Chapter Three
Judy looked over, and a middle-aged Hispanic woman with fluffy black hair in a pixie cut came out of the house. She was cute, roundish, and only about five feet tall, but gave the impression of being strong and sturdy as she crossed the lawn on short legs. She had on a faded Eagles T-shirt and jeans and carried a brown tote bag on her shoulder.
Aunt Barb motioned her over. “Iris, come meet my niece!”
Judy turned to her aunt, pleasantly surprised. “So that’s the Iris I’ve heard so much about? Your gardening buddy?”
“Yes.” Aunt Barb gestured to Judy when Iris reached the table. “Iris, this is Judy, and Judy, Iris Juarez.”
“Hi, Iris, it’s great to finally meet you!” Judy extended a hand, and Iris shook it, her grip strong and her nails manicured red, with tiny rhinestones on the tip.
“Please to meet you, too,” Iris said, with a thick Spanish accent. She smiled easily, but almost shyly. Her smallish eyes were a rich, earthy brown with deep crow’s-feet, and her skin had a dark brownish hue. Thin gold crucifixes dangled from her ears.
Aunt Barb gestured to a chair. “Iris, sit down, please. Join us a second. You have time before work, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Iris pulled out the remaining wrought-iron chair and sat down, perched on the edge. She placed a silver cell phone, one of the older models, on the table.
Aunt Barb picked up an empty glass. “Would you like some iced tea?”
“No.” Iris shook her head, and Judy noticed her mother and aunt exchange chilly glances. Granted, Iris wasn’t what Judy had expected, but she seemed like a perfectly nice woman.
Judy asked her, “Iris, where are you from?”
“Kennett Square.”
“No, I mean, before that. You’re from Mexico originally, right?”
“Yes. Guerrero.”
“Where is that?” Judy had been to Mexico, but her Spanish wasn’t as good as her Latin, which was excellent, if useless.
“Down.” Iris waved her hand toward the ground.
Judy got the gist. “Oh, south. Do you have family there?”
“No, no.” Iris winced, and Judy sensed she’d said the wrong thing.
Her aunt interjected, “Iris’s husband died six years ago, as did her sons. In a car accident.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry.” Judy swallowed hard, and her mother reached silently for the iced tea and poured herself a glass.
Her aunt forced a smile. “Judy, Iris grew corn, back in Mexico. She kept the farm going, all by herself, one of the few women in the village. She can grow anything, anywhere. She’s a master in this garden, I tell you, a master. I’ve taken classes from horticulturalists who don’t have her touch.” Aunt Barb nodded toward the rosebushes. “She should get the credit for Reine Victoria, not me.”
“Really?” Judy said, happy to have the subject changed.
Iris was already shaking her head. “No, Barb show me.”
“Iris, that’s not true.” Aunt Barb turned to Judy, newly animated, and Judy could tell that her aunt wanted her to get to know Iris, especially since Judy’s mother was giving the woman the silent treatment.
Judy smiled at Iris. “So what brought you here? Why did you leave Mexico?”
“I need work. The police, they take my farm.”
“Why did they do that?”
“I don’t know.” Iris frowned, shaking her head. Her soft shoulders slumped. “The police, not good. I hab no choice, I go.”
Aunt Barb interjected, “Iris is the strongest woman I know. She inspires me every day, especially now.” Aunt Barb faced Iris, touching her arm. “Iris, tell Judy what you went through to get here. It was impossible, truly.”
“Oh no.” Iris waved her off again, shyly. “Is too long a story.”
“No, tell me.” Judy smiled. “How did you get here from Mexico?”
“I run,” Iris answered.
Judy thought she misunderstood. “You ran? Like, running, in a race?”
“Yes.” Iris pumped her arms, as if she were running.
“For how long?”
“Three night.”
“For how long, each night?”
“All.” Iris chuckled, showing a glimpse of a gold tooth in front.
“You ran all night, for three nights?” Judy asked, incredulous. The woman had to be fifty-five years old, and she hardly had an athletic build.
“In dessert,” Iris added, and Judy understood that she meant desert.
“What desert?”
“Sonora.” Iris looked at Aunt Barb. “Sonora, is call?”
