[Part 4] "Esperanza Rising" by Pam Muñoz Ryan
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CHAPTER XI. LOS AGUACATES AVOCADOS
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Esperanza’s breath made smoky vapors in front of her face as she waited for the truck to take her to tie grapevines.
She shifted from foot to foot and clapped her gloved hands together and wondered what was so new about the New Year.
It already seemed old, with the same routines.
She worked during the week.
She helped Hortensia cook dinner in the late afternoons.
In the evenings she helped Josefina with the babies and Isabel with her homework.
She went to see Mama on Saturdays and Sundays.
She huddled in the field near a smudge pot to keep warm and mentally counted the money she would need to bring Abuelita here.
Every other week, with the small amounts she saved, she bought a money order from the market and put it in her valise.
She figured that if she kept working until peaches, she would have enough for Abuelita’s travel.
Her problem then would be how to reach Abuelita.
The men went down the rows first, pruning the thick grapevines and leaving a few long branches or “canes” on each trunk.
She followed, along with others, and tied the canes on the taut wire that was stretched post to post.
She ached from the cold and had to keep moving all day long to stay warm.
That night, as she soaked her hands in warm water, she realized that she no longer recognized them as her own.
Cut and scarred, swollen and stiff, they looked like the hands of a very old man.
“Are you sure this will work?” asked Esperanza, as she watched Hortensia cut a ripe avocado in half.
“Of course,” said Hortensia, removing the big pit and leaving a hole in the heart of the fruit.
She scooped out the pulp, mashed it on a plate, and added some glycerine.
“You have seen me make this for your mother many times.
We are lucky to have the avocados this time of year.
Some friends of Josefina brought them from Los Angeles.”
Hortensia rubbed the avocado mixture into Esperanza’s hands.
“You must keep it on for twenty minutes so your hands will soak up the oils.”
Esperanza looked at her hands covered in the greasy green lotion and remembered when Mama used to sit like this, after a long day of gardening or after horseback rides with Papa through the dry mesquite grasslands.
When she was a little girl, she had laughed at Mama’s hands covered in what looked like guacamole.
But she had loved for her to rinse them because afterward, Esperanza would take Mama’s hands and put the palms on her own face so she could feel their suppleness and breathe in the fresh smell.
Esperanza was surprised at the simple things she missed about Mama.
She missed her way of walking into a room, graceful and regal.
She missed watching her hands crocheting, her fingers moving nimbly.
And most of all, she longed for the sound of Mama’s strong and assured laughter.
She put her hands under the faucet, rinsed off the avocado, and patted them dry.
They felt better, but still looked red and weathered.
She took another avocado, cut it in half, swung the knife into the pit and pulled it from the flesh.
She repeated Hortensia’s recipe and as she sat for the second time with her hands smothered, she realized that it wouldn’t matter how much avocado and glycerine she put on them, they would never look like the hands of a wealthy woman from El Rancho de las Rosas.
Because they were the hands of a poor campesina.
********
It was at the end of grape-tying when the doctor stopped Esperanza and Miguel in the hallway of the hospital before they could reach Mama’s room.
“I asked the nurses to alert me when they saw you coming.
I’m sorry to tell you that your mother has pneumonia.”
“How can that be?” said Esperanza, her hands beginning to shake as she stared at the doctor.
“I thought she was getting better.”
“This disease, Valley Fever, makes the body tired and susceptible to other infections.
We are treating her with medications.
She is weak.
I know this is hard for you, but we’d like to ask that she have no visitors for at least a month, maybe longer.
We can’t take a chance that she will contract another infection from any outside germs that might be brought into the hospital.”
“Can I see her, just for a few moments?”
The doctor hesitated, then nodded, and walked away.
Esperanza hurried to Mama’s bed and Miguel followed.
Esperanza couldn’t imagine not seeing her for so many weeks.
“Mama,” said Esperanza.
Mama slowly opened her eyes and gave Esperanza the smallest smile.
She was thin and frail.
Her hair was strewn and bedraggled.
And her face was so white that it seemed to fade into the sheets, as if she would sink into the bed and disappear forever.
Mama looked like a ghost of herself.
“The doctor said I can’t come to visit for a while.”
Mama nodded, her eyelids slowly falling back down, as if it had been a burden to keep them up.
Esperanza felt Miguel’s hand on her shoulder.
“Anza, we should go,” he said.
But Esperanza would not move.
She wanted to do something for Mama to help make her better.
She noticed the brush and hairpins on the bedside table.
She carefully rolled Mama on her side and gathered all of her hair together.
She brushed it and plaited it into a long braid.
Wrapping it around Mama’s head, she gently pinned it into place.
Then she helped Mama lie on her back, her hair now framing her face against the white linens, like a braided halo.
Like she used to wear it, in Aguascalientes.
Esperanza bent down close to Mama’s ear.
“Don’t worry, Mama.
Remember, I will take care of everything.
I am working and I can pay the bills.
I love you.”
Mama said softly, “I love you, too.”
And as Esperanza turned to leave, she heard Mama whisper, “No matter what happens.”
********
“You need to get away from the camp, Esperanza,” said Hortensia as she handed her the grocery list and asked her to go to the market with Miguel.
“It is the first of spring and it’s beautiful outside.”
“I thought you and Josefina always looked forward to marketing on Saturday,” said Esperanza.
“We do, but today we are helping Melina and Irene make enchiladas.
Could you go for us?”
Esperanza knew they were trying to keep her occupied.
Mama had been in the hospital for three months and Esperanza hadn’t been allowed to visit for several weeks.
Since then, Esperanza hadn’t been acting like herself.
She went through the motions of living.
She was polite enough, answering everyone’s questions with the simplest answers, but she was tormented by Mama’s absence.
Papa, Abuelita, Mama.
Who would be next?
She crawled into bed as early as possible each night, curled her body into a tight ball, and didn’t move until morning.
She knew Josefina and Hortensia were worried about her.
She nodded to Hortensia, took the list, and went to find Miguel.
“Be sure you tell Miguel to go to Mr. Yakota’s market!” Hortensia called after her.
Hortensia had been right about the weather.
The fog and grayness had gone.
The valley air was crisp and clean from recent rains.
They drove along fields of tall, feathery asparagus plants that she would soon be packing.
Citrus groves displayed their leftover fruit like decorations on Christmas trees.
And even though it was still cool, there was an expectancy that Esperanza could smell, a rich loamy odor that promised spring.
“Miguel, why must we always drive so far to shop at the Japanese market when there are other stores closer to Arvin?”
“Some of the other market owners aren’t as kind to Mexicans as Mr. Yakota,” said Miguel.
“He stocks many of the things we need and he treats us like people.”
“What do you mean?”
“Esperanza, people here think that all Mexicans are alike.
They think that we are all uneducated, dirty, poor, and unskilled.
It does not occur to them that many have been trained in professions in Mexico.”
Esperanza looked down at her clothes.
She wore a shirtwaist dress that used to be Mama’s and before that, someone else’s.
Over the dress was a man’s sweater with several buttons missing, which was also too big.
She leaned up and looked in the mirror.
Her face was tanned from the weeks in the fields, and she had taken to wearing her hair in a long braid like Hortensia’s because Mama had been right — it was more practical that way.
“Miguel, how could anyone look at me and think I was uneducated?”
He smiled at her joke.
“The fact remains, Esperanza, that you, for instance, have a better education than most people’s children in this country.
But no one is likely to recognize that or take the time to learn it.
Americans see us as one big, brown group who are good for only manual labor.
At this market, no one stares at us or treats us like outsiders or calls us ‘dirty greasers.’
