The Fragile Edge, page 16
“School was everything,” Adele agreed. “Give me a few of your business cards, along with her photo and intake sheet. If I can find her, I will. She deserves our help.”
Chapter 22
Adele found North Kitchawan even more sad-looking than Petersville. Just a couple of intersecting streets of tumbledown row-frames with an aging brick elementary school, an off-brand gas station, and a grocery store with beer and lottery-ticket signs in the dusty plate-glass windows. The few people walking the streets or gassing up their cars appeared to be white. The only Hispanics Adele saw were the ones getting out of vans in the grocery store parking lot. They wore dusty jeans and baseball caps. The women carried children by the hand or on their hips.
The drivers never got out. Never even turned off their engines. They kept the windows rolled up, blasting their air-conditioning and Spanish music with equal force. They were better dressed than their passengers. Collared shirts. Buzz-cut hairstyles. They carried themselves like they owned the people they were transporting. Adele thought of what Dr. Carrasco had told her about the immigrants being indentured servants. The whole system felt like an antebellum plantation.
She parked her Prius in a far corner of the lot and pulled the photo of “Maria” out of the manila envelope Dr. Carrasco had given her, along with a copy of the intake report. She left the report in the car and tucked the photo into a cloth tote she snatched off the rear seat. She wanted to look like she was just coming into the store to pick up some milk and bread.
Except she didn’t blend in. Not in her silky striped blouse, formfitting slacks, and heeled sandals. She assumed that there would be other people in the store who didn’t blend into this crowd either. But when she got inside, she didn’t see a single white face—or any face—that didn’t look as if it had come from one of the vans. Where do residents shop around here? Obviously, not at this grocery store. Adele could see why. The shelves were poorly stocked. The items were prohibitively expensive. There were canned goods and white bread that cost more here than in Adele’s local store. The same was true of the rice and beans and some sorry-looking packages of chicken. The food reminded Adele of the dispiriting items her mother used to get at the charity pantry to supplement what the family could afford. Sugary cereals and Pop-Tarts. Ritz Crackers that were nearly past their expiration date. Off-brands of milk and cheese.
She saw almost no fresh fruit. In summer. In a region where people just came from picking fresh fruit.
All around her, Adele heard chatter. Some of it was in Mexican- and Guatemalan-accented Spanish. Some of it was in indigenous languages Adele didn’t speak. She scanned the faces of the children accompanying their parents. She saw no one who looked like Maria here. Only one girl even looked to be about Maria’s age. She was shopping with her mother. Adele walked up to them and took out Maria’s photograph.
“Excuse me, señora,” said Adele, addressing the mother in her politest Spanish. “I am a medical worker from Petersville. I am trying to find a girl who needs follow-up treatment for her broken wrist. Have you seen her?”
Mother and daughter studied the picture. Both shook their heads.
“I’m sorry, no,” said the woman. “We haven’t seen her.”
“Thank you anyway.” Adele moved on to another woman, purposely skipping over the single men who were less likely to notice a young girl. Again, the woman said she didn’t recognize the child. By now, Adele had drawn attention. An older woman with skin like a raisin hobbled over to study the photograph. She stood staring at it for several seconds. Something flickered in her eyes, moving all her wrinkles in unison. She glanced over her shoulder. Adele followed her gaze to the back of the store where a mop stood immersed in a bucket of dirty water.
“You are a medical worker?” the old woman asked, her voice wary. Adele flushed. She was a terrible liar, so she stuck to the parts of her story that were true.
“The girl’s wrist is broken. I am here to make sure she gets the follow-up care she needs.”
“Care from who?”
“Dr. Carrasco at Helping Hands in Petersville,” said Adele. “Do you know where the girl might be?”
The woman hesitated. Adele sensed she recognized the girl but wouldn’t or couldn’t provide her name. Adele pulled out one of Dr. Carrasco’s business cards and pressed it into the woman’s callused palm. Her fingers bore the cuts and calluses of a life working with her hands.
