Brighter Than the Sun, page 20
The sky is an inky shade of black tonight. As I walk toward the entrance of the tunnel, there is no sign of the moon. I’m pretty sure it was shining when we left the house earlier, but its soft glow has now all but disappeared.
I don’t think I’ve ever crossed the border on my own this late. Mami and Papi would’ve never allowed it. The tunnel feels empty and bleak, and when I reach the border agent’s desk, I’m one of the few people waiting in line.
“¿Todo bien?” the officer says to me.
He’s asking if I’m okay. There must be something about the late hour, or about my red, swollen eyes, that’s making him curious. He stares at me fixedly, reading my expression as if I were a book.
“Sí,” I answer. “Todo bien.”
I let out a long sigh when I step out into the night air and start making my way down the ramp. There are bright lights illuminating my path, but as soon as I get off the ramp, I feel as though I’ve been submerged in darkness. I look around the esplanade, feeling cold and lonely all of a sudden. Without the street vendors and the taxi drivers, this place looks a lot different, and it doesn’t help that the moon has still not reappeared from behind the cloudy skies.
I take a few steps forward, my heart beating fast as I step deeper and deeper into the shadows, but then I hear the sound of a car engine starting, and two headlights come to life, breaking through the darkness.
For a moment, I’m scared to come closer. The model of the car and the identity of the driver are hidden behind the stark brightness of the headlights, but then, when the passenger door swings open, my heartbeat slows down a bit.
“Get in, mija.”
I half-run toward the car and quickly shut the door behind me.
“Hola, Papi.”
He locks the doors quickly and then turns to stare at me, making me feel as though I’m about to be interrogated.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“I, uh…” I answer in a small voice. I clear my throat and try again. “I’ll explain when we get home.”
He nods once before putting the car into gear, and I relax my shoulders. I wasn’t brave enough to tell him about everything that happened over the phone, so I just asked him to pick me up at the border. I’ll have to tell him the truth soon, and I am terrified of what will happen when I do, but for right now, I’m at least grateful that he isn’t asking any more questions.
I rest my head against my seat, feeling a battle inside me that is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before—sadness because I wish I could’ve stayed with Nancy a little while longer, but peace because Papi is beside me. Terror at the thought of telling him that I’ve been put on leave, but hope at the thought of giving him my latest paycheck, which Helen handed to me before I left the store. Helplessness because my time in California was cut short so suddenly, but deep relief because I’m finally home.
We find Abuela waiting in the living room. She’s wearing her nightgown, and her face looks glossy, which tells me she has already applied her night creams. There is a rosary in her hands and a lit candle with a picture of a saint on the center table. She must’ve been praying.
“Sol,” she says, getting up as soon as she sees me. “What happened?”
I struggle to speak up. I try hard to find the words to explain to her what’s going on, but in the end I let out my breath in a long exhale and step forward to hug her.
“Mija,” she says, wrapping her arms around me, and that’s when I realize this is exactly what I needed—a hug from Abuela. For a second, it all goes away—the sadness, the anger, the disappointment. I just wish she didn’t have to let go of me. I wish she could make all of this go away for good.
“What happened?” she asks again, leaving her hands on my shoulders as she stares into my eyes.
The door clicks shut somewhere behind us. Papi has walked into the house, and I am very aware that he can hear what I am about to say.
“I… I think I’m gonna get fired.”
“What?”
I lower myself onto the couch. Abuela does the same, but Papi remains standing, his hands firmly on his waist.
“Sol, what are you talking about?” he demands.
Abuela gestures at him to sit down, and so he does. With the two of them staring at me, I feel more ashamed than I’ve ever felt in my life.
I explain everything to them—how there’s an expensive dress missing, how Helen thinks I may have taken it. I tell them that they won’t be paying me until they figure out what happened, and that they might not allow me to come back to work at all.
“Ay, Dios mío,” Abuela sighs as soon as I’m done talking.
Papi leans forward, his elbows resting on his knees, and his hands over his mouth.
“Is it true?” he asks me. “Did you steal that dress?”
“Armando!” Abuela hisses at him, but the damage is done.
A sharp pain hits me in the chest—pain because it has really come to this. Because our situation has become so desperate that Papi has to wonder if I’d be capable of this, because he’s acting as if he doesn’t even know me. And maybe it’s true that he doesn’t. Maybe after all these weeks of being apart, he’s no longer sure who I am, and maybe I’m no longer sure who he is, either. The man he used to be when I was younger would’ve never assumed the worst of me, would’ve never asked me this question.
“No,” I say, my voice barely there. I’m all too aware that Diego is sleeping just down the hallway, so I try my best to speak softly. “But it doesn’t really matter to them. They gave me my check for the last two weeks, and they said they’ll call when they have news.”
“So—so they did give you the money they owed you,” Papi says, looking more awake all of a sudden.
