The Book of Unknown Americans(34)

“Get away from her!” I yelled.

I raced to wedge myself between them, yanking Maribel’s shirt down, shielding her with my body. The boy said something in English, something unintelligible to me, but I could hear the indignation in his tone, and without thinking, I turned and spat in his face. He grabbed my arm, digging his nails into my skin.

“Go, Maribel,” I shrieked. “Go to the apartment!”

But she didn’t move. She was mute and immobile, a tree rooted in place.

“Go!” I said again, tearing myself away from the boy. And then I ran, dragging Maribel with me to the front of the building, back up the staircase and into the apartment, where I locked the door behind us, gasping and trying to blink away the blinding white light of panic.


“WHAT’S WRONG?” Arturo asked that night while we sat at the kitchen table—that ridiculous stolen kitchen table—drinking manzanilla tea, as we did most nights after Maribel went to bed.

I looked at him, startled, as if he had woken me from a dream. “What do you mean?”

“You’re so quiet,” he said.

“I was thinking.”

“About what?”

I hadn’t told him what had happened. I wasn’t going to tell him. I didn’t want him to know that I had failed Maribel again. Besides, she was okay. I had asked her what the boy had done—if he had kissed her, if he had touched her, if he had hurt her—and she shook her head no. He had pushed her against the wall. He was going to do something. That was clear. But I had gotten there in time. And when I inspected her, examining every visible part of her body, there were no scratches, no marks of any kind. She’s okay, I told myself, with a certain, strange relief. I tried to focus on that instead of on the other part of me that chimed, “This time.”

“Alma?” Arturo prodded.

“I was thinking about Maribel,” I said. It felt like a way of telling the truth.

At the sound of her name, he softened. “She’s doing better, no? The reports from school—”

“Yes.”

“But you’re worried?” Arturo asked.

I attempted a smile. “No.”

“You’re worried about something.”

I stared at him and shook my head lightly.

“Yes, you are. You worry about everything. You’re a true mexicana. A fatalist.”

“As if you don’t worry about things.”

“Of course. But I’ve been thinking. What if God wants us to be happy? What if there’s nothing else around the bend? What if all our unhappiness is in the past and from here on out we get an uncomplicated life? Some people get that, you know. Why shouldn’t it be us?”

I flattened my hand against the table, spreading my fingers out. It was a lovely thought, but hearing Arturo’s optimism bubble to the surface, hearing the rawness of it, was excruciating.

“You have to think like a gringa now,” Arturo said. “You have to believe that you’re entitled to happiness.”

I took a small sip of tea, feeling the warmth of it bloom in my mouth. Outside, the wind howled and sent the tops of the leafless trees casting back and forth in the night. Soon it would be Christmas, and all at once I wished that we were back in Pátzcuaro, where Christmases were warm and thick with the scent of cinnamon, where pi?atas filled with oranges and sugar canes hung from the rafters, and where children paraded through the streets carrying paper farolitos in their small hands. I wished we were anywhere but here—geographically, emotionally. I wished our life was different, that it was what it used to be.

Two years ago, only six months before the accident, my parents had come over for Christmas Eve dinner, bringing Maribel a dress from Dise?o y Artesanía that my mother insisted they wanted to give her.

Maribel had made the bu?uelos that year because, at fourteen, she wanted to prove her independence and her capabilities. She first claimed she wanted to make the tamales and revoltijo de romeritos, but I argued they were too complicated. Besides, they were the main part of the meal. I thought, If they don’t turn out, what will we eat? I told her, “Maybe you can make the bu?uelos.” Bu?uelos had what? Flour, sugar, salt, eggs, milk, butter, baking powder, cinnamon. No more, no less. How bad could they be?

Early in the morning, she got out a bowl and fork.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I’m making my bu?uelos.”

“Already? They don’t take more than half an hour to prepare.”

“I know.”

“Do you also know that it’s eight thirty in the morning?”

“Yep.”

“But we’re not eating them until tonight.”

“Mami,” she said, putting her hand on her hip.

“Maribel,” I said, putting my hand on my hip the same way.

She rolled her eyes.

“Come back around six,” I said, shooing her out of the kitchen. “I’ll be finished by then and you can have the kitchen to yourself.”

At six on the dot, she came back and announced, “Bu?uelo time!”

I was wiping down the counter. My food was ready, heaped into bowls that I’d covered with foil and put in the refrigerator. “Do you want my help?” I asked.

“You told me I could make them.”