My father says that Mr. Yakota is a very smart businessman.
He is getting rich on other people’s bad manners.”
Miguel’s explanation was familiar.
Esperanza’s contact with Americans outside the camp had been limited to the doctor and the nurses at the hospital, but she had heard stories from others about how they were treated.
There were special sections at the movie theater for Negroes and Mexicans.
In town, parents did not want their children going to the same schools with Mexicans.
Living away from town in the company camp had its advantages, she decided.
The children all went to school together: white, Mexican, Japanese, Chinese, Filipino.
It didn’t seem to matter to anyone because they were all poor.
Sometimes she felt as if she lived in a cocoon, protected from much of the indignation.
Miguel pulled the truck into the parking lot at the market.
“I’ll meet you.
I’m going to talk about railroad jobs with those men gathered on the corner.”
Esperanza went inside.
Mr. Yakota was from Tokyo and the store had all sorts of Japanese cooking ingredients like seaweed and ginger, and a fresh fish counter with fish that still had their heads.
But there were Mexican products, too, like masa de harina for tamales, chiles for salsa, and big bags of dried beans for frijoles.
There was even cow’s intestine in the meat case for menudo.
And other specialties, like chorizo and pigs’ feet.
Esperanza’s favorite part of the store was the ceiling that was crowded with a peculiar combination of Japanese paper lanterns and piñatas shaped like stars and donkeys.
There was a small tissue donkey that Esperanza had not noticed before.
It was like the one Mama had bought her a few years ago.
Esperanza had thought it so cute that she had refused to break it, even though it had been filled with sweets.
Instead, she had hung it in her room above her bed.
A clerk walked by and impulsively, she pointed to the miniature piñata.
“Por favor,” she said.
“Please.”
She bought the other things she needed, including another money order.
That was one more benefit of Mr. Yakota’s market: She could buy money orders there.
She was waiting in the truck when Miguel came back.
“Another money order?
What do you do with them all?” asked Miguel.
“I save them in my valise.
They are for such small amounts but together, they’ll be enough to someday bring Abuelita here.”
“And the piñata?
It’s not anyone’s birthday.”
“I bought it for Mama.
I’m going to ask the nurses to put it near her bed, so she’ll know that I’m thinking of her.
We can stop by the hospital on the way back.
Will you cut a hole in the top for me so I can put the caramels inside?
The nurses can eat them.”
He took out his pocket knife and made an opening in the piñata.
While Miguel drove, Esperanza began feeding in the caramels.
Not far down the main road, they approached an almond grove, the trees flush with gray-green leaves and white blossoms.
Esperanza noticed a girl and a woman walking hand in hand, each with a grocery bag in her other arm.
She couldn’t help but think what a nice scene it made, with the two women framed against so many spring blossoms.
Esperanza recognized one of them.
“I think that is Marta.”
Miguel stopped the truck, then slowly backed up.
“We should give her a ride.”
Esperanza reluctantly nodded, remembering the last time they’d given her a lift, but she opened the door.
“Esperanza and Miguel, que buena suerte.
What good luck,” said Marta.
“This is my mother, Ada.
Thanks for the ride.”
Marta’s mother had the same short, curly black hair but hers was sprinkled with gray.
Miguel got out and put all the groceries in the truck bed so they could sit in the front.
Ada said, “I heard about your mother and I’ve been praying for her.”
Esperanza was surprised and touched.
“Thank you, I’m grateful.”
“Are you coming to our camp?” asked Miguel.
“No,” said Marta.
“As you probably know, I’m not welcome there.
We’re going a mile or so up the road to the strikers’ farm.
We were tossed out of the migrant workers’ camp and were told either to go back to work or leave.
So we left.
We aren’t going to work under those disgusting conditions and for those pitiful wages.”
Ada was quiet and nodded when Marta talked about the strike.
Esperanza felt a twinge of envy when she noticed that Marta never let go of her mother’s hand.
“There are hundreds of us together at this farm, but thousands around the county and more people join our cause each day.
You are new here, but in time, you’ll understand what we’re trying to change.
Turn left,” she said, pointing to a dirt road rutted with tire marks.
Miguel turned down the path bordered in cotton fields.
Finally, they reached several acres of land surrounded by chain-link fencing and barbed wire, its single opening guarded by several men wearing armbands.
“Aquí.
Right here,” said Ada.
“What are the guards for?” asked Esperanza.
“They’re for protection,” said Marta.
“The farmer who owns the land is sympathetic to us but a lot of people don’t like the strikers causing trouble.
We’ve had threats.
The men take turns at the entrance.”
Miguel pulled the truck to the side of the road and stopped.
There were only ten wooden toilet stalls for hundreds of people and Esperanza could smell the effects from the truck.
Some people lived in tents but others had only burlap bags stretched between poles.
Some were living in their cars or old trucks.
Mattresses were on the ground, where people and dogs rested.
A goat was tied to a tree.
There was a long pipe that lay on top of the ground and a line of water spigots sticking up from it.
Near each spigot were pots and pans and campfire rings, the makings of outdoor kitchens.
In an irrigation ditch, women were washing clothes, and children were bathing at the same time.
Clotheslines ran everywhere.
It was a great jumble of humanity and confusion.
Esperanza could not stop looking.
She felt hypnotized by the squalor but Marta and her mother didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed.
“Home, sweet home,” said Marta.
They all climbed out of the truck, but before Marta and Ada could retrieve their groceries, a campesino family coming from the opposite direction approached them.
The children were dirty and skinny and the mother held an infant, who was crying.
“Do you have food so that I can feed my family?” said the father.
“We were thrown out of our camp because I was striking.
My family has not eaten in two days.
There are too many people coming into the valley each day who will work for pennies.
Yesterday I worked all day and made less than fifty cents and I cannot buy food for one day with that.
I was hoping that here, with others who have been through the same …”
“You are welcome here,” said Ada.
Esperanza reached into the truck bed and opened the large bag of beans.
“Hand me your hat, Señor.”
The man handed over his large sun hat and she filled it with the dried beans, then gave it back to him.
“Gracias, gracias,” he said.
Esperanza looked at the two older children, their eyes watery and vacant.
She lifted the piñata and held it out to them.
They said nothing but hurried toward her, took it, and ran back to their family.
Marta looked at her.
“Are you sure you aren’t already on our side?”
Esperanza shook her head.
“They were hungry, that’s all.
Even if I believed in what you are doing, I must take care of my mother.”
Ada put her hand on Esperanza’s arm and smiled.
“We all do what we have to do.
Your mother would be proud of you.”
Miguel handed them their bags, and they walked toward the farmer’s field.
Before they reached the gate, Marta suddenly turned and said, “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the strikers are more organized than they appear.
In a few weeks, during asparagus, things are going to happen all over the county.
We’re going to shut down everything, the fields, the sheds, the railroad.
If you have not joined us by then, be very careful.”
Then she hurried to catch up with her mother.
As Miguel and Esperanza rode back to Arvin, neither of them said a word for many miles.
Marta’s threat and the guilt of having a job weighed heavily on Esperanza’s mind.
“Do you think they are right?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Miguel.
“What the man said is true.
I have heard that there will be ten times the people here looking for jobs in the next few months, from Oklahoma, Arkansas, Texas, and other places, too.
And that they are poor people like us, who need to feed their families, too.
If so many come and are willing to work for pennies, what will happen to us?
But until then, with so many joining the strikes, I might be able to get a job at the railroad.”
Esperanza’s mind wrestled with Miguel’s words.
For him, the strike was an opportunity to work at the job he loved and to make it in this country, but for her, it was a threat to her finances, Abuelita’s arrival, and Mama’s recuperation.
