Hasta lunes

I stepped out of the car at 6:45 in the morning.  The sun is rising earlier so I can actually see more than headlights around me.  Two deer stood staring at me.  They gently crossed the street and hopped down into the woods that lead to the creek behind the school.  One of them had antlers.   

"Muriel, do you like sports?" I asked, after she seemed particularly invested in the Pelé book we were reading.  

"Yes." she answered.

"Which, soccer?"

"No."  she answered.

"Football?"

"No."

"Basketball?"

"No."

"Dodgeball!"  she finally answered, raising her hands in the air like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  

Rafael tore into the trailer, nearly ripping the door off.  After digging furiously in his book bag, he pulled out a little package, wrapped in notebook paper.  In Sharpie, he wrote:  To Danny, mi amigo fiel.  

"It's a phone."  he announced.

"It's Danny's birthday."

And it was.  Danny ripped off the notebook paper and out came a beat up Android with carefully curated apps that Rafael thought he might like.  Tik Tok, What's App, You Tube and Facebook, which Danny quickly deleted.  

"You have to be thirteen to use Facebook."  Jaime announced.

"I'm twelve."  Danny answered.

"Me too."  Eduardo seconded.

Jaime stared at me, aghast.  TWELVE YEARS OLD!!  In his mind, they might as well have said they were twenty-five and drove themselves to fifth grade that morning.  I laughed, not sure how to explain to him that these boys had had a journey that was a little different than his and missed some school here and there along the way.  

"Tuve una novia, pero ya la boté."  I heard Danny say to Eduardo as soon as I walked across the room.  I snickered a little, because it seemed pretty improbable.

"Si, porque eres chingón."  Eduardo answered.

"¿Te puso los cuernos?"  he continued.  

Maybe they are too old for elementary school.  

I make my morning kids grocery store pop-out biscuits on Fridays.  I bring that jam with the red table cloth design on top, too.  They like that kind.  Last Friday, I brought Krispy Kreme instead.  The filled ones.  I couldn't stop thinking that it could be our last Friday with Eduardo and that I should try to make it nice.  He likes the Amulet books.  He checked one out from the classroom library, but brought it back the next day.

"That was fast!  Are you sure you don't need more time to read it?"  I asked.

He hesitated.

"I'm not done.  It's just, I don't know if I'll be back."

"No....just bring it to me when you are finished."  I answered.  

"Let's buy him the whole set." my sister announced later that afternoon, when I told her about the exchange.

"I know.  I had the same instinct...but, would they even let him take them?  When they deport adults, even teenagers,  they don't let them bring shit, not even phone cards or money or anything that would actually...."

"Help them."  she finished for me.

"Do you think they'll fly him to Guatemala?  Or just dump him in Reynosa or Matamoros in the middle of the night like they do the others?"

"Will they call someone, arrange for someone to come get him?"

We went around and around, asking questions without answers.  

The day finally came.  I walked with Eduardo and his sister up the hill to meet their mom.  I gave him his own set of witch fingers because he likes the ones we read with so much and a ring pop, for luck.  

"Look, we are not saying goodbye, because you will be back."  I announced, afraid that I was lying, or giving him false hope.  

He nodded.

"So, hasta lunes."  I said.

"Hasta lunes."  he repeated, and walked down the street with his mother and sister.