“Give this to her if you can,” Adele pleaded. “Tell her that Dr. Carrasco wants to help her. We both want to help her.”
The woman’s hand tightened around the card until it disappeared in her fist. She turned away to examine a can of corn. The movement was so abrupt, Adele thought she’d offended her in some way. Adele went to apologize, but she had a sudden sense of being watched. Being targeted. Then an arm darted across her field of vision. A man’s arm. With a chunky gold watch encircling his hairy wrist. It was trailed by the musky scent of aftershave as he brushed against her to reach for an item on the shelf: hot sauce.
Adele reared back.
“You are new here, señora,” said the man in Spanish. His accent was Mexican, with the rhythmic, chopped sound of someone from the northern border. “Do you . . . live around here?”
Adele could hear the demand beneath his words: Tell me who you are.
He wasn’t tall but there was something menacing about him. Something that suggested he gauged a person by how much they had to offer and how easily he could take it. Most of the clients who came through La Casa were farmers and tradesmen and shopkeepers in their prior lives. Simple men with simple desires: A safe place to raise their families. Decent wages. An education for their children.
But every now and then, Adele came across a different sort of man at La Casa. A man who had tasted power in his homeland. As a soldier. Or a cop. Maybe even a rebel or a gangster. There was a ruthless streak to them that frightened Adele. An opportunism that preyed on the weak and well intended.
Not every immigrant was a pilgrim in search of the promised land. Some were just looking for their next score.
“I’m a medical worker,” Adele said again, trotting out the lie that already felt as thin as a cheap shirt. “I’m looking for a twelve-year-old Guatemalan girl who saw a local doctor about her broken wrist. The doctor needs to see her for a follow-up.”
“What’s the girl’s name?” He asked like he had a proprietary interest in the matter.
“Maria Gonzalez.” At least, that was the name the uncle had given Dr. Carrasco.
“You have a photograph?”
Something about the demanding tone in the man’s voice, the way other people stayed away from them, made Adele nervous. Still, she’d come to find Maria. It was possible he knew the child. She pulled Dr. Carrasco’s snapshot from her tote bag and showed it to him. He snatched it from her hand and turned it to the store’s bad tube lights to get a better look. His eyes narrowed. He seemed acutely interested in a way that men like him only were when they sensed opportunity.
“A broken wrist, you say?” The man’s scrutiny turned from the photo to Adele. “If you’re a worker at the clinic, how come I’ve never seen you before?”
“I’m new,” Adele stammered.
“New, eh?” The man tucked the photograph in a back pocket of his pants.
“Hey. I need that.” Adele leaned forward. The man grabbed her in one effortless pull, like he was used to manhandling people. Nobody in the store moved to help her. Not the other immigrants shopping in the aisles. Not the young women at the checkout counters. He had Adele’s shoulder bag and tote bag off her in an instant. The tote bag was empty. He dropped it at his feet. He pulled her wallet from her shoulder bag and flipped to her driver’s license.
“Adele Figueroa. Two Fourteen Pine Road, Lake Holly, New York.” He dropped the wallet back into her shoulder bag and held it out to her with a flourish, like he was returning something she’d lost. “Well, Adele Figueroa of Two Fourteen Pine Road, you are certainly a long way from home.”
She grabbed her shoulder bag from him and bent to retrieve the empty tote on the ground. She thrust out a hand.
“I’ll take the girl’s photo back.”
“I think I’ll keep it.” He smiled. There was something sharklike in his grin. “I’ll show it around. See if I can find her. That’s what you want, isn’t it? To find her?”
“Dr. Carrasco at the clinic—”
“Don’t worry about Dr. Carrasco,” said the man. “I know where her clinic is. And now, I know where you are too.”
Chapter 23
“Go. Out the back door. Into the van,” ordered a Mexican man Eli and her mother had never seen before today. Normally, the old toothless Guatemalan drove them to and from the fields in his rusted flatbed truck. But this afternoon, vans took them to town to the grocery store. The men who drove the vans weren’t like the old Guatemalan. They wore clean, open-collared shirts and lots of gold jewelry. Some wore cowboy hats and boots, like Señor Ortega. They blasted their norteño music and never spoke to anyone.