Then there was the matter of her own safety.
She thought of Mama and Abuelita, and she knew there was only one thing for her to do.
********
Esperanza studied her hands a few nights later as she walked toward the cabin and hoped Hortensia had a few more avocados.
It was later than usual.
She had been weeding asparagus in a far field so she had been on the last truck.
When she arrived at the cabin, everyone was crowded around the small table.
There were fresh tortillas on a plate and Hortensia was stirring a pan of machaca, scrambled eggs with shredded meat, onions, and peppers.
It was Miguel’s favorite but they usually ate it for breakfast.
“What is the occasion?” asked Esperanza.
“I got a job in the machine shop at the railroad.”
“Oh, Miguel!
That’s good news!”
“So many railroad workers have joined the strikers.
I know it might be temporary but if I do a good job, maybe they will keep me.”
“That is right,” said Alfonso.
“You do good work.
They will see it.
They will keep you.”
Esperanza sat down and listened to Miguel tell the others about the job, but she wasn’t hearing his words.
She was seeing his eyes, dancing like Papa’s when he used to talk about the land.
She watched Miguel’s animated face, thinking that at last, his dream was coming true.
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CHAPTER XII. LOS ESPÁRRAGOS ASPARAGUS
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Marta was right.
The strikers were more organized than ever.
They handed out flyers in front of every store.
They painted the sides of old barns with their slogans and held big meetings at the farm.
For those who continued to work, there were still jobs, but Esperanza could hear the tightness and worry in her neighbors’ voices.
She worried, too, about what would happen if she didn’t have a job.
Asparagus would be a long season, sometimes up to ten weeks.
But it had to be picked before the high temperatures touched the valley in June.
The strikers knew that if they could slow down the workers, it would affect the growers, so when the tender stalks were ready, the strikers were ready, too.
Esperanza got on the flatbed truck with Hortensia and Josefina for the first day of packing.
The company had sent a man with a gun to ride on the truck with them, for protection they said, but the gun frightened Esperanza.
When they arrived at the sheds, a crowd of women erupted into shouting and booing.
They carried signs that said, “¡Huelga!
Strike!” Among them were Marta and her friends.
And they were yelling.
“Help us feed our children!”
“We must all join together if we are all to eat!”
“Save your countrymen from starving!”
When Esperanza saw their menacing faces, she wanted to run back to the safety of the camp, do laundry, clean diapers, anything but this.
She wanted to tell them that her mother was sick.
That she had to pay the bills.
She wanted to explain to them about Abuelita and how she had to find a way to get some money to her so she could travel.
Then maybe they’d understand why she needed her job.
She wanted to tell them that she did not want anyone’s children to starve.
But she knew it would not matter.
The strikers only listened if you agreed with them.
She reached for Hortensia’s hand and pulled her close.
Josefina marched toward the shed, looking straight ahead.
Hortensia and Esperanza stayed close behind, never letting go of each other.
One of the women from their camp called out.
“We make less money packing asparagus than you do when you pick cotton.
Leave us alone.
Our children are hungry, too.”
When the guard wasn’t looking, one of the strikers picked up a rock and threw it at the woman, barely missing her head, and the workers all hurried toward the shed.
The strikers stayed near the road, but Esperanza’s heart was still beating wildly as she and the women took their places to pack the asparagus.
All day, as she sorted and bundled the delicate spears, she heard their chanting and their threats.
That night at dinner Alfonso and Juan told how they had the same problems in the fields.
Strikers waited for them and they had to cross picket lines to get to work.
Once in the fields, they were safe, protected by guards the company had sent.
But the lugs of asparagus that were sent back to the sheds had to be taken across the picket lines and the strikers often slipped surprises beneath the harvest.
The strike continued for days.
One afternoon, as Josefina took a handful of asparagus from a crate, a large rat jumped out at her.
A few days later, Esperanza heard a terrible scream from one of the women and several writhing gopher snakes slithered out of a crate.
They found razor blades and shards of glass in the field bins and the women, usually efficient and quick to unpack the asparagus, slowed down and were hesitant to grab the vegetables from their boxes.
When several of them heard a rattling from beneath a pile of stalks, the supervisors took the entire crate out to the yard, dumped it, and found an angry rattlesnake inside.
“It was a miracle that no one was bitten by that snake,” said Hortensia that night at dinner.
They were all gathered in one cabin, eating caldo de albóndigas, meatball soup.
“Did you see it?” asked Isabel.
“Yes,” said Esperanza.
“We all saw it.
It was frightening but the supervisor cut its head off with the hoe.”
Isabel cringed.
“Can’t they do anything to the strikers?” asked Hortensia.
“It’s a free country,” said Miguel.
“Besides, the strikers are careful.
As long as they stay near the road and the guards don’t actually see them do anything aggressive, then no, there’s not much anyone can do.
It’s the same at the railroad.
I pass the picket lines every day, and listen to the yelling and the insults.”
“It’s the yelling all day long that bothers me,” said Hortensia.
“Remember, do not respond to them,” said Alfonso.
“Things will get better.”
“Papa,” said Miguel.
“Things will get worse.
Have you seen the cars and trucks coming through the pass in the mountains?
Every day, more and more people.
Some of them say they will pick cotton for five and six cents a pound, and will pick produce for less.
People cannot survive on such low wages.”
“Where will it end?” said Josefina.
“Everyone will starve if people work for less and less money.”
“That is the strikers’ point,” said Esperanza.
No one said anything.
Forks clinked on the plates.
Pepe, who was sitting in Esperanza’s lap, dropped a meatball on the floor.
“Are we going to starve?” asked Isabel.
“No, mija,” said Josefina.
“How could anyone starve here with so much food around us?”
********
Esperanza had grown so accustomed to the strikers’ chanting while she packed asparagus that the moment it stopped, she looked up from her work as if something was wrong.
“Hortensia, do you hear that?”
“What?”
“The silence.
There is no more yelling.”
The other women on the line looked at each other.
They couldn’t see the street from where they stood so they moved to the other end of the shed, cautiously looking out to where the strikers usually stood.
In the distance, a caravan of gray buses and police cars headed fast toward the shed, dust flying in their wakes.
“Immigration!” said Josefina.
“It is a sweep.”
The picket signs lay on the ground, discarded, and like a mass of marbles that had already been hit, the strikers scattered into the fields and toward the boxcars on the tracks, anywhere they could hide.
The buses and cars screeched to a stop and immigration officials and police carrying clubs jumped out and ran after them.
The women in the packing shed huddled together, protected by the company’s guard.
“What about us?” said Esperanza, her eyes riveted on the guards who caught the strikers and shoved them back toward the buses.
They would surely come into the shed next with so many Mexicans working here.
Her fingers desperately clenched Hortensia’s arm.
“I cannot leave Mama.”
Hortensia heard the panic in her voice.
“No, no, Esperanza.
They are not here for us.
The growers need the workers.
That is why the company guards us.”
Several immigration officials accompanied by police began searching the platform, turning over boxes and dumping out field bins.
Hortensia was right.
They ignored the workers in their stained aprons, their hands still holding the green asparagus.
Finding no strikers on the dock, they jumped back down and hurried to where a crowd was being loaded onto the buses.
“¡Americana!
¡Americana!” yelled one woman and she began to unfold some papers.
One of the officials took the papers from her hand and tore them into pieces.
“Get on the bus,” he ordered.
“What will they do with them?” asked Esperanza.
“They will take them to Los Angeles, and put them on the train to El Paso, Texas, and then to Mexico,” said Josefina.
“But some of them are citizens,” said Esperanza.
“It doesn’t matter.
They are causing problems for the government.
