Betrayed (Rosato & DiNunzio, #2)(7)

“I go bus to Peidras Negros. A man, a coyote, I pay him one thousand to go United Stays.”

“A thousand dollars to take you to the United States?” Judy was getting the hang of her accent.

“Yes. Today, is four thousand.” Iris’s dark eyes widened at the sum.

“When did you come?”

“Four.”

“Four years ago?”

“I have water, beans, tuna, food with cans, on back.” Iris gestured to her back, indicating a backpack. “Is so hot, we no have water lef’. We see farm with pig, many pig. We are happy, so happy. We drink from water. We fill bottle.”

“You drank the water for the pigs? From a trough?” Judy’s stomach turned over.

“Pera we see, in sun, water so dirty.” Iris wrinkled her flattish nose in disgust and pantomimed holding up a bottle of water to the sun. “In water, is germ. I am sick, so sick.”

“Oh no.”

“I have my teacher. I use my teacher.”

“Your teacher?” Judy didn’t understand. “Like your leader? Was there a leader?”

“No. Teacher.” Iris pulled on her T-shirt and picked up a glass, and put her shirt over the top. “I put water on teacher.”

Judy understood. “You used your T-shirt to strain the water?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Where were you going?”

“Phoenix. We go, we see wire.” Iris pointed up. “We go under to Phoenix.”

“You followed overhead cables to Phoenix, like those big towers?”

“Yes. A lady, she die.” Iris winced again. “No water, she die. We go, go, go. We no stop.”

“That’s horrible,” Judy said, meaning it. “You must have been so afraid.”

“Yes. Sad. Worry. Nervous,” Iris added, pronouncing it like nairbus.

“How did you get here, to Pennsylvania?”

“A man, in car, he take us. Five day. Chicago, Las Vegas, Florida, North Carolina.” Iris mangled the phrase North Carolina, but Judy got the idea.

“Why did you come?”

“A man say work is here, in Pennsylvania.” Iris pronounced it Pennsylvania, with a short a.

“What do you do here?” Judy asked, but suddenly Iris’s cell phone on the table rang.

“’Scuse.” Iris picked it up and checked it, but her expression changed dramatically. She didn’t answer the phone, pressing her lips together tightly, and her forehead wrinkled with concern.

Aunt Barb asked, “Iris, is something the matter? You can take that call if you want to?”

“No, no,” Iris answered, but she was obviously worried and the phone went silent. She jumped to her feet and hoisted her tote bag to her shoulder. “Barb, I go work now.”

Aunt Barb blinked. “But you don’t have to be there until three thirty. It’s only two, isn’t it?”

“I go, Barb.” Iris forced a jittery smile and waved at the table, backing away. “Bye, nice meetin’ you.”

“You, too!” Judy gave her a wave, wondering what was bothering her.

“Good-bye!” Aunt Barb called after her. “Let me know if you need anything or if I can help.”

“Bye-bye!” Iris turned and hurried from the backyard, and Judy waited until Iris was gone to turn to her mother.

“What a story, huh, Mom?”

Judy’s mother answered, “She’s illegal.”

“Undocumented,” Aunt Barb corrected, bristling.

“Semantics.” Judy’s mother scoffed. “You can go to jail for employing an illegal. I know, I looked it up online.”

“Aunt Barb, Iris works for you?” Judy asked, newly confused. She had assumed that Iris was her aunt’s friend, not hired help. Her aunt was a landscape architect and didn’t earn that much, and since Uncle Steve’s death, she’d had to sell their big house in Unionville and downsize to the rental she lived in now.

“Yes, she works for me part-time.” Aunt Barb turned to Judy, touching her arm. “Sorry, honey, I kept it private, I guess because of her status. She used to clean houses, but now she works at one of the mushroom growers.”

“How does she work for them if she doesn’t have any papers?” Judy started thinking like a lawyer, an occupational hazard.

“The big mushroom growers like Phillips hire only workers with papers, but some of the independents don’t. There’s a lot of undocumented workers in Chester County, in the mushroom industry and horse farms.”

“When did she start working for you?”

“As long as you’ve known about her.”

“How did you meet her?”

“When your uncle got sick, I hired an agency to clean house and she came, every week. One day she mentioned to me that she could weed for me, too. I hadn’t gotten to it, taking care of your uncle.” Aunt Barb frowned, pained. “I thought that was so nice, that she noticed the garden was being neglected. I hated looking out the window and seeing the weeds popping up. She began to care for it, and she did a wonderful job, and during chemo, she brought me chocolate milkshakes and cheese goldfish because I had a craving for them. There was a time when that was all I could keep down and—”