Eventually, she leaned over and whispered in my ear, “I think you look pretty. You always do.”
I felt like my heart would break open into a million pieces. I simply could not process the shock and joy of having my mother’s arms around me again. Peace and security flooded my soul and brought me much-needed comfort.
“So take me inside. I hear you have your own room!”
I grabbed her hand in mine and led her toward the house. “Not really, but I do have my own hammock.”
Mom gave me a quizzical look.
“It’s a long story.”
I clung to Mom all weekend, chattering constantly about all the things that had happened to me in Mexico. I asked about my other siblings and the sister-wives who still lived in the United States. Mom and I walked down to the beach together on Saturday morning. I showed her all the good places to find the seashells that weren’t broken. I told her how much I missed her, and she told me the same.
“Are you going to stay here with us?”
“I wish I could.” Mom leaned over to pick a strand of seaweed off her foot. She tossed it toward the water, but the wind blew it back behind us. She turned toward me. “But I can’t. I have to go back to work.”
“When?” My body tensed up involuntarily. When she didn’t answer me right away, I pleaded with her. “Take me with you, Mom. Please.” I put all of my energy into the most pitiful begging face I could muster.
“I can’t, honey. Not right now. It’s not safe for you in the United States. The reason you were sent here is because your father had a revelation that my children were in danger. He believed all of you would be safer in Mexico. But we will be together again soon.”
I slowly closed my eyes and hung my head as I felt the weight of another separation. A part of me couldn’t help but wonder if my dad had sent us to Mexico to protect himself.
She lifted my chin. “Anna, I would stay if I could. But I need to do God’s work, and so do you. And right now, God needs you to help Ramona take care of her girls. Can you imagine if she didn’t have you here? She would never have time to feed and bathe and diaper them all.”
“She could manage . . .”
“Maybe so.” Mom looked out at the wide expanse of the ocean.
I stared at her face, noticing how drawn and pale her skin looked. If anyone needed to be living on a beach, it was my mom. Suddenly she smiled and the space around her eyes crinkled. She turned her face toward me again.
“And Anna, if you weren’t here, who would read The Cat in the Hat Comes Back to Melissa?”
We both laughed, deep laughs that expelled worry and uncertainty even better than my tears had. Mom grabbed my hand, and we continued collecting seashells along the beach. I held her hand every moment I wasn’t picking up shells.
The weekend passed all too quickly, and I was forced to say good-bye to Mom once again. Though I shed many tears after she left, I knew that seeing her —for however brief a time —had soothed my weary little heart.
WHILE IN MéRIDA, Ramona and I lived a fa?ade. Residents of the Mexican coast and tourists to the area considered beach houses as dwelling places for the wealthy. Poor people lived on the other side of the highway —or much further inland. Except for us. I’m sure everyone thought we were rich, simply because we were Americans and because of where we lived. What they didn’t know was that we had only the bare essentials to keep body, soul, and spirit together.
Thankfully, we celebrated what we did have —love and affection. Ever since my mom had first left me in Dallas, and then later when I was living with Rafael and Antonia, I’d felt alone. Ramona was like a second mom to me. Her presence, care, and unconditional love were a great comfort to me and helped heal some of my wounds.
But she wasn’t perfect. And some of the traits she exhibited impacted me and stuck with me more than I knew. While living with Ramona, I first experienced a “feast or famine” mind-set about dieting. Like women all over the world, Ramona struggled with getting back into shape after having a baby.
Still, she splurged and overate at the most random times. On one occasion, she sent me to the store with twenty pesos. “Buy anything that has chocolate in it, Anna. We will enjoy it together.”
I didn’t question her directive, mainly because I rarely got to enjoy chocolate in any form. I craved the rare treat as much as Ramona, who never splurged on nonessentials. I crisscrossed the mercado, priced out items, and kept a running total in my head. When I checked out, everything came to just under twenty pesos.
When I got home, I burst through the door, nearly waking Ramona’s daughters, who were taking their afternoon naps. “Look at all I bought!” Ramona and I feasted on those chocolates, relishing every single bite with exaggerated moans, finally bursting out laughing. Ramona told me that she was starting a strict diet the next day. It didn’t matter to me what she was planning; I was just glad to have the sweet taste of chocolate to savor now.
One morning I awoke with a sense of anticipation, though I couldn’t pinpoint why. I dressed quickly and hurried to join Ramona and the girls in the tiny kitchen. Right before I entered, I caught a whiff of something wonderful, something I hadn’t smelled in a long, long time. I rounded the corner, and there was Ramona, standing beside the kitchen table, with Heidi and Melissa on either side of her. Ramona held a plate in her outstretched hands. On it was a stack of ten pancakes, drizzled in so much homemade syrup that it pooled around the edges of the bottom pancake.
“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Anna. Happy birthday to you!” Their unison voices stretched out the final lines of the song to make it last as long as possible.
“You’re ten!” shouted Heidi. “And Mom made you a pancake cake.”
“I know. I can’t believe it!”
The girls led me to the kitchen table, where Ramona cut the stack of pancakes in half one way and then the other. She placed one-fourth of the “cake” on each of our plates. While we enjoyed the sweet goodness, the girls peppered me with questions about what I wanted to do on my birthday. Though I was tempted to say that we didn’t have money to celebrate in a big way, I said enthusiastically, “After we finish my birthday cake, let’s go to the beach. We can look for shells and build a sand castle and maybe take a nap out there. When we get back home, we can play hide-and-seek. Won’t that be fun?”