They are talking about forming a farm workers’ union and the government and the growers don’t like that.”
“What about their families?
How will they know?”
“Word gets out.
It is sad.
They leave the buses parked at the station until late at night with those they captured on board.
Families don’t want to be separated from their loved ones and usually go with them.
That is the idea.
They call it a voluntary deportation.
But it is not much of a choice.”
Two immigration officials positioned themselves in front of the shed.
The others left on the buses.
Esperanza and the other women watched the despondent faces in the windows disappear.
Slowly, the women reassembled on the line and began to pack again.
It had all lasted only a few minutes.
“What happens now?” asked Esperanza.
“La Migra will keep their eyes open for any strikers that might be back,” said Josefina, nodding toward the two men stationed nearby.
“And we go back to work and feel thankful it is not us on that bus.”
Esperanza took a deep breath and went back to her spot.
She was relieved, but still imagined the anguish of the strikers.
Troubled thoughts stayed in her mind.
Something seemed very wrong about sending people away from their own “free country” because they had spoken their minds.
She noticed she needed more bands to wrap around the asparagus bundles and walked to the back of the dock to get them.
Within a maze of tall crates, she searched for the thick rubber bands.
Some of the boxes had been tossed over by the immigration officials and as she bent down to set one straight, she sucked in her breath, startled by what was in front of her.
Marta was huddled in a corner, holding her finger to her lips, her eyes begging for help.
She whispered, “Please, Esperanza.
Don’t tell.
I can’t get caught.
I must take care of my mother.”
Esperanza stood frozen for a moment, remembering Marta’s meanness that first day in the truck.
If she helped her and someone found out, Esperanza would be on the next bus herself.
She couldn’t risk it and started to say no.
But then she thought about Marta and her mother holding hands, and couldn’t imagine them being separated from each other.
And besides, they were both citizens.
They had every right to be here.
She turned around and headed back to where the others were working.
No one paid any attention to her.
They were all busy talking about the sweep.
She picked up a bundle of asparagus, several burlap sacks from a stack, and a dirty apron that someone had left on a hook.
She quietly wandered back to Marta’s hiding place.
“La Migra is still out front,” she said in a hushed voice.
“They will probably leave in an hour when the shed closes.”
She handed the apron and the asparagus to Marta.
“When you leave, put on the apron and carry the asparagus so you’ll look like a worker, just in case anyone stops you.”
“Gracias,” whispered Marta.
“I’m sorry I misjudged you.”
“Shhh,” said Esperanza, repositioning the crates and draping the burlap sacks across their tops so Marta couldn’t be seen.
“Esperanza,” called Josefina, “where are you?
We need the rubber bands.”
Esperanza stuck her head around the corner and saw Josefina with her hands on her hips, waiting.
“Coming,” she called.
She grabbed a bundle of bands and went back to work as if nothing had happened.
********
Esperanza lay in bed that night and listened to the others in the front room talk about the sweeps and the deportations.
“They went to every major grower and put hundreds of strikers on the buses,” said Juan.
“Some say they did it to create more jobs for those coming from the east,” said Josefina.
“We are lucky the company needs us right now.
If they didn’t, we could be next.”
“We have been loyal to the company and the company will be loyal to us!” said Alfonso.
“I’m just glad it’s over,” said Hortensia.
“It is not over,” said Miguel.
“In time, they will be back, especially if they have families here.
They will reorganize and they will be stronger.
There will come a time when we will have to decide all over again whether to join them or not.”
Esperanza tried to go to sleep but the day spun in her mind.
She was glad she had kept working and thankful that her camp had voted not to strike, but she knew that under different circumstances, it could have been her on that bus.
And then what would Mama have done?
Her thoughts jumped back and forth.
Some of those people did not deserve their fate today.
How was it that the United States could send people to Mexico who had never even lived there?
She couldn’t stop thinking about Marta.
It didn’t matter if Esperanza agreed with her cause or not.
No one should have to be separated from her family.
Had Marta made her way back to the strikers’ farm without getting caught?
Had she found her mother?
For some reason, Esperanza had to know.
********
The next morning, she begged Miguel to drive by the farm.
The field was still surrounded by the chain-link fence, but no one was protecting the entrance this time.
All the evidence of people she had seen before was there, but not one person was to be seen.
Laundry waved on the clothesline.
Plates with rice and beans sat on crates and swarmed with busy flies.
Shoes were lined up in front of tents, as if waiting for someone to step into them.
The breeze picked up loose newspapers and floated them across the field.
It was quiet and desolate, except for the goat still tied to the tree, bleating for freedom.
“Immigration has been here, too,” said Miguel.
He got out of the truck, walked over to the tree, and untied the goat.
Esperanza looked out over the field that used to be crawling with people who thought they could change things — who were trying to get the attention of the growers and the government to make conditions better for themselves and for her, too.
More than anything, Esperanza hoped that Marta and her mother were together, but now there would be no way for her to find out.
Maybe Marta’s aunt would hear, eventually.
Something colorful caught her eye.
Dangling from a tree branch were the remnants of the little donkey piñata that she had given the children, its tissue streamers fluttering in the breeze.
It had been beaten with a stick, its insides torn out.
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CHAPTER XIII. LOS DURAZNOS PEACHES
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Now, along with her prayers for Abuelita and Mama, Esperanza prayed for Marta and her mother at the washtub grotto.
Papa’s roses, although still short and squat, had promising tight buds, but they weren’t the only flowers there.
She often found that someone had put a posy of sweet alyssum in front of the statue, or a single iris, or had draped a honeysuckle vine over the top of the tub.
Lately, she had seen Isabel there every evening after dinner, kneeling on the hard ground.
“Isabel, are you saying a novena?” asked Esperanza when she found her at the statue, yet again one night.
“It seems you have been praying for at least nine days.”
Isabel got up from her dedication and looked up at Esperanza.
“I might be Queen of the May.
In two weeks, on May Day, there is a festival at my school and a dance around a pole with colored ribbons.
The teacher will choose the best girl student in the third grade to be queen.
And right now, I am the only one who has straight As.”
“Then it might be you!” said Esperanza.
“My friends told me that it is usually one of the English speakers that is chosen.
The ones who wear nicer dresses.
So I’m going to pray every day.”
Esperanza thought about all the beautiful dresses she had outgrown in Mexico.
How she wished she could have passed them on to Isabel.
Esperanza began to worry that she would be disappointed.
“Well, even if you are not the queen, you will still be a beautiful dancer, right?”
“Oh, but Esperanza.
I want so much to be the queen!
I want to be la reina, like you.”
She laughed.
“But regardless, you will always be our queen.”
Esperanza left her there, devoutly praying, and went into the cabin.
“Has a Mexican girl ever been chosen Queen of the May?” she asked Josefina.
Josefina’s face took on a disappointed look and she silently shook her head no.
“I have asked.
They always find a way to choose a blonde, blue-eyed queen.”
“But that’s not right,” said Esperanza.
“Especially if it is based on grades.”
“There is always a reason.
That is the way it is,” said Josefina.
“Melina told me that last year the Japanese girl had the best marks in the third grade and still they did not choose her.”
“Then what is the point of basing it on marks?” asked Esperanza, knowing there was no answer to her question.
Her heart already ached for Isabel.
********
A week later Esperanza put yet another bundle of asparagus on the table after work.
The tall and feathery asparagus plants seemed to be as unrelenting as Isabel’s desire to be queen.
The workers picked the spears from the fields and a few days later, the same fields had to be picked again because new shoots were already showing their heads.
And Isabel talked of nothing else, except the possibility of wearing the winner’s crown of flowers on her head.