I nod, fishing the check out of my pocket. I offer it to him, but he doesn’t take it, so I just lay it neatly over the coffee table.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
Both of them look away from me. I should know already that they don’t have the answer to that. Because without the money from my job at the store, we’re left without options. There’s nothing to do, no other way to pay the bills. We may have this last check, and Papi might manage to make it last a while, but once this money is gone, all we’ll have left is the money he’s making from whatever jobs he’s able to find, and what Luis brings in from the casino.
In the end, I’m the one who speaks up. “I’ll find another job.”
Papi and Abuela don’t move. I’m not sure they even heard me. I never imagined this was possible—that both of them could ever be left speechless, but that’s exactly what happens. The light of the candle flickers, making their expressions look bright one second and shadowy the next. The seconds pass, and still, neither of them can find the right words to say.
“I’ll start looking tomorrow. Something will come up.” Even as I say it, I think about how long it took me to find a job the first time around. This time, I don’t imagine it’ll be any easier—especially if I can’t get a good reference from the managers at Wallen’s. Even if it only takes a few weeks to find something new, by the time anything turns up, it might be too late. We’ll be forced to spend the next several weeks with no gasoline for the car, no way to pay back Papi’s debts. At least Luis’s paycheck will prevent us from starving, I tell myself—it’ll allow us to keep putting food in the pantry, even if it’s just rice and tortillas.
I have no idea how long we sit here. I wish I could say something else—that I could promise them I’ll find a way, and that it’ll all be okay in the end. Even more so, I wish they could make the same promises to me. I wish they would wrap their arms around me and tell me they’re proud of me, that they know I’m trying my best, and that we will all figure out a way to dig ourselves out of this mess together. I wish they would remember that I’m not the only one who’s responsible for feeding the family, and that I’m not the adult here, but it’s probably too late for that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AT NIGHT, I SEE MAMI IN MY DREAMS. SHE DOESN’T really say or do anything. She’s just there. The first time I dream of her, on Friday, she looks as she did in her final months—her hair gone, her face sunken, her eyes filled with pain. But there’s still something about her presence that brings warmth to my heart, that makes me feel less alone, so that when I open my eyes in the morning, all I want is to go right back to sleep, just so I can be with her for a little while longer.
On Saturday night, she reappears, only this time she looks different. She’s the person she used to be when I was little—the woman with long, wavy brown hair, and full lips, and a sparkle in her eyes. She’s wearing one of her Sunday dresses—a flowery piece that she used to wear to Mass—and she’s smiling at me.
“Where were you?” I ask her. “We’ve been looking for you.”
She stares at me, her expression unchanging.
“Mami, where were you?” I ask again, and she frowns slightly. That’s when I realize she can’t hear me. She must be able to see my lips moving, must be able to tell that I’m trying to ask her a question, but she can’t make out what I’m saying, no matter how many times I repeat the question.
I reach for her, but there’s a barrier between us—a glass wall, which I press my hands against, wanting desperately to take her hand.
“Mami!” I yell, realizing she’s trapped on the other side of the glass. Or maybe I’m the one who’s trapped. Either way, we need to find a way to break it. “Mami, don’t worry. I’ll get us out of here.”
I turn around, hoping to find a hammer, or a rock, or anything to shatter the glass with, but there’s only emptiness behind me—stark, white emptiness, which stretches for as far as my eyes can see.
I wake up feeling strangely cold. I pull the blankets closer to me, staring up at the ceiling in my bedroom, trying hard to hold on to the image of Mami in her Sunday dress, but the emptiness wins. I feel it creeping in, settling inside my chest, sneaking into every single one of my fingers and toes.
“You look pale,” Abuela says to me during breakfast. There are no eggs this morning, no coffee. Instead, there’s some dry cereal and an apple for each of us, which we eat eagerly. “You should spend some time outside, get some sun.”
I look up from my bowl of cereal to find Luis staring right at me. His hair is as messy as it always looks in the morning, but his eyes are alert, staring at me unblinkingly. I can tell exactly what he’s thinking—that there’s no time to waste. I need to start looking for new jobs right away, start coming up with ways to make up for the income we’ve just lost.
As much as I wish I could do all that, I can’t seem to find the energy for it. My entire body feels weak and heavy, and so, after breakfast, I decide to listen to Abuela’s advice and set up a chair out in the backyard, hoping that the fresh air will help breathe some life into me.
I sit facing the sun, folding my hands on top of my lap and trying my best to feel the warmth of the sunlight, but I just can’t find a way to relax.
The only thing I see when I close my eyes is Mami’s face. And this time, I can hear her voice clearly, telling me to get up, and go out, and do something. She’s telling me not to give up, not to lose hope—to figure out a way to fix our family.
I just can’t do any of the things she’s telling me to do. I can’t do anything except sit here, frozen in my chair, while a deep, dark feeling of restlessness swirls around inside my chest.
I spend the rest of the day in front of our family computer—a clunky old thing that makes whirring sounds for no reason and always finds a way to freeze at the wrong moment.
I’m scrolling through job search websites, applying to every single opening I can find between San Ysidro and San Diego, when my phone starts buzzing, and I lift it up to see Nick’s name on the screen.
