On These Magic Shores Read online

  I held the dress softly, like it would be crushed if I hugged it against my chest like I wanted to. “Thank you, Mamá,” I whispered.

  My mom hadn’t been too excited for me to audition. Actually, she hadn’t been excited at all. She’d said there were other ways for me to become the president of the United States, that a play in seventh grade didn’t matter, especially not Peter Pan. How did she know if she hadn’t attended middle school in the US to start with?

  But I guess she just hated plays, not only Peter Pan. Once, our church had performed a version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. They’d adapted it to cowboys who have a party at the end. Joseph and his brothers wore Mexican sombreros with fruits on top, as they did the limbo dance. Mamá had been livid and made us leave before the song was over. Back then, I thought she had over­reacted. Kota had been devastated we didn’t get to eat the refreshments at the end, but Mamá didn’t care about that. She ranted about how people hold on to wrong ideas just because that’s the way things have always been done.

  That had been the last time we went to church.

  This, bringing me a dress, had to be her way of telling me that even if she didn’t agree with me, she was on my side no matter what. I hadn’t expected it.

  Kota looked from Mamá to me, maybe feeling the cloud of unmentionable feelings that had settled over us. After a few seconds of awkward silence, she asked the million-dollar question. “Where did you get all this stuff from?”

  Mamá caressed her hair and smiled widely. “That’s a secret, Dakota mía.”

  My sister didn’t give in. “Did you buy it? On the Sabbath?”

  Mamá stood up and walked toward the kitchen. “Of course not, Dakota. I got it yesterday. It’s just that I didn’t have a ride home, and it was too heavy for me to walk with it all the way. I left it at the nursing home, so I could bring it to you today.”

  We might not have gone to church in a long, long time, but we still observed the commandments, and keeping the Sabbath day holy was a big one, although I suspected Mamá insisted on it to keep us out of trouble when she was either working or sleeping.

  My sisters tried the new clothes on while I put my treasures away. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mamá’s profile. Her black hair was frizzy even when it was pulled in a tight knot on the back of her head, and her brown skin looked ashy. If I were the mom, I’d suggest she put lotion on, but of course I didn’t say anything. Mamá was like a stick person drowning in her worn-out jeans and a black T-shirt she’d gotten for free when she volunteered at the school book fair years ago. I’d been in second grade, and Papá was still around. books save lives! the T-shirt read. I tried to think of the last time I saw Mamá wearing something other than free T-shirts, but I couldn’t remember.

  Later, after Mamá’s reminder that the fairies went to sleep at sundown, so we had to as well, I heard her going through last-minute preparations before she left for her job at the nursing home. Sometimes she did a double shift, like today, but she always popped in for a bit to put us in bed and make sure we were okay.

  “Did you leave milk for the Peques?” she asked Kota. “Remember, they watch over you when I’m gone.”

  Peques, short for Pequeños, is what Mamá called the fairies that supposedly had followed her from Argentina. They were her friends, now ours, and they loved it when we left them gifts, like a saucer with milk. Stupid fairies! I covered my head with the pillow to block the lies and the disgusted expression I knew I had on my face. When Mamá left, I was in charge. No fairies ever helped me.

  The usual tightness in my chest pressed down on me. I hated this feeling, but there was no one else. No fairies watched us. It was just me protecting the girls all night long. Who protected me? I preferred not to ask aloud because I already knew the answer.

  Kota rustled in the bed. I held the comforter so she wouldn’t pull it off me as she kicked and squirmed. On the other bed, Avi slept like those garden statues of dreaming cherubs, her bottom sticking up in the air, her mouth a perfect pucker.

  Mamá finally came back to kiss us goodnight before she headed out. She covered Avi with the Winnie the Pooh blanket. She straightened the covers on Kota’s side of the bed, and finally, she knelt on the floor next to me for the last directions of the night.

  “Stay in bed, and if Avalon wakes up —”

  “Go sleep with her, I know,” I cut her off.

