Santiago's Road Home Read online

  To all of those who have been separated from someone you love, this book is for you.

  PROLOGUE

  Somewhere, neither here nor there

  The bed creaks under Santiago’s shivering body. Maybe it’s not a bed, but a coffin.

  Had he thought about it, he would have preferred to go a different way—saving lost, invisible unicorns or escaping this prison to be free.

  But he’d never thought of death that way before.

  Especially not of dying here, like this. Lost and alone. At least now he doesn’t have to fight. Doesn’t have to try so hard. People who die are at peace. He could use some peace.

  He hears voices, but it’s unclear if they’re real or remembered. What is real, anyway?

  He can’t hold on anymore. As sure as the blinding light, death sways closer. Santiago knows it has come for him. He takes a deep breath, embracing the white light. Soon it’ll all be over.

  And I’m not afraid.

  They say a person’s life flashes by before dying. But it’s not his whole life. Just the events that led to this. The important ones, and the ones Santiago would rather forget.

  PART 1

  CHAPTER 1

  Estado de Chihuahua, México

  Santiago watched Tío Ysidro walk by him and the three toddlers as if they were nothing more than rocks in the yard. Not that the toddlers even looked up from their mud pies at the arrival of their papá. Just as well, or they would have seen an expression like a lightning storm ready to strike on their papá’s face.

  He jumped to his feet as the front door slammed behind Tío, ready to urge the kids to safety before the storm broke. Except he wasn’t quick enough.

  “What do you mean you got fired?” Tía Roberta’s voice came clearly through the closed door.

  “Have I told you the story of the singing zanate?” Santiago whispered excitedly as he pointed to a fence post. He whistled at the bird perched on top of the rotting wood, ready to make up a story on the spot. The children—Jesús, Apolo, and Artemisa—who normally loved hearing Santiago’s stories, were too interested in their mud projects to pay attention to anything else. Including the shouts from the house. But the mud wasn’t enough to keep Santiago from hearing everything.

  “I mean, you insulted the boss’s wife, and now I’m fired,” Tío Ysidro shouted back.

  “When have I met your boss’s wife?”

  The viejita from next door opened her window a bit wider. Since she did not have a TV, her main source of entertainment was eavesdropping on everyone up and down the calle. Santiago would have given anything to be entertained by a TV instead.

  “Apparently you met her this morning, while she stood in front of you waiting for the bus.”

  “¿Patas flacas?” Tía retorted. “That was her?”

  “¡Patas flacas!” Artemisa screeched, as if calling someone “skinny legs” was the funniest insult in the world. For a two-and-a-half-year-old, it probably was.

  “You called her that? To her face?” Tío exclaimed.

  “She cut in front of me!”

  Tío Ysidro let out a string of bad words, which Santiago covered up by splashing his hands in the mud and getting the kids to follow suit.

  Still, Tío’s next yell remained completely audible. “How could you say that to her?”

  A crash like a pot being thrown to the floor erupted from the kitchen. This time, Jesús and Artemisa looked up from the mud.

  “Great, that was our dinner.” Tía Roberta’s accusations came out so loud and clear the viejita next door must have been grinning at the great reception. “Unless you want to pick up the rice from the floor, we have nothing else to eat tonight, and we’re all going to starve.”

  “How can there be nothing to eat? I gave you money for groceries two days ago.”

  “Yeah, and it’s gone. You barely gave me enough for one meal.”

  “Fine. You go look for a job and see how much you earn after working twelve or fifteen hours a day.” The door banged open and slammed shut after Tío Ysidro. If Santiago and the toddlers were invisible before, they were nonexistent this time. Tío stepped on a stray shoe one of the kids had taken off and didn’t notice it under his foot before he crossed the street in the direction of the local bar.

  Santiago waited for Tía to run after her husband, but the door stayed shut.

  A stray curl fell over Apolo’s eye. Santiago brushed it away, careful not to get mud from his own hands onto the boy’s face.

