On These Magic Shores Read online

  “Thanks for bringing my sister, Mrs. Sorensen. I’ll have her, please.”

  Mrs. Sorensen looked surprised, but she handed me the sleeping baby. “They’re such sweethearts! I wanted to keep them all, especially this treasure. She talked up a storm tonight. She must have made herself tired, with all the telling stories about fairies and magic coins. According to her, there’s a dungeon at the middle school!”

  She laughed, but my hairs stood on end in alarm. Mamá’s face also got startled at the mention of Avi’s talking.

  On my way to the bedroom, I smiled at her briefly, hoping she’d understand that I meant for her to wait until I could explain. She nodded so imperceptibly, only I could tell she had understood.

  Avi nestled in the bed when I put her down, and I covered her with her Winnie the Pooh blanket. By the time I came back to the kitchen with the blanket Mrs. Sorensen had brought her in, Mamá was curled up in the couch, but looking at me with a smile on her face.

  I ran to hug her, but she put a hand up to stop me. “My stomach hurts a lot. Disculpa, mi amor. I don’t mean to put you off, but I’m hurting really bad.”

  I made as if to follow Mrs. Sorensen out. From the window, I saw all of them walking toward their car.

  “She says Avi can keep the blanket,” Mamá whispered.

  I was glad Mrs. Sorensen hadn’t stayed talking, but I wished I could’ve said goodnight to Maverick. He must have thought we were a bunch of ungrateful girls.

  “What happened to you, Mamá?” I asked, brushing her hair out of her face. Her skin felt clammy to the touch.

  Mamá grimaced and clutched at her stomach. “Give me a minute. I took my medicine right before you got home. It should take effect any moment now.”

  I sat beside her, holding her hand. It was so surreal to have her sitting next to me. Looking back, it seemed like the last few days had been a nightmare, and I was finally waking up. From now on though, life would continue as usual, as normal.

  A muffled voice broke the charged silence of the kitchen. “Can I come out now, Mamá?”

  I laughed in spite of myself. Silly Kota. Was she still in the bathroom waiting?

  I didn’t want Avi to wake up, and I wanted to warn Kota that Mamá was sick, so I tiptoed to the bathroom. “Careful when you hug her. She’s sick.”

  Kota nodded once, and we went back to the living room hand in hand.

  Mamá watched us with a smile on her face that wasn’t enough to cover the pain she must have been in. She had more color in her face, and her hands were still cold but felt alive.

  “What happened?” Kota asked. “Where were you, Mamá? We missed you so much! It was so hard to live without you!”

  Kota’s tears streamed down her face. But I held mine in. Two crying girls was too much work for Mamá. She didn’t look like she could deal with a lot of emotions right now.

  “I’ll tell you the whole thing if you promise to be strong a little bit longer.” I only heard her because I held my breath to catch her every word. “The ­medicine I took takes the pain away, but it also makes me tired. If . . . if I . . . if I drift off before I finish . . . don’t wake me up. I’ll tell you more tomorrow.”

  “Of course,” I said before Kota could argue. “Okay, Kota? Let’s sit here on the floor,” I said, patting the carpet. It felt like we were getting ready for a fairy story. This one had a happy ending, because she was here now.

  Mamá spoke again. “That night I went to work, I fainted in the street after I got off the bus and woke up hours later in a hospital.”

  Kota looked at me, her eyes and mouth in an expression of total horror. I pressed her hand to let her know everything would be okay. Wasn’t Mamá with us now? Kota nodded at me, letting me know she’d gotten the message.

  Mamá’s eyes were closed, and she spoke in a whisper that gave me goosebumps. “The whole time I had these dreams that I was flying to Neverland, but I wanted to come home. One time I woke up, but the doctors wouldn’t let me leave the bed yet. I couldn’t really get up on my own. Not even to follow the fairy lights. . . .”

  She and I sighed at the same time. I didn’t know why she did, but my sigh was born of frustration. Fairies? Did fairies really try to help her come home? I didn’t want to interrupt her, so I let her continue.

