Daylight Katy

I dug my toes deep into the sand and looked at the ocean.  

I spent the previous day at Prem and Ku's sister's house, exhausting every school choice option we could think of.  I hadn't seen Prem in a long time and he looked exactly the same, except tan.  I wished we could talk more, but he jumped off the couch and went to his room after his sister and I started a detailed explanation on her application about her justification for a hardship transfer request.  Hearing your sister describe ongoing sexual harassment is probably not for everyone, I thought, while looking down at my bare feet.  My shoes were outside with everyone else's.  It was a little warm in the house and it had the same strong smell of fermented fish as Paw Ku's place.  Their mom and Ku sat across from us, mom nodding at the occasional translations their sister gave.  Ku would run over randomly and grab my neck, hugging me and showing me his video game.   I really wanted this to work.  

The sun was really hot and the water kind of cold, but I didn't care.  It felt good.  

I started receiving messages from Rafael.  Though summer school started days earlier, he decided he might give it a try.  I had enrolled him months earlier, with his mother's consent.  He asked me a bunch of questions, told me a bunch of dad jokes and sent me a picture of the clothes he intended to wear.  I asked him if he had spoken to Danny or Eduardo, but he hadn't.  It was weird for Eduardo to be this radio-silent. I mentioned that I was at the beach and he asked me to send him a picture.

"I haven't seen what the beaches look like here."  he texted.

"They're not as nice as Venezuela."  I warned.

"You will be unimpressed."

"So, unimpress me."  he answered.  

I floated in the cool water, just long enough not to be hot anymore.  I watched the various people doing various things on the beach.

"They rejected my application."  Naw's message read.

"THAT FAST??"  I texted back.

She hit me with a bunch of questions about other programs.  I didn't have the heart to tell her I was at the beach, but said that I wouldn't be able to stop by that day. I sat at my computer on the porch of our vacation house, answering her questions as best as I could.   

I got home and unpacked, glad to see Alec and Lola again.  Not long after I returned, I received a message, asking me to call Danny's parents about his Milestones results, because they only speak Spanish.  

I dread whatever message they want me to give.  

*Title, Gordon Lightfoot

One and Only Love

I finished reading "Our Missing Hearts", while sitting in the backyard with Lola.  I did not know what that book was about when I bought it, I just liked the author.  I didn't know she would prick me with one thousand needles.   

My neighbors had friends over and were celebrating Memorial Day.  Lola rested her chin on my leg while we laid on a blanket.  

Instead of silence, she chose fire.  I keep thinking of that line in the book.  Over and over.  

I thought of my babies.  We've been out of school for five days.  I'm trying to get my head straight, but I keep thinking of things.  
Lola's chin pressed harder on my ankle.  I petted her ears.  

The last day of school, when Rafael came out of nowhere while I took my afternoon walkers out.  He hugged me so hard he nearly ripped my earring out.  All I can remember saying is please stop, it hurts.  
It's too hard to be in love, I can't stand the pain... I thought, thinking of a song I like.  Everything about these kids just hurts.  
He made the sign of the cross over me, then climbed Eduardo like a tree.  Eduardo laughed and carried him several feet through the bus lane, Rafael's legs around his waist like a baby.  

I think of the gift Eduardo's mom gave him at the fifth grade graduation.  It was a book of Bible verses, in Spanish.  When he showed it to me, I just stood there, kind of confused.

"Maybe it will help me not swear so much...."  he murmured, thoughtful.  