“I hate asparagus,” said Isabel, barely looking up from her homework.
“During grapes, you hate grapes.
During potatoes, you hate potatoes.
And during asparagus, you hate asparagus.
I suppose that during peaches, you will hate peaches.”
Isabel laughed.
“No, I love peaches.”
Hortensia stirred a pot of beans and Esperanza took off the stained apron she wore in the sheds and put on another.
She began measuring the flour to make tortillas.
In a few minutes, she was patting the fresh dough that left her hands looking as if she wore white gloves.
“My teacher will choose the Queen of the May this week,” said Isabel.
Her entire body wiggled with excitement.
“Yes, you have told us,” said Esperanza, teasing her.
“Do you have anything new to tell us?”
“They are making a new camp for people from Oklahoma,” said Isabel.
Esperanza looked at Hortensia.
“Is that true?”
Hortensia nodded.
“They announced it at the camp meeting.
The owner of the farm bought some army barracks from an old military camp and is moving them onto the property not too far from here.”
“They get inside toilets and hot water!
And a swimming pool!” said Isabel.
“Our teacher told us all about it.
And we will all be able to swim in it.”
“One day a week,” said Hortensia, looking at Esperanza.
“The Mexicans can only swim on Friday afternoons, before they clean the pool on Saturday mornings.”
Esperanza pounded the dough a little too hard.
“Do they think we are dirtier than the others?”
Hortensia did not answer but turned to the stove to cook a tortilla on the flat black comal over the flame.
She looked at Esperanza and held her finger to her mouth, signaling her not to discuss too much in front of Isabel.
Miguel walked in, kissed his mother, then picked up a plate and a fresh tortilla and went to the pot of beans.
His clothes were covered in mud that had dried gray.
“How did you get so dirty?” asked Hortensia.
Miguel sat down at the table.
“A group of men showed up from Oklahoma.
They said they would work for half the money and the railroad hired all of them.”
He looked into his plate and shook his head.
“Some of them have never even worked on a motor before.
My boss said that he didn’t need me.
That they were going to train the new men.
He said I could dig ditches or lay tracks if I wanted.”
Esperanza stared at him, her floured hands in midair.
“What did you do?”
“Can you not tell from my clothes?
I dug ditches.”
His voice was sharp but he continued eating, as if nothing were wrong.
“Miguel, how could you agree to such a thing?” said Esperanza.
Miguel raised his voice.
“What would you have me do instead?
I could have walked out.
But I would have no pay for today.
Those men from Oklahoma have families, too.
We must all work at something or we will all starve.”
A temper Esperanza did not recognize raged to the surface.
Then, like the irrigation pipes in the fields when the water is first turned on, her anger burst forth.
“Why didn’t your boss tell the others to dig the ditches?!”
She looked at the dough she was holding in her hand and threw it at the wall.
It stuck for an instant, and then slowly slid down the wall, leaving a darkened trail.
Isabel’s serious eyes darted from Miguel to Esperanza to Hortensia.
“Are we going to starve?”
“No!” they all answered at the same time.
Esperanza’s eyes were on fire.
She stamped out of the cabin, slamming the door, and walked past the mulberry and the chinaberry trees to the vineyard.
She hurried down a row, then cut over to another.
“Esperanza!”
She heard Miguel’s voice in the distance but she didn’t answer.
When she got to the end of one row, she moved up to another.
“Anza!”
She could hear him running down the rows, catching up with her.
She kept her eyes on the tamarisk trees in the far distance and walked faster.
Miguel eventually caught her arm and pulled her around.
“What is the matter with you?”
“Is this the better life that you left Mexico for?
Is it?
Nothing is right here!
Isabel will certainly not be queen no matter how badly she wants it because she is Mexican.
You cannot work on engines because you are Mexican.
We have gone to work through angry crowds of our own people who threw rocks at us, and I’m afraid they might have been right!
They send people back to Mexico even if they don’t belong there, just for speaking up.
We live in a horse stall.
And none of this bothers you?
Have you heard that they are building a new camp for Okies, with a swimming pool?
The Mexicans can only swim in it on the afternoon before they clean it!
Have you heard they will be given inside toilets and hot water?
Why is that, Miguel?
Is it because they are the fairest in the land?
Tell me!
Is this life really better than being a servant in Mexico?”
Miguel looked out over the grapes where the sun set low on the horizon, casting long shadows in the vineyard.
He turned back to her.
“In Mexico, I was a second-class citizen.
I stood on the other side of the river, remember?
And I would have stayed that way my entire life.
At least here, I have a chance, however small, to become more than what I was.
You, obviously, can never understand this because you have never lived without hope.”
She clenched her fists and closed her eyes tight in frustration.
“Miguel, do you not understand?
You are still a second-class citizen because you act like one, letting them take advantage of you like that.
Why don’t you go to your boss and confront him?
Why don’t you speak up for yourself and your talents?”
“You are beginning to sound like the strikers, Esperanza,” said Miguel coldly.
“There is more than one way to get what you want in this country.
Maybe I must be more determined than others to succeed, but I know that it will happen.
Aguántate tantito y la fruta caerá en tu mano.”
The words stopped her as if someone had slapped her face.
Papa’s words: Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand.
But she was tired of waiting.
She was tired of Mama being sick and Abuelita being far away and Papa being dead.
As she thought about Papa, tears sprang from her eyes and she suddenly felt weary, as if she had been clinging to a rope but didn’t have the strength to hold on any longer.
She sobbed with her eyes closed and imagined she was falling, with the wind whooshing past her and nothing but darkness below.
“Anza.”
Could I fall all the way back to Mexico if I never opened my eyes again?
She felt Miguel’s hand on her arm and opened her eyes.
“Anza, everything will work out,” he said.
Esperanza backed away from him and shook her head, “How do you know these things, Miguel?
Do you have some prophecy that I do not?
I have lost everything.
Every single thing and all the things that I was meant to be.
See these perfect rows, Miguel?
They are like what my life would have been.
These rows know where they are going.
Straight ahead.
Now my life is like the zigzag in the blanket on Mama’s bed.
I need to get Abuelita here, but I cannot even send her my pitiful savings for fear my uncles will find out and keep her there forever.
I pay Mama’s medical bills but next month there will be more.
I can’t stand your blind hope.
I don’t want to hear your optimism about this land of possibility when I see no proof!”
“As bad as things are, we have to keep trying.”
“But it does no good!
Look at yourself.
Are you standing on the other side of the river?
No!
You are still a peasant!”
With eyes as hard as green plums, Miguel stared at her and his face contorted into a disgusted grimace.
“And you still think you are a queen.”
********
The next morning, Miguel was gone.
He had told his father he was going to northern California to look for work on the railroad.
Hortensia was confused and worried that he would leave so suddenly, but Alfonso reassured her.
“He is determined.
And he is seventeen now.
He can take care of himself.”
Esperanza was too ashamed to tell anyone what was said in the vineyard and she secretly knew Miguel’s leaving was her fault.
When she saw Hortensia’s anxiety, Esperanza felt the heavy responsibility for his safety.
She went to Papa’s roses and when she saw the first bloom, her heart ached because she wished she could run and tell Miguel.
Please, Our Lady, she prayed, don’t let anything happen to him or I will never be able to forgive myself for the things I said.
********
Esperanza kept her mind off Miguel by working hard and concentrating on Isabel.
When Esperanza saw a lug of early peaches come into the shed, she set aside a bag to bring home to her.
She just had to have them, especially today.
As she walked down the row of cabins after work, she could see Isabel in the distance, waiting for her.
Isabel sat up straight, primly, with her small hands folded in her lap, her eyes searching the row.
