“We spoke to Diego’s aunt twice. They have heard nothing. He’s not there.”
“Mamá says she could be lying.”
“She has no reason to lie.”
“Everyone has reasons to lie,” I said, jumping to my feet.
Rosa shook her head. “You think Papá would deliberately stay there and let us starve? Do you really believe that? You of all people? He adored you!”
I thought of his face when he appeared in our doorway after months away. The relief. The joy. How he’d scoop me up in his arms. Then I thought of the letter. Forgive me, Juan. I am so deeply sorry . . . I wish I had never seen it. Though I had no idea what it meant or who wrote it, I knew it was something sacred to him. Sacred and secret.
I bit my tongue. “All I know is that he is not here. So, he is either dead,” the word caught in my throat, “or he is somewhere. And rotting in this pit of Tito’s is not going to get us any closer to an answer.”
“Well, neither will starving in Oaxaca,” Rosa said, setting the basket of eggs down and closing the door of the chicken coop.
That is when it occurred to me. “We could go to el norte!”
“El norte! Are you crazy?” Rosa shook her head. “That’s not possible. We are two young girls with no money, no connections. Impossible! ¡Estás loca!”
“Impossible? Nothing is impossible, remember? How many times did Papá tell us the story of the farmworkers, of Chavez and the fiery Dolores? How they struggled year after year, the strikes, the pilgrimage, then the fast, until they succeeded!”
“Oh Alma, those were stories.”
“True stories, Rosa. You know that!”
Even now, I could see Papá’s face in the firelight as he told us about his life when he was just our age. How inspired he was by Cesar Chavez and mesmerized by Dolores. At a time when he had no one depending on him, only his own stomach to feed, he had worked up the courage to leave the fields and join the picket line, and later, to join in the long march to the state capital. In fact, faded and torn, in my little wooden box, was a photo from an American newspaper of Chavez and Dolores, and behind them, third small head to the right, my father’s young innocent face, grinning ear to ear. How proud he was of that photo, and how honored I was to keep it safe for him.
Whenever Papá spoke of this time in his life, he always brought it back to one message. “You have only one life, Alma,” he would tell me. “With persistence, faith, and that stubborn streak of yours, you can do anything, mi hija.” Whenever I was afraid to try something new, like jump off the rope into the river or stand in front of my class to read aloud, I would picture Dolores, how Papá described her, tiny as she was, standing proud before a tall gringo police officer, refusing to move and pumping her fist in the air, “¡Huelga! ¡Huelga! Strike!”
I grabbed Rosa by the shoulders. “Dolores!” I said as the idea sprang into my mind. “We can go find Dolores Huerta. She is a famous woman. I think she’s still alive. I remember Papá said that Cesar Chavez died, but Dolores was still living. We can find her, Rosa. She will help us find Papá!”
The thought alone took my breath away, and I stumbled against Rosa, who grabbed my arm and held me steady. We stared at each other, and I saw her eyes widen for just a moment and then, like her mind, they closed.
“Oh, Alma, you are such a dreamer. How are two poor girls in the highlands of Chiapas going to get all the way up to el norte, not to mention across a border? And then what? Take a limousine to the house of Dolores Huerta?”
Desperate, I cried, “Papá was our age when he did these things. Our age!”
She let go of my arm, shaking her head. “This is our life for now, Alma. Here with Mamá, she needs us—now more than ever.” She paused, then gently added, “She is going to have a baby.”
“What?” I could taste the bile that rose in my throat.
“Yes.” She nodded then gently took my face in her hands. “Mi hermana, put it in the hands of la Virgen de Guadalupe. She will guide us.”
Rosa and her Blessed Virgin. The bile practically overflowed. “Guide us where? Look where she’s led us so far.” I glanced around and motioned to Tito’s pathetic excuse for a house.
The most Rosa could say in response was, “Please, Alma, try to accept what we cannot change, at least until we figure out what else we can do.”
I pulled away, about to protest, and then I heard Papá’s voice in my mind. “Be patient, mi hija. Difficult as it is, some things take time.” And so, I picked up the basket and headed up the path. At least the seed of an idea had been planted. Even in this godforsaken place, it just might sprout.
Months passed and a new year began—in fact, a new millennium. I wrote in the dirt the numbers 2000 over and over, mesmerized by this futuristic sight. Anything could happen in the year 2000. And it certainly did that summer.
It began on a particularly warm day for August, April and May being the warmest months in Chiapas. The fog had disappeared, and the sun managed to cast its heat even into the deepest shadows. Rosa and I had just finished washing clothes on the stones by the stream, but before heading back to the house to hang them on the line, we decided to bathe. We had stripped down to our underwear and were splashing water along our arms and neck, when we heard a muffled groan and then the bending and cracking of twigs.
“What is that?” she asked, looking into the thicket of bushes. We had been warned of two specific dangers in the highlands—jaguars and Zapatista rebels.
I had just dunked my whole head in the water to wet my hair. Shivering, I shook the water out of my ears and listened. Silence. Quickly, we dried ourselves and dressed.
Rosa called out a few times, “Hello. Is anyone there?” but the only answer was the raucous call of the black chachalaca.
As we made our way home along the dirt path, the basket of wet clothes bumping awkwardly between us, we laughed nervously, but kept glancing around. The sight of Tito up ahead was, for once, a welcome sight. We ran to him and told him what we heard. Reaching for the basket with one arm, he put the other around Rosa and pulled her close. I saw her stiffen at his touch.
“You are safe now, chiquita,” he whispered in her hair. “Don’t worry. Next time tell me, and I will go with you.” He smiled down at her, and she quickly pushed herself away from his grasp. The guttural sound of his voice vibrated down to the pit of my stomach. As we headed up the path, I reached for her hand, but she hurried ahead without a glance back.
The next morning, I woke as light was just creeping through the cracks in the stick walls. I could see Mamá was still sleeping, and as I turned to see if Rosa was preparing the morning meal, I saw Tito outside, looking in through the small window beside us, his hungry gaze resting on a sleeping Rosa whose leg was exposed outside her blanket. There was a jerking movement to his body as he watched her. When it dawned on me what he was doing, I gasped, and Tito’s eyes met mine and widened in alarm. In a panic, he backed away from the window and stumbled over something that made a loud crash. Cursing loudly, he startled everyone awake. In seconds, Mamá, Rosa, and the boys were up and running outside to see what caused the commotion, everyone except me. I couldn’t move, my heart racing as I now understood exactly who was watching us bathe the day before.