I met up with friend that I haven't seen since last summer.  We talked about the year while we walked through the Decatur Cemetery.  I thought about the whole year.  Starting with unlocking the door of the trailer and there wasn't a floor in it.  About having to take a bunch of days off at the beginning of the school year to go to court.  And then, the kids just started coming.  I left the Housing Authority last May for shorter days, and ended up at work at 6:45 in the morning a few months later, anyway.  I thought of the fighting Hail girls, of walking kids home so that no one would get their ass beat.  Eduardo gave me his journal on the last day of school.  I told the kids that they could take them home, that they were theirs, but he insisted.  I flipped through it and saw pages and pages of Guatemalan flags and Quetzales and volcanoes.  I missed Baby Gustavo's parents after the ceremony.  They left and checked him out early.  I asked Agnieszka to bring his fifth grade gift from me to their house, because I know that they are neighbors.  I got a text late that night, giving me Jehovah's blessings, from his mom.  And one from him, calling me a great teacher.  On the first day off, I spent hours on Friday with Prem and Ku's sister, trying to work out her school for next year.  And you know what, I couldn't fix it.  

It's been hard for me to get out of bed, even though I am awake at five thirty in the morning.  I don't know why I feel this way, everyone says I should be thrilled to be on summer break.  My house is a mess and my yard is a mess.  I don't know what is happening, but all I can say is that it is pain.  I don't know if I have experienced it this way before, this feeling.  

They say you have to put on your oxygen mask first before you can help others.  The blanket in the backyard is a start, laying with Lola and reading.  

 I petted her ears again.  I'm trying. 

*Our Missing Hearts, Celeste Ng
*Children of the Beehive, Sonny and the Sunsets

Stand Up

Eduardo's mom waited at the top of the hill again.  She started asking about a paper, a yellow paper.  Again, I had no idea what she was talking about. Thankfully, Eduardo's sister stepped in and yanked the yellow paper from her book bag so that I could explain it to her mom.  
I wished the other walkers and parents a good weekend as the school buses roared by.  Kids jumped up and down and screamed my name out of the windows.  I waved.  I slapped Eduardo on the shoulder, because some of the kids were trying to wave at him, too.
"A los estudiantes, te aman...."  Eduardo's mom said, a huge smile on her face.
I laughed.
"Son locos."  I responded. 
"That kid just waved a book at me that I have been trying to get back from him for months."  I said, laughing, while narrowing my eyes at Rafael as he lifted the offending book in his hands so that I could see it through the bus window. 
"He loves you, too."  She said motioning to Eduardo.  Her voice shifted a little.
"Dice: la quiero."  she continued, an almost mocking laugh coming out.  I glanced at Eduardo.  His face was a mixture of defiance and humiliation.  I mentally begged her to stop.  
"He told me he wants to come up here in the mornings before middle school to visit you!"  she continued, the strange harsh laugh coming out again.

I looked back at her, shifting uncomfortably.
"I hope he can visit."  I responded.  

They turned and walked up the hill, no one looking back.  

I've been walking, with my face turned to the sun

Weight on my shoulders....

School disintegrated quickly into days of no one teaching anything.  It started earlier this year, me entering classrooms to get my kids, only to see a movie on and students playing games on their Chromebooks.   I spent almost an hour one day in a classroom with some bizarre movie playing that featured a talking egg that had a face like an old white man, while simultaneously watching Danny and Eduardo build homes on Minecraft Education.  

"Mira,"  Eduardo mentioned.

"I built my slaves a pool."

A cat in the movie started playing flamenco guitar.

"Esta música es suave." he continued, eating an apple with two hands, his eyes darting from the movie to Minecraft.  

I brought my Jenga and Uno cards, not willing to be the one bucking the system, but unable to sit through another day of talking eggs and digital overstimulation.  

Before the sun begins to shine

We're going to start movin'

Towards that separating line 

I'm wadin' through muddy waters

Uno can get pretty heated.  

I dropped a +2 on Eduardo.

"¡PUTA MADRE!!!"  he shrieked, laughing.  

"Cállate." Pway instructed, with a little eyebrow raise.  

"Mira, pendeja."  Danny said with satisfaction, dropping another + card.

"Chúpamela."  Eduardo responded.

"A la bestia."  Rafael mumbled.  

"No tengo nada."

"Maybe you should take UNO."  Pway mentioned with a little smile, handing him a card. 

Pway laid down a few more bad cards and beat all of us.  She and Mya were playing as a team, against me and the Spanish-speaking wild men.  