When she saw Esperanza, she jumped up and ran toward her.
As she got closer, Esperanza could see the tear streaks on her cheeks.
Isabel threw her arms around Esperanza’s waist.
“I did not win Queen of the May!” she said, sobbing into the folds of her skirt.
“I had the best grades but the teacher said she chose on more than just grades.”
Esperanza wanted desperately to make it up to her.
She picked her up and held her.
“I’m sorry, Isabel.
I’m so sorry that they did not choose you.”
She put her down and took her hand and they walked back to the cabin.
“Have you told the others?
Your mother?”
“No,” she sniffed.
“They are not home yet.
I was supposed to go to Irene and Melina’s but I wanted to wait for you.”
Esperanza took her into the cabin and sat on the bed next to her.
“Isabel, it does not matter who won.
Yes, you would have made a beautiful queen but that would have lasted for only one day.
A day goes by fast, Isabel.
And then it is over.”
Esperanza bent down, pulled her valise from under the bed, and opened it.
The only thing left inside was the porcelain doll.
She had shown it to Isabel many times, telling her the story of how Papa had given it to her.
Although a little dusty, the doll still looked lovely, its eyes hopeful like Isabel’s usually were.
“I want you to have something that will last more than one day,” said Esperanza.
She lifted the doll from the valise and handed it to Isabel.
“To keep as your own.”
Isabel’s eyes widened.
“Oh n … no, Esperanza,” she said, her voice still shaky and her face wet with tears.
“Your papa gave her to you.”
Esperanza stroked Isabel’s hair.
“Do you think my papa would want her buried inside a valise all this time with no one playing with her?
Look at her.
She must be lonely.
She is even getting dusty!
And look at me.
I am much too old for dolls.
People would make fun of me if I carried her around, and you know how I hate it when people laugh at me.
Isabel, you would be doing me and my papa a favor if you would love her.”
“Really?” said Isabel.
“Yes,” said Esperanza.
“And I think that you should take her to school to show all your friends, don’t you agree?
I’m sure none of them, not even the Queen of the May, has ever owned anything as beautiful.”
Isabel cradled the doll in her arms, her tears drying on her face.
“Esperanza, I prayed and prayed about being Queen of the May.”
“Our Lady knew that being queen would not last, but that the doll would be yours for a long time.”
Isabel nodded, a small smile beginning.
“What will your mama say?”
Esperanza hugged her, “I have a meeting with the doctor this week so if he lets me, I will ask her.
But I think that Mama would be very proud that she belongs to you.”
Then, grinning, she held out the bag of peaches.
“I hate asparagus, too.”
********
Esperanza and Hortensia waited in the doctor’s office.
Hortensia sat and tapped her foot, and Esperanza paced, looking at the diplomas on the wall.
Finally, the door swung open and the doctor walked in, then scooted behind his desk and sat down.
“Esperanza, I have good news,” he said.
“Your mother’s health has improved and she’ll be well enough to leave the hospital in a week.
She is still a little depressed but I think she needs to be around all of you.
Please remember, though, that once she goes home, she will have to rest to build up her strength.
There is still a chance of a relapse.”
Esperanza started laughing and crying at the same time.
Mama was coming home!
For the first time in the five months since Mama had entered the hospital, Esperanza’s heart felt lighter.
The doctor smiled.
“She has been asking for her crochet needles and yarn.
You can see her now for a few minutes if you like.”
Esperanza ran down the hospital halls with Hortensia behind her to Mama’s bedside, where they found her sitting up in bed.
Esperanza flung her arms around her neck.
“Mama!”
Mama hugged her then held her at arm’s length and studied her.
“Oh, Esperanza, how you’ve grown.
You look so mature.”
Mama still looked thin but not so weak.
Esperanza felt her forehead and there was no fever.
Mama laughed at her.
It wasn’t a strong laugh but Esperanza loved the sound.
Hortensia pronounced that her color was good and promised to purchase more yarn so that it would be waiting when she came home.
“You would not believe your daughter, Ramona.
She always gets called to work in the sheds, she cooks now, and takes care of the babies as well as their own mother.”
Mama reached up, pulled Esperanza to her chest, and hugged her.
“I am so proud of you.”
Esperanza hugged Mama back.
When the visiting hour was over, she hated to leave but kissed Mama and said her good-byes, promising to tell her everything as soon as she came home.
********
All week they prepared for Mama’s homecoming.
Hortensia and Josefina scrubbed the little cabin until it was almost antiseptic.
Esperanza washed all the blankets and propped the pillows in the bed.
Juan and Alfonso cushioned a chair and several crates under the shade trees so that Mama could recline outside during the hot afternoons.
On Saturday, as soon as Esperanza helped Mama from the truck, she wanted a quick tour of Papa’s roses and she got weepy when she saw the blooms.
Visitors came all afternoon, but Hortensia would only let people stay a few minutes, then she shooed them away for fear Mama wouldn’t get her rest.
That night, Isabel showed Mama the doll and how she was taking care of it and Mama told her that she thought Isabel and the doll belonged together.
When it was time for bed, Esperanza carefully lay down next to Mama, hoping she wouldn’t disturb her, but Mama moved closer and put her arms around Esperanza, and held her tightly.
“Mama, Miguel is gone,” she whispered.
“I know, mija.
Hortensia told me.”
“But Mama, it was my fault.
I got angry and told him he was still a peasant and then he left.”
“It could not have been all your fault.
I’m sure he knows you didn’t mean it.
He’ll come back soon.
He couldn’t be away from his family for long.”
They were quiet.
“Mama, we’ve been away from Abuelita for almost a year,” said Esperanza.
“I know,” said Mama quietly.
“It does not seem possible.”
“But I’ve saved money.
We can bring her soon.
Do you want to see how much?”
Before Mama could answer, Esperanza turned on the light, checking to make sure she hadn’t woken Isabel.
She tiptoed to the closet and took out her valise.
She grinned at Mama, knowing how proud she would be of all the money orders.
She opened the bag and her mouth dropped open.
She couldn’t believe what she saw.
She tipped the valise upside down and shook it hard.
It was empty.
The money orders were gone.
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CHAPTER XIV. LAS UVAS GRAPES
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Miguel was the only one who could have taken the money orders.
No one doubted that.
Alfonso apologized to Esperanza, but Mama graciously said that Miguel must have needed the money to get to northern California.
Alfonso promised the money would be paid back, one way or another, and Esperanza knew it would be, but she was angry with Miguel.
How dare he go into her valise and take what was not his.
And after all her hard work.
Mama seemed to get a little stronger every day, although she still took many naps.
Hortensia was happy that she was eating well, and every day Esperanza brought home just-picked fruit to tempt her.
A few weeks later, Esperanza stood on the shed dock in the morning and marveled at the peaches, plums, and nectarines that poured into the shed.
“How will we ever sort them all?” she asked.
Josefina laughed.
“One piece at a time.
It gets done.”
They started with the small white clingstone peaches and then the larger yellow Elbertas.
Mama loved the white peaches so Esperanza set aside a bag for her.
Then after lunch, they sorted the Flaming Gold nectarines.
Later that afternoon they would still have to sort a few bushels of plums.
Esperanza loved the elephant-heart plums.
Mottled green on the outside and bloodred on the inside, they were tangy and sweet at the same time.
She stood in the midsummer sun during her lunch break and ate one, bent over so the juice wouldn’t run down her chin.
Josefina called to her.
“Mira,” she said.
“Look.
There’s Alfonso.
What is he doing here?”
Alfonso was talking to one of the supervisors.
He had never left the fields in the middle of the day and come to the sheds.
