There is a forest behind my trailer, through the weeds and under the gate and across the trickly, oily ditch. It is a forest of very, very old car parts, heaps of rusted metal, spotted orangey brown, with rainbow layers of fading paint, and leaves and vines poking and twisting through the holes. Birds and snakes and bugs sometimes peek out from the pipes and hubcaps. My neighborhood is calledForest View Mobile Home Park. I think this must be the forest they’re talking about.
On the day Papá was deported, that’s where I went.
The police had pulled him over a week earlier, and while he was in jail, Mamá was on her cell phone all the time.
Deportado, deportado, deportado
, she said, in a hushed, dangerous voice.
Deportado
, she said to my aunts Rosa and Virginia and María.
Deportado
, she said over the phone to Uncle Luciano in Mexico.
Deportado
meant Papá would be sent back to Mexico, and it would be very, very hard for him to come back.
The day before he was deported, I saw Papá at the jail. He stared at me through the scratchy plastic divider. The phone shook in his hand. He said, “Goodbye, Zitlally.” Then he whispered,
“Ni-mitz nequi.”
I love you.
He looked strange in the blue jumpsuit, and even stranger because he was crying, right there in front of the other prisoners and their families and the guards. But my tears stayed hidden under a stone inside a cave inside me. I worried that Papá thought I wasn’t sad because my face was dry when I said goodbye.
The next day, alone in the car part forest, I felt tears pushing out like a geyser.
My name is Zitlally.
Estrella
. Star. That’s what it means in Nahuatl. Nahuatl is what Papá speaks to me in secret, even though I don’t understand. It is a soft language full of
shhhhs
and perfect for whispering at night. I used to think it was the language of the stars, what they whispered to each other. This year during the Mexico unit in school, I found out it was the language of the Aztecs. The Aztecs are supposed to be all dead. Maybe they’re the ones whispering. I didn’t tell anyone that their words aren’t dead. I know because Papá speaksthem. Because he named me one. Because I hear the stars whispering.
Shhhh
.
The day after Papá was
deportado
, Mamá was on the phone saying
deportado, deportado
and crying and Reina was watching a murder movie on TV and Dalia was hanging out with her friends at the edge of the park that no kids are allowed to go to because of the broken glass and needles. Usually Mamá would frown and Papá would say that Dalia couldn’t hang out with them and that Reina couldn’t watch murder movies, but now that Mamá was always on the phone, saying
deportado, deportado
, she didn’t notice much.
I brought my math worksheets outside and sat on the ripped Astroturf porch, leaning against the tin side of our trailer. I shivered and wished I’d brought a sweater. It was a little cold because it was April.
Fractions. Four-fifths. The fraction of my family here. Papá used to look over my shoulder as I did math homework and help me. He didn’t do problems the way Mr. Martin did on the board.He had his own system. He was a framer and always had to cut wood perfectly, down to the exact one-eighth of an inch, and not waste any wood. He was a master of fractions.
Something crashed, something glass. It came from next door. Then came a waterfall of bashing and breaking and yelling. It was that girl, Crystal’s, mom and her mom’s boyfriend.
I never talked to Crystal at school.
My best friend, Morgan, said that Crystal shopped at garage sales.
My second-best friend, Emma, said she had poor dental hygiene and chronic halitosis.
And my third-best friend, Olivia, said she used to pee in her pants in first grade.
Since they were my best friends forever, I knew where my loyalty was. When Crystal tried to talk to me at the bus stop, I just shrugged and smiled with no teeth and looked away.
In the two years we’d been friends,
On the day Papá was deported, that’s where I went.
The police had pulled him over a week earlier, and while he was in jail, Mamá was on her cell phone all the time.
Deportado, deportado, deportado
, she said, in a hushed, dangerous voice.
Deportado
, she said to my aunts Rosa and Virginia and María.
Deportado
, she said over the phone to Uncle Luciano in Mexico.
Deportado
meant Papá would be sent back to Mexico, and it would be very, very hard for him to come back.
The day before he was deported, I saw Papá at the jail. He stared at me through the scratchy plastic divider. The phone shook in his hand. He said, “Goodbye, Zitlally.” Then he whispered,
“Ni-mitz nequi.”
I love you.
He looked strange in the blue jumpsuit, and even stranger because he was crying, right there in front of the other prisoners and their families and the guards. But my tears stayed hidden under a stone inside a cave inside me. I worried that Papá thought I wasn’t sad because my face was dry when I said goodbye.
The next day, alone in the car part forest, I felt tears pushing out like a geyser.
My name is Zitlally.
Estrella
. Star. That’s what it means in Nahuatl. Nahuatl is what Papá speaks to me in secret, even though I don’t understand. It is a soft language full of
shhhhs
and perfect for whispering at night. I used to think it was the language of the stars, what they whispered to each other. This year during the Mexico unit in school, I found out it was the language of the Aztecs. The Aztecs are supposed to be all dead. Maybe they’re the ones whispering. I didn’t tell anyone that their words aren’t dead. I know because Papá speaksthem. Because he named me one. Because I hear the stars whispering.
Shhhh
.
The day after Papá was
deportado
, Mamá was on the phone saying
deportado, deportado
and crying and Reina was watching a murder movie on TV and Dalia was hanging out with her friends at the edge of the park that no kids are allowed to go to because of the broken glass and needles. Usually Mamá would frown and Papá would say that Dalia couldn’t hang out with them and that Reina couldn’t watch murder movies, but now that Mamá was always on the phone, saying
deportado, deportado
, she didn’t notice much.
I brought my math worksheets outside and sat on the ripped Astroturf porch, leaning against the tin side of our trailer. I shivered and wished I’d brought a sweater. It was a little cold because it was April.
Fractions. Four-fifths. The fraction of my family here. Papá used to look over my shoulder as I did math homework and help me. He didn’t do problems the way Mr. Martin did on the board.He had his own system. He was a framer and always had to cut wood perfectly, down to the exact one-eighth of an inch, and not waste any wood. He was a master of fractions.
Something crashed, something glass. It came from next door. Then came a waterfall of bashing and breaking and yelling. It was that girl, Crystal’s, mom and her mom’s boyfriend.
I never talked to Crystal at school.
My best friend, Morgan, said that Crystal shopped at garage sales.
My second-best friend, Emma, said she had poor dental hygiene and chronic halitosis.
And my third-best friend, Olivia, said she used to pee in her pants in first grade.
Since they were my best friends forever, I knew where my loyalty was. When Crystal tried to talk to me at the bus stop, I just shrugged and smiled with no teeth and looked away.
In the two years we’d been friends,
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