  “This morning, though, I told them I was ready to come home with you, my sweet princesas. So . . . they let me go. . . .”

  She sighed at the end, and then her breathing turned slower and slower until I realized she was asleep.

  Kota and I looked at each other in silence. I motioned for her to wait for me in the kitchen.

  “I’ll make the mátes,” she mouthed.

  “I’ll take care of the water,” I said, and she nodded wordlessly.

  I covered Mamá with her blanket, the one I was keeping on my bed every night to pretend she was with me, hugging me when it was dark.

  “Mamá,” I whispered, caressing her head. It looked greasy and unkempt, like she hadn’t even brushed it in a long time, but her hands were tinged with golden glitter, the kind I’d been finding all over our house. I didn’t know what to think anymore. “Thanks for coming back. Te quiero, Mamá.” Just in case, I whispered, “Thanks for bringing her home, Peques.”

  When she slept, her mouth pouted the same way as Kota’s. I wanted to hug my mamá and pass on my strength to her, but I didn’t want to bother her. I went back to the kitchen where Kota had made the yerba máte tea. Mamá had often told us not to waste her yerba, but I needed a little bit of comfort, and sometimes when Mamá and I talked late into the night, she would let me have máte with her. Mamá had never let me boil the water before, but in the last few days, I’d proved I could do this simple thing without getting hurt.

  Carefully, I heated the water and took the presiding place at the table. My sister didn’t complain because she knew the rules. The oldest serves the máte and passes it around.

  “She doesn’t look that well,” Kota said, stating the obvious.

  “But she’s home. She can get better if we’re good, you know? We just need to be really good and a lot of help so she can recover.”

  In the end, Kota and I drank máte in silence, at peace that Mamá was home, but feeling the future looming in front of us. We’d barely survived these last three days, but what would we do from now on? Rent was due soon, and if Mamá hadn’t worked, all the money we had was what I had found in her wallet in her closet.

  “It’s so late, and I’m so tired!” Kota said, yawning widely.

  “Let’s go to sleep,” I finally said.

  In the darkness of the night, I woke up to the sound of Mamá when she got up to throw up and cry silently.

  Kota didn’t want to go to school.

  “You have to,” I said. “We need to help Mamá. I told you last night and you were perfectly fine with the plan. Besides, if you go to school, you’ll get to eat lunch. We don’t have a lot of food here.”

  That woke her up in every sense of the word.

  I walked her to school and hurried back home to Mamá and Avi, who was still sleeping and hadn’t moved since the night before. It worried me how much Avi slept. Was that normal? Was it because she was growing? Was it because she’d been so hungry? Maybe I’d take a book out of the library to read up on normal toddler behavior.

  Good thing I didn’t have school, so while Mamá showered (she said she hadn’t had a proper shower since the night she left for work and we’d seen her for the last time), I straightened up the room and made toast and tea for her.

  “Thank you, mi amor,” she said.

  But the tea went cold, and the toast rested untouched on the plate.

  Avi toddled into the room, rubbing her eyes like she wasn’t sure where she was. Poor thing, she’d gone to bed in a mansion and woken up in our rundown apartment. What was she thinking?

 
When she saw Mamá, she looked at me and ran into my arms. “Mami, Minnie? That Mami?” she whispered only for my ears, her tiny arms clutching me so hard that I had a hard time breathing.

  Mamá, who hadn’t cried when the police officer brought me home, who’d held herself stoic like a queen when Mrs. Sorensen came over, who had told us her tale of horror dry-eyed, burst into tears.

  “Is she talking? Avalon? Say hi to Mami?”

  Avalon shook her head.

  “Why, Avi?” I said. “Say hi to Mamá. Aren’t you happy she’s back?”

  Avalon didn’t know how to lie yet. Her thoughts and feelings were plain on her face. Just in case her look of disdain wasn’t enough, she pointed at Mamá and said, “Mean Mamá. Avi so sad.”