  “Too bad these mud pies won’t taste as good as they look,” he said softly to his charges. “Maybe we’ll just need to gobble you guys up instead.” He smeared mud on Jesús’s bare belly and got a giggle in reply.

  Apolo and Artemisa wiggled their hands at Santiago and did the butt-bounce dance. He tickled all three of them until they were pushing themselves up on wobbly feet to run away with shrieks of laughter, only to slip and land back in the mud.

  “Why are my children playing in the mud like some huérfanos?” Tía Roberta stood in front of them with her hands on her hips and a scowl across her red face.

  Santiago ignored the orphan comment, like he did most of the insults his tía sent his way. Sure, the kids were dirty, covered from head to diaper in mud, but they were happy, entertained, and safe. A rarity in this house.

  “It’s so hot, I thought they might enjoy it. Don’t worry, I’ll clean them up.” He picked up Artemisa to head to the outdoor water pump, but Tía blocked his path.

  “You don’t have time, the last bus is leaving soon.” She reached into her apron pocket and handed him some peso coins, just enough for the bus fare. “We can’t afford to keep you anymore. Give your grandmother our regrets.”

  Regrets didn’t even begin to explain it. Santiago let the toddler slide down his body, leaving a trail of mud on his own bare chest and pant legs. His hand absently rubbed the burn marks still visible on his arm as he remembered the pain of the cigarettes from his last stay with his grandmother.

  “But what about the babies? Who’ll take care of them?” Santiago spoke without thinking. A shadow darkened Tía’s eyes. He jerked his head back, and in that split second her hand missed contact with his cheek. Missing her target only raised Tía’s anger.

  “I’m their mother. You think I can’t raise my own hijos? I got along de lo más bien before you got here.”

  This time Santiago kept his mouth shut. They obviously had a different understanding of “just fine.” He remembered the last family wedding, during which the three kids had yelled continuously, been dragged out of the church kicking and screaming, and broken free to shove six greedy hands directly into the wedding cake, all while Tía had cried, swearing to Dios that she couldn’t take it anymore. Yes, she got along de lo más bien.

  It was she, biologically his grandmother but better known in his mind as la malvada, the evil one, who thought up the golden solution: send Santiago to his aunt and uncle’s house to take care of the toddlers. Tía (though technically a second cousin, and not Santiago’s aunt) had jumped at the idea of having a free babysitter, and la malvada marveled at getting rid of the grandson she despised.

  Santiago hadn’t complained. Honestly, this suited him just fine. Sure, Tía blamed him for everything—the kids getting chicken pox, lice, diaper rash, runny noses, still not talking in full sentences, waking up in the middle of the night, not eating, eating too much—but at the end of the day, it didn’t compare to the abuse of living with la malvada.

  “Please, let me stay.” Santiago held out his hand to return the bus fare, but his tía ignored it. “I’ll take care of everything tonight; you relax. I’ll bathe the kids, feed them—”

  “There’s nothing to eat, idiota,” she reminded him.

/>   “What if I get a job?”

  “What job are you going to get when your uncle has no work?”

  No answer came to Santiago. No one had work to offer; no one had spare money to pay someone for work.

  Tía folded her arms across her chest and nodded to the calle. “Lárgate. Unless you want to walk the two hours all the way to your grandmother’s house, you better go.”

  Santiago stared at the house that had been his home for the past seven months. In the room he shared with the three kids were clothes too small for him. His one possession, a small pocketknife, had been found in the road. The blade was dull, the scissors didn’t open, and the toothpick and tweezers were missing, but it was his. Like all good pocketknives, it remained with him at all times.

  He washed the mud off his hands and chest at the outdoor pump and pulled on the T-shirt he’d taken off before playing in the mud. Apolo stood up and lifted his arms, expecting to be carried, but Tía stepped in front of her children, blocking them from their babysitter. Artemisa scooped up a particularly gooey handful of mud and flung it at her mother’s shoe. Tía didn’t notice. Her attention remained on Santiago.