“Yes, the Sonoran desert in Arizona.” Aunt Barb turned to Judy. “She ran all night for three nights, from seven o’clock at night until seven the next morning. The desert is cold at night. There were ten other people, only two were women, none as old as she was. During the day, they hid inside bushes, despite snakes, rats, and a hundred-and-twenty-degree temperatures, in July.”
“Really?” Judy asked, aghast. Meanwhile, she realized why her mother was so angry. Iris must have entered the country illegally, and her mother didn’t approve. Judy didn’t like the idea either, but she felt rapt by Iris’s story. She asked her, “Iris, why the Sonoran desert? How did you get there?”
“I go bus to Peidras Negros. A man, a coyote, I pay him one thousand to go United Stays.”
“A thousand dollars to take you to the United States?” Judy was getting the hang of her accent.
“Yes. Today, is four thousand.” Iris’s dark eyes widened at the sum.
“When did you come?”
“Four.”
“Four years ago?”
“I have water, beans, tuna, food with cans, on back.” Iris gestured to her back, indicating a backpack. “Is so hot, we no have water lef’. We see farm with pig, many pig. We are happy, so happy. We drink from water. We fill bottle.”
“You drank the water for the pigs? From a trough?” Judy’s stomach turned over.
“Pera we see, in sun, water so dirty.” Iris wrinkled her flattish nose in disgust and pantomimed holding up a bottle of water to the sun. “In water, is germ. I am sick, so sick.”
“Oh no.”
“I have my teacher. I use my teacher.”
“Your teacher?” Judy didn’t understand. “Like your leader? Was there a leader?”
“No. Teacher.” Iris pulled on her T-shirt and picked up a glass, and put her shirt over the top. “I put water on teacher.”
Judy understood. “You used your T-shirt to strain the water?”
“Yes. Yes.”
“Where were you going?”
“Phoenix. We go, we see wire.” Iris pointed up. “We go under to Phoenix.”
“You followed overhead cables to Phoenix, like those big towers?”
“Yes. A lady, she die.” Iris winced again. “No water, she die. We go, go, go. We no stop.”
“That’s horrible,” Judy said, meaning it. “You must have been so afraid.”
“Yes. Sad. Worry. Nervous,” Iris added, pronouncing it like nairbus.
“How did you get here, to Pennsylvania?”
“A man, in car, he take us. Five day. Chicago, Las Vegas, Florida, North Carolina.” Iris mangled the phrase North Carolina, but Judy got the idea.
“Why did you come?”
“A man say work is here, in Pennsylvania.” Iris pronounced it Pennsylvania, with a short a.
“What do you do here?” Judy asked, but suddenly Iris’s cell phone on the table rang.
“’Scuse.” Iris picked it up and checked it, but her expression changed dramatically. She didn’t answer the phone, pressing her lips together tightly, and her forehead wrinkled with concern.
Aunt Barb asked, “Iris, is something the matter? You can take that call if you want to?”
“No, no,” Iris answered, but she was obviously worried and the phone went silent. She jumped to her feet and hoisted her tote bag to her shoulder. “Barb, I go work now.”
Aunt Barb blinked. “But you don’t have to be there until three thirty. It’s only two, isn’t it?”
“I go, Barb.” Iris forced a jittery smile and waved at the table, backing away. “Bye, nice meetin’ you.”
“You, too!” Judy gave her a wave, wondering what was bothering her.
“Good-bye!” Aunt Barb called after her. “Let me know if you need anything or if I can help.”
“Bye-bye!” Iris turned and hurried from the backyard, and Judy waited until Iris was gone to turn to her mother.
“What a story, huh, Mom?”
Judy’s mother answered, “She’s illegal.”
“Undocumented,” Aunt Barb corrected, bristling.
“Semantics.” Judy’s mother scoffed. “You can go to jail for employing an illegal. I know, I looked it up online.”
“Aunt Barb, Iris works for you?” Judy asked, newly confused. She had assumed that Iris was her aunt’s friend, not hired help. Her aunt was a landscape architect and didn’t earn that much, and since Uncle Steve’s death, she’d had to sell their big house in Unionville and downsize to the rental she lived in now.
