The Same Sky: A Novel Page 3

  5

  Carla

  ONE MORNING, MY grandmother didn’t get out of bed. She had been moving slowly for some time, taking frequent naps, but I figured that was just what happened to people as they got old. She still woke each day before the sun, shaking Junior and me awake to serve us tortillas, beans, and hot coffee. (Fried eggs were a thing of the past now that we’d eaten the chickens, and the coffee grew weaker and weaker.) So it was a shock to squint against the rising sun, roll over, and find my grandmother beside me. “Mamita!” I said, shaking her bony shoulder.

  “I’m sorry, my love,” she managed. “I’m going to sleep a little late today.”

  “Are you sick?” I said, good and panicked.

  “I may be sick,” said my grandmother. “I just may be.”

  I sat up, kicking my brother. “Get up, you lazy ass!” I said.

  “What did I do?” said Junior, rubbing his eyes, barely awake but ready to cry. He was a sweet boy, but so sensitive. I worried about what the world held in store for him. It was as if God had sent his brother Carlos to protect him like a suit of armor, but now Carlos was absent, and Junior was soft, exposed.

  “You didn’t do anything,” I said, my fear curdling to anger. “You never do anything! Help our grandmother! Boil some water.”

  “Okay, I will,” whined Junior. As he started the stove, I turned my eyes resolutely away from my grandmother’s wince. I stared at my brother’s American underwear, at the faded image of a dog named Scooby-Doo on his bottom.

  It was a Wednesday, and when my mother called that afternoon, I told her about my grandmother, wrapping the telephone cord around my wrist, watching the street beggars outside the window. “Dios mío,” said my mother. “I should be there to help you, little one. I’m so sorry. And poor Mami …” There was a silence as she gathered herself. Her voice was stronger when she said, “Okay. I’ll send money right away.”

  “Can you come home?” I asked hopelessly.

  “You know I cannot. Listen, I’ll send as much as possible. You have to take her to the hospital. If you must take a taxi, take a taxi. Damn it, Carla.”

  “It’s not my fault!” I said.

  “I know, little one,” my mother said, softening. “I just … I was trying to save money. I’m worn out.”

  I didn’t say anything. I tried to push down my anger, the sense that I had been abandoned, a fledgling left to founder in a disintegrating nest.

  “How is Junior?” asked my mother.

  “He’s fine,” I said, my words coming out frozen as I tried to hide the neediness burning in my stomach.

  “Did you get the T-shirts in the mail?”

  “Sure,” I said. I didn’t go to pick up clothes at the post office anymore. It was too dangerous. A girl with a package was a girl waiting to be robbed. But I didn’t tell my mother this. What was the use in scaring her? I had already tried, and she had not come home.

  “And you are going to school?” said my mother.

  “Sure,” I lied.

  When the money came to the Western Union a day later, Humberto helped me lift my grandmother from the pallet into a taxi. As I stood, feeling helpless, he pulled me toward him. “I’ll stay with Junior,” said Humberto, his voice warm in my ear. Junior, drawing in the mud with a stick, looked up and beamed.

  “Put on some pants!” I told my brother.

  At the hospital, a doctor told me that my grandmother had an infection in her blood. “She needs to stay here, where we can watch over her,” said the doctor. In the hospital hallway, he went on, naming medications she needed. I told the doctor that my mother was in America and would pay for everything. But when he let me into her room, my grandmother had climbed from her metal bed and was sitting in a chair, dressed and ready to go. “Take me home,” she said.

  I explained the doctor’s orders. She shook her head angrily. “They don’t know the first thing,” she said. “I’m fine.” I helped her down the hospital stairs and held her hand, a bouquet of bones. We rode the bus back to the village. I knew she was going to die.

  When my mother called the following week, I told her what had happened. “You must come back,” I said. “You need to buy the medicine and make her take it!” I could hear my mother breathing on the line. “She just stays in bed all day,” I added. “I have to watch Junior and cook … it’s too much, Mami.” I bit my lip, a sob hot in my throat. For a moment, I let myself imagine that she would return. Her arms, her fragrant skin. “Please help me,” I whispered.