"¡AYYYYYY!"  Eduardo howled, before running around the table, slapping my hair out of the way, grabbing my face and kissing me really hard on the cheek.  He had a look of pure joy on his face and everyone was laughing.  

Although it sounds insane, it was a really great time and I was so glad that they were happy.  

We stood outside of the trailer, watching a huge truck lug another old trailer up to the back of the school.  

"How are they going to take one of these old trailers away with that other old one hooked up to the back?"  someone asked.

That is when we realized that the old trailers were just being replaced with others that were equally old.  Identically old, and that ours didn't even qualify for a new old trailer.   My kids and I climbed through the construction to get to our clubhouse.  

I stood in the cafeteria while a pre-k teacher husseled her class in for lunch.

"Not ready for kindergarten!"  she called, when the kids started getting wily.  

"Girl, fifth grade ain't either."  Reynold mentioned, shaking his head.  None of the tables were set up and he was sitting there, randomly, in a chair, eating his lunch.  

"Reynold, where you supposed to be?"  Ms. Rainier asked.

"I don't know, they told me to wait on the principal."  he responded, putting another french fry in his mouth.  

I looked at Rainier, shaking my head.

"Reynold can wait anything out.  He can have the meanest teacher in the school screaming over his shoulder and he will still have that shit-eating look on his face."

We both started laughing.  

"THEY FRIENDS NOW!"  she responded.

"Yeah, after she starved him out and then started giving him food again.  Stockholm Syndrome."  I said, shaking my head.

"Yeah,  I saw a docuseries about that."  she responded, eyes wide and shaking her head.  

"On the last day of school, you gettin' a hug, Ms. Wagner gettin' a hug but Mr. T, no hug."  Reynold called across the cafeteria.  

"He funny.  We gonna have to look him up now that he's going to middle school."  

While the clouds roll back and the stars fill the night
That's when I'm going to stand up
Take my people with me
Together we are going 
To a brand new home 

Far across the river.....

I did Award's Day this year.  I usually refuse, because all of my kids are awesome and I'm not selecting one that is the best.  I found out that some of the kids, especially fifth grade, wouldn't even be able to attend the ceremony or invite their parents because their grades weren't high enough.  So, I ordered a bunch of gold certificates from Amazon and invited all of my kids' parents to the ceremony myself.  Like, all of my kids, in all of the grades.  I put on my best version of fancy clothes and stood up there, calling my kids up, one by one, saying their names correctly, while their parents smiled and clapped.  I do not like speaking into microphones or standing on stages.  But you know what?  I did it anyway.  Ku wore his ceremonial tunic.  Eduardo wore his court clothes.  Baby Gustavo wore a suit.  Danny put gel in his hair and wore a jacket.  Rafael put on his elasticized bow-tie.  Albinus looked super fresh in a cute button-down and jacket, with leather sneakers.  Eduardo's sister wore a princess dress.  Ariel came in, for the first time in days.  She had new hair, with pink attached to the ends, and a pink tweed jacket. Her mom came up to me, and told me that she thought I was the only person that cared about her kid in that school and that they were out.  Mauricio slicked his Mexi-fro down and parted it.  His grandmother was in town.  His mother later told me that they recently had been able to get her in the country and that she hadn't actually seen her mother in seventeen years.  I stared at the woman, dressed formally and the Honduran grandfather stood up and hugged me.  

Every year, the Chorus-kids sing a song during these ceremonies.  It's usually a current song, one that they learn.  This year, they chose one from the Harriet Tubman movie.  I gazed across the room, listening to children sing about standing up, taking their people and crossing rivers.  I looked at the faces of my children, that I knew had done just that.  I looked at Lupita's mom, that still doesn't have papers and thought of what her journey must have been like.  At Baby Gustavo's parents, who I know crossed in the at least two decades ago.  

I read my fifth graders names.  

When I finally got to the last one, my voice cracked and I started to cry.  

