Orlando let out a long sigh. “I’ll be back in a minute. Got to get you something to drink with lots of sugar. If anyone bothers you, just mention my name and stay put.” Orlando looked exhausted. A shadow of a beard was coming in, his eyes were rimmed in red, and sweat soaked the underarms of his shirt.
I looked up at him and heard myself say in a voice that sounded like Rosa’s, “You are the kindest man. Muchas gracias.”
His weary face softened into a smile.
Manuel awoke with such a bad headache that he could barely keep his eyes open in the light. Otherwise he seemed okay—quiet and queasy, but okay. I squeezed his hand and rubbed another ice cube along the back of his neck.
He kept whispering my name, “Alma, Alma.” It sounded so pretty, like feathers falling.
Orlando returned carrying Manuel’s pack and a soda the size of a bucket. “Here, drink this,” he said, helping Manuel sit up straight, then to all of us, “We will rest today. I have a motel room I stay at between hauls, nothing much to look at, but very clean, good beds, and it looks like you can all use some sleep. Later this evening,” he turned to Manuel, “if you are well enough, a man is coming to drive you all to Nogales.”
Manuel nodded with his eyes squeezed shut.
Orlando reached into his shirt pocket, then shaking his head, turned and disappeared again, only to return minutes later with a pair of sunglasses, the price tag hanging off the side. Handing them to Manuel, he said, “Looks like you can use these. I left mine on the damn bus.” He sat down beside us. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked Manuel.
Manuel slipped the sunglasses on and looked up. “Yes, I’m fine now. I don’t know what happened. Just all of a sudden, I felt dizzy, and I don’t remember anything else. Nada.”
“I should have made more stops to check, but I didn’t want to draw attention. Sometimes the damn fan doesn’t work well in there and the air gets too warm. Have to do something about that.” Orlando bit his lower lip. “Okay, let’s get to the men’s room so you can clean up and get out of those pants. Then we’ll have some breakfast.”
Later in Orlando’s motel room, we took turns showering while he went out to take care of some business. Then one by one, we stretched out on top of the beds. I curled up with Manuel on one and Rosa took the other. Manuel drifted off to sleep immediately, and though I closed my eyes, I couldn’t sleep, partly with worry for Manuel and partly because of our unknown future. What would we do in Nogales once we got there? How would we find our way across the border? Suddenly, the adventure felt scary.
I wondered how Papá had managed to cross and if he ever had gone through Nogales. I knew it had been an easier journey when he was younger, before they erected fences further east and made them taller and more complicated. I still found it strange that while they put up walls, they also put people to work as soon as they got over them. We heard many times that jobs were easy to find in el norte for both men and women, farm work and construction, house cleaning and child care. I wondered how hard it would be to cross now, and if we did make it, what jobs we would find. Maybe Rosa and I could take care of children while Manuel worked with his brother.
I hadn’t asked Rosa yet, but I was hoping we could help Manuel find his brother first, and then maybe we could try contacting Papá’s son Diego and his aunt Berta. Rosa had shown me their telephone number that she carried in her bag. She worried about losing it, but I reassured her after looking at the numbers once that I had committed it to memory. We had no idea how they felt about us or how they’d react if we ever knocked on their door. Diego was our half-brother, yet we had never met. Papá talked about him from time to time, and Diego knew about us, but we lived in separate worlds. Mamá was jealous of that part of Papá’s life, so any discussion had led to tension. But still, Rosa and I had discussed the possibility of contacting them if we actually made it to el norte. They were a connection to Papá.
And then there was Dolores. My heart sank at the thought of Professor Garcia’s news. He was not sure how I could contact her, for one of the things he had learned was that she was traveling all over the country for a women’s group to encourage Latinas in America to run for political office. Where her home was, he didn’t know. But I could always contact a United Farmworkers office and see if they could help. His sources also told him of a serious injury Dolores had received at the hands of a police officer—broken ribs and a ruptured spleen. She had been protesting on a picket line for some injustice, but that had been more than ten years before. I wondered if my father had ever heard about that. Apparently, Dolores had recovered, for there she was, back out on the road, encouraging other women to be leaders.
Professor Garcia had been quite impressed with her accomplishments, for he had also learned that she had been given an award by