  “Oh, Carla,” said my mother. “If I return to Tegu, I’ll lose my job. I might never get back to Texas. What will happen to us then?”

  I told her I was ten years old and I did not know.

  “Please don’t be obnoxious,” she said. She said she would send every cent she could, all her savings, and that it was my job to make my grandmother go back to the hospital. “I know I can count on you,” she said. “You’re my big girl.” When I hung up the phone, I saw that the Call Shop owner was looking at me.

  “Stop complaining, you,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

  I pushed open the door, the air a hot hand over my face, and I began to sprint toward the bridge that would carry me across the river. Past the glue sniffers, past the men in suits, past the buildings that blocked the sky and the graffiti-covered cement walls, past the barbed-wire fences and the skinny dogs, past the women selling their bodies and the women selling tortillas. I ran past the dump and finally reached the small road that led to my house, which—let’s be honest—was a shack. As I approached home at last, my lungs tight and my thigh muscles scorched, I saw Humberto in the yard. My brother Junior was kicking a soccer ball, his face alight.

  “You got him a soccer ball?” I said.

  Humberto smiled.

  My grandmother died that night, before any more money arrived and before I could talk her into anything. Junior and I were sitting next to her on the pallet. Junior was brushing her hair (which she loved, making a cooing sound at the pleasure of the bristles on her scalp) and I was massaging her hands and singing. She had not said much since returning from the hospital, but we knew she loved us. We knew she was worried about us.

  When she stopped breathing, Junior’s whole body shook. “She’s dead!” he cried. “She’s dead!” The words came out of his mouth squashed, as if being stepped on.

  “Calm down, Junior,” I said. “I will take care of you now.”

  “You’re a kid,” he cried.

  I didn’t say anything. Junior was correct.

  When the sun spilled over the hills, sweeping away the menacing shadows, I went to the Western Union. I waited on the long line, avoiding the suspicious stares of the guards with guns. The man behind the bulletproof glass looked worried as he counted out my money: three hundred U.S. dollars. (Not even a fraction of what was needed to pay for a coyote to take me to America!) This was the sum total of my mother’s years of working in the chicken restaurant. She had squirreled away tens and twenties, and now here were her labors being handed to me in crisp lempira bills. The banker sealed the money in an envelope and pushed it underneath the glass. His fingertips brushed mine and he whispered, “Be careful.”

  I tucked the packet in the waistband of my pants and walked out of the city as fast as I was able. It felt as if every hoodlum was watching me, ready to shove me down. Thankfully, I made it home safely. I put most of the bills in the coffee can my grandmother had kept buried underneath our pallet, and then I took Junior to the market and told him to choose anything he wanted. We ate three tortas each. We filled our arms with mangoes, oranges, and cold glass bottles of Fanta.

  For two Wednesdays, I did not go to the Call Shop. I had begged my mother to come, and she had sent money instead. I myself went to Maria Auxiliadora Church and helped organize a funeral that my mother did not attend, paying for my grandmother to be buried next to my grandfather and covering her grave with plastic flowers, the kind that never wilt and never die.

&n
bsp; 6

  Alice

  PRINCIPAL MARKSON CALLED on Thursday and asked if I could come into her office for a meeting. “Alice, I have a proposal,” she said. I wasn’t sure what this meant, and the last thing I wanted was a teaching job, but I agreed to stop by. When I’d served the last quarter pound of meat, I flipped the sign and left Benji in charge of cleanup.

  Feeling satisfied after a hard day’s work, I walked into the blinding sunlight and turned left on East 11th, toward Chávez Memorial High School.

  As hip as it had become, the Eastside was still a rough neighborhood, though that hadn’t hurt Conroe’s any. But it was one thing to drive to a dodgy part of town for brisket and another to spend your childhood in these streets. As I walked the three blocks to Principal Markson’s school, I noticed yards containing broken toys and cars on cement blocks. In an alley, a group of young men huddled together, glancing up at me with cold eyes. A block later, a small boy with a fat face waved from behind the iron bars that covered his front window. I waved back.