*Lyrics, Stand Up, Cynthia Erivo

The Summer Side of Life

I drove down South Hairston, on my way to work.  It's brighter in the mornings now and I could see clothes strewn down the yellow line, all of the way down the road.  I made the left by the Sikh temple and pulled into the parking lot by the trailer where I work.  The school's dumpsters were full of household goods and baby clothes, stuff from people who had been evicted. 

Jaime's mom warned me that they were moving.  He'd been such a dick lately, I was almost relieved.  They were moving to Rockdale, which I knew would be better, and I told her so.  Better schools, better services for English learners.  I was surprised when they called me to the front office Monday morning, because a student wanted to say goodbye to me.  The whole family was there and Jaime was nearly in tears.  I could tell I was about to cry too, so I asked him if he wanted to visit his second grade teacher.  We said our goodbyes and Jaime ran out of the front door of the school.  I walked slowly away, feeling a pit in my stomach.  

May only the best come to you and your family, I repeated over and over in my head while I walked to the trailer.  

Teacher Appreciation Week happened.  Mya brought me a card, telling me how much I "slay" and a creepy looking clay egg.  I wrote her one back, telling her that I will miss her terribly because she also, slays.  Eduardo made me a card and brought flowers, picked from someone's front yard, and a bag of Doritos.  Ariel brought me a pink flower from her Plant Cycle project.  These things are better than some stupid Starbucks card, any day of the week.  

They make me proctor a lot of testing at work.  Sometimes I get to test my own students, which is awesome and sometimes, I don't.  I had a large group of my students in the trailer, testing, when I received a voicemail from Adan's mom.  We had been texting back and forth since she and Adan moved.  She told me they found a new place and I helped her look up which school she should enroll him in.  As soon as the kids finished the test, I listened to the message.  

It was DFCS.  Mom had given the agent her phone and told them to call me.  I argued with the DFCS woman on the phone, in front of my kids.  How there was no way in hell that I would help her take Adan away from his mom.  How insane it was that they didn't even have a Spanish speaker to conduct an interview with a mom while they were threatening to take her child.  That everything I was hearing was wrong and I WOULD NOT PARTICIPATE.  The agent's voice softened a little bit.  
"Look,"  she said.
"I want to close this case.  It seems extreme to me.  I don't think mom has papers and I know that she is scared.  Can you verify what she said, that she has been in constant contact with you, attempting to enroll her child in school?"

"Yes.  She has been in constant contact and has even Ubered to the school already, trying to enroll him."

"Okay, I'm going to do what I can."  she answered.

"Who did this?"  I asked.

"Someone named Ingle.  A social worker from your school system.  She said he had more than thirty absences....."

"I can send you a screenshot of the absences he has had from my school and believe me, it is no where near thirty.  I have never even heard this person's name."

"Are you saying her information is incorrect?"

"Yes.  Yes I am."

My fifth grade group of students is now five Spanish speaking boys and one Karen girl.  Pway is very patient with their antics and the fact that they ditch English all together when they are together.  I have this image of the first time some high school Spanish teacher tries to get Pway to say what she knows about the Spanish language and she responds, pinche wey, no mames, pendeja.  And then, threatens to fuck their mom.  

I kept trying to get the kids to do some work.  I sat next to Eduardo, while he clipped away on his Chromebook.  I heard chupa-something, and made a Chupacabra joke. 
"That's not the kind of chupa that I was talking about." he said slyly, and kept smacking his computer.  

I laughed.  Even though it is at the least wildly inappropriate to tell your teacher to suck your dick, I like it better when they're wily instead of sad and wondering when you are going to leave them, too.  

It was Career Day, but I still went to see my students while various people presented their professions.  As soon as I came in, Danny and Eduardo turned around and stopped listening to the presenter.   

"¡Me gustan!" Eduardo scream-whispered, touching one of my silver-painted finger nails.

I told them to turn around and pay attention.  They next time both boys turned back around, they had colored their fingernails with pencils so that they would be silver, too.  

