Sanctuary: Chapters 11–16

We were on day ten of walking, weeping, and if we were lucky, finding an overpriced, unattended rest stop with water before we crumpled by whatever desolate place looked like it could shelter us for a few hours of sleep.

...the President was almighty; the trade war with China was a great success; most importantly, America was prepared to combat the most “colossal, overwhelming humanitarian problem of the rampant illegal invasion.”

The next thing I knew, Ernie was in my ear, his whisper so close I could feel little flecks of his saliva hitting the side of my neck.

The painted horses and gilded carriages dipped and twirled to a tinny soundtrack of circus music.

The painted horses and gilded carriages dipped and twirled to a tinny soundtrack of circus music.

I just hoped Augustine was one of the saints who believed in helping the downtrodden.

Lakshmi came here as an au pair and was told to “wait in line” to renew her documents.

She took us up another flight of stone steps to the nave of the church.

It was so much bigger and more decadent than I had imagined. The arched ceilings and stained-glass windows made everything feel echoey and cool.

But more importantly, I wanted to tell God and la Virgen and all the saints of the rosary that you could not ask for a more pious, perfect disciple than my mother, Liliana.

Esme and Lakshmi listened with rapt attention, nodding every now and then.

“We just have to what? We just have to what?” Ernie was bouncing on his toes, so eager and earnest.

There was a prickly silence while that word reverberated through me: coyote.

He was already looking less ruddy and refreshed than this morning.

That night, while we sat around a table with plates of manicotti and thick bread, he was quieter, pensive.

Not that fifty dollars was going to pay off a coyote or was even a feasible goal, but at least it was a number.

As we went to pick up an empty grocery cart from the Snack ’N Save for canning, I saw two gray sedans parked next to each other by the entrance to the store, DEPORTATION FORCE emblazoned across the side of the cars.

Then, after three harrowing minutes that felt more like three hundred, the DF left.

I was so grateful she was here to witness my confession, even if she couldn’t absolve me.

Then he unlocked the back of the truck and lifted up the corrugated metal door with a crash.

“Do you like sports? I like sports,” Tomas prattled on.

Lots of languages I couldn’t name, but the current of fear was palpable.

Even though he whispered, his words felt like daggers stabbing at this dank, disgusting air.

After a while, snippets of hushed conversations started bubbling up here and there.

The other voice that spoke was lower. Garbled and indistinct.

Never choked back the acrid smoke or felt the tremor of a bullet firing, pulling everything around and inside me into a vacuum.

As he careened back onto the road, we all ran after him.

Volcanoman was cursing and flapping his burly arms as if he was trying to fly.

There were upended trees with roots splaying out, their trunks split open in jagged seams.

All I had was a map, a phone that could’ve very well been beaming my coordinates out to the DF, and a mission that seemed more and more untenable each second—to keep my brother safe and to get to California.

But we were moving. Forward, I hoped. It was all treacherous. All unknown.

Everywhere we went, there was an obstacle course of swampy ravines, gnarled electrical wires, and what looked and smelled like an overturned septic tank to wade through.

We biked, ran, or walked for the entire day, only pausing when the baby was hungry or one of us got stuck in a bog or ditch.

The RV was pitched at a precarious angle too—the roof crushed and now resting on a tree trunk.

I could already feel the urge to cry swelling in my chest as he told me about getting his counterfeit chip in the back of a nail salon and, that very same night, hearing that his town in Luzon had been washed away, obliterated. His mom, his home, everything he knew of home, gone.