I mustered my strength and courage —from where, I don’t know —quickly ducked under his outstretched arm, jumped off the bed, and fled out the apartment door, preferring the streets of Catemaco over being alone with Rafael.
After that horrible encounter, whenever the two of us were alone, Rafael started in again. He never forced me. Instead, it seemed he was genuinely trying to woo me by rubbing my back and shoulders or stroking my hair. He believed his touch and whispered affirmations would draw me to him.
Rafael wasn’t my only “suitor.” In the months that followed, more of my dad’s followers began to casually —and routinely —approach me about becoming one of their wives. Once I began to realize that these grown men only initiated advances to me when Antonia wasn’t home, I did my best to avoid being at the apartment alone. As a young girl, having my dad’s followers casually and routinely approach me about being one of their wives confused me. Still, I knew deep inside I would someday have to marry one of them, thus fulfilling my duty to my polygamist father.
The women in our family were never allowed to make up their own minds. The girls had even less freedom. We were commodities; others ascertained our value and traded us at their discretion. I was too young to understand the leering, touching, and sexually motivated overtures. I just knew how inappropriate the situations felt and how uncomfortable they made me. Sadly, I couldn’t get away from that place. And I had no dad or mom to protect me.
MY DEEP SLEEP WAS INTERRUPTED by a repeated jostling on my arm. “Who’s that —what?” I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes to the morning sunshine streaming through the front windows of Rafael and Antonia’s apartment.
“Get up.” Antonia always sounded sharp and annoyed, and this time even more so.
I tossed back the thin sheet and sat up on my little foam pallet. “Yes, Antonia. What’s happening?”
“You’re going to Calería. They want you there. The bus leaves in an hour, so you’ll need to hurry.”
“Okay.” I stood up and padded off to the bathroom. I tried to run a comb through my tangled hair, but gave up as it snagged on several matted sections. When I returned to the kitchen, Antonia was standing at the small cooktop making mush for the family. She turned around and glared at me, not offering me a bowl of mush. I wondered what I’d done. It seemed awfully early in the day for me to have gotten into trouble.
“Here are five pesos. Don’t lose them. You need to go —now.”
“I —you’re not taking me?” I stared at her in utter amazement, terrified at the thought of making this journey all by myself. Suddenly the idea of missing breakfast paled in comparison to traveling on a bus by myself to another town. I’d been to the house in Calería before, but I had never traveled there all alone, and the idea of boarding a bus with total strangers frightened me.
I hated knocking on the doors of houses where people I didn’t know lived and trying to entice them to buy the cakes and other items we made, but at least in that situation, I had the advantage of talking with just one person.
What if someone on the bus took a liking to the little blonde American girl and snatched me? I’d heard stories of American tourists disappearing during Mexican vacations. “I don’t know if I can do that by myself.”
“You can, and you will. I don’t have time for this today.”
I knew that what she really meant was that she didn’t have time for me today. She never had time for me. My heart ached for my mother, for her warm embrace and gentle voice. I missed her so much and wondered when she would come to Mexico to get me. I looked up to see Antonia staring at me, her eyes narrowing.
“Yes, Antonia. I can do this.”
Once I left the oppressive house, I tried to embrace a sense of excitement about the day ahead. Something rose up inside of me, and in my mind’s eye I could see myself traveling alone, making this trip without any problem. I didn’t have to stay home and clean house under Antonia’s critical and disapproving eye. I didn’t have to sell cakes door to door. I didn’t have to wash clothes until my arms ached. Instead, I got to embark on an adventure that most kids would only dream of. The gash in my leg had healed, so after I left Antonia’s house, I skipped much of the way to the bus station, slowing to a walk when my calves started to cramp up.
I drew upon my previous experience traveling by bus with others. I boarded the bus and put my pesos in the square metal can under the watchful eye of the leathery-faced driver. I grinned at him to show him I wasn’t afraid, that I was starting my adventure. He smiled back, revealing stained teeth. I found a seat, where I sat up perfectly straight and stared out the window.
The trip felt like it took a long time, when in fact it probably took less than thirty minutes. The bus jerked to a stop in front of a large broken-down building with cracked plaster walls. The driver called out, “Calería!” I stood and exited, along with other passengers. Though I scanned the crowd, I didn’t see a single face I knew among the few people waiting at the station.
My fear of being among strangers in a foreign country threatened to override my sense of adventure, but I looked one direction, then the other, and started walking down the main road in the direction of el centro (the town square). After walking about a kilometer, I arrived at the center of town, which had a roundabout marked by a wooden gazebo, its paint peeling off. Vendors with small carts milled about. Some had long lines of customers, but I had no more money for tacos or paletas (popsicles).
Instinctively, I turned to the right. I recognized the street where I needed to turn. On the corner was a little store that sold necessities and treats like bottled Coca-Cola and other indulgences we never got. I remembered buying toilet paper there one day.
I continued down that street and arrived at the concrete house where I had stayed once before. Though it was one of the nicest and cleanest on the block, it still had cement floors and rats that would come out at night, scurrying the length of the ledge at the top of the wall. The wall did not go completely up to the ceiling; instead, there was a narrow space for ventilation between the wall and the roof. I opened the door and called out, “Hola . . .”
A woman I recognized as Teresa’s and Yolanda’s mother came from the kitchen into the tiny front room. She wore a long skirt and a white, long-sleeved button-down shirt, buttoned all the way to the top of her neck.
“Anna? What are you doing here?”
“Antonia sent me. She told me to come here.”