  She nodded once and exhaled like she was relieved I understood that crucial piece of information. Her breath smelled bad, of un-brushed teeth, although she was so strict about teeth hygiene.

  “I’ll be home in time to braid your hair for the auditions.” She kissed my forehead, her lips lingering against my skin for a second and a heartbeat.

  “We’ll be okay,” I said. “We always are.” Secretly, I was relieved she’d remembered about my hair.

  She stood and stretched and stretched. She yawned silently, painfully. “Dream with the angels, Minerva,” she finally said. “If the shadow of a boy sneaks in, don’t take your sisters on an adventure. Wait for me.”

  I smiled, rolled my eyes at her, and shook my head all at the same time. “Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be here.”

  The door clicked shut, and I fell asleep right away. My dreams were full of music and fairies, sneaking shadows and glitter.

  When I woke up, I bolted to a sitting position. Our basement apartment was usually dark even in the middle of the day, but a little light still entered through the small, grimy windows. It was too light for six-thirty in the morning, when Mamá always came back from work and got us ready for the day. She usually took a little nap while we were at school, and then at noon she took Avalon to day care and headed to her day job for a few hours until dinner time.

  I slipped out of the bed, noticing golden glitter on my pillow. Maybe when Avi was coloring, she’d accidentally stained the sheets with sparkly markers or something. After all her tossing, Kota had ended up at the foot of the bed. But next to her, glitter like a snail’s trail sparkled on the bed covers.

  Avi had slept through the night. She was still in the same position I’d seen her in last. She smiled like her dreams were magical.

  But where was Mamá?

  I ran into the kitchen to check if she was there. The kitchen was empty.

  I went back to the bedroom. I peeked into the bathroom.

  In our dark basement apartment, there was no trace of Mamá.

  “Eight o’clock” flashed on the microwave clock, and for the first time in my life, my mom wasn’t home when I woke up.

  I debated whether or not to wake Kota. Maybe if I went back to sleep for a few more minutes, Mamá would be here when I woke up, her absence just a nightmare. But my jumbling thoughts wouldn’t let me close my eyes. In the end, the need to have someone to help me carry the terrible knowledge that Mamá wasn’t home won.

  When I told her the news, Kota heard me in silence, squinting her swollen eyes. Finally, she said, “The bus was late.” Then she got up, got dressed, and combed her hair. Just the sides though. The back was all sticking out. But she couldn’t see it and wouldn’t let me help her. She sat at the table, waiting for breakfast and our Mamá.

  Avi woke up with a smile, but after looking all over the apartment, she came back to me, opening her eyes really wide, daring me to read her mind. She spread her hands open, palms up, and shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” I answered her silent questions. “I’m sure she’ll show up any minute. Let’s change your diaper.”

  She only wore diapers to bed and day care. The lady there said she couldn’t tell when Avi had to go, and that it was easier to change a diaper than to clean the floor. Avi’s diaper was dry all day and all night. She also usually had painful infections, for holding it in so long, the doctor said. I knew because Mamá told me everything. Sometimes I thought I was her only friend. So where was she? I
f she had other plans after work, she would’ve told me.

  “Do you think Mamá’s okay?” Kota asked, her face reflecting exactly what I felt but couldn’t show.

  I finished dressing Avi with an outfit that had been mine and then Kota’s but still looked great. “Of course, dummy.”

  Kota flinched out of her worry. Her eyes narrowed in challenge. “You’re so rude! When Mamá comes home I’m gonna tell her you called me names and then you’ll be in so much trouble, Minerva Soledad!”

  She turned on her heels and joined Avi, who ignored the Cheerios I served her in a bowl. She played with a stack of blocks instead.

  I headed to the bedroom to make the beds. It took me forever to get the comforter straight and even on all sides. Even then, the lines of the plaid were crooked at the foot of the bed. After the clock flashed nine thirty, I gave up trying to get it perfect.

