When the door closes behind the biker, Drew shoots the dead bolts. It’s more for show than anything else. If someone was determined they could easily kick it in. But no one around here owns much, nothing worth stealing. Unless you keep drugs or alcohol in the home, which we don’t, there’s no point breaking in.
Taking the place Tse’s vacated, Drew sits beside me on the couch, and pouts like only a fifteen-year-old can. “Didn’t like you talking to him, Ma.”
Drew calls me Ma as a joke. A shortening of my name, and a reference to me being his mom since he was nine. I’m so used to it, I don’t even notice.
When I don’t respond, not sure myself why I’d told Tse all that I had, Drew fills the silence. “You see that leather he was wearing? The Satan’s Devils? They’re criminals. You can’t risk being seen with the likes of them.”
He’s only echoing my fears of earlier. For some reason, I feel the need to justify myself. “I saw what he is, Drew. He’s also a Native American. Neither of those things suggest he’d want to turn us in. If he hadn’t followed me home to tell me my light was out, I wouldn’t have known, and the police could have stopped me at any time.”
“Having a brake light out isn’t a felony, Ma.”
But in this world we live in now, it could be enough to determine me someone not of good enough character to stay in the US. The only country I’ve ever really known, too young when I was brought here to remember anywhere else. As Drew busies himself putting his completed homework away, and I wait for Tse to return, I lean back my head. When I’d arrived with Mom, I’d had no idea we’d entered the country illegally. What child of four knows about visas or passports? All I knew is that my mother encouraged me to speak only English from the day I’d arrived. I already knew the basics, she herself was bilingual, and had spoken to me in both languages from the day I was born. Her way of separating us from the other Hispanics. Important not to stand out, but fit in. English is so natural to me now; I’ve forgotten what Spanish I’d ever known.
Drew never learned to speak anything else.
I think back to the day she was taken. Were it not for the fact I had Drew to look after, I don’t know what I would have done. But with him, I couldn’t allow myself to descend into despair. Having the responsibility of my brother, I just picked myself up to move forward. I tried to get advice from Mom during those phone calls, but it wasn’t enough. Could never have been enough.
I went through her meagre savings quickly. Tried to get a job, running a mile after I was first asked for my paperwork. It was only at that point I realised what being undocumented truly meant. But I managed eventually to get employment, working at well below minimum wage. I washed dishes, washed cars, anything I could do where people appreciated my English and weren’t fussed about seeing any documents. When I was fifteen, I applied for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, just pleased at the time to have some kind of protection, not worried that it meant I’d entrusted the authorities withmy fingerprints and all the personal information I had. At least it meant I was no longer at risk of deportation, of leaving my brother abandoned in this country where he had legal status and I had none. Two siblings, the same blood running through us.
My delight lasted for those first few years. I worked myself to the bone, got my driver’s license and bought an old jalopy, the same one that’s on its last legs and outside the trailer now. Then the political arena started changing, and I realised my DACA status was no longer the protection it once had been. The policy was set up for people such as myself who, through no fault of their own, were brought to the States illegally as young children. It doesn’t mean I’ve got a route to citizenship, but it does allow me to get a work permit and, up to now, has been renewable every two years. Now that renewal is likely not to be automatic, and the illusion of legality it gives me is no longer a shield against deportation.
As I watch Drew frown, putting his homework away, I just hope I can stay with him long enough for him to become independent, wanting to give him the teenage years I never had. Already he’s old for his years.Heaven help me if I return to Colombia.I’m under no illusions what my father will do. He’s an evil man, capable of murder.
I continue to reminisce. Homework. Yeah, I did that too. As well as the jobs, barely able to fall into bed for more than six hours, and that was if I was lucky. I got my GED, then got into nursing school. Soon I’ll be qualified and able to get a proper job.Unless my quasi-legal status is revoked.
A rattling of the fence, a knock on the door. Drew puts his fingers to his lips and goes to the window. “It’s your friend.”
“Let him in.”
Tse enters, his tall frame immediately making the trailer feel smaller. He’s brushing dirt off his hands. “All done. Give me the keys and I’ll check it’s working. Drew, want to come help?”
Drew looks at me, I silently nod. Two minutes later both return, Drew’s smiling. “All the lights work fine, Ma, and look.” He holds out a box. Seems Tse’s bought spares for all the bulbs. “We’ll check them regularly, okay?”
It was kind, thoughtful. I tell him so. Also appreciating that this time he’s come to the trailer park, he’s removed his cut.Doesn’t want to draw attention to me.
Tse’s fidgeting, moving from leg to leg as though awkward. Drew’s sat down in the place he was sitting, as though making a point there’s no room for him here.There’s not. Foolish daydreams to think I could have made a friend. Got to keep existing day to day, keeping everyone at arm’s length. Far safer.
I stand, but I’m not certain what to say. Tse fumbles in his pocket and brings out a card. He hands it to me.SD Computer Securityit says on it. With a phone number. No address.
He taps it. “Call me. If you need anything. You call me.” His intense dark eyes stare into mine. “Call me,” he repeats. Only when I give a half-hearted nod does he look toward Drew. “Look after your sister, Drew.”
“Sure.” My brother waves his hand in agreement without looking at him.
Another glance at me, a rise and dip of his chin. Then he’s out of the door, through the fence and out of my life. The roar of his bike fading into the distance has the mark of finality.
Chapter 5
Mouse
It wasn’t her home circumstances that got to me, the poverty she and her brother endured. I’d spent a few years on the Rez, seen my mom’s people eking a living from the earth, some without electricity, living hand to mouth. Nah, I could cope with that. What I hated was the thought even that could be taken away from her. Just one bit of carelessness, needing help from a stranger like she had today. What if she trusted the wrong person who had a vendetta?
To live with the knowledge she could be stripped of the little she had, of her only remaining family. That the government hadn’t even cared, they’d taken her one parent away, confirms to me how right I am to live outside society. One thing about the Satan’s Devils is that we look after family. Like Heart. When he wasn’t in the right mind to care for his daughter, we’d stepped up. Weren’t going to let the child suffer for the things her father had done.
Mariana had had no choice in whether she came to the US or not, just dragged along with her mother at an age when she wouldn’t have understood anything. Not that she’d have been better off in Colombia, not with a violent rapist for a father. What fucking sorry excuse of a man breaks a four-year-old’s arm? If they send her back, it sounds like it would be to a father who most probably had killed her mom.
I’d have liked to look into that for her, investigate further, see if there was any way I could help. But as I ride back to thecompound, I realise I don’t even know her last name. Would she have even given me her real one? Then I feel like hitting myself in the head.I know her address and car registration number. Bound to be records.Yeah, I’m the master at finding out things I shouldn’t know.
I’d done more than change her light bulb. I’d topped up her oil and water, and checked the state of her tires. While I’d earlier thought I’d had preferred Blade to have given that heap of a car a once over, now I don’t feel I can draw any more attention to her than I already have. That’s why I, for the first time I can remember in Satan’s Devils territory, took off my cut when I returned to the trailer park. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her which could have been prevented if I’d left well enough alone.
