chapter
25
This was the life I’d envisioned. At least a good part of it anyway. I fingered the photo of my family and smiled. When I’d come to America, my dream had been to create a home for my family, to escape the atrocities of Hidalgo, Mexico, and live a life my parents had been unable to give me.
I guess the best-laid plans don’t always go as planned.
When Julio and I had taken this picture, we were proud parents of our fourth child. Our children had been the driving force to create the best life we could. And when Julio died just two months after this photo, I’d tried to carry on the parenting journey alone.
And I’d had a 75 percent success rate.
My three heartbeats made the journey all worthwhile. Alejendro with his angelic dimpled smile and the innocence of his seven years on earth; Maria, who, at nine, managed to find light in the darkest of days; and Miguel, my wise-beyond-his-thirteen-years son who had made me the president of the proud mama club—they were the reason why I worked so hard.
But my fourth child—my oldest, Paco, who had traveled the underground journey to America with Julio and me—was another story.
Paco was in God’s hands. That’s the only place I could put him.
My eighteen-year-old had left our family for the gang life, and nothing I did could bring him back. I wished that my Julio had been here, because then Paco would’ve walked the straight and narrow. But Julio had died in a freight accident at work when Paco was just eleven years old. And now, my son was a lost cause.
I was determined to get things right with my other three. Though I still had to work a lot because I was a single parent, I made sure that they got all my time off, that they knew they were a priority in my life and I stayed present in theirs.
We had a few friends here in Houston, but the bulk of our family remained in Hidalgo, in a life that was ravaged with poverty and crime. It was a life that I never wanted my children to know. That’s why Julio and I—three weeks after getting married at age seventeen—had endured the worst of conditions to sneak across the U.S. border. That’s why I worked as much as possible at my job as a housekeeper in the Markham Hotel. I took overtime anytime I could, often on the overnight shift just so I could be there to see my kids off to school.
“Mommy, hurry, the zoo is gonna close,” Alejandro said.
“Mi hijo, it’s ten in the morning,” I replied, snapping out of my trance and setting the picture down. I headed back into the kitchen to resume packing their lunches for our outing. “The zoo is open all day.”
“But I’m ready to go now,” he whined.
“Little niño, what did I tell you about being patient?” I said, calling him the name that Julio had affectionately given to him when he was still in my womb.
“The patient bird gets the worm,” he exclaimed.
“And if you want the worm, you must be what?”
“Patient!” Maria answered for him from her seat in the corner, where she was reading the latest Harry Potter book. My daughter was a voracious reader, and just watching her with her head buried in a book always brought a smile to my face.
Alejandro’s shoulders sank in defeat. “Okay, Mommy,” he said.
“Miguel, are you ready?” I called out to my son, who was back in the bedroom that he shared with Alejandro. I had given Maria my room and I slept on the sofa. It wasn’t the ideal situation, but we made do.
“He’s playing his video game,” Maria said.
I groaned and marched to the back, where Miguel was indeed playing on a PlayStation that I’d won at a work raffle. I had used my last dollar for that raffle and was stunned when I won. But the gamble was worth it because of the joy the games brought to my son’s face. He had such a wonderful attitude and was always stepping up to the plate to help with his brother and sister. Miguel was a straight-A student and president of the student council at his middle school.
I fussed at him about these video games, but he made me so proud.
He and his siblings were the reason that I refused to accept any handouts. All I wanted to do was work, raise my family, and keep to myself.
“Miguel, we’re going to leave you,” I announced.
He leaned to the right, navigating his controller as if he was in the middle of real-life combat. “I’m coming. I’m coming.”
“Vámonos.”
“Mom,” Miguel said, “speak English.”
I marched over, turned his game off, then turned to face him. “This is your home. You are an American. But don’t ever forget your roots,” I scolded him.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, knowing that was one subject where he didn’t want to mess around with me.
I was proud of my Mexican heritage, and if conditions had been different in Hidalgo, I would’ve gladly stayed. But America had been good to us. My children had a life here. A life they could have only dreamed about in Hidalgo.
“Now, vámonos!” I told Miguel as I walked back into the living area of our small two-bedroom house, which though it was tattered and in desperate need of remodeling, I’d managed to make a home.
“Come on, children,” I said. “Let’s go. I have to stop by my job and pick up my paycheck. After we leave the zoo, we can go get ice cream.”
“Yay,” both Alejandro and Maria said at the same time as they jumped up to follow me toward the door.
“Miguel, wash the dishes while we’re gone,” I yelled. That was enough to have my son come flying out of his room. He caught up with us just as I was about to close the door.