index

chapter six
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |

Conclusion

"The Odyssey," an epic poem about a hero's journey home from war, ends with reunion and peace. "The Grapes of Wrath," the classic novel about the dust bowl and the migration of Oklahoma farmers to California, ends with death and a glimmer of renewed life.

Enrique's journey is not fiction, and its conclusion is more complex and less dramatic. But it ends with a twist worthy of O. Henry.

Enrique and his mother, Lourdes, embrace outside her mobile home in North Carolina. For weeks, perhaps months, reunited children and mothers cling to romanticized notions about how they should feel toward each other. Then reality intrudes.

Children like Enrique dream of finding their mothers and living happily ever after. For weeks, perhaps months, these children and their mothers cling to romanticized notions of how they should feel toward each other.

Then reality intrudes.

The children show resentment because they were left behind. They remember broken promises to return and accuse their mothers of lying. They complain that their mothers work too hard to give them the attention they have been missing. In extreme cases, they find love and esteem elsewhere, by getting pregnant, marrying early or joining gangs.

Some are surprised to discover entire new families in the United States--a stepfather, stepbrothers and stepsisters. Jealousies grow. Stepchildren call the new arrivals mojados, or wetbacks, and threaten to summon the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deport them.

The mothers, for their part, demand respect for their sacrifice: leaving their children for the children's sake. Some have been lonely and worked hard to support themselves, to pay off their own smuggling debts and save money to send home. When their children say, "You abandoned me," they respond by hauling out tall stacks of money transfer receipts.

They think their children are ungrateful and bristle at the independence they show--the same independence that helped the children survive their journeys north. In time, mothers and children discover they hardly know each other.

At first, neither Enrique nor Lourdes cries. He kisses her again. She holds him tightly. He has played this out in his mind a thousand times. It is just as he thought it would be.

All day they talk. He tells her about his travels: the clubbing on top of a train, leaping off to save his life, the hunger, thirst and fear. He has lost 28 pounds, down to 107. She cooks rice, beans and fried pork. He sits at the table and eats. The boy she last saw when he was in kindergarten is taller than she is. He has her nose, her round face, her eyes, her curly hair.

"Look, Mom, look what I put here." He pulls up his shirt. She sees a tattoo.

EnriqueLourdes, it says, across his chest.

His mother winces. Tattoos, she says, are for delinquents, for people in jail. "I'm going to tell you, son, I don't like this." She pauses. "But at least if you had to get a tattoo, you remembered me."

"I've always remembered you."

He tells her about Honduras, how he stole his aunt's jewelry to pay drug debts, how he wanted to get away from drugs, how he ached to be with her.

Finally, Lourdes cries.

She asks about Belky, her daughter in Honduras; her own mother; and the deaths of two brothers. Then she stops. She feels too guilty to go on.

The trailer is awash in guilt. Eight people live here. Several have left their children behind. All they have is pictures. Lourdes' boyfriend has two sons in Hondruas. He has not seen them in five years.

Enrique likes the people in the trailer, especially his mother's boyfriend; he could be a better father than his own dad, who abandoned him to start another family.

Three days after Enrique arrives, Lourdes' boyfriend helps him find work as a painter. He earns $7 an hour. Within a week, he is promoted to sander, making $9.50. With his first paycheck, he offers to pick up $50 of the food bill. He buys Diana a gift: a pair of pink sandals for $5.97. He sends money to Belky and to Maria Isabel Caria Duron, his girlfriend in Honduras.

Lourdes brags to her friends. "This is my son. Look at him! He is so big. It's a miracle he's here."

Whenever he leaves the house, she hugs him. When she comes home from work, they sit on the couch, watching her favorite soap opera, with her hand resting on his arm.

Over time, though, they realize they are strangers. Neither knows the other's likes or dislikes. At a grocery store, Lourdes reaches for bottles of Coke. Enrique says he does not drink Coke--only Sprite.

He plans to work and make money. She wants him to study English, learn a profession.

He goes to a pool hall without asking permission. She becomes upset.

Occasionally, he uses profanities. She tells him not to. Both remember their angry words.

"¡No, Mami!" he says. "No one is going to change me."

"Well, you'll have to change! If not, we will have problems. I want a son who, when I say to do something, he says OK."

"You can't tell me what to do!"

The clash culminates when Maria Isabel telephones collect and her call is rejected because some of the migrants in the trailer do not know who she is.

That was right, Lourdes says; they cannot afford collect calls from just anyone.

Enrique flares and begins to pack.

Lourdes walks up behind him and spanks him hard on his buttocks, several times.

"You have no right to hit me! You didn't raise me."

Enrique spends the night sleeping in her car.

In the end, however, their love prevails. Their differences ease.

Enrique and his mother are conciliatory at last. They are living in her trailer home to this day.

More than that, they might be joined by Maria Isabel.

One day, Enrique phones Honduras. Maria Isabel is pregnant, as he suspected before he left. On Nov. 2, 2000, she gives birth to their daughter.

She and Enrique name the baby Katherine Jasmin.

The baby looks like him. She has his mouth, his nose, his eyes.

An aunt urges Maria Isabel to go to the United States, alone. The aunt promises to take care of the baby.

"If I have the opportunity, I'll go," Maria Isabel says. "I'll leave my baby behind."

Enrique agrees. "We'll have to leave the baby behind."

NOTES ON CHAPTER SIX