  Santiago looked into the faces of each of the kids, faces that had worked their way into his heart. He raised his hand in good-bye. “Listen to your mamá, chiquitines.”

  No longer able to look at them, he turned down the same road his tío had traversed moments before. In perfect synchronicity, the three kids broke into cries.

  “Tago, Tago, ven.” Jesús called out the nickname he’d made up for his babysitter.

  Apolo and Artemisa didn’t say his name but kept up with the cries. Santiago slowed his pace, waiting for Tía to call him back, to say she would figure something out, just as long as he quieted the kids.

  But his tía said nothing. Next door, the viejita shut her window.

  CHAPTER 2

  The coins Tía had given him burned in Santiago’s hand. If he’d learned anything from his years of moving from one relative to the next, it was to spend money while he had it. Saving it would be the same as losing it. Or having it stolen.

  The setting sun indicated there wasn’t much time left. He hurried past the bar where his uncle would be filling his empty belly with beer and chicharrones until his money ran out. Even then, Tío would stay longer, in hopes that Tía would have calmed down and that the kids would be asleep when he returned.

  Except the kids wouldn’t be asleep. Not without Santiago there to tell them a story and rub their backs. Tía would very soon regret her hastiness in getting rid of him.

  At the grocery store, he bypassed the line of people handing over their backpacks and large bags while they shopped, and headed to the bakery section. Since it was the end of the day, items there had been reduced to half off. The remaining bread rolls were smaller than his fist; he grabbed two from the plastic display case. In the meat department, he convinced the butcher to sell him a few scraps of raw meat; even one slice of cured meat would have been beyond his budget. Adding his meal up in his head, he figured he had just enough for a small bottle of Coca-Cola.

  He handed over the few coins that had been meant to take him back to la malvada’s house forty minutes away by bus, received no change, and sat on a park bench to enjoy his meal.

  Even with the stale rolls and the chewy, uncooked meat (his iron gut could handle anything), it wasn’t the worst meal he’d eaten. He smiled. Life felt good and full of possibilities. Not that he knew what possibilities were out there, but returning to la malvada’s wasn’t one of them. He’d decided that the last time he left her house.

  The best part: No one would come looking for him. La malvada didn’t have a phone so wouldn’t know to expect him. It could be months before his tía and she saw each other again, and several more before mentioning him in each other’s presence. When they figured out he’d gone missing, if he was lucky, they’d assume he was dead. If he was really lucky, he wouldn’t be.

  The night air sent a chill over his bare head. He tugged a short strand from behind his ear, wondering when it’d get long enough to curl again. A week ago Tío had pinned him down while Tía shaved his head for giving the kids lice. Truth was they’d gotten lice on their own.

  He would need a place to stay the night, ideally not a park bench or under a bush, where a stray could pee on him.

  He racked his brain for options until he had an idea. He’d registered the existence of the abandoned shack the first week here while walking the toddlers, complete with harnesses and leashes. Set back from the street, run down, no door, and half the roof missing, it seemed to serve no purpose other than to divert attention. Now the memory popped up as he searched through his mental shelter file.

  His feet crunched on glass as he entered the shack. Lights from the street outside showed mounds of trash. The smell of urine indicated other humans had used this place as a sanctuary. But the wrappers were old, and the smell wasn’t fresh.

  Through a hole in the roof, a raindrop fell on his bare head. Only parts of the roof were missing, but the areas that would remain dry were also the ones littered with the most trash. Using his feet as a broom, he pushed the garbage to the exposed parts of the shack. He cleared a sleeping spot until only dirt remained under his feet. Settling down with his back against the wall, he hugged his knees to ward off the chill as he watched the light rain fall on the trash. A steady drop pinged against a glass bottle like a chime. As it always happened when it rained, and many times when it didn’t, a memory came.

