Ana had spoken with her priest, who worked with the refugees and immigrants in the community, and he offered to make inquiries with border officials, as well as with church members, regarding any young women or men who might have been found injured or worse in the past month. She also insisted that I contact family or friends back home to let them know I was alive and to see if they had any word of Rosa. But I refused. I didn’t want anyone, especially Mamá and the Garcias, to know about our fate. Like Papá, let our whereabouts remain a mystery.
Exasperated, Ana said, “But think of the pain they are going through. The unknown can be the cruelest form of suffering. You should know that better than anyone else, no?”
I coldly replied through my wire-clenched teeth, “Knowing the truth—imagining each detail over and over again—that would be cruel. No saber, not knowing, is a gift.”
Ana sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed as if in prayer, but I sensed her mind was not with God. And I was right, for she lifted moist eyes to mine and said, “Perhaps you are right. There are some things I wish I had never been told.” I knew she was thinking of the torture that preceded her father and brother’s deaths in Guatemala. She had told me their tragic story late one night after I’d angrily implied that she couldn’t understand my suffering. Now shaking her head, she said, “But you forget. You are alive. They need to know that.”
“No,” I answered, my heart rising to my throat. “I don’t want anyone to know the truth. ¡Nadie! I’ve done enough damage, ruined enough lives. To learn that I’ve survived is no joy in the face of what happened—of what I caused. It’s best they never know the truth. Nunca.”
Taking my hands, she pleaded, “Oh Alma, no, you must not think that way. You didn’t bring that evil upon yourself or Rosa. You are not to blame. Tú eres inocente.”
But I knew she couldn’t understand, so I simply pulled my hands away.
As for word of Rosa making it home, I knew in my heart that wasn’t so. No contact to Chiapas was needed to verify that fact. I prayed that the Garcias would never learn our fate. I couldn’t bear to lay that burden on their generous souls. The way I saw it, I’d spent years not knowing about Papá. Only now could I appreciate this gift he had given us, for he would always be alive for me somewhere. Waiting.
Six weeks from the date of my hospitalization, no unidentified bodies meeting Rosa or Manuel’s description had been found. A man’s wife died of dehydration in his arms. An older woman and two children were found dead beneath a bush with a half bottle of water beside them. Four young men were rescued by la migra just in time, though two were hospitalized. But no one had found a young woman or man. Not dead. Not alive.
I knew there was no hope left. I wanted to die. But that seemed too kind an escape.
Ana woke me late one morning and handed me a skirt and blouse. “Get dressed,” she said. “Today is the day we will set your jaw free.” The church had found a doctor who would treat me with no questions asked, and the time had come for my wires to be cut.
I had spent the past weeks in Ana’s blue uniform curled up on the sofa day and night. I’d lost considerable weight, not only because I was limited to liquids and some soft foods, but I had absolutely no appetite. In fact, the smell of food made me ill. So, when I put on her clothes, they hung on me like a child playing dress-up.
Looking in the mirror, I saw a stranger—a skeleton of the girl I used to be. My hair was matted; my eyes sunken into a thin face accented by dark circles that reminded me of my grandmother in Chiapas. Gone were my fleshy breasts and hips. Instead a bony, childlike body strangely contrasted with an old woman’s weathered face that looked dully back at me.
“We need to get you some new clothes, Alma,” Ana spoke behind me as she secured the waistband of the skirt with a safety pin.
I shrugged.
Her mother sat me in a chair and began gently brushing the tangles from my hair. “Are you nervous?” she asked.
“She probably can’t wait to get those wires off. Imagine how awful not to be able to eat or to really talk,” Ana answered for me.
“But it will probably hurt. She must be worried a bit. ¿Estás preocupada, mi niña?” Señora Lopez asked, stroking my arm.
“Doesn’t matter,” I mumbled. And I didn’t care, about feeling pain, eating food, talking, getting caught and deported. Nothing mattered. Nada.
I slumped in the front seat of Ana’s car and closed my eyes, opening them only when we arrived at the white rectangular building. The endless wait in the small sitting room made me restless for the simple reason that it lacked a TV. I longed for the monotonous voices that filled the silence. Finally, they called me in. The baldheaded doctor with scaly spots on his scalp drew blood from my arm, checked my heart and lungs, and asked for a urine specimen. The procedure itself to remove the wires was unpleasant, and as expected, my jaw was sore and stiff. None of this touched me in the least. I just wanted to curl up on a sofa and watch TV or sleep.
As I sat on the examining table, Ana spoke with the doctor beyond the closed door. When it opened, both entered with worried looks on their faces. My first thought was that the X-ray pictures were not good, and perhaps the wires needed to be replaced. I didn’t mind; in fact, I
