
Our third year without Papá, we worked from dawn till dusk on this sad patch of land where Tito grew corn along the hillside and raised a few goats and chickens. He promised Mamá that he would build a better house one day. I don’t know if she believed him. I don’t even know if she really loved him. All I know is that she let him do things beneath the blankets at night. My head would pound, pound, pound as I held back my own screams of anger. How could she betray Papá?
I clung to Rosa like Mamá clung to Tito. There was nowhere else to turn. No Papá. No school. No future. Each day was the same. Tending the goats and the chickens, fetching water, cooking, washing. It was Rosa who suggested I teach the boys their numbers since even they were not attending school that year. Mamá promised that maybe in time she would enroll them in the schools of nearby Zinacantán, but for now, nine-year-old Ricardo and seven-year-old José were my pupils. So, for part of each day, I would sit them down in the dirt with sticks, stones, branches, and leaves, and work on addition, subtraction, and division. At night, once we were wrapped in our blankets in the dark, I would make them repeat the times tables over and over until Tito would curse for me to stop, and I would smile to myself and chant one more time: 3 times 2 is 6, 3 times 3 is 9, 3 times 4 is 12 . . .
How I wanted to leave, to return to Oaxaca and work for Mundo and wait for Papá. I said this to Rosa day after day, pleading with her to end this nightmare of a life.
One morning I threatened to leave on my own, telling her that she would wake up to find me gone. “Papá would be furious if he knew Mamá brought us here,” I said. “No one comes to Chiapas. They flee. There is nothing here but poverty and civil war and misery. We are strong young women, Rosa. We can find work and make our own lives. If you won’t see it, then I’ll go by myself!” The chicken that I was holding much too tightly let out a squawk and leapt from my arms.
At the same moment, Rosa said sharply like a school teacher, “Sit down!”
Startled, I immediately sat back on the slope of earth beside me. A large lizard slithered around my bare feet, finding refuge beneath a small pile of rocks. Rosa remained standing, hugging a basket of eggs to her chest. Gazing up at her, I thought how beautiful she was even in her tattered gray pants and dirty white blouse. Everything about her was long and thin, her nose, her legs, her slender torso—not short and wide like everything of mine. Rosa would soon be eighteen, a woman—a woman who deserved much more than the life we were living.
“You have to stop,” she said, looking away for a moment and then turning wet eyes to mine. She continued, “Papá is gone, Alma. He is not coming back. You have to accept that.”
“We don’t know that for sure!” I insisted. “He could be sick or injured. He could be in a detention center. He could be in Los Angeles.”