I raced through the cafeteria, my entrance to the school from my trailer, trying to get to my next class. 

 "Ms. Wagner!"  an administrator called.

"Yeah?'  I responded, caught of guard.

"You gonna have to respond to them."  she said, smiling.

My fifth grade boys were all waving furiously across the cafeteria,  even the puerto rican kid they recently recruited was doing it.  

I watched Rafael slink across the trailer one morning, his eye catching something.  It was a long pink fake finger nail, part of a press-on set Ariel had worn one morning.  I watched him glance around and clandestinely put it in his pocket.  

"Why do you talk like a baby?  You're stupid, a child."  Arecely hissed at Eduardo.

"No me importa."  he responded, blowing her off.

They continued coloring in their journals.  

I don't know what this girl's problem is.  One second sweet, the next, a salty mess. 

I did a little sleuthing on my own, trying to figure out the leak in the Adan situation.  At least one person, and possibly two from my school were involved with the social worker with a hard-on that had been stalking Adan's family since a previous school.  I am not a confrontational person, but I guess I had questions.  

"Hey there, I was trying to find out why you couldn't provide ANY Spanish-language resources for a housing-insecure family, but could find a way to send DFCS to scare a mom to death?"

Her response:  Call me.  And dumbass didn't even leave a phone number.

I did end up calling her.  It wasn't pleasant.  

"You sound angry."  she said, baiting me.  

"Well, maybe I am.  Are you telling me that the only social service our school system can provide to non-English speaking parents is DFCS?"

"They're trying to help."  she responded.

"DFCS?!"

"We got the address from an entry you made in the parent contact log."

My skin started to prickle.  So, I helped?  That crazy cunt from the other school dug through my contact log?

"Do you think it's a choice for you to NOT give up that information?"  she continued, a threatening edge to her tone.  

"Let's just chalk this up to lesson learned, thank you for your time."  I said, and hung up. 

I didn't want to admit it, but it was chilling.   States across the country are passing anti-immigrant legislation.  Much of the anti-trans legislation has focused on schools.  In the 80s they tried to bar undocumented children from attending public schools.  I believe they tied it to the AIDS crisis, similar to the measures Biden and Trump used with COVID to deny entry to the United States.  We are living in a dystopian time and I feel like it is only going to get worse for us, for my kids.  It really is us against them and I will never make the mistakes I made with Adan again.  

"Do you get to talk to your dad much, since you left?"  I asked Eduardo one day.

"My dad?"  he responded.

"Yeah, you know your other dad?"  I know that he lives with his mother and two sisters and her husband.  The family that was created here while he grew up down there, before she sent for him.  

"No, I have only met him once."

"Who did you live with?"  I asked.

"Mis abuelos."

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize....do you get to talk to them sometimes?"

"Not really."  he answered.

"What are these?"  he asked, looking at some tickets I had on my desk from some drawing the school had done.

"We used these in the alburgue...."

"Wait, what?  They sent you to one of those places?  HOW LONG?"  I asked.  The detention centers on the border, the ones with kids lying on the floor under tin foil emergency blankets.  

"Only a week.  My aunt was with me in the group when we crossed through Mexico.  Hot cold, hot cold!  We got to the border and they took me to the center and deported her."

I stared back.

"Then, they put me on a plane and flew me here.  A month walking in Mexico and a hours to get to Georgia!"  he said, smiling.  

It was early and the kids were tearing through the trailer, getting journals, colored pencils, eating funky breakfast from the cafeteria.  I saw Arecely sidle up to Eduardo, whispering something.

"¡PERRA!"  he yelled in her face.  

I guess she had pushed him far enough.  

