Return to Sender (31 page)

That reminds me. One last thing I want to do before we lease the farm to Uncle Larry: give it a name. Mom thinks it's a great idea. That way when we draw up the legal documents with
Uncle Larry, we can write down an actual name. “It'd be so sad to just call it one-hundred-and-ten-acres-with-frontage-on-Town-Line-Road,” Mom says, and suddenly, there are tears brimming in her eyes. I guess there's some in mine, too. But naming it, I don't know, it'll be more ours somehow.

Since you're so good with words, Mari, maybe you can help me with some ideas? Especially because I think a name in Spanish would be really cool. The same name in English wouldn't sound as special. The best I've come up with is
Amigos
Farm, but Sara says it's too blah—this from the one family member who can't wait to get off the farm. I think
amigo
is not her favorite word right now, as Mateo just left for Spain after his year in the States. And this time, instead of my sister dumping him, he told her that now that they were going to be an ocean apart, he just wanted to be
amigos,
friends. So, anyhow,
Amigos
Farm is on hold for now—until my sister finds a new boyfriend.

But whether or not it's named
Amigos,
as long as my family is on this land, it will be a place where you and your family will find friends. One thing I did learn from Mr. Bicknell this past year is that the only way we're going to save this planet is if we remember that we are all connected. Like the swallows. How when they
leave here in a month they'll be on their way to where you are.

If it can work for barn swallows, it should work for us. Like we learned from Ms. Swenson, our teacher the year before you came. Something the Hopi elders told their tribe during really hard times: how certain things needed to get done if they were going to survive. How they couldn't put it off. How there was no one else but them to do it. “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” that's what the elders told the Hopi people.

You and me, Mari, it's up to us. We are the ones who are going to save this planet. So we've got to stay connected—through the stars above and swallows and letters back and forth. And someday, you will return, Mari. Like Mr. O'Goody said, he's putting a special letter in your parents’ file. Meanwhile, I'll be coming to visit you in Las Margaritas. For one thing, I've got to see the town I've named my show calf after.

Adios, amiga,
and I guess I don't have to tell you to write back.

Your friend forever,

Tyler

August 19, 2006

Dear Tyler,

I've gotten up extra early to write you, as Grandma and Mr. Rossetti and the church group will be leaving in a few hours. They weren't supposed to go until next week. But when they found out we are having elections for our governor tomorrow, they decided to advance their departure and leave today. Papá thinks it's best as otherwise they might get caught in the middle of a lot of strikes and protests, and we have been having a lot of them.

It started with our big national elections on July 2nd. (I know, two days before your country's birthday!) Everybody's favorite candidate here in Las Margaritas lost, but not by much. Right away, people began saying the winner stole the election, and they wanted all the votes counted again, but the government refused.

“Why, that's just like our 2000 election!” your grandma said.

“Nonsense!” Mr. Rossetti disagreed. “Our president got elected fair and square.”

Everyone just watches when they have their arguments. Mostly, people here are astonished that two old people would come to our town to
work.
“Esos viejitos
should be home taking care of themselves!”

“We're not
viejitos!”
Grandma says when I translate. She does not like to be called old people.

Of course, Mr. Rossetti has a different opinion. “Elsie, you just won't face reality, will you? You'll die young at a hundred—after you've killed us all off, to be sure.”

He grumbles a lot but I think he has been having a wonderful time. Luby and Ofie won't let him out of their sight. Meanwhile, Abuelito has come down any number of times to visit
el viejito americano.
He and Abuelote sit around “talking” with Mr. Rossetti, which is funny to watch, because Abuelito and Abuelote don't speak any English, and Mr. Rossetti doesn't understand Spanish. They all just jab the air with their canes and gesture and nod at whatever one of them is saying.

So, on account of our election day tomorrow, everyone is predicting trouble. Big strikes like they are having in Mexico City and in the state next to ours, Oaxaca. Not just protests, like you had last spring for immigrant rights in Washington, D.C. I mean millions of people camped out in the main square for weeks on end, blocking the entrance to government buildings,
and even the road to the airport. Papá actually gets very excited and says that maybe Mexico will finally become a place where people like him can stay and work and raise their families.

One of the good things about moving is getting my old Papá back! I was worried when he was released at the airport that being put in prison would make him even more bitter and angry. But finding so many friends who helped him, and your aunt and uncle who took us in and didn't charge us a penny, touched his heart. “There are good people in this world,” he said to Mamá on the plane to Mexico. “Angels,” he said, sort of smiling to himself. Maybe he was remembering how your mother called us Mexican angels when we first got to the farm a year ago almost to the day—I just realized!

Papá has woken up—most everyone is still sleeping after our goodbye party last night. When he sees me writing, he asks who the letter is for. I hesitate because, well, you know how he is about me and boys. But before I can say your name, he says,
“Ese es un hombresito bueno.”

So, you see, Tyler, Papá really does like you. You are the only boy he's called a good young man since I turned twelve and became a
señorita.
Even my boy cousins he doesn't trust. It's so silly, but Mamá says it's the way she and Papá were raised. And after what happened to her …

I know he feels bad about the way he treated you after Mamá's return. But like I told Mr. O'Goody, Papá just wasn't himself back then. He also worries about the money he owes you. In fact, he wanted Grandma to take your telescope back to you. “It is too much,” he explained.

But Grandma refused. “Tell your father that you don't give back presents!”

I do think it was overly generous, Tyler. Just like I think it was so special of you to name a star after me, even if it was free. I actually feel better knowing I don't own it. Like you told me about the American Indians, how they didn't really believe people could own the land. How can you own a star?! (Don't you love interrobangs?!)

