First Days After by Jay Vielle

Author:Jay Vielle [Vielle, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-06-08T22:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

After a very nice meal that Wendy paid for with her credit card, the entire group found itself in better spirits. The food was top notch, and the location in that quaint, historic town in central Virginia was a pleasant escape from what we’d seen the past few days. Sitting at the table all together, feasting and talking, there was a strange feeling of escape that was just what the doctor ordered. All of the death, destruction, violence—all of that was briefly forgotten, and we ate and laughed and learned each other’s stories. We all took turns telling where we were from, and I had the shortest story, as most of the teacher and students already knew.

Estela’s story was fascinating. She had been born in Texas, but she said her parents were illegal immigrants from the Guanajuato region of Mexico. Her parents, despite having lived in the U.S. for nearly two decades, were part of a government sweep of ICE agencies in the southwest. They had been discovered and deported back to Mexico. Estela, at age twenty, had the choice of going with them or remaining, but it had taken nearly a month in a California holding cell in Victorville in horrific conditions for the government to finally release her and admit that she was a citizen. Even then, the president had mentioned wanting to remove citizenship through birth. Estela’s parents had made it back to San Miguel de Allende, where their family was from. Estela had stayed there on and off as a child, as her parents had gone back and forth to tend to sick family and to help with the family store there. Once released from Victorville, Estela decided to move as far away from Texas as she could. She had moved to Emmitsburg to be with a friend who had gone to college at Mount St. Michael’s. She apparently had experienced a falling out with her friend, and was left to make her own way working at the Wal-Mart.

As the conversations went back and forth, I pressed her a little.

“What kind of friend would abandon you after your story?” I asked. “You move all the way from Texas to nowhere, Maryland. You set up shop, get a job. Your whole family is in Mexico, and she just, what, disowns you? What a bitch!” I said.

“She’s not a bitch,” said Estela. “She, she had her reasons.”

“Reasons? You’re in need. Sorry, no forgiveness for that. No merced.”

“Fue la merced que buscaba cuando me dejó.” She whispered. It was mercy she sought when she left me. And then it hit me. How could I, of all people, be that dense. I leaned over and whispered. “Oh my God. You’re gay, aren’t you?”

She looked around nervously, then at the ground, then nodded. “Sí.”

“Well join the club, sister,” I said in my sassy voice. “I’m sorry I called your ex-friend a bitch,” I said. “Was it a Catholic thing?”

“Sí. Her…professor told her it was a mortal sin, and he threatened

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