Her father’s voice was strong when he said, “Ayelén will never be on her own. She will always have us. At least she will have Helena, the boys, and me.” He looked at Ayelén. “Let’s go, hija.”
The little cousins, Nadia and Selena, stood quiet by the door, their eyes like wet river stones, shiny and dark. Ayelén knelt to hug them, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time.
In the months that followed, Ayelén and the whole family threw themselves into preparations for her trip. Her ancestors, Abuelo Amir and Abuela Elizabeta, and all the others whose names had been lost, had crossed the oceans in ships for which they sometimes had a ticket but most times did not. She’d fly in an airplane, with the cheapest ticket they could find, the one that stopped in every country in Latin America, slowly inching its way north.
“Keep la yerba in the original package at all times in case the police think it’s something else,” Helena reminded Ayelén when they were repacking her backpack the night before the trip.
Ayelén nodded and wrapped the yerba package in the plastic wrap her family had never dared splurge on before. Unlike her ancestors, who’d arrived with only the clothes on their backs, Ayelén had a small suitcase and a backpack into which she stuffed as many of her belongings as possible. But although she asked her departed abuelos for instructions, they wouldn’t tell her how to pack the memory of jasmín del Paraguay and fireworks exploding on Noche Buena, or the taste of Helena’s canelones with red sauce that she made on special occasions like farewells. She didn’t know how to bottle the scent of Lautaro’s hair after playing fútbol in the rain. Or the touch of Francisco’s tiny five-year-old hand on her face.
“And remember to put your documents in the leather pouch,” Farid said.
The leather pouch had been a gift from Lucrecia at Transatlantic Travel. The travel agent had smiled first in surprise and then in admiration and at the end in plain congratulations when Ayelén had shown up every month with a white envelope hidden inside her math book to pay the plane fare, bit by bit.
All night long, a parade of family and friends, close, distant and twice removed, came to leave good wishes, all they could afford, to the first girl in three generations to leave the tree and branch out on her own. Although no one said it at the time, they left with the seed of wonder and possibility. That night, boys and girls all over the city dreamed that maybe they too could do impossible things. Mothers and fathers lay in bed, eyes wide open, thinking upon their lives and the dreams they’d forgotten in the day-to-day struggle of making things work, of rebuilding the country when it kept falling apart time after time.
Ayelén lay in bed too, waiting for a call from her padrino to send her off with his blessing. But although they’d finally paid the overdue bill, the phone stayed silent.
In the morning, the benteveos sang before the sun came up and burned the fog; fall was creeping in just in time for Easter. Ayelén got up to share the last mátes with her parents before the boys woke up. They drank the tea with sugar. Life already had too much bitterness. There wasn’t time for more last-minute advice.
Ayelén worried that she was betraying her family and country for having the outlandish dream of testing her boundaries and seeing how far she could go, but she had to be stronger than her doubts and unfurl her wings.
“Remember who you are,” her father said.
The truth was that she wasn’t sure who she really was. Wasn’t that why she was leaving? To find out?
When Helena wasn’t looking, the boys gifted their sister their favorite Ferrari Hot Wheels, the ones they’d gotten for Christmas like three years ago that still looked brand new. Her brothers watched with wonder as she headed downstairs, followed by a train of neighbors, who waved goodbye.
At the Rosario international airport, the family closed their eyes and huddled for a whispered prayer that Helena offered with contained emotion. She was trying so hard to remain strong. When Ayelén opened her eyes, she saw her cousin Daiana running in her direction, her black hair whipping behind her. Ayelén hugged the sister of her heart for the first time since Santino’s baptism. In the look they shared, they tried to tell each other that the years of competition had been the most fun they’d ever had. That although the journey was taking them in seemingly opposite directions, they were both moving forward. They were both so young.
“Send me pictures and call me when you arrive,” Daiana said, pressing a piece of paper into Ayelén’s hand. “I know it’s expensive, but my friend Florencia said there are calling cards. She’ll be there when you arrive—”
A speaker announced Ayelén’s flight, but Ayelén nodded so that her cousin would know she was grateful beyond words for Daiana connecting her to a friend who was studying in Utah, even though their fathers hadn’t been talking.
Her family gathered around her like chicks before the first gust of a storm, but Ayelén was ready to fly.
Her mother composed herself first and gently pushed her toward the escalator.
“Chau, chau!” little voices cried.
“Te queremos!”
“Make us proud!”
And last, “Don’t forget us!”
Her mother had told her not to look back. And so, like the maligned woman of the Bible story she’d studied in Sunday school, Ayelén fought the temptation to take one last look.
Before she stepped on the escalator, she lost the fight and turned around.
Love blazed in