I'm also very glad I won't have to return the telescope. I just love looking through it—and so does the whole town! Papá jokes that if I charged admission each time a neighbor came by to look at the stars through my magic glass, he could be well on his way to paying back his debt to you. Five hundred dollars is a lot of money here— more than some of our neighbors earn in a year. But Papá will pay you back, Tyler, even if it's ten years from now when Ofie can sponsor him. When your grandmother arrived, Papá asked me to tell her that he would return to work on your farm for free till the debt was paid off.

So I had to tell him the whole situation you
had explained to me. “Papá, the Paquettes won't be farming anymore.”

Papá sighed. That old tiredness was back in his eyes. “We have suffered the same fate,” he said quietly. “Such good people,” he added. “Life is not fair.”

It's sad to hear your parents say something like that. I guess just like you said about your father (and yourself), Papá sees more sadness in the world than happiness.

“But we can change that,” I told him, trying to be positive for both our sakes. We had been watching television, the crowds of campers in Mexico City demanding that the government make their country a place they could live in. “We can make things more fair, Papá. We have to do it because there's no one else to do it if we don't.”

A strange look came over Papá's face. It was like he suddenly realized I wasn't a little girl anymore. Oh, I know he's always telling me I'm the oldest who has to watch over my sisters. Or I'm now a young lady who has to be guarded against young men who'll try to take advantage. But right then and there, he understood. I was growing up into someone he might even look up to!

Not only is Papá happier, but Mamá, too. Being around their family and in their homeland
has been good for them both. Papá is involved now in the local politics—that's how come he knew so much about the elections coming up on Sunday and could advise Grandma.

Ofie and Luby are doing better, but the first two weeks were very hard for them. They couldn't get used to speaking Spanish the whole time and missing out on all their TV programs. Also, they have to help Mamá with a lot of housework. Here, we can't just have the washing machine do the laundry. We have to gather kindling to cook because electricity costs so much and often there are blackouts. We have to plant the beans if we want burritos and make our own tortillas from cornmeal. After the first week of thinking it was fun to do all these things, now they just say, “I don't want to!” Well, especially Ofie, and Luby copies everything. But I have kept my promise, and I only fight about once a day with Ofie.

“You can't make me,” she always says when I ask her to help out. “I have rights. I'm an American citizen!”

Papá overheard this exchange the other day, and he put his hands on his hips and said,
“Americanita,
when we were in your country, we had to work. Now you're in ours, and you have to work in return!”

It was the funniest thing he could have said,
but I tried not to laugh because I didn't want to start another fight with Ofie.

We are all going to be even more homesick once Grandma and Mr. Rossetti leave! Mamá has promised us that we will go back. “When?” Ofie wants to know.

“As soon as we can do so legally,” Mamá promises. She paid too high a price for crossing illegally this last time. She has promised me that when I am more grown- up, she will tell me the whole story. “And someday when you are a famous writer, you can put it into a book.” She smiles at the future she imagines for her daughter who is always writing letters or writing in her diary.

It's Papá who is not so sure he wants to go back (except to pay his debt to you). He says if this country improves, he wants to stay put. But he'd love for my sisters and me to study and become professionals and live in the United States. For a while, anyhow. Eventually, he wants us to come home. “This has been our land for generations,” he says, picking up a handful of soil and sifting it through his fingers.

But it's different for Ofie and Luby, and even for me. Like what you said about the swallows, Tyler. Las Margaritas is our home, but we also belong to that special farm in the rolling hills of Vermont.

Which leads me to your request about what to name the farm. Actually, I've asked the whole family for their suggestions. Papá voted for the name
Amigos
Farm. Mamá pondered for a minute, then said, maybe
Buenos Amigos
Farm, so it's the Good Friends Farm. I was sure that Luby would suggest some kind of dog name, but she voted for Ofie's suggestion: the Three Marías Farm!

“But it's not ours,” I pointed out. “Plus, it's kind of conceited to put our names on the Paquettes’ farm.”

“It is not!” Ofie disagreed.

It is too! I thought, but I didn't say so as we'd had several fights that day already.

Last night, the farm's name came up again. It was after the big farewell party at our house. Papá roasted a whole pig, which is what people here do when they want to really celebrate. We'd invited all the neighbors who've been the host families for the kids in the youth group. We ate and ate and then everyone took a turn looking through my telescope. It was one of the highlights of the party. In fact, as the night wore on, people began seeing the most amazing constellations. Mariano, who is like our town drunk and shows up at every party, claimed he saw the Virgin of Guadalupe in the sky! Everybody was having such a nice time, they didn't want to leave. Finally, Tío Felipe began playing Wilmita, and we sang
“La Golondrina”
as a way of bidding everyone good night.

Afterward, the family sat outside, looking up at the stars with our own eyes. Mr. Rossetti and Grandma were also there, as they are staying with us, and Abuelito, as it was too late for him to travel home. We were sitting outside, feeling tired, the happy kind of tired, but also a little sad with the goodbyes in the air. “I do believe,” Mr. Rossetti observed, “that we can see more stars here than back home.”

It was true, there seemed to be more and more stars, the more we looked. Then out of the blue, Grandma asked, “What's the word for star in Spanish?”

“¡Estrella!”
Ofie and Luby called out together, feeling very proud of themselves for remembering.

“How about
Estrella
Farm?” Grandma suggested.

“I think it's an American farm and should have an American name, Elsie,” Mr. Rossetti disagreed. “No offense,” he said to his hosts, who didn't understand what he'd said anyhow.