I walked up the hill with the walkers.  The hispanic contingent is less now, after Adan and Jaime moved. No more groups of "Spanish moms"  as Jaime called them, waiting at the corner for their kids.  Eduardo's mom stood up there though, with a couple of little children around her.  Sometimes I find it hard to communicate with her.  I don't know if it is because my Spanish sucks, or if it is because she thinks every communication that comes from the school comes from me.  She'll ask me abruptly about things and I have no idea what she is talking about.  She started asking me about a T-shirt Eduardo's sister had wanted for Field Day.  I looked at her blankly and Eduardo started trying to pitch in, translating the few words he knows into English.  

"Mi hija pensaba que no tuviera yo bastante dinero." she said, bitterly.

I felt really stupid, confused and everyone was looking at me and it was raining.  I tried to explain and she seemed annoyed.  There seemed like an implication that I wasn't doing my job, which bothers me because I try really hard to get my families everything that they need.  Eduardo seemed weird, too.  Not my normal, no mames wey boy.  He had the face on that he uses when he is around his homeroom teacher.  Kind of serious and blank.  I walked back down the hill in the rain, feeling beaten down.  I glanced back up at them, but they all walked with heads forward.  

I sat at my desk in the morning while the kids filed in.  I greeted them, while they set themselves up for our morning together.  Eduardo walked behind me, wrapping his arms around my neck.  I felt his face burrowing into my shoulder.

"I hated yesterday."  I said.  

I felt his face push harder into my shoulder and he just stood like that for a very long time.  

*Title, Gordon Lightfoot

Calf and Lamb

"My butt hurts."  Ariel announced.
"You know when you go to the bathroom and it hurts real bad and you just sweat...." she continued.
No, Ariel, I really don't, I thought to myself.  

"You're my mom now."  Rafael announced to our principal.

She looked at me, a little wide eyed.

"And you, you are my tía."  he continued, motioning toward me.

"Well, I guess I've been downgraded."  I announced.

"He's yours now."  I whispered to my principal, laughing.  

Standardized testing started. I never know how that is going to go; I usually have to proctor a group that does not include any of my students.  Randomly, Eduardo got put in my group.  Either him or Baby Gustavo gave me this awful, bleeding throat, hacking cold that was killing me.  I was determined not to call out during testing and came in anyway, wearing a mask.  While I gave the rest of kids the mints during testing, Eduardo and I shared a bag of cough drops and coughed our way through testing. I would let the kids play around in the room after they were done.  I felt terrible when they elected Eduardo to be the leader of their next Simon Says and he said,  I can't, I do not speak English, but continued running and playing with the American kids.  Then, he just came and sat with me and drew pictures of Quetzals and volcanoes.  

Alec and I stood at our local, pop-up farmers market.  One of us buys vegetables there every week, but usually we don't both go together.   In honor of Earth Day, the meat farm next to our vegetable stand brought a calf and lamb for people to pet while they sold lamb and veal butchered and packaged out of a cooler next to the petting enclosure.  There was a sign on the enclosure, advertising how much of the calf you could buy, one quarter, half or the whole damn thing.  I've seen that meat farm for years selling their products, but I have never seen them bring the actual animals into a petting zoo format.  I was enraged.  I guess people should know where their meat comes from, but I couldn't stop staring at those poor animals.  I petted the calf quickly, and walked away.  

I was getting a little tired of Rafael's weird jump up, surprise hugs.  Or, when he tried to track my phone.  I will always help him, I'm his teacher and I care for him tremendously, but his odd, misplaced affection was just kind of grossing me out.  He ripped the door open of the trailer one day and tried to grab me in a hug.  I shifted quickly and side-hugged him.

"So, it's like that."  he said, a cold look in his eyes.

He is nine years old.  

I don't know where he gets this shit.  

"So Wagner, um, you should get your personal things out of your trailer.  Those contractors out there are going to rip the stairs off of the trailers that are getting hauled away and we're afraid they'll rip your stairs off, too."

I stared back.

"So, I'm going to put my lunch and stuff in the trunk of my car....."  I said slowly.

"Sorry, yeah, we thought you might need a minute to process.  We aren't using you for testing this afternoon, because of, you know, the stairs."

