“Can you show me your room?”
Sister Rosalina waved them along. Sarai took Maria by the hand and led her to the dormitory. She shared a room with another girl. There were two single beds inside with a wooden desk between them. The space was tight, but private. As soon as they were behind closed doors, Sarai dropped the happy relative act. Her expression transformed from excited to gravely concerned.
“Did my father send you?”
“Yes.”
The girl clutched Maria’s arm. “Is he alive?”
Maria removed the envelope from her shoulder bag, wincing at the blood smears on the surface. “He was the last time I saw him.”
“When?”
“Five days ago, in San Diego.”
“Injured?”
Maria nodded.
Sarai snatched the letter from Maria’s hands and started reading. She sat on the edge of the bed, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her. Her dark gaze scanned every line, absorbed every word. She fingered the necklace at her throat. It was a silver butterfly. She set aside the letter and took a deep breath. “How bad was his injury?”
Maria didn’t think it was survivable. She was surprised he’d been able to get up and stagger away from the hotel. “It was life-threatening.”
Tears formed in the girl’s eyes. She wiped them away impatiently. “Thank you for coming.”
Maria hadn’t read the letter, out of respect for Armando. She had no idea if he’d said goodbye to his daughter, or apologized for his long absence, or given her some kind of instructions for the future. “Are you safe in this place?”
“I think so.”
“Do you have any other relatives?”
“No one I can contact.”
Maria wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe Armando had advised her not to reach out to anyone connected to him. “What about your tuition?”
“It’s paid until next summer, when I turn eighteen.”
She was relieved by this news. “I’m Maria Santos, from Mezcala. It’s about four hours away. My mother has a shop near the zocalo. She sells handmade pottery. You can go there and ask for me if you need anything.”
The girl sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’ll be okay.”
“You’re staying here?”
“Sure,” she said, staring out the window. A line of students had formed outside of the cafeteria. They were chatting and laughing, like any group of teenage girls. Some had inventive hairstyles and sparkly accessories to dress up their uniforms.
Maria wondered if Sarai fit in with her classmates. If she had close friendships and caring teachers to fill the void her parents left.
Sarai turned back to Maria, assessing her anew. “Are you…were you his girlfriend?”
“No,” Maria said, startled by the question. Armando was old enough to be her father. Although she didn’t fear him as much as other men, she’d never considered him in that context. He wasn’t handsome or charming.
He wasn’t Ian.
“I owed him a favor,” Maria said.
Sarai accepted this answer.
Maria picked up a pen from Sarai’s desk and wrote down the number for the pharmacy in Mezcala, which was the communications hub for the residents without phones. “You can leave a message for me here if there’s a problem. I’ll come back next month.”
She studied the number, her face quiet. “Why?”
“Because you are alone in the world.”
Her expression didn’t change. “I’m used to that.”
Maria felt a surge of sympathy for Sarai. She wasn’t sure what to say to this girl who felt lost and alone. Maria could relate. She hadn’t found her place in the world, either. After four years in Tijuana and three weeks in the United States, she was returning no better off than she’d left. She was downtrodden and exhausted. What more could she do?
“Peace be with you,” she said, preparing to leave.
Sarai mumbled the usual response, her voice trembling. Maybe the girl wanted the privacy to break down and cry. Maria slipped out, closing the door behind her. Then she exited the dormitory and traversed the cobblestone path, her heart as heavy as her footsteps. She covered her hair with the mantilla before she passed through the gate.
There was no one outside waiting for her. No suspicious men lurked nearby. She continued to the transit station, which was about a mile away. It was a pleasant walk. The sights and sounds of her home state were comfortingly familiar.
Here in Guerrero, everyone spoke Spanish or a local Indian dialect. She recognized the accents. She knew the food and the people. No effort was required to understand the conversations around her. She stopped to buy fresh elote from a street vendor on her way to the station. Biting into the sweet grilled corn flooded her mouth with flavor and her mind with memories.
It was good to be back.
It was not good to be back empty-handed, her heart filled with longing for a handsome gabacho, but that was life.
The trip to Mezcala took another three hours. By the time she exited the bus at the zocalo, it was almost sunset. Everyone was going home after a long day of work. Maria kept her head down as she traversed the cobblestone streets of the town center. She wasn’t ready to socialize or answer intrusive questions.
The pottery shop her mother owned was closed, so she continued home. They lived on the outskirts of Mezcala. It wasn’t a long walk, but she was tired, and the path alongside the road was muddy from summer rains. A hole in the toe of her stocking grew larger. She gave up on adjusting the fabric and shuffled along, bleary-eyed with fatigue. When a farmer drove by, hitting a water-filled pothole, Maria had to jump out of the way to avoid the splash.