“They always drive to this store?” Aurelia asked Encarna, their neighbor with the wax-paper skin.
“Always,” Encarna answered softly. “And after, you watch. The men go in with big canvas bags and take a lot of the cash. It’s just like Guatemala, I tell you. Everything is owned and run by gangsters.”
And now, one of these “gangsters” had pushed Eli and her mother into the back of the van while everyone else was still inside, shopping. Eli watched from the tinted window as a beautiful Latina walked out the front doors. Everything about her looked silky. Her short black hair that curved like parentheses on either side of her face. Her striped blouse and slacks.
“Who is that lady?” Aurelia asked the van driver.
“Immigration,” he growled. “She’s looking for your daughter. She showed a picture. She wants to deport you both.”
“But we have asylum papers,” Aurelia protested.
“You took your daughter to the doctor yesterday, right? To fix her wrist?”
“She was in pain.”
“Well, that doctor called immigration,” said the driver. “Told them you abused your daughter.”
“That’s not true!”
“Doesn’t matter,” he grunted. “They think you did. And now, they’re looking for you both. Gonna deport you both. So stay down and shut your mouths.”
“But I need to buy groceries,” said Aurelia.
“Give me the money,” said the van driver, holding out a palm. “I’ll get somebody to buy some things for you.”
Aurelia handed over the few measly bills from their pay that day. They didn’t get it all. Señor Ortega said that he’d been instructed to pay the bulk of their wages to Luis and that Luis would pay them.
The driver slid the van door shut. Aurelia and Eli sat inside the hot and stuffy interior. The air was stifling, but at least they could sit for a while. Eli flexed her fingers the way the doctor showed her yesterday when she reset the bone. Her wrist didn’t hurt as much anymore but it was immobile now, the entire forearm encased in a plaster cast and wrapped on top in a garbage bag to keep out moisture.
“Mami? Do you really think the doctor called immigration?” Eli thought the doctor was kind and caring yesterday, but now she wasn’t sure. She felt guilty for telling her all the things she had. Maybe her words had gotten them in trouble.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything anymore,” Aurelia mumbled into her lap. “So many things here are not what I expected.” Her mother lifted her gaze and stared out the window, her face reflected in the glass. There was something flat and resigned in her dark eyes that Eli had never seen before. Her mother had made no mention of what happened in Señor Ortega’s trailer yesterday. Eli didn’t think she ever would. And yet it sat between them, this big unknown, walling them off from each other. Eli longed to hug her mother and tell her everything would be okay. But this was a trauma Eli didn’t know. A violation her mother had spared her from. She couldn’t pretend it away.
“Mami?” asked Eli. “Are you okay?”
Aurelia turned from the window and stroked her daughter’s hair. “I’m just glad that all that man did was break your wrist. It could have been so much worse.”
“He had a gun. In this black backpack he was carrying.”
Aurelia’s hand froze on Eli’s head. “A . . . gun? He was going to shoot you?”
“I don’t know,” said Eli. “He was wearing a fake beard. I saw him take it off. I ran. He grabbed me and then I bit him.”
“Jesucristo!” Aurelia made the sign of the cross.
Some of the immigrants were walking back to the van from the grocery store, carrying brown paper bags. Aurelia turned to her daughter. “Never, ever mention this to anyone. Do you hear? We don’t know who this man is. Or where he is. You broke your wrist falling. That’s what you tell anyone if they ask, yes?”
“Okay.” Eli didn’t want to tell her mother that it was already too late to keep the secret. At least one person besides them knew the truth: the doctor.
The van driver emerged from the store with a brown bag that looked nearly empty. Eli wondered how much he’d bought and how much he’d pocketed. From her mother’s gaze, it looked like she was wondering the same thing.
“I thought everything would be different here,” said her mother. “In so many ways, it’s exactly the same.”
