I buried my face in his chest and sobbed while he rocked me.
When I sat up, Rosa was wiping tears as well. “You go with Manuel, Alma. I’ll be all right. Believe me, I will.”
But I shook my head. “No, Rosa, that’s not my point. It’s Papá. I think . . . I feel . . . he could be alive.”
I thought of the letter in his wallet, his secret that I had held close to my heart. It wasn’t meant for my eyes, so it wasn’t meant for Rosa’s ears either. I would not share that, but the idea, the possibility was enough . . . that he had found love . . . chose love . . . somewhere else. It had seemed impossible before. Papá would never abandon us—he wouldn’t. But wasn’t it possible that love could twist your heart up so tight, you made choices that were difficult to understand? Yet how to explain that to Rosa?
“Rosa,” I began, “what if Papá made a choice, one that he was ashamed of now?”
Rosa’s eyes were wide in disbelief.
“I know, I know,” I continued, “I couldn’t imagine him doing that either, but . . . what if, just what if, he is there somewhere? Don’t you think he would want us to find him anyway . . . to forgive him and to love him anyway? Our Papá?”
Rosa shook her head. “No, I can’t imagine that, not for a minute. Papá was not that kind of man.” She paused and looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Do you really believe he would do that?” she asked.
Manuel’s arm was still around me, his hand gently squeezing my shoulder. I sighed so deeply I felt like all air had left my lungs. “When I think about it, no, I can’t imagine that. Not when I picture his face at the door returning from those long months away. ¡Tanto amor! But then, sometimes it’s not about being ‘that kind of man.’” I stopped to collect my thoughts. “Rosa, I’m not saying I think he deliberately chose to leave us. No. I’m saying that . . . well . . . it is another possibility . . . a possibility that considers him alive, not dead.” Reaching out, I took both of her hands in mine. “I just want to know . . . whatever the answer is. I want to see for myself or at least know that I tried. ¿Entiendes?”
She closed her eyes but didn’t let go of my hands. In a voice so weak I had to lean in to hear, she said, “I can’t imagine going through the desert again.”
I jumped in. “We can try somewhere closer to the city. We’ll take our chances and hope la migra misses us this time.”
I turned to Manuel as well to see his reaction. He was watching Rosa’s face closely. He glanced at me and added, “If we try alone, sólo nosotros, without a large group, maybe we won’t be spotted. Maybe just the three of us could sneak in under their noses.”
Rosa’s eyes opened, and I saw a window of hope.
“We can ask around near the border,” I said, “or watch for ourselves and see where people cross.” I was on my knees now, excited at the prospect of taking this into our own hands. “It wouldn’t hurt to go there and talk to people and then decide what to do.”
Rosa seemed to be considering my idea. Impatient, I squeezed her hands. “Well? What do you think?” Her eyebrows lifted and with them her lips turned up slightly. I knew this was a good sign.
That night we set up in one of many empty shacks, clearly assembled piecemeal with drywall, cardboard, an old door, cinder blocks, and miscellaneous slats of lumber; home to anyone passing through, we had been told by a family with young children who currently occupied another. “Just keep an eye out for las ratas,” the father said to Manuel with a wink, “the big ones and the little furry ones.” Puzzled, I turned to Manuel, who said he meant vagabond kids who lived hand to mouth, as well as real rats. Both were trouble.
Manuel had spent the afternoon quietly asking around about good spots to attempt a border crossing and their levels of success. He now knew of a couple. The unanswerable question was what to do once we got across. There was no safe house in Phoenix in this plan.
We were sitting in the darkened shack as the sun went down. It smelled of earth and urine, and I began to feel anxious. Children’s voices in the neighboring shack took the edge off a bit, but I was glad Rosa could not see my face clearly.
I heard her say, “As long as there’s no desert. And I don’t want to feel so helpless again, like sheep, being herded places, having no control. If we can get across close to a city, I guess we can take our chances.”
Manuel stretched out beside me. “If we’re lucky, once we cross, we can just blend in. That’s what they tell me. Hopefully, we make it to a bus station and buy a ticket for California.”
“Do you suppose we have enough money for bus tickets?” I asked, touching the dwindling bundle strapped to my chest. “And will la migra be checking each bus?”
“No sé. I don’t know,” was his answer. “We will learn as we go. Find work, make some money. Maybe I can get in touch with my brother.” He rolled away and curled up on his side, his back to me. “Enough for tonight,” he said, stifling a cough.
“¡Sí, basta!” Rosa echoed, lying down on my other side. She too turned away and let out a long sigh.
I lay back between them staring at the darkness above. Rosa fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. I tried counting her rhythmic snores like
