Illegal by Bettina Restrepo

Author:Bettina Restrepo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins US
Published: 2011-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 24

Still Here

At home, Mama and I both fell into the bed. It smelled. We smelled.

I dreamed of Grandma’s food. On long days in the orchard, I felt like this. Burned. Sweaty. Exhausted. I remembered how she made me a cold bath in the tub outside in the horse trough and I would sit in the water until it turned murky. After the bath, I would lie on the cool sheets of my bed and smell the breeze coming through the window. Grandma clanked pots in the kitchen and I could smell her love floating across the house.

Moist air-conditioning blew across the room, but it still felt warm. Yolanda told us not to open the windows. I wonder how many other people had lived in this apartment before us. Nothing but their broken dreams hung in the air, and they stunk.

In the bathroom, a large cockroach skittered down the drain when I turned on the light. It didn’t surprise me. Papa had talked about how the big cucarachas were here in Texas. I decided to shower in the morning, and crawled into bed where sleep smothered me with nightmares.

“Mija, everything is bigger in Texas. The roads. The houses. The market. Even the cockroaches are bigger!” We waited three weeks to be able to talk to him the first time.

Don’t go. Don’t go. I heard it over and over again, like echoes in a canyon.

Then I could hear different voices. It sounded like everything was underwater. My mouth hurt, and my tongue felt as dry as sandpaper. I woke up with a shout. “Don’t leave me!”

Yolanda pounded on our shared wall. “Quit your yelling!” She then turned up her television.

I moved outside to the steps of the porch. The rays of the setting sun danced away from the window. I used the twisty ties from the bread bags to secure the plastic braids into a small bowl. My stomach growled and my shoulders pulsed from the burn. We were still in Houston. I wanted to close my eyes and float back to my bedroom in Cedula.

One thought smoldered in my head: We’d never go back to Mexico now that we were here. I pushed it away from my brain by braiding small strands of my hair.

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