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“Please, just listen. Those people, they will report you if you don’t pay them. And if you pay them now, they’ll be back. You should leave, just drive down to the border, and walk across.”
I stare at her in horror. “You want me to leave? To just go? And only hope I can come back?” I ask her incredulously.
“They’ll let you come back. My friend did it.”
“We’re not paying anything. You’re not leaving.” Reece’s voice, so deep and cold, cuts into our exchange.
My mother looks at him, her voice sharp and caustic, “You’ve already sent one of my children to detention. You won’t do it to another.”
The words are a poisoned-tipped bow hitting its target. Reece’s entire body jerks. But he doesn’t say anything.
“Mama!” I gasp in horror.
“I’m sorry, Reece. I’m just scared,” she says quietly. She lets go of my hand and scoots away from me, pressing herself against the door of the car. She looks at me, like she’s afraid of me. I’m torn between defending Reece and reassuring her that a part of me understands. Because I do.
“Lucía, I have never been able to protect my children. Every threat that came near them, touched them and ruined them. Your brother is dead. You were molested by a boy who’s shit I’m still wiping up.”
I look at Reece, I’ve only recently told him that story and he’d been so angry that I’d refused to tell him the family’s name.
“I had to send you away to live with those people knowing that they would make it difficult for me to see you.” Her eyes flit to Reece and I feel my stomach twist. This is a nightmare of epic proportions.
“If you love my daughter, you’ll encourage her to do this. If you marry without her doing this, her status won’t change. She’ll have your children and just like me, she’ll be living in the shadows, unable to protect them from anything. What about when you want to take your kids to see Europe for the first time? She won’t be able to go. Are you going to hire a driver to get her around? Do you want to live with the fear that she’ll be deported? Once the film is out, she’ll only become more famous. It won’t take a blackmailer. Just someone who is creative enough to connect the dots,” she says to Reece, her voice beseeching.
Reece looks at me and I look at him. I let all my emotion show in my eyes, I pray he understands what I’m saying. I’m sorry. Get me out of here. I love you. His eyes soften slightly and he looks at my mother.
“Okay,” he says on a big exhaled sigh. “It’s been a long day. We all have a lot to think about. I think we should get going.”
She doesn’t say anything. She only looks down at her hands.
“I only love you, Ana. I’m just trying to make things right.”
“I know, Mama. I love you, too. I’m just tired. I’ll call you this week. We can talk some more.”
Neither of us has said a word since we got in the car. Reece is pensive and I can feel the angry energy radiating from him. We were supposed to spend the night at Reece’s house, but when Reece passes the exit for Calabasas and gets on the I-10 instead, I know we’re headed to Malibu. We need to be there.
“Reece . . . I’m sorry,” I say, feeling how wholly inadequate and thin that is right now, but it’s all I’ve got.
He only squeezes my hand in response. His eyes never leaving the road.
My shame knows no bounds. He’s seen the raw underbelly of my life. The part that I’ve cultivated this exterior to protect. My uncle blackmailed him. My mother threw Julian’s death in his face. And she painted the bleak picture of the life we’re facing if I continue to live here in undocumented status. My uncle is right that since this new administration rode a wave of anti-immigrant sentiment into office, people who had been safe were no longer. And my DACA application is still under review.
I hear my mother’s voice, “It won’t take a blackmailer.” She’s right. I know she is. I need to think about this and plan for a way to leave the country before I’m deported. That will make coming back much more difficult. I growl in frustration.
Reece sighs and glances at me. It’s dark and I can’t see his face, and part of me is glad. What would I see there? Sadness? Anger, maybe? Other things I’m too afraid to give voice to.
“Luc . . . I don’t know what to say. There are a million things running through my head, but none of them feel like they’re ready to come out.” Reece sounds just the way I feel—tired and defeated. “Let’s try to get some sleep and see how things look in the morning.”
His voice is neutral, but his knuckles are white as they grip the steering wheel. I see the flex of the muscle where his jaw hinges. Guilt mixes with my shame and that growl wants to become a scream. I’m afraid I may never sleep again. My life for the last couple of months has felt too good to be true. I’d forgotten the realities of my situation. I feel myself starting to descend that very dangerous and seemingly endless ladder of self-pity that I’ve avoided for most of my life.
I’ve always worked around the roadblocks, pursued my goals even when I had no real hope of seeing them realized. And now, I have to figure out how to plan a future when I don’t even have the right to live in the same country as the man I love . . . if Reece wants that. We haven’t talked seriously about where we’re heading. I love him, desperately, and it’s happened so quickly that my feet have barely touched the ground since that day in the pool when he told me, “I lied,” and then pressed his lips to my neck.
I glance at his profile again taking him in. Tonight at my uncle’s house I was worried that things would turn even uglier. Reece isn’t used to anyone making demands and threatening him. My uncle and aunt are nasty, greedy people. I’m sure this is just the beginning of their blackmail. A niggle of self-doubt worms its way into my inner dialogue. Is Reece wondering if I’m worth all this trouble? My heart skips a beat at that thought. Is he going to leave me? I don’t know that I would blame him. I’m not sure that I would invite this much trouble into my life voluntarily.
“Fifty-five, I can practically hear your mind working. I only suggested we sleep on it, but if you want to talk we should. I don’t want you going to bed with this weighing on you.”
His voice is kind, his spirit generous. I want to crawl into his lap and stay there. To bask in the cocoon of safety and security that he’s provided me. I want to fuse myself to him so that I never have to be without him. I can’t imagine what today would have been like if he hadn’t been there. Actually, I can. My uncle and aunt were abusive when I lived with them. She hit me whenever the fancy took her and he berated me, reminding me of the debt I was accruing in their house.
And two years after I moved in with them, when I was fourteen, my can of money, the one I hid under my bed, disappeared. It contained every penny I’d saved from the odd jobs I’d taken after school. I didn’t tell her that I was working, I hadn’t wanted them to know. And it wasn’t very much, but it was everything I had. She didn’t even try to deny having taken it. She told me their utility bill had increased since I’d moved in. When I told my mother, she’d only told me to pray. I left as soon as I was able and I never looked back. He’s my father’s cousin and the furthest things from family I can think of.
