But back to Humberto’s brother, Milton. He set off at dawn with a dozen water jugs and three pairs of pants and three shirts on. All his money was in his underwear. I watched him go. He didn’t say goodbye to me, and why would he? He was seventeen. He could spend his life in the dump or he could try to reach El Norte.
Milton was gone for two weeks before he was caught and brought back to Tegu in a small van. He’d never even made it past Guatemala. Police had raided a park where he was sleeping, gathering his strength for the journey through the Guatemalan jungle to Mexico.
Getting into Mexico, Milton told us, was the most important thing. Once you made it into Mexico, you could pretend you were Mexican and they would only deport you back to southern Mexico. All your trouble would not be for nothing. But if you were caught in Honduras or Guatemala, you would start all over. Milton was discouraged, but a week in the dump convinced him to try again. This time he was gone for almost a month. He came back skinny and with many stories. People fell and were crushed by the Train of Death, he told us. Gangs lay waiting to kill you, to steal your clothes. Still, the gleam in his eye told the truth: he was gone again three days later, leaving his pregnant girlfriend in tears. Two weeks later, he was returned to us—dropped off in the city again.
This time he started with the glue. You can get a baby-food container with glue at any store, and breathing it takes away pain. The Resistol is cheap, but eventually people will rob their own grandmother to obtain it. I have never seen anyone stop using glue once they have begun. Never. Not once.
Humberto and I made a pact when we were young. We saw the yellow-mouthed zombies that replaced our friends, and one night Humberto cut a line down the center of his palm with a broken Fanta bottle and made me do the same. We pressed our bloody hands together and promised each other we would never sniff Resistol. I have kept my promise.
But back to Milton. He stayed in the village until his girlfriend gave birth, and when the baby was a few months old, he left again. Milton was gone for months this time. We assumed he had made it. His girlfriend waited for news, money, maybe even clothes for their baby girl.
Instead, Humberto answered the door one morning and a social worker told him Milton was dead. His bones had been found in the desert outside Tijuana. He had almost made it to California. His remains were returned and we held a funeral. In the front pew, Milton’s girlfriend held his daughter, Aylyn. Neither cried, but Humberto’s eyes grew wet when he placed his hand on his brother’s coffin.
One night, walking home from the dump, I told Humberto that I was worried about Junior. I did not know what he was up to all day, but I knew he no longer stayed at home, where he was safe. Humberto told me he would think carefully about how to help Junior. (He was already helping his elderly mother and his brother’s girlfriend and daughter. To be clear: he was feeding four people by gathering garbage.)
I think Humberto felt it was selfish to go. It was true that most of the ones who left were the braggarts, the most macho boys. My own mother had made it, but she had gone with a coyote. The thousands of U.S. dollars a coyote would cost (three thousand for a male coyote; six or more for a female, who would hopefully be less likely to rape you; ten thousand for a plane trip with papers) were not possible anymore. Not for us, anyway.
Still, we thought about it: America. We thought about it all the time. I’m sure you think you can imagine what we dreamed of—buffet tables of food, video game arcades. I will tell you my secret. When I dreamed of America, I imagined lying down in a large green field, watching my mother unpack a picnic dinner. The basket was filled with anything I could dream of, but before we ate my mother pulled me close to her. I could remember her smell: faintly floral, rich, bready. She ran her fingers through my hair, pressed my face to her chest. “I love you,” she said. We were warm in a circle of sunlight. “My daughter, I am here,” she said. That was it, the sum of my dream.
Humberto dropped me off at our dwelling, which my grandfather had built after Hurricane Mitch consumed everything in Tegucigalpa. I had been a child when the river rose up and covered the city, leaving mud and misery in its wake. My grandfather was a shopkeeper, and he was able to salvage enough to pay for wooden slats and construct one room. He walked through the thigh-high mud to find a tin roof, which he weighted down with rocks. It’s said that Tegu never recovered from Hurricane Mitch, but there we were, Junior and I. Like most of our neighbors, we did not have running water or a bathroom, but we did have a few bushes outside where we could relieve ourselves.
Why God made certain decisions, I could not even dream of knowing. God only gave my grandparents one child—my mother—though they had yearned for more. God sent Hurricane Mitch to Honduras, and yellow glue. Yet He also gave us the stars, the feel of the cool night on our faces. He gave me my brothers, and the way I felt when Humberto looked at me. I believed God watched over me. I was lucky in this. Many people I knew feared that God had forgotten them.
That night, the front door was closed, which was a relief. (I was always afraid it would be kicked in, our pallet and small collection of cookware gone.) But when I whispered for Junior to let me in, he did not answer. I shoved the door and it fell open. I scanned the room; all seemed in place. On the pallet, there was a lump of blankets. I approached, put my hand on my brother’s back. He was breathing deeply, fast asleep. I closed the padlock and lay next to Junior, my arm around his small body. I knew then what the end of hope smelled like: yellow glue on your brother’s breath.
10
Alice
THERE’S THE ICE festival, of course, and New Year’s Eve—when people drive their Jeeps into the Amphitheater, place flares on them, and drive down Route 550, a winding dragon of light into town—but in Ouray, Colorado, the Fourth of July is the biggest event of the year. I woke up alone in the lumpy bed that had been my parents’, took a quick shower, and headed to my sister’s house in my red-white-and-blue flared skirt and cropped blouse. (And my red boots.) Jane was already pulling the second sheet of cinnamon buns out of the oven. (The first lay scavenged on the stove.) It didn’t look as if she’d showered, and her pajamas were an unflattering maroon. “Hello, hello!” she cried when I slid open the screen door to the kitchen and entered. “Wow, look at you,” she said tartly. “Lipstick and everything.”
“Thanks,” I said, though her words hadn’t exactly been a compliment.
“Here,” she said, handing me a plate. “Coffee? Eggs?”
“Hell, yes,” I said, savoring the hot cinnamon bun. “God. This tastes exactly like Mom’s.”
“It’s her recipe,” said Jane, “and her pan.”
“Wow,” I said brightly, awkwardly.
“Please, let me pour your coffee,” said Jane. “Don’t strain yourself.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“It’s fine,” said Jane, through gritted teeth.