Heart of Summer by Max Walker

Author:Max Walker [Walker, Max]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-03-19T18:00:00+00:00

17

Theo Perez

My mom lived in a duplex, surrounded by skinny trees that always looked as if they were one wimpy wind away from falling over. The pavement leading up to her front door was cracked and split, weeds growing up through their newfound skylights. Her neighbor sat in his beat-up lawn chair reading a magazine, barely waving at me before turning all his attention back to the magazine, its cover boldly advertising the discovery of a Bigfoot colony tucked away in the pretty populated mountains of North Carolina.

“Hola, hijo.” My mom stood on her tiptoes and gave me a kiss on the cheek. Her favorite target had been the top of my head, but that moved out of her range since back in the tenth grade. “And Summer?”

“She’s with Mav,” I said, letting her guide me into the house.

Inside, the mouthwatering scent of my mom’s dinner took over the small space, drifting through the arched entrance into the kitchen. Judging by the smell, she was making my favorite meal: a juicy churrasco steak with a heaping pile of white rice and black beans.

“¿Que paso?” I asked, looking around the living room. A stack of Spanish magazines rested on the coffee table, next to a pile of messy papers, the topmost sheet having some kind of official seal stamped in the corner.

“This.” My mom walked over to the table and picked up the papers.

“What is this?” I asked, grabbing the stack.

“No se,” she said, confusion playing across her expression. “The camera on my phone isn’t working, hijo, or I wouldn’t have made you drive all this way.”

“It’s fine, Ma, it’s fine.”

My mom could speak and understand English, but she had trouble when it came to reading. It meant that, even when I was a kid, I often sorted through the mail, paying any bills or tossing any useless pamphlets and translating any other important letters. Over the years, the bills had gotten easier for her (as well as automated), but long and official-looking letters like the one she was currently handing me still messed her up.

“Is it from the government? Do they know?”

I could feel my mom’s fear. It was like a physical force that pushed into the room, sucking all the air out in one single sweep.

“Ma, I doubt it.” I wanted to silence that fear, before even reading a word on the page. “If they knew you were undocumented, they’d be sending way more than a few pieces of paper.”

My mom nodded, hand still on her chest and eyes glued to the paper.

Fuck, I hated this. Hated how this had been her entire life, ever since she escaped her country simply looking for a better life. Like signing a deal with the devil, she got that better life with small—and extremely fucked-up—print attached to it. She was always scared, ever since I could remember, of being found and torn away from me and the life she’d built. It affected how I grew up, who I played with, where I went.

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