The Queen of Water by Laura Resau

boyfriend,” the Doctorita warns.
    “I don’t have a boyfriend. I’m just … happy.” I turn to Andrecito. “One, two, three, swing!” And we laugh together.
    “Humph,” the Doctorita says, screwing up her face into a half frown, half laugh. “We better not find out you have a boyfriend.”
    I’m in the truck, breathing in smells of sunshine on plastic and the pungent sweat pouring from my armpits. I’m nervous. We’re on our way to Yana Urku, my old village. For some reason, they’ve decided to bring me along to visit Niño Carlitos’s parents for the weekend. They were probably afraid something crazy would happen if they left me alone in the house with all my mysterious happiness.
    All five of us have been squeezed on one seat for three hours, Andrecito asleep on my skinny lap and Jaimito on the Doctorita’s wide lap, and Niño Carlitos driving. Andrecito’s face is damp and smells sweet and sticks to my arm. His cheeks are rosy and his little lips parted and his chest rising and falling. Meanwhile, Jaimito is bouncing and shifting as the Doctorita tries to hold him still. He’s going through a phase where he talks and asks questions nonstop.
    “What are those plants?” he asks, staring out the window at fields of tall stalks. I can’t help smiling at the way he still can’t pronounce his s ’s.
    “Cane,” Niño Carlitos answers, since the Doctorita has no patience.
    “Why did they plant cane?”
    “To make sugar and liquor.”
    “Why?”
    “For money.”
    “What’s that smoke?”
    “Part of the sugarcane-making process. They distill it.”
    “What’s distill?”
    The Doctorita rolls her eyes while Niño Carlitos explains distillation. I listen for a while, recognizing some words from Understanding Our Universe —evaporation, pressure, water vapor.
    As the mountain Imbabura grows bigger and closer, I try to remember my mother’s and father’s faces. My sisters’ and brother’s. They are frozen in time, and fading, like old photos in an album. Do they remember my face? Do they wonder how I might look now? Would I recognize them if I passed them on the street? What did we used to talk about? Definitely not distillation and evaporation. What, then? Potatoes? Corn? What would we talk about if we saw each other again?
    With a damp handkerchief, the Doctorita dabs at the sweat trickling down her face. She shifts Jaimito, who has finally quieted down and fallen asleep in her lap. Now she and Niño Carlitos are talking about their plans to move to Ibarra, a nearby city, much bigger and busier than Kunu Yaku.
    “I’m sick of our backwater town,” she snorts. “I can’t wait to live in Ibarra. Civilization.”
    Niño Carlitos looks straight ahead. Light pours through the window, illuminating his bald spot. “Well, if our job transfers go through, then we can move there. But for now be patient, Negra.”
    A couple of years ago, when they first started talking about moving, I felt fluttery with nervous excitement. A new place filled with new people. Something different, something big. But after years of hearing about the move, I began to accept that it would never actually happen. Complaining about Kunu Yaku was just another of the Doctorita’s little fixations, I realized, like knitting Baby Jesus dresses and fretting about thieves and worrying about her boys catching germs.
    “It better be soon,” the Doctorita says, just like she always says. Her chins jiggle extra hard with every bump in the road. She never lost the weight from her last pregnancy, and now she has two fleshy chins.
    She wipes her forehead again and turns to me. “Virginia, I know you want to go to school. So I’ll pull some strings and get you a diploma from the elementary school, and with that you’ll be able to go to sewing school in Ibarra.”
    “Really?” I say, trying not to show any emotion, reminding myself that this will probably never come to pass. I press my lips to the top of Andrecito’s head, onto