My first instinct is to just let it ring. Texts have come nonstop—texts from him and Ari, wanting to know what happened and how I’m doing, asking if there’s anything they can do. I just haven’t found the will to respond to them. I haven’t found a way to put my feelings into words, or to explain that there’s no point in dwelling on what happened at Wallen’s—not when there are much more urgent things that I need to worry about.
Before I can make up my mind about answering, the phone stops ringing, and so I turn my attention back to the computer screen. When it starts ringing again a few seconds later, though, I can’t bring myself to ignore it.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Sol?”
“Nick?” Just saying his name makes my heart hurt, because this wasn’t the way our weekend was supposed to go. We weren’t supposed to be in different cities, in different countries. We were supposed to be at the beach, or going to the movies, or maybe even back at that spot in the woods, surrounded by soft starlight.
“I’ve been so worried about you,” he says. “From the moment I realized you weren’t coming back down after talking to Helen. And then I asked Bill what happened, and he told me about the dress.”
“Yeah,” I say, my voice barely there.
“Sol, I talked to them—to Helen and Bill. I told them there was no way you could’ve—”
“Nick, I—”
“—and everyone else is saying it, too. Lina, Kelly, Marcos, and even other people in the warehouse—they’re all on your side, and we’re trying to—”
“I should focus on the future,” I say, and he goes quiet immediately. “I need to start thinking about finding a new job.”
“I get that,” he replies. “But Sol… we could still make this right. We need to find a way to get you to come back.”
I remain quiet, because I’m not sure what to feel. A part of me is grateful that Nick is trying his best, grateful that the people in the stockroom are speaking up for me, but I’m also tired of thinking about it—about the unfairness, about the look on Helen’s face when she said she was gonna put me on leave. I’m tired of being mad at her and Bill for the way they treated me, even after all the hard work I put in from the day I first started.
I swallow through a knot in my throat. “I really wanted us to go on that second date this weekend.”
“We will,” he says. “We’ll go on a second date, and a third, and a fourth, if you want to. Just focus on what matters right now—and I will, too. I’ll keep trying to figure out what happened to that dress.”
“Thank you, Nick. You’re so—”
“I’m here for you,” he says. “Don’t forget that, okay?”
“I won’t,” I reply, trying my hardest to hold on to him—to the thought of seeing him again, to our long conversations at work, to the memory of our first kiss. And despite the fact that I already feel as though it all happened in another lifetime—as though he and I now live in different worlds—there’s still something about the sound of his breathing coming through the phone that brings a ray of light to my chest, even when the rest of the world feels darker than ever.
I wake up to the sound of my alarm on Monday morning after another full night of dreaming about Mami. Instead of rolling over to get a few more minutes of sleep the way I usually would, I throw the covers off and get up immediately, eager to escape from the uneasiness of my dreams.
Breakfast with Papi feels weird. I take slow spoonfuls of cereal, washing them down with chamomile tea, while Papi sits very still in his chair, looking out the window at the lime tree in our backyard.
As soon as I get to school, I start looking for Ari. I’d never really thought about how difficult she can be to find in a crowd, but I suppose it’s true that she’s shorter than most people, so she’s not precisely hard to miss. There’s also her blunt, shoulder-length haircut, which seems to be more common than I had ever realized. Every time I spot a girl with dark hair that looks like hers, my heart leaps for an instant, until I realize it is someone else and not Ari.
She sees me before I see her. I barely have a second to register that she’s standing in front of me when she closes the distance between us and wraps her arms around me.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you on Friday,” she whispers into my ear. “You should’ve called me. I would’ve come straight home if you’d told me about what happened.”
“Your mom was there. That was more than enough,” I whisper back. “And I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry I didn’t reply to your messages. I’ve been so—”
“It’s okay. I get it,” she says. Somehow, it’s as if she’s able to understand everything that happened this weekend—the conversation I had with Papi and Abuela when I got home on Friday, and my dreams about Mami, and the fact that dinners with my family were much more silent than usual.
“How was Ceci’s visit?” I ask as we start moving down the hallway.
“It was pretty good. She showed up with blond hair, and my mom was pissed. She kept saying that Ceci should’ve come to her before dyeing it, but I tried to stay out of it.”
“And dinner in Little Italy?” I ask.
“Best pizza I’ve had in my life. But I kept thinking about how you were supposed to be there, and how the four of us should’ve had a fun weekend.”
It hurts my heart to see the sadness in Ari’s eyes, to hear the honesty in her voice. I want to find the words to tell her how badly I wish I could’ve been there, how much I thought about her over the last couple of days, how grateful I was to know that she was there for me, even if I couldn’t find the strength to write back to her messages.
“I’m gonna miss having you around at home,” she says before I can say any of that. “The more I think about what happened at the store, and that dress, and all… I mean, it’s so ridiculous. We should fight it. We should go speak with Helen, and tell her that—”
“Nick’s already done that. I don’t think it’ll work.”
“But they can’t do this to you. They can’t—”
