The Only Road by Alexandra Diaz Read Free Book Online

Bravo,” she agreed. “Which they call the Río Grande in El Norte.”
    Crossing the border of México into los Estados Unidos. Tía’s words of keeping the money safely sewed into their jeans rang in his ears. But even with the money, how would they manage it? What he knew of that crossing already terrified him. News reports showed immigration patrol officers shooting anything that moved; detention centers packed with people; politicians over there who said all immigrants were rapists and criminals. And before that,there was Ciudad Juárez, the Mexican border city notorious for its violence and human trafficking. It didn’t sound like Ángela knew how they would manage either.
    His tamale remained on his lap, untouched. He unwrapped it, pretending it was steamed and served warm with Abuela’s chia salsa.
    Jaime felt as though he already knew too much. Friends at school talked; advertisements on television and on billboards warned of the horrors. In an illegal journey of four thousand kilometers, they were going through places more corrupt than his village, running from gangs more violent than the Alphas, going to a country where no one, except Tomás, wanted them there. Everywhere they’d go on this journey, they’d be unwelcome.
    5,7, 5-5-5-5, 21, 86 .
    The banana-leaf wrapper from his lap fluttered against a light post, where two pigeons pecked it to death. He and Ángela had to talk about something else.
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    After a tamale and a mango apiece, they weren’t full, but the food, filled with Abuela’s love comforted them. They walked around the park some more and settled on a different bench, this time near the statue of Benito Juárez, a Zapotec Indian revolutionary hero in the mid-1800s who became one of México’s greatest presidents. Juárez hadn’t been influential for Guatemala, but they studied him inschool, just like they learned about Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi.
    Ãngela rested with her head on Jaime’s lap, her arms folded over her backpack on her chest. When they were younger, Papá used to call them (along with Miguel) Hugo, Paco, and Luis after Donald Duck’s nephews—they sometimes fought, they sometimes ganged up on one another, but at the end of the day they’d curl up together like puppies in a litter. They hadn’t slept that way in years, but Ángela never went through the phase of being too old to cuddle and comfort her little brother and cousin. Jaime hoped he never did either.
    He pulled out his sketchbook from his own bag and balanced it on the armrest of the bench as he sketched with broad strokes the statue of the great hero.
    â€œIf there was a presidente like Juárez now, do you think gangs like the Alphas would be taking over México and Centro América?” Ángela asked, her eyes shut, but she faced the statue as if contemplating him through closed lids.
    â€œNo, he wouldn’t allow it.” Jaime glanced from the statue to his sketchbook and back to the real statue as his left hand shaded in the eyes. “People even say that if Benito Juárez had come to Guatemala a hundred and fifty years ago, we would have never had the civil war our parents and grandparents lived through. He was that great.”
    Ãngela stayed quiet for such a long time, Jaime thought she had fallen asleep.
    â€œDo you think we’ll ever go back?” she asked.
    Jaime looked around the picturesque park with its fountain and gazebo; the church that had made Jaime feel like he was living in art; and the statue of the man who changed Mexican history. But the view of Volcán Tacaná, half in Guatemala, half in México, was blocked by the buildings, as if it weren’t there.
    â€œ Yo no sé . I hope so.”
    â€œYou think it’d be safe?”
    If gang members beat someone to death for not joining them, what would they do to two who ran away to