  I took my books out of my backpack and started doing homework for the day. Already missing classes so early in the year wasn’t the start I had planned. Every year I wanted to be the kid with perfect attendance, but something always happened. We had to move at the last minute, or there wouldn’t be money for gas. And today, I couldn’t leave my sisters without supervision, even if Mamá was on the way. If something happened to them, I’d never forgive myself.

  The morning passed really fast.

  “I’m hungry,” Kota said, holding Avi’s hand.

  “Already? You guys just ate.” I don’t know why the words came out so sharp and cold.

  Avi hid behind Kota, who still had that spark of challenge in her eyes, only it was wet with hunger now.

  I looked in the cupboards and found a box of ­macaroni and cheese. It was the regular one, the one for the stovetop. Since last year, when I dropped a teapot of hot water and burned my hand, Mamá didn’t let me boil water anymore, but this was an emergency kind of occasion.

  “I’m going to cook,” I said. “Keep Avi out of the kitchen.”

  Immediately Avi ran and hugged my leg.

  “You don’t know how to cook,” Kota pointed out.

  I tried to pry Avi’s fingers open, but she held on so tight I couldn’t get her away without hurting her.

  “It’s okay,” I said, sweat already beading on my nose and my upper lip. “Let’s see what’s in the fridge.”

  The fridge smelled musty even though it was scrubbed clean. Mamá said it was older than the world. Inside, there wasn’t much that could be eaten without cooking it. In an old butter tub, there was some leftover rice pudding. Avi loved that stuff. There was only enough for her. I found two apples and five slices of cheese. Kota and I would eat that.

  But when I served her the pudding, Avi shook her head.

  “Eat, Avi!” I said, my mouth watering, anticipating the cinnamony treat that for some stupid reason she didn’t want.

  She shook her head and slid down from the chair. She took my hand, then Kota’s, and walked us toward the window.

  “What are you doing, baby?” Kota asked.

  Avi smiled at both of us and led us on.

  “I think she wants to show us something.”

  We followed our baby sister to the windowsill, where the fairies’ milk saucer was empty, and where to my eye-popping surprise, three perfect pink-and-cream cupcakes waited.

  “What? What’s this?” I choked with the words.

  Kota and Avi jumped in place and hugged like they had won the lottery. “The Peques left them! The Peques are real!” Kota chanted.

  I opened my mouth to say, “Peques aren’t real,” but what if a fairy dropped dead outside our window because of my words? I wasn’t that ungrateful. I may not have been a honey-voiced angel, but I wasn’t an ogre either.

  But it was my job to be cautious and ask difficult questions. “What if they’re poisoned or something?”

  My sisters didn’t care. Instead of replying, they each snatched a cupcake and went on to savor every crumb. For the first time ever, they didn’t have to share.

  I didn’t know what to do. “Wait!” I shouted. “Who left these cupcakes, really? Think for a second.”

  They exchanged a look of pity for their unbelieving sister and continued eating. They licked their fingers and smacked their lips in ecstasy, enjoying each bite of the pink and cream confections.

  I picked up the remaining cupcake from the window­sill and inspected it. The cupcake liner had no special marks or words or anything. I sniffed at the mound of frosting on top. All I got was a hint of strawberry-vanilla sugar that made my stomach rumble and my mouth water in anticipation.

  But I wouldn’t eat it. Nothing looked wrong, but I decided to keep mine for later. When Mamá arrived, I would share it with her. I placed it on a plate and put it inside the fridge. My fingers were sticky, and I licked them without thinking. Then I panicked. What if it was poisonous? I counted to ten, but I didn’t drop dead or feel sick.

  After their cupcakes were gone, my sisters sat facing each other. Kota gathered all the library books about Tinker Bell and friends. She always checked out the same ones, the kind with all the multicultural fairies. Then, she continued her life-long quest of indoctrinating Avi on how fairies are so wonderful and magical. Today she was going overboard, adding even more ridiculous details to the stuff Mamá told us every night.

  But as soon as I sat down with a book about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Avi left Kota talking to herself, and brought me her favorite book to look at: Peter Pan and Wendy — the Bible of all things fairy. Someone had donated the book to us for a secret Santa event, and the only thing that saved it from the recycling bin was the beautiful illustrations.