  My sisters had mastered the art of expressing what they felt. Maybe they were good at it because their feelings were less complicated than mine. Like Kota, I wanted to hug Mamá and smother her with kisses, but at the same time I felt like Avi: so mad I didn’t even want to talk to her. But I couldn’t do either, so I acted colder than the ocean the night the Titanic sunk.

  Mamá looked like she wanted to explain herself to Avi, but instead ran to the bathroom.

  Avi bit her lip as Mamá retched and retched for what seemed like hours. “Mami sick,” she said.

  When Mamá hobbled back to the couch, Avi wouldn’t go to her. Our mamá was either too tired or too patient to insist, and went to sleep.

  My stomach rumbled because I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I made a sandwich for Avi and me to share. I took the smallest half. Kota would bring me something from school. After Avi and I ate, Mamá woke up. “Why aren’t you in school?” Her voice was scratchy, hoarse.

  “There was a fire in the teacher’s lounge. The school’s closed the rest of the week,” I replied, flinching as I thought again of Avi at the school, alone in the room under the stairs.

  Mamá didn’t see the reflection of my mistakes in my eyes because she went back to sleep.

  With nothing else to do, and needing to be quiet for Mamá, Avi and I watched cartoons first, and then Chespirito all day. Now that Mamá was home, the ghosts of her absence were stronger and louder than when I didn’t know what had happened to her. Because what if she felt better in a couple of days? She’d go back to her two jobs. And then how would I know she wouldn’t get sick again and end up at the hospital? I couldn’t let her leave my side. Not for a second.

  In the afternoon — Mamá had finally slept for a longer spell without throwing up — when I was debating whether to take Avi with me as I picked up Kota from school, someone knocked on the door.

  It was Maverick.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked, instead of saying what I really felt, which was Thanks for still being my friend. Thanks for being with me yesterday.

  Maverick got me better than I expected though. “Don’t be rude, you silly sevie. I’m with the guys — Blessings and Canyon.” He pointed somewhere out in Mr. Chang’s garden where his Lost Boys were waiting for him. “We’ll walk Kota home from school. Oh! I also brought you this.”

  He handed me a plate of cookies and a container with food that was still warm. “I thought you would love these milanesas. My parents went to an Argentine restaurant today and brought them back.”

  I didn’t know what to say. The sandwich I had for lunch was still bouncing around my otherwise empty stomach, but I was too proud to accept this food he brought.

  Take it for Mamá, I thought, because I couldn’t afford to be so prideful right now. With Mamá sick, we’d need all the help we could take.

  “Is your mom okay?” he asked. He looked at me in a way that made me want to curl in his arms and cry and cry.

  “My mom’s very sick,” I said.

  What was it about Maverick that made me want to tell him all my secrets? Maybe the fact that he didn’t judge? Of all the people at school and in the street, he was the only one who saw me, a clueless sevie, and knew I needed help. He didn’t just say, Let me know what you need. In his simple boy way, he gave the help he could. He was my friend. That was more than enough.

  “Do you want me to take Avi out for a bit?”

  The sun was gloriously sweet and soft, like melted gold dripping from the trees and painting the world for the fall. I wanted to be able to drink up that sunshine and gather strength. I had to stay home with Mamá, but Avi didn’t have to be cooped up, a captive in a dungeon.

  “Okay,” I said. “No scooter, though! And bring them back as quickly as possible. Mamá will worry if she wakes up and doesn’t see them.”

  “And you? You can’t come out for a few minutes? Does your mom need you to stay with her the whole time?”

  I looked over my shoulder to where Mamá slept on the couch. She’d been throwing up all day, and if I left, who knew what might happen to her?

  “For now, at least,” I said.

  “Okay,” Maverick replied, “But on Saturday I’ll pick you up to jump some tricks on the skateboard.”

  Maverick interpreted my thin-lipped smile as an excuse, but I couldn’t commit to something I might not be able to make.

  He and Avi left, and I watched them go, no shadow behind them, like the sun was inside them and they lit up the world as they walked. Those two were special.

  “He’s such a good friend,” Mamá said from the couch.