“Something must be wrong,” said Esperanza.
“Maybe it is the babies?” said Josefina and she hurried toward him.
Esperanza could see them talking and slowly began walking toward them, leaving the line of women and the stacks of lugs and plums.
She tried to read from Josefina’s expressions whether something was wrong.
Then Josefina turned to look at her.
Esperanza felt the blood drain from her face and she suddenly knew why Alfonso was here.
It had to be Mama.
The doctor had said she could have a relapse.
Something must have happened to her.
Esperanza suddenly felt weak but she kept walking.
“Is it Mama?”
“No, no.
I didn’t mean to alarm you, Esperanza, but I need you to come with me.
Hortensia is in the truck.”
“But it’s so early.”
“It’s okay, I talked to the supervisor.”
She followed him to the truck.
Hortensia was waiting inside.
“We got a message from Miguel,” she said.
“We are to meet him at the bus station in Bakersfield at three o’clock.
He said he is coming from Los Angeles and that we should bring you.
That’s all we know.”
“But why would he want me to come?” asked Esperanza.
“I can only hope that it’s to apologize for his actions,” said Hortensia.
It was over a hundred degrees.
Hot wind whipped inside the cab.
Esperanza felt the perspiration sliding down her skin beneath her dress.
It felt strange to be riding to town on a workday, breaking her routine in the sheds.
She kept thinking of all the elephant hearts that the others would have to pack shorthanded.
Hortensia squeezed her hand.
“I can’t wait to see him,” she said.
Esperanza offered a tight smile.
They arrived at the bus station and sat on a bench in front.
The clerks all spoke to one another in English, their hard, sharp words meaning nothing to Esperanza.
It always startled her when she heard English and she hated not knowing what people were saying.
Someday she would learn it.
She strained to hear each announcement that was made, finally hearing the words she was waiting for, “Los Angeles.”
A silver bus turned the corner and pulled into the bay in front of the station.
Esperanza searched through the passengers seated on the bus but couldn’t see Miguel.
She and Hortensia and Alfonso stood up and watched everyone get off.
And then, finally, there was Miguel standing in the doorway of the bus.
He looked tired and rumpled but when he saw his parents, he jumped from the steps, grabbing his mother and hugging her, then his father, clapping him on the back.
He looked at Esperanza and smiled.
“I have brought you proof that things will get better,” he said.
She looked at him, trying to be angry.
She didn’t want him to think she was glad to see him.
“Did you bring back what you have stolen?”
“No, but I brought you something better.”
Then he turned to help the last passenger from the bus, a small, older woman trying to get down the steep steps.
The sun, reflecting off the shiny bus, glinted in Esperanza’s eyes.
She shaded them with her hand, trying to imagine what Miguel was talking about.
For a moment, she saw un fantasma, a ghost of Abuelita walking toward her, with one arm reaching out to her and the other pressing on a wooden cane.
“Esperanza,” said the ghost.
She heard Hortensia suck in her breath.
Suddenly, Esperanza knew that her eyes were not deceiving her.
Her throat tightened and she felt as if she couldn’t move.
Abuelita came closer.
She was small and wrinkled, with wisps of white hair falling out of her bun at the back of her head.
Her clothes looked mussed from travel, but she had her same white lace handkerchief tucked into the sleeve of her dress and her eyes brimmed with tears.
Esperanza tried to say her name but couldn’t.
Her throat was cramping from her emotions.
She could only reach out for her grandmother and bury her head in the familiar smell of face powder, garlic, and peppermint.
“Abuelita, Abuelita!” she cried.
“Aquí estoy.
I am here, mi nieta.
How I have missed you.”
Esperanza rocked her back and forth, daring to believe that it was true, looking at her through tears to make sure she was not dreaming.
And laughing finally.
Laughing and smiling and holding her hands.
Then Hortensia and Alfonso took their turns.
Esperanza looked at Miguel.
“How?” she asked.
“I needed to have something to do while I waited for work.
So I went for her.”
After they pulled into camp, they escorted Abuelita into their cabin where they found Josefina, Juan, and the babies waiting.
“Josefina, where’s Mama?”
“It was warm so we settled her in the shade.
She fell asleep.
Isabel is sitting with her.
Is everything all right?”
Hortensia introduced Abuelita to Juan and Josefina, whose faces lit up.
Esperanza then watched her grandmother look around the tiny room that now held pieces of their new life.
Isabel’s pictures on the wall, a bowl of peaches on the table, the babies’ toys underfoot, Papa’s roses in a coffee can.
Esperanza wondered what Abuelita thought of the sad conditions, but she just smiled and said, “Please take me to my daughter.”
Esperanza took Abuelita’s hand and led her toward the trees.
She could see Mama reclining in the shade near the wooden table.
A quilt was spread on the ground nearby where the babies usually played.
Isabel was running back from the vineyard, her hands full of wildflowers and grapevines.
She saw Esperanza and ran toward her and Abuelita.
Isabel stopped in front of them, her face flushed and smiling.
“Isabel, this is Abuelita.”
Isabel’s eyes widened and her mouth popped open in surprise.
“Do you really walk barefoot in the grapes and carry smooth stones in your pockets?”
Abuelita laughed, reached deep into the pocket of her dress, pulled out a flat, slick stone and gave it to Isabel.
She looked at it in amazement, then handed Abuelita the wildflowers.
“I think you and I will be good friends, Isabel, yes?”
Isabel nodded and stepped aside so Abuelita could go to her daughter.
There was no way to prepare Mama.
Esperanza watched Abuelita walk to where Mama slept, resting on the makeshift lounge.
She was framed by the vineyard, the grapes ripe and ready to drop.
Abuelita stopped a few feet from Mama and looked at her.
A stack of lace carpetas was at Mama’s side as well as her crochet needle and thread.
Abuelita reached out and stroked her hair, gently pulling the loose strands away from Mama’s face and smoothing them against her head.
Softly, Abuelita said, “Ramona.”
Mama did not open her eyes, but said as if she was dreaming, “Esperanza, is that you?”
“No, Ramona, it is me, Abuelita.”
Mama slowly opened her eyes.
She stared at Abuelita with no reaction, as if she was not really seeing her at all.
Then she lifted her hand and reached out to touch her mother’s face, making sure that the vision was true.
Abuelita nodded, “Yes, it is me.
I have come.”
Abuelita and Mama uttered no words that anyone could understand.
It was their own language of happy exclamations and overwhelming emotions.
Esperanza watched them cry and she wondered if her own heart would burst from so much joy.
“Oh, Esperanza!” said Isabel, jumping up and down and clapping.
“I think my heart is dancing.”
Esperanza barely choked out the whisper, “Mine, too.”
Then she picked up Isabel and spun her around in her arms.
Mama would not let go of Abuelita.
She scooted over and made Abuelita sit next to her and held on to her arms as if she might disappear.
Suddenly, Esperanza remembered her promise, ran back to the cabin and returned, carrying something in her arms.
“Esperanza,” said Abuelita, “Could that possibly be my blanket?
Did you finish it?”
“Not yet,” she said, unfolding the blanket.
Mama held one end, and Esperanza pulled the other end.
It reached from the chinaberry tree to the mulberry.
It could have covered three beds.
They all laughed.
The yarn was still connected, waiting for the last row to be finished.
They all gathered on the quilt and at the table.
Esperanza sat down and pulled the massive blanket next to her, took the needle, and began crocheting the final stitches.
When Mama could finally speak, she looked at Abuelita and asked the same thing Esperanza had asked, “How did you get here?”
“Miguel,” said Abuelita.
“He came for me.
Luis and Marco have been impossible.
If I went to the market, one of their spies would follow me.