  Compared to modern books about Tinker Bell and Neverland, the original story written by J. M. Barrie was impossible to get into. The English was so old-fashioned it seemed like a different language. And one time, when Mamá was reading aloud a section about Peter and the Indians, she’d been appalled at the racism in it. When I’d asked her about it, she’d said a lot of classic stories grown-ups loved were problematic, to say the least. She loved fairies, but not Peter Pan.

  But Avi didn’t know this. She just loved looking at the pictures. By the end of the first page though, Avi was already lying asleep across my legs. She didn’t get sugar rushes like Kota or me. After the cupcake, Kota would be awake — and annoying — for hours.

  Kota, who had been a little hurt because Avi had chosen me as a pillow, but of course hadn’t complained, sat next to me on the floor. She leaned against me and put her head on my shoulder. I resisted the urge to shrug her off. My sisters looked so small.

  “Maybe she had to stay longer at the first job and then had to go straight to the nursing home,” Kota whispered, sounding her age for once.

  “Why hasn’t she called?” I asked.

  We looked at the telephone at the same time. But it didn’t ring. Of course.

  “Wait,” I said, “I’m going to look for something. Hold her head like this so she doesn’t wake up.”

  Kota slid her bottom closer and took my place. Avi’s hair was so sweaty it curled around her tiny ears. The gold of her earrings played hide and seek with a beam of sun that entered through the window.

  Mamá kept her address book inside a drawer in the nightstand. Breaking one of her number-one rules (all her rules were equally important), I opened the drawer, although I could hear her voice in my mind saying, “Never look through my things!”

  “Come back home” wasn’t one of her rules, but I had counted on it all my life. Since she had broken her part of the agreement, I hoped Mamá wouldn’t be upset I’d broken a tiny, stupid rule. This was an emergency. A whiff of lavender and chocolate escaped from the drawer. I rummaged through candy wrappers and an old bar of soap until I found Mamá’s book of secrets, a journal with a flowery cover.

  I thumbed through the yellowish pages and went over
the names of people I didn’t know. Only one popped up: Fátima Grant, my grandmother who lived in Argentina. Mamá’s mother whom we had never met — hadn’t even talked on the phone with because she didn’t want anything to do with us, according to our mother.

  At the very back of the book was a loose piece of paper. Peaceful Meadows Senior Center, it read in the scribbly handwriting I knew was Mamá’s.

  My heart pounded as I approached the telephone.

  “What are you doing?” Kota hissed. “She said, ‘don’t ever call unless it’s an emergency!’”

  I dialed the first few digits. “This is an emergency, Kota,” I said. “I have to go to my audition. She has to come home.”

  She opened her mouth to protest, but I looked away from her. Someone was on the line.

  “Peaceful Meadows, how may I help you?” a young-sounding woman said. I had the impulse to hang up. What if because of me Mamá got in trouble and they fired her? I pressed the phone against my ear so I wouldn’t be tempted to put it down.

  “Hello,” I said, cringing inside because my voice was squeaky and breathless. “I’m looking for Natalia Grant?” Mamá went by her maiden name. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was this mystery that made my words sound like a question.

  “Who?” the lady asked.

  I cleared my voice. “Natalia Grant.”

  The sound on the old phone crackled when she replied. It was hard to tell what the lady said.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “could you repeat that for me?”

  “Natalia Grant didn’t come to work last night. Who’s asking?” Although of course I couldn’t see the lady, I felt understanding fall on her. “Wait, are you her little girl?”

  Well, I wasn’t little, so technically when I said “No,” I didn’t lie. I hung up the phone, and the echo of her words took a while to reach me, really reach me so I could understand.

  “Mamá never made it to work,” I said, looking at my sister.

  My mouth went dry and a sob threatened to escape my lips. But seeing that look on Kota — and thinking of little Avi, unaware that the most important person in the world for us had disappeared — I couldn’t cry.