“Yes, she works for me part-time.” Aunt Barb turned to Judy, touching her arm. “Sorry, honey, I kept it private, I guess because of her status. She used to clean houses, but now she works at one of the mushroom growers.”
“How does she work for them if she doesn’t have any papers?” Judy started thinking like a lawyer, an occupational hazard.
“The big mushroom growers like Phillips hire only workers with papers, but some of the independents don’t. There’s a lot of undocumented workers in Chester County, in the mushroom industry and horse farms.”
“When did she start working for you?”
“As long as you’ve known about her.”
“How did you meet her?”
“When your uncle got sick, I hired an agency to clean house and she came, every week. One day she mentioned to me that she could weed for me, too. I hadn’t gotten to it, taking care of your uncle.” Aunt Barb frowned, pained. “I thought that was so nice, that she noticed the garden was being neglected. I hated looking out the window and seeing the weeds popping up. She began to care for it, and she did a wonderful job, and during chemo, she brought me chocolate milkshakes and cheese goldfish because I had a craving for them. There was a time when that was all I could keep down and—”
“She’s not even a nurse,” Judy’s mother interrupted.
“I don’t need a nurse. I just need someone I can rely on.”
Judy’s mother scoffed. “You could have called me, Judy, or any one of your friends from work, like Colleen Connor. We would have helped.”
“Colleen’s busy with young kids, and Iris has become a friend.” Aunt Barb gestured at the platter of chocolate chip cookies. “She baked cookies because she knew I was having my family in. She cares about me.”
Judy’s mother rolled her eyes. “Stop paying her and see how much she cares.”
Aunt Barb pursed her lips. “I pay her, but she cares.”
“She doesn’t pay taxes, none of them do. They burden the system.”
“She’d love to become a citizen, but she can’t. She’s not a political issue, she’s a person.” Aunt Barb raised her voice, though it sounded reedy and thin. “She goes to church every Sunday, and actually, I go with her. I began going when Steve got sick, and it comforted me.”
“What?” Judy’s mother arched an eyebrow. “You go to a Spanish church?”
Judy cringed. “Mom, don’t—”
“Judy, please, stay out of it,” her mother shot back. “This is between Barb and me.”
Judy clammed up, torn between disagreeing with her mother and upsetting her aunt, their sisterly disagreements in the very DNA of sibling rivalry.
Aunt Barb pursed her lips. “Yes, the congregation is mostly Latino, but so what? Both priests, Father Keenan and Father Vega, have welcomed me. They’re kind and wonderful people.”
Judy’s mother frowned. “So you’re not a Protestant anymore? You’re Catholic now?”
“Do you have to label it?” Aunt Barb shot back, angering. “Nothing gets you to church like a cancer diagnosis, and now I have one of my own. Are you seriously blaming me? And why is it any business of yours, how or where I pray? It’s a very vibrant congregation. In fact, they performed 467 baptisms last year, the most in the Archdiocese.”
Judy’s mother pursed her lips. “Sorry if I’m not overjoyed that they have so many children, because they’ll be in the schools, which I’ll have to pay for.”
“That’s not what’s bothering you, Delia. Not really.”
“Of course it is.”
“Bull.” Aunt Barb turned to face Judy, her thin skin mottled with emotion. “Your mother and I had a fight before you came today, because I would like Iris to help me recuperate after my mastectomy. Your mother wants to do it instead, but I think she should go home after the mastectomy.”
Judy’s mother pursed her lips. “Iris isn’t family.”
Aunt Barb frowned. “She’s a friend.”
“Stop saying that. Friends have things in common.”
“We do.” Aunt Barb threw up her hands. “We’re about the same age, both widows, no children, and we love to garden and bake. She’s teaching me Spanish, and I’m teaching her English. We have fun, and I can depend on her.”
Judy’s mother snorted. “You can depend on me, Barb. When have you not been able to depend on me?”
Judy couldn’t take it anymore. “Mom, enough, let’s not fuss. Aunt Barb, I think we can all help, but either way, we should make a truce right here and now. No more quarreling. We need to pull together. Don’t you agree, ladies?”
Judy’s mother fell stone silent.
Aunt Barb only looked worriedly away, where Iris had gone.