  After a particularly hot and dry summer, when he was four years old, the sky had darkened into a sudden downpour. Everyone scrambled to get under portals or into shops. Mami instead had gripped Santiago’s hand tight and turned her face up as if blessing the rain.

  “Can you feel each drop land on your body?” Mami had said, her eyes still closed. “Washing away everything bad and leaving a fresh start.”

  “It’s like taking a shower, but better,” Santiago said as he opened his mouth to catch the rain. “Can we do this every day?”

  “Claro, hijo. Any time it rains, we’ll come out and celebrate it together.”

  Mami removed their shoes, and they pranced through the deserted town. Mud oozing through their toes, rain running down the back of their necks, they chased streams and sang silly songs. Though only four, Santiago could honestly say he had never had more fun than he had that day.

  He also didn’t remember dancing in the rain again. At least not with Mami. And later it became forbidden. Only lunatics and vagabonds danced in the rain.

  No, he wouldn’t think about that. He focused instead on the ping of the raindrops landing on the glass bottle. But just as he knew it would, the next memory played automatically.

  This time la malvada stood over him, cigarette drooping from her lip, as he swept the clumps of mud his abuelo had trudged in.

  “Your feet are covered in filth like a pig’s. Your madre was a pig too,” his grandmother said. La malvada had a way of glaring at him as though he were some disrespectful kid, even though a growth spurt meant that he technically could look down on her. “Always running around barefoot. Everyone said she wasn’t right in the head. Like we were to blame for ending up with such a nutcase. I tried to beat the crazy out of her, but once an egg’s gone bad there’s nothing to do but throw it away.”

  “Mami was not crazy,” Santiago said. “She knew how to be happy and not end up like you.”

  La malvada’s face twisted into an angry scowl as she flicked cigarette ash into his eye. “Life is about struggle; you’re not meant to be happy. She was crazy and look where that got her. Burdening me with her impudent and malcriado son. You’re going to turn out just like her. A waste of space and air.”

  Santiago rubbed his eye, the memory of the ash stinging as much as the event. The rain eased up, and the pings against the bottle became less frequent. With arms folded under his head to act as a pillow, he looked through the patches of roof up at the sky. The remaining clouds com
bined with the light pollution made stargazing impossible, but he knew they were there. Some shining bright, some far and faint, some that had died out, but their memory still glowed. Just knowing the stars were there, in some form or another, made it possible for him to take a deep breath and close his eyes.

  CHAPTER 3

  If there’s one thing Santiago knew, it was there’s no telling what will happen in the future. One second his mamá had been crossing the street, holding his five-year-old hand, and the next second a car had run a red light and hit her. In that split second of impact, she’d let go of him, saving his life even though she couldn’t save her own.

  Santiago didn’t trust the future, didn’t plan for it. Not when the future did what it wanted to, regardless of any efforts. Tomorrow or a week from now didn’t matter. Instead Santiago lived in the present, and in the present his stomach growled.

  Except he didn’t want to leave his spot in the shed just yet. The morning sun glared down on him through the patches of missing roof. For a while he enjoyed the warmth on his body after the cool night, only getting up when his stomach threatened to audition for the tuba section of an orchestra.

  In the center of town, near the plaza and a church, a food truck emanated scents of meat and spices, beans and roasted chile. A woman sat at a plastic table in the shade, her plate piled high with more food than Santiago ever remembered having. Inside the truck, a man leaned on his elbows to look out the service window.

  For the past few days, Santiago had scrounged for food behind grocery stores and in trash cans, but now he had a better idea.

  “Con permiso.” Santiago excused himself to the vendor. “Is there any work I can do—wash dishes, take out the trash—in exchange for a meal?”

  The man straightened up, shaking his head. “Business is too slow today; I’ve done everything. She’s the only customer I’ve had.” He gestured to the plump woman at the table.