I think they thought you were still in the area and would eventually come back for me.”
Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain.
Esperanza listened to Abuelita tell Mama about how infuriated Tío Luis had been when he found out they were gone.
He’d become obsessed with finding them and questioned all of their neighbors, including Señor Rodríguez.
They had even come to the convent to question her sisters.
But no one told him anything.
Add one stitch.
A few months after they left, she’d had a premonition that something was wrong with Mama.
The feeling would not let go of her so she lit candles every day for months and prayed for their safety.
Nine stitches down to the bottom of the valley.
Then one day, when she had almost given up hope, she found an injured bird in the garden that she did not think would fly again, but the next morning when she approached it, the bird lifted into the sky.
She knew it was a sign that whatever had been wrong, was better.
Skip one stitch.
Then one of the nuns brought her a note that someone had left in the poor box addressed to her.
It had been from Miguel.
He suspected that Abuelita was being watched so he delivered his notes after dark, telling her of his plan.
Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain.
Miguel and Señor Rodríguez came in the middle of the night and took her to the train station.
It was all very exciting.
And Miguel didn’t leave her side once during the entire trip.
He brought her all the way here.
Add one stitch.
He said that Ramona and Esperanza needed her.
“He was right,” said Mama, her eyes teary again, gratefully looking at Miguel.
Mountains and valleys.
Mountains and valleys.
So many of them, thought Esperanza.
When a strand of her hair fell into her lap, she picked it up and wove it into the blanket, so that all of the happiness and emotion she felt at this moment would go with it forever.
When Esperanza told Abuelita their story, about all that had happened to them, she didn’t measure time by the usual seasons.
Instead, she told it as a field-worker, in spans of fruits and vegetables and by what needed to be done to the land.
They had arrived in the valley at the end of the grapes: Thompson seedless, Red Malagas, and the blue-black Ribiers.
Mama breathed in the dust at the end of the grapes and that’s when she got sick.
Then it had been time to prune the grapes and get ready for potatoes.
Working potatoes was the heart of winter and the cold that dampened the bones.
And during potato eyes, Mama had gone to the hospital.
There had been no months with names, only the time of tying canes amidst the ghosts of grapes and gray days that never warmed.
But afterward came the anticipation of spring and a valley pregnant with needs: graceful asparagus, ripening vineyards, and groaning trees.
Then early peaches called, crickets in the fields started their nightly symphonies, and Mama came home.
Abuelita arrived during plums.
And now, the grapes were delivering another harvest and Esperanza was turning another year.
********
A few days before her birthday, Esperanza begged Miguel to drive her to the foothills before sunrise.
There was something she wanted to do.
She woke in the dark and tiptoed from the cabin.
They followed the dirt road that headed east and parked when they could go no farther.
In the gray light, they could see a small footpath to a plateau.
When they got to the top, Esperanza looked out over the valley.
The cool, almost-morning air filled her senses.
Below, she could see the white roofs of the cabins in straight rows, the fields beginning to take form, and over the eastern mountains, a hopeful brightening.
She bent over and touched the grass.
It was cool but dry.
She lay down on her stomach and patted the ground next to her.
“Miguel, did you know that if you lie on the ground and stay very still, you can feel the earth’s heart beating?”
He looked at her skeptically.
She patted the ground again.
Then he lay down as she was, facing her.
“Will this happen soon, Esperanza?”
“Aguántate tantito y la fruta caerá en tu mano.
Wait a little while and the fruit will fall into your hand.”
He smiled and nodded.
They were still.
She watched Miguel watching her.
And then she felt it.
Beginning softly.
A gentle thumping, repeating itself.
Then stronger.
She heard it, too.
Shoomp.
Shoomp.
Shoomp.
The earth’s heartbeat.
Just like she had felt it that day with Papa.
Miguel smiled and she knew that he felt it, too.
The sun peeked over the rim of a distant ridge, bursting the dawn onto the waiting fields.
She felt its warmth washing over her and turned on her back and faced the sky, staring into the clouds now tinged with pink and orange.
As the sun rose, Esperanza began to feel as if she rose with it.
Floating again, like that day on the mountain, when she first arrived in the valley.
She closed her eyes, and this time she did not careen out of control.
Instead, she glided above the earth, unafraid.
She let herself be lifted into the sky, and she knew that she would not slip away.
She knew that she would never lose Papa or El Rancho de las Rosas, or Abuelita or Mama, no matter what happened.
It was as Carmen, the egg woman, had said on the train.
She had her family, a garden full of roses, her faith, and the memories of those who had gone before her.
But now, she had even more than that, and it carried her up, as on the wings of the phoenix.
She soared with the anticipation of dreams she never knew she could have, of learning English, of supporting her family, of someday buying a tiny house.
Miguel had been right about never giving up, and she had been right, too, about rising above those who held them down.
She hovered high above the valley, its basin surrounded by the mountains.
She swooped over Papa’s rose blooms, buoyed by rosehips that remembered all the beauty they had seen.
She waved at Isabel and Abuelita, walking barefoot in the vineyards, wearing grapevine wreaths in their hair.
She saw Mama, sitting on a blanket, a cacophony of color that covered an acre in zigzag rows.
She saw Marta and her mother walking in an almond grove, holding hands.
Then she flew over a river, a thrusting torrent that cut through the mountains.
And there, in the middle of the wilderness, was a girl in a blue silk dress and a boy with his hair slicked down, eating mangoes on a stick, carved to look like exotic flowers, sitting on a grassy bank, on the same side of the river.
Esperanza reached for Miguel’s hand and found it, and even though her mind was soaring to infinite possibilities, his touch held her heart to the earth.
********
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“Estas son las mañanitas que cantaba el Rey David
a las muchachas bonitas; se las cantamos aquí.
Despierta, mi bien, despierta. Mira que ya amaneció.
Ya los pajaritos cantan, la luna ya se metió.
These are the morning songs which King David used to sing
to all the pretty girls; we sing them here to you.
Awake, my beloved, awake. See, it is already dawn.
The birds are already singing, the moon has already gone.”
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On the morning of her birthday, Esperanza heard the voices coming from outside her window.
She could pick out Miguel’s, Alfonso’s, and Juan’s.
She sat up in bed and listened.
And smiled.
Esperanza lifted the curtain.
Isabel came over to her bed and looked out with her, clutching her doll.
They both blew kisses to the men who sang the birthday song.
Then Esperanza waved them inside, not to open gifts, but because she could already smell coffee coming from the kitchen.
They gathered for breakfast: Mama and Abuelita, Hortensia and Alfonso, Josefina and Juan, the babies and Isabel.
Irene and Melina came, too, with their family.
And Miguel.
It wasn’t exactly like the birthdays of her past.
But it would still be a celebration, under the mulberry and chinaberry trees, with newborn rosebuds from Papa’s garden.
Although there were no papayas, there was cantaloupe, lime, and coconut salad.
And machaca burritos topped with lots of laughter and teasing.
At the end of the meal, Josefina brought out a flan de almendras, Esperanza’s favorite, and they sang the birthday song to her again.
Isabel sat next to Abuelita at the wooden table.
They each held crochet hooks and a skein of yarn.
“Now watch, Isabel.
Ten stitches up to the top of the mountain.”
Abuelita demonstrated and Isabel carefully copied her movements.
The needle rocked awkwardly and at the end of her beginning rows, Isabel held up her work to show Esperanza.
“Mine is all crooked!”
Esperanza smiled and reached over and gently pulled the yarn, unraveling the uneven stitches.
Then she looked into Isabel’s trusting eyes and said, “Do not ever be afraid to start over.”
THE END.