  Chávez Memorial was a faded brick building that could have housed a prison or a hospital. The parking lot was filled with late-model cars, some with metal panels that didn’t match. One Honda had a blue body and two tan doors; its bumper sticker read, “Proud to Be a Johnson High School Sophomore!”

  Through wire fencing, I could see a dusty track and a set of bleachers on which a motley crew of boys sat and smoked cigarettes. A clump of girls stood underneath an oak tree, gesticulating wildly. Teenagers—their deep emotions, their unpredictability, the possibility that they could be armed—made me uneasy.

  A large rectangle had been freshly painted on the front of the building to announce, “Chávez Memorial High School at the Johnson High School Campus.” In front of the school, a six-foot marble block was ringed by stone benches that looked as if they’d been stolen from a graveyard.

  I walked to the front door (I had never been inside) and pulled. The door was locked, so I pressed a red buzzer. Nothing happened. A police cruiser drove toward me, and when the window slid down, I saw that the driver was Officer Grupo, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses.

  “Hey,” I said, squinting. “Principal Markson told me to come by. It’s locked.”

  Grupo nodded, opened his door, and climbed out without turning off the engine. He carried the cool of his air-conditioned car in the folds of his uniform, and I had to stop myself from leaning toward him. He punched a code into the keypad. “Can’t be too safe these days,” he said.

  “Jesus,” I said unthinkingly. “This seems a bit much.”

  “A bit much?” said Grupo, his words clipped short, as if by wire cutters. I turned toward him but saw only my flushed face in his glasses. He was white, about my age, with hair so light I could see his scalp. Despite his brash personality, there was a sweetness in him. He’d once given a Valentine—an actual paper card with a teddy bear holding a heart-shaped balloon on it—to Samit, who worked at Conroe’s. I’d asked her if she was dating Grupo, and she said he kept asking, but she kept saying no. When I asked why, she’d held up her hands and said, “No chemistry. And even though he’s tall, he’s kinda … puny. You know?”

  Strangely, I understood what she was talking about. He was muscled, but defensively so, as if he was waiting to be beaten up by bullies.

  “Three Chávez kids have been shot this year,” said Grupo, putting his hands on his hips. “One right here in this parking lot.”

  “Oh my God,” I said. Somehow when I’d thought about the gunshots I heard at night, I had connected them to “bad guys,” thugs—not schoolchildren. I felt a sour shame in my stomach, suddenly embarrassed by my protected life, the attention Jake and I paid to barbecue.

  “You know about walking the line?” Grupo said.

  “You’re not referencing Johnny Cash, I assume?” I tried to joke.

  “It’s a gang initiation. A kid walks along the line of members, and each beats the shit out of the new guy. He can’t fight back. If he lives, he’s in.”

  “And they don’t all …,” I said, my mouth growing dry.

  “Nope,” said Grupo. “They do not. Anyways, have a good one,” he said, walking back to his cruiser.

  I stood outside the high school for a moment, letting Grupo’s words seep in. I had seen the Chávez kids in Conroe’s, after all, ordering sandwiches and Cokes, shoving each other, laughing. I felt for them—their preening, their acne-covered, animated faces. Christ, it had been hard to be a teenager in rural Colorado. It seemed so unfair that Markson’s students had to worry not just about puberty and loneliness but also about guns and gang initiations.

  Unnerved, I yanked open the door and stepped inside Chávez Memorial. The air was tepid, and on either side of me, rows of metal lockers stretched along a dim hallway. The school year was almost over: a banner reading “Have a Safe and Happy Summer!” hung over a suite of rooms marked “Principal.” I entered and asked an administrator for Principal Markson. She came out in a green pantsuit, rubbing lotion on her hands, greeting me with a gay “Hello there, Mrs. Conroe!” As we entered her office, we passed two sullen girls sitting on folding chairs. One looked about six months pregnant, and (as always) I felt a twinge of anger and loss. I wrenched my gaze from the girl’s belly. “I’ll be with you ladies shortly,” said Principal Markson.

