I veered into the TV lounge and yelled toward the voice, What are you doing here!—not registering that Mami was still far away in Florida. All four girls jumped and turned around; I hurtled past them, my arms wrapped around my Spanish textbook. I dodged the couch and stopped just short of the TV, not caring that I blocked their view. My mom’s name suddenly appeared on screen in a title beneath her head: Lourdes Ramirez, Madres Para Justicia (Mothers for Justice).
Nothing Leidy or Omar had said in our calls or their messages had indicated that my mother was still heavily involved with the Ariel protests—what was she doing on a national news show with some official-sounding words after her name? I couldn’t make sense of her face, which was not wet or blotchy like the last time I’d seen her near Ariel. This face had foundation powder dusted over it, a little thick but evenly applied. This face had mascara slicked onto its eyelashes, brows gelled into submission, blush swooped on the right bones, lip liner with—I could barely believe it—coordinating lipstick. This face didn’t shake or scream or let itself get messed with tears; this face had talking points. This face was professional. I was glad I’d heard her voice first, because I might’ve passed right by the face alone.
—Oh my gosh, can you move? one girl said behind me.
I answered her with Shhh and a slap at the air. My mother, answering a question I’d missed, said without blinking, We are here because his mother is not. That, sir, is our mission.
—Oh wait, another girl—Tracy—whispered behind me. That’s Jillian’s roommate, she’s Cuban, from Miami.
—Jillian from your floor? another girl said.
Tracy must’ve nodded, because no one behind me asked me to confirm. Lizet, I almost said without turning around. My name is Lizet—you know that—and it’s also my fucking floor. A man’s voice off camera said, Can you tell us what else your group is doing to prevent this latest court order from being enforced?
So the phrase attached to my mom’s name, Mothers for Justice, was this group, and my mother was, at least at the moment, its spokesperson. How could Leidy and Omar have kept the existence of this version of my mom from me all these weeks—and worse, how could I have tricked myself into believing them each time they said everything was fine? From right behind me, a chirp: Caroline’s voice.
—Um, Liz? Hey, is everything OK?
—Why is she – what’s going on?
There was a pause—maybe a silence during which the four girls searched each other’s faces, ponytails shaking with their Nos. I turned around and saw they’d all backed up, their thin legs pressed against the couch seat. It wasn’t until I faced the TV again that one of them got brave enough to answer.
—Ariel Hernandez is going back home. His dad’s coming to get him, Caroline said.
—What! His dad? Since when?
I pressed the volume button, kept clicking the plastic bar even when the set was as loud as it would go, like a lab rat desperate for more food from a dispenser. I looked for Leidy and her red tube top in the background—but nothing. Behind me, feet shuffled against the carpet, moving a step or two away.
—We’ve begun a twenty-four-hour prayer vigil, my mother said into a microphone, looking at the camera dead-on. She said, We started two nights ago and will continue through Easter. One or more of us will keep a constant prayer for Ariel, for his family here in Miami, and for the soul of his mother in heaven.
—Since when do you pray? I asked the TV.
My mom’s face shrank down into a small box in the upper-right corner as some other footage played on the screen: a little boy sitting on someone’s shoulders next to Ariel, who sat on his uncle’s shoulders, the caption reading Ariel and Friends. Her face expanded to take up the screen again, and I wondered if the reporter would ask about the obvious cartoon series Ariel and Friends should spawn.
From behind me, as I tried to listen to the questions and my mom’s answers and fill in the blanks set up by the people I’d trusted most, there was this quick, whispered conversation, the kind of semi-private banter I recognized from months earlier—the morning I first saw snow, when they’d watched me and play-by-played my reaction, me just their freezing spectacle: So wait, that woman is one of his relatives? They didn’t say but I think so. Wait, she’s his mom. No, I think she’s just related to his mom. I thought his mom was dead. Then who was that before – the girl they showed? That’s his cousin or something. But she’s his legal guardian now? No, this woman is. No, she’s just some lady. I think she’s their social worker. Maybe she’s their lawyer? She’s not their lawyer.
I spun around, dropped my textbook on the ground, the pages splaying at my feet.
—Will you shut the hell up? I yelled. I’m trying to figure out how the fuck this happened.
I don’t know why I cursed, sounding so much like Leidy all of a sudden—the one person supposedly still physically close enough to Mami to have stopped her from whatever Mothers for Justice was. When was she planning on telling me anything, when Mami got arrested? When Ariel and Caridaylis moved in with us? Caroline stepped up to me, her puffy lilac vest zipped tight over her flat chest, the same vest she’d worn the day of the first snowfall, when she’d made us all hot chocolate from scratch.