"Me cago en tu primo."  Eduardo growled, slapping his laptop when Rosetta Stone didn't accept his answer.  

"Gross."  I answered, tired.  

I have seven kids in the trailer in the mornings now.  

"Mira, abuela."  Rafael started.

I looked at hm.

"Señora." he continued.  

"No es abuela, ni señora, es mamá!"  Eduardo yelled.

"She's got like, fifty years...."  Rafael sputtered.

Hmmm, the kids never guess my age correctly.  He must have googled me, too.  

"Lo mataré." Eduardo muttered.

"Tienes amor tóxico."  Adan said to Rafael, smiling slyly.  Rafael tried to throw shade on him and Adan gave it back to him, hard.  

After that, all of the boys started calling Rafael "Amor Tóxico".  

I was alarmed that Rafael could shift so fast into meanness when he felt rejected.  I wondered what it might mean for him when he was older.  Would he be that guy that tells everyone that some girl was a lesbian just because she didn't want to go out with him?  Claim that she actually begged him to date her and he said no, as opposed to the other way around? I was glad the other boys knew what it meant to be toxic toward someone.   I hoped they could show Rafael a better way to be and that maybe he would listen to them.  I also couldn't believe I was dealing with a maelstrom of nine through twelve year old boy fever.  

I stood in the counselor's office at school, begging for help with Adan's situation.  His mom texted me that in a matter of days they would be effectively homeless.  

"Ms. Wagner!!!!"  I heard, screamed.

I saw four little faces, Adan, Eduardo, Danny and my new girl, Arecely.  Four little beautiful faces, poking into the counselor's office.  They ran off.  Arecely's hair was down and it flowed behind her, waving up and down.  

To make a long story short, Alec persuaded the farm to sell us the two animals.  It was not cheap, and they nearly called the law on Alec because they feared he would drive to their farm and let all of their baby animals free.  We put the calf in the backseat of Alec's 2006 Honda and he held the lamb in his arms while I drove the whole heard to a rescue farm in Conyers.   

I got in the car Monday morning and it still smelled like farm.  And I drove to work and I faced the day, thinking of the baby animals and hoping they slept well.

Children of the Beehive

I remembered this day, long ago.  I was jacked up on Prozac and didn't want to go to my therapy appointment.  I was with my friend Somber-Tracy, who is a Republican now.  
"Dogs just roll around in the sun.  It makes them happy.  I want to be like that."  I announced.
"Hilary, what the fuck is wrong with you?"  she answered.
Then, we jumped up and down on the trampoline in her backyard for a while and I ditched the appointment.  

I saw the dog, the dog I call Faye, on the dog shelter's website.  They said that she had been abandoned, tied to the fence by her owner.  I know they have to say what they're going to say, but did they really think that was what happened that day?  That I was lying?  She's been in there more than two months.  

Papí and I took off during spring break.  Lola too.  We drove two days to New Mexico.   It was hot, then cold, then snowing and windy.  It was perfect.  The time changed and we changed and we came back.  It was beautiful.

Rafael ran into the trailer, nearly ripping the door off.

"I made my own lunch!" he screamed, opening his lunch box.

I looked inside.  Two rice puddings and a bag of Doritos.  Carefully packaged.  And, a Capri Sun.  

"Is that your hair?"  he asked, as one of the massively long threads of my hair attached to the sweater I was wearing.  

"Yeah, sorry, I shed."  I responded.

"I'm keeping it, " he responded, running away with a piece of my hair.

"I like your skin."  he continued, sniffing my sweater.  

"Look!  Christians!"  Lupita yelled.  

We were walking out of our trailer, the one that school thought didn't need a Swiffer, though I do all of the cleaning myself, and didn't need to be replaced by a new trailer, though no one uses the old ones and I am covering up holes in the walls with paper and the floor is caving in.  

I saw these white women walking around, with long skirts and white sweaters.

"Are the Witnesses, or Mormons..?"  I whispered to Lupita.

"They come to our house too!"  Agnieszka announced.