  The girls watched us, expressionless. Framed by Markson’s doorway, they were a portrait of young misery. And then the principal shut her door. “What have they done?” I asked.

  “Who knows?” she answered, sighing, settling in behind a wide desk anchored by a dusty Dell Inspiron computer. “Drugs, bad attitude, backtalk …” She ticked off possible infractions. “Knives, guns, hooliganism …”

  “Hooliganism,” I murmured. The word seemed a relic from an easier time.

  “Anything is possible,” said Principal Markson flatly.

  “Oh,” I said. It was true that I’d usually cross the street when I saw a group of Chávez kids, but I’d never examined why. Some of the kids, who wore hooded sweatshirts and called to each other with deafening shrieks, did seem capable of anything.

  “Which brings me to why I’ve asked you in,” said Principal Markson.

  “Yes?” I said. The office was small, with a view of the front parking lot. Markson, who was single (as far as I knew), had a wall of photographs behind her: hundreds of kids’ school portraits, Christmas cards, shots of choral concerts and sporting events.

  “First of all,” said Principal Markson, “are you okay?”

  “What?” I said.

  “Losing the baby … that must have been quite a blow. I was surprised you two didn’t take some time off.”

  “Time off?” I repeated dumbly.

  She folded her hands in her lap and watched me. But I didn’t want to sink into the grief. Jake kept bringing it up, how sad he was, how disappointed, wanting to commiserate and mope, but I was stronger than that. I knew that the only way to handle sadness was to push the fuck on through. “I’m pretty busy,” I said. “Let’s move on.”

  Principal Markson looked surprised, but pursed her lips and nodded.

  “Okay.” She took a breath. “Okay. We’re getting our budget cut next year. If, of course, they don’t close us down, but that’s another issue for another day.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. Did she want Jake and me to donate money to the school? If so, she was in for a letdown. Our failed insemination efforts had emptied our savings, and even though Conroe’s was doing well, we had little to spare.

  “One of the positions we’ll be losing is the full-time school psychologist. Juliet Swann—do you know her?”

  I shook my head.

  “She might be a vegetarian, now that I think of it,” said Principal Markson. “Or a vegan? Not sure. There’s usually a big yogurt labeled with her name in the staff refrigerator.…”

  “Well, that would explain it,” I said. There was an awkward pause. “I’m sorry,” I ventured. “But what does a
ny of this have to do with me?”

  Principal Markson clasped her hands. She paused, then said, “Look. There are some kids here in real trouble. They don’t have guidance at home, and now they’re not going to have as much guidance here. I’m reaching out to members of the community I think could be good role models. I’m hoping to create a Big Brother/Big Sister type of network, a way for adults to help at-risk kids at Chávez. Maybe eat lunch with them once a week, assist them with homework …”

  “Oh, Principal Markson,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

  “One girl I had in mind is Evian. Her mother is … let’s just say inconsistent. Her father’s out of the picture, and last year … well, she shot and killed her little brother. By mistake.”

  My hand flew to my mouth. “Oh, no,” I said.

  “It was ruled an accident,” said Principal Markson. “Her mother wasn’t home. Evian called 911 herself and waited with her brother. He bled to death. She was showing him the gun, she said. It belonged to Evian’s mother.”

  I said nothing. My stomach churned and I wanted to get up and leave the room.

  “Evian transferred from Travis, to get a new start. But she often skips school,” said Principal Markson. “There’s no one to keep an eye on her, check in. She’s depressed, most likely, and who knows what else. She doesn’t have anyone. No one. I know you’re busy, Alice, I do. But I just thought I’d ask. If you could just have lunch with Evian once a month? Just come to the cafeteria and sit with her for twenty minutes. I wouldn’t ask if I had … other resources.”

  “Lunch is a busy time,” I said.

  Principal Markson stood. “I understand. I hope you don’t mind my giving this a shot. I’ve got a list of kids like Evian, and I’m just trying to do what I can to help them.”

  I nodded, standing. Principal Markson smiled as I departed, but I could see exhaustion etched into her features. “Have a good one,” she said, echoing Officer Grupo’s salutation.