  She looked at me with teary eyes that made me want to have a magic wand. I’d wave it in the air, mutter a few special words, and heal her.

  The grownup part of my soul whispered, But you know there’s no magic, right? Look at her! If the doctors sent her home like this, no one else can help her.

  I wanted to punch that voice in the face.

  Magic was everywhere. Yes, even in our basement apartment. Kota and Avi believed in it. Mamá believed in it.

  Maybe just a little bit of magic existed in this house.

  I wish life was simple like in Peter Pan, that I could bring a mother home and make everything better. Even Hook wanted one in the book (they always left this out of the play). But a mother was here, and she needed help. Who could save her?

  Mamá, of course unaware of the thoughts raging in my mind, waved me over to her and patted the couch for me to sit next to her.

  “Tell me about your friend,” she said in that scratchy voice.

  “He’s such a fool! So spoiled, Mamá! Can you believe he’s the seventh child, the only boy?” I exclaimed, to get rid of the tunnel image in my head. “He doesn’t want to grow up! He’s like what Peter Pan would’ve become if Peter had family who loved him.”

  She laughed, maybe wondering what it must have been like to be so loved and treasured. And then she surprised me. “I’m the youngest of five. The only girl.”

  I held my breath, waiting for more. She’d never talked about her family. I knew her father died when she was too little to remember him, but I didn’t know about anyone else.

  “They all loved me so much and I was a fool not to see. I wonder where they are now. What they think of me.”

  My own confession was on the tip of my tongue. Should I tell her I’d sent a message to her mom?

  Just when I was about to spill the words like an offering of healing, she said, “My mom would be so disappointed in me if she saw me like this. I’m glad she’s so, so far away.”

  I couldn’t tell her. She would get upset at me for breaking the rules, and honestly, I didn’t know if my grandma Fátima had received the message. For all I knew, it was still bouncing around on the internet. Even if she’d received it, she might not want anything to do with us, a bunch of lost girls, the four of us needing so much, all the time.

  “Do you miss her? Your mom?” I asked her.

  She closed her eyes and pressed her lips together. I knew that gesture. That’s what I did every time the sorrow was too much.

 
Closed eyes, closed way to the soul. The tears couldn’t escape. Clamped mouth, no way for the words to leak out and ask for help or accept the hurt.

  The powerful mother who could make a police officer nervous with her quiet authority had ­vanished. Instead, a girl (a big girl, but still) was hurting and needed her mom. But that mom was gone forever. I couldn’t do anything to help. Not even a magic cupcake or a golden coin could ease this pain.

  * * *

  When Maverick came back with my sisters, the three of them were smiling like they had been soaring all over Neverland, but like Peter and the Lost Boys, once they returned from their adventures, they acted surprised so much time had gone by.

  “The girls already ate,” he said. “McKenna drove me to the elementary — don’t look at me like that! We have those built-in booster seats in our van. Then she drove us home to say hi to our mom. She misses having babies.”

  My sisters came in, carrying toys. A couple of Barbie heads poked out of the armful Avi clutched against her heart.

  “My mom gave them those. I hope it’s okay.”

  Kota batted her lashes at Maverick shamelessly. “You’re awesome, Mav!” She kissed him on the hand before running to the room. My sisters both wore shiny and colorful princess dresses I’d never seen before.

  It wasn’t my job to provide food, toys, or dress-up clothes for my sisters, but I felt ashamed that someone ended up giving them what my mom never could although she worked so much.

  “You shouldn’t spoil them so much,” I said as Maverick and I went outside to the stoop to talk. “They’re going to think everything’s easy. It’s not even Christmas yet.”

  Maverick scowled at me. “Okay, Grandma.”

  Grandmas were nice. What did he mean I sounded like one?

  “Just because you’re . . . spoiled . . .” He was beyond spoiled, but I couldn’t find a better word. “Doesn’t mean everyone else goes about their lives like everything belongs to them. My mom gave us rules for a reason. It’s not that I’m not grateful for the toys.”