"We call them the Hallelujahs,  everyone does!"  Lupita responded, gold cross glistening in the sun.

"Pendejo."  Eduardo growled.

"Zee gurl ees goeeg to zee library..."  he continued, speaking into the headset I had to buy myself, for their Rosetta Stone lesson. 

It rejected his pronunciation.  

I heard a loud slap.

"Zee gurl ees goeeg to zee library..." he said again.

"Pinche wey....."  he continued, slapping the computer when it rejected his pronunciation.  

He and Danny started wrestling.  Both were on the ground.  

"¡Chupáme debajo!"  Eduardo screamed, showing me the Google Translate version of 'suck my dick' on his computer, merrily, just to make sure I knew what he said.  

"Yeah, "  I responded.

"I heard you.  Get your stuff, friends.  I have to see my first graders.  I hope you all have a great day.  The best day.  I'll see you again in a few hours."

*Title, Sonny and the Sunsets  

Out Like a Lamb

Rafael launched into the trailer, nearly ripping the door off, like he does every morning.

"So my uncle from France, he gave my brother a Rolex for his birthday."  he said, as if he was continuing a conversation instead of beginning one.

"But my brother, he didn't want it!  He already has an Apple watch.   He didn't want a Rolex!"  

We all laughed a little, listening to Rafael's stories about his rich uncle from France.  

Eduardo clicked on his computer, which of course wasn't doing what it was asked.

"Pinche weyyyyy"  he mumbled, trying to get the page to load.  

Shortly before Lola's eleventh birthday, we found another lump on her.  I called the vet to move up her twice yearly tumor check and X-rays.  I was surprised when they said Lola's vet had left the practice.  Lola's vet that helped us through her malignant tumor and radiation and performed another surgery for an additional tumor.  She has guided us through all of this and I felt an awful sense of dread as I booked Lola's appointment with another vet.  As the date approached, I felt extreme apprehension.  Would this be the visit when they say there is nothing they can do?

Rafael launched into the trailer, nearly ripping the door off.  He was hiding something behind his back and all of the boys were smiling.  

"Close your eyes."  he instructed.

"IT"S A...!"  Jaime called out, attempting to ruin Rafael's surprise.

"Mamón wey!"  Eduardo hissed, stopping Jaime from continuing.

"Pendejo."  Danny seconded.

Rafael pulled a large box from a jewelry store bag and produced a golden bracelet with a black magnetic stone on it.  He pushed it onto my wrist.

"Rafael....wow, that is so nice of you...how did you....?"  I sputtered, not knowing what to say.  

"My uncle from Francia."  he responded, smiling.  

I smiled back.  Though I had doubts that this was a priceless French jewelry piece, I found it sweet, yet horribly uncomfortable and I wondered if his mom knew that one of her bracelets had left the house.  

Eduardo spun the globe, slowly.  

"It took a month for me to get here."  he mentioned.

"I didn't really see Mexico, we just went from pueblo to pueblo."

"One night, we were sleeping outside and my arm felt weird.  I pulled off my jacket and there were these bugs all over it and red marks."

I stared back.

"But I'm here now so it's all okay."  he continued, and smiled. 

"Did you know that Mexico used to extend to here?"  he said, pointing up near Colorado on the globe.

"Yeah, before the United States lo robaron."  I answered, smiling too. 

"And Colombia, it was all of this..." he continued, pointing to parts of South America.  

"Panama, too"  he continued.  

"And the Mayans were here."  he said, pointing in Central America.

"But they're not gone."  I responded.

"You're Mayan, so they are still here."  

"That's right."  he answered, smiling broadly.  

They kept Lola for a long time at the vet, sedating her, scanning her.  The vet called me with the results, though Alec was the one who took her to the appointment.  I held my breath.

"The new bump is not malignant.  And her scans are all clear.  There are not mast cell tumors."

I exhaled slowly.  

"So, we will see her in six months!"

"Thank you."  I responded.

"Thank you so much for taking care of her."