Chapter 24
Adele’s visit to North Kitchawan had spooked her. She drove home, checking her rearview mirror the whole way. She didn’t feel normal again until she turned in to Lake Holly. It was dark by then, but the streets were alive and happy. Restaurants set out tables under sidewalk awnings. Families strolled the main streets. People sat on park benches, eating ice cream cones while teenagers shot hoops on the courts.
She pulled into her driveway behind a white pickup with the words E & H Painting on the side. The painters had come to cover over the graffiti. Adele didn’t want to block them in, so she parked down the street and walked back. By then, the men—two brothers from Mexico and clients of La Casa—were sealing up paint cans and throwing tarps in the back of their truck.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t here sooner,” said Adele in Spanish. “I was out all afternoon. Were you able to cover the words?”
The older brother, a kindly man named Ernesto with big brown eyes, smiled. “Two coats of primer and one topcoat,” he replied in Spanish. “It’s fine now. Come. Humberto and I will show you.”
They walked her down her driveway to her garage. The entire back side of the garage as well as the side facing the house had been sanded, primed, and repainted. It looked brand-new. Much better than the dingy, flaking paint that had been there before.
“Wow,” said Adele. “You did the back and the side? It all looks fantastic. I thought you were just going to paint over the words.”
“But now it looks much better, don’t you think?” asked Ernesto, wiping his paint-spattered hands on a rag.
“It does,” Adele agreed. “Come inside. I’ll get my checkbook.”
“No, no, señora.” Ernesto waved his hands in front of his face. “No charge.”
“No, please,” said Adele. “I insist. I always pay for work.”
“We know you do,” said Ernesto. Humberto nodded in agreement. “But this isn’t a repair or renovation. What those vandals did is an insult to you. To La Casa. We consider it our duty to paint over those words.”
“I don’t feel right accepting your generosity,” said Adele.
“It was no trouble. Really,” said Ernesto. “A few hours’ work late in the day. We would feel insulted taking money to fix this.”
Adele thanked them for their work, sending both men off with some muffins she’d baked for Sophia when she returned from Cape Cod. She could always bake more.
She went inside and took a shower. When she came out, she didn’t feel like fetching her car, still parked down the street. It was fine where it was. The neighborhood was safe.
She called Sophia, who was headed out to see fireworks with her grandparents that evening. The child was having such a good time, Adele wondered if she missed her mother at all. Still, it was good for the girl to bond with her father’s family. Adele’s own parents were long dead. Her sister Grace had no children and relocated all the time for her high-powered jobs in finance. Sophia deserved more family than that.
Adele called Vega after she got off the phone from Sophia. She could hear a baseball game blaring in the background and Diablo panting on the sofa. Vega was kicking back himself. Good. He’d have to go back to court tomorrow morning and face that attorney, Carver, again. He needed the break.
“I called Evelyn Ramirez today, who runs that shelter for battered women,” said Vega. “She promised she’d make room for Kaylee and her little boy.”
“What did Kaylee say about it?” asked Adele.
“I left voice mails and texts,” said Vega. “She hasn’t responded. I’ve got an appointment to see her when I get out of court tomorrow. I guess we’ll talk then.” He sounded uncertain. Adele wondered if he was thinking the same thing Adele was—that Kaylee was an addict and addicts weren’t reliable. “Did you finish your report?”
“Almost,” said Adele. “I drove up to Petersville today to research the last one.”
“Petersville? That’s like, an hour and a half from you.”
“That whole area gives me the creeps,” said Adele. She told him about Dr. Carrasco and going to the grocery store in North Kitchawan to track down a child with a broken wrist.
“An abuse victim?” asked Vega.
“Probably,” said Adele. “I didn’t find her, unfortunately. What I found instead was a whole community of immigrant farmworkers who seem to be totally under the control of overseers. Like some sort of modern-day plantation system.”
“Huh.” Adele heard an announcer talking excitedly in the background. The Yankees had probably just brought in a run. Vega was only half listening. Men and sports.
