The Crossroads by Alexandra Diaz

Author:Alexandra Diaz
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Legs stuck out from under the table when Jaime entered the trailer after school.

“Good, you’re home,” Tomás’s legs said while the rest of his body seemed to be swallowed by the table. “Hold the table up so I can fix this.”

Jaime dropped his bag and braced the table, glad that after a week of eating on their laps, Tomás finally had the mechanism to fix it. He wanted to tell Tomás about Sean “speaking” sign language. How even though they didn’t talk, they understood each other perfectly. And how he wished other people would be so easy to understand. Diego. Immigration officers.

Ángela.

“I have potential good news and potential bad news,” Tomás said before Jaime could tell him about his day. Jaime took a deep breath. Nothing good ever came from such a line.

“Don Vicente stole a horse and escaped out of the detention center?” he asked in an attempt to keep the tone light.

It worked.

“You’re like me. You watch too much tele,” Tomás said, laughing.

Jaime wanted to say it wasn’t televisión, it’s what happened in an episode of The Adventures of Seme. Except Seme still couldn’t ride on a horse with his tank wheels so he’d held onto the horse’s tail while making a rattler noise to scare the horse into running off.

“But it does have to do with Don Vicente,” Tomás continued.

Jaime grasped the table extra tight to make sure it didn’t pinch his brother’s fingers. “Okay.”

“So, I misunderstood. The lawyer has set up a trial, which is good, but it’s only to get him out of jail. It doesn’t mean that he won’t still get deported later on. It’s called a bail bond hearing.” Tomás pressed against the table to tighten a screw.

“Basically,” Tomás continued, “if the judge thinks Don Vicente is an honorable man and won’t disappear, they will release him from the detention center and he can come back to the ranch until he gets summoned for another trial, and then they will decide whether he gets to stay permanently or not. Chances are not good that he’ll get to stay, but they’re so backed up, and deporting actual criminals is much more important, so it could be a couple of years before the deportation trial takes place.”

Tomás was right. Definite potential for things to go in many ways. Don Vicente might still get deported, but in years. Years. Jaime’s own life had changed the moment Miguel had been murdered. So much could change in years. “But he gets to come home in the meantime?”

“If the judge thinks he’s trustworthy,” Tomás repeated. “If not, then he stays in jail, but would most likely be moved to a different facility, maybe thousands of miles away, where they have more space.”

We can’t let that happen. But how do you prove someone is trustworthy? Jaime wondered. It wasn’t like Don Vicente went around with a camera recording his every move like in reality shows (and everyone knew those weren’t “real” anyway). Still, there had to be a way. “So he’ll only get moved if this hearing doesn’t go well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.