The Freshman Ch. 37

All of the others stopped what they doing to stare at Cecilia, who was completely out of place with her clean-cut affluent appearance. Her clothing, her Danubian hairstyle, and the way she carried herself made it clear that she did not belong to the project.

Ignoring the stares of the boys surrounding her, she focused on the child who drew her attention. He was slightly less than four years old and still had a rather innocent look about him. She carefully studied his features. He looked very familiar. Could it be...?

"¿Pedro? ¿Eres tú?"

"Sí señorita. Yo soy Pedro."

He seemed rather scared, because of course, after two and a half years he did not recognize her. But as she squatted down to greet him, somehow he knew to come to her. Her mind flashed with the memory of that vision a few days before in Danube City. Sure enough, here he was, his arms open, as he walked across the trash and drug paraphernalia scattered on the ground beneath him. It was just as she remembered, detail for detail. Cecilia's heart stopped as she remembered the words from the Priestess:

"No all soul broken, Cecilia. Your brothers dead. But little boy no dead. He no broken. That your path in life."

She hugged him, but he still seemed a bit shy about being approached by a person he felt was a stranger. In Spanish she asked him where he lived, and sure enough, he pointed in the direction of her old apartment. She took his hand and they went upstairs. Now for the hard part.

And hard it was. Her mother opened the door, stunned to see her daughter after such a long time of not hearing from her. What was equally surprising was the young woman's appearance, which made it clear that she no longer belonged to the world of her childhood. Mrs. Sanchez looked at her daughter with neither anger nor happiness, but bewilderment, as though she had come back from the dead.

From the beginning it was clear that plenty of Mrs. Sanchez' hostility and bitterness remained. She stepped aside to let Cecilia in, partly because she had brought Pedro back up with her. However, there was no hug, nor any kiss on the cheek to greet the younger woman.

Cecilia, in turn, was shocked by how old her mother looked, how shrunken and defeated. She then noticed candles lit in front of her brothers' pictures, realizing that she had just seen the first tangible proof that her brothers had indeed been killed. She glanced at Pedro, then at her mother's bewildered hostile expression, and finally at her brothers' pictures again. The candles would give her the opening she needed to start talking to her mother. She realized something else. Her reason for returning was not to reconcile, but instead to make sure Pedro could leave with her. Whatever her mother thought of her no longer mattered. What mattered was Pedro.

There was no small talk, no talk about Upper Danubia or Chicago. Instead Cecilia wanted to know what happened to her brothers. The story Mrs. Sanchez gave matched what she had envisioned; Raul and his companions had been double-crossed by their supplier, who had switched allegiances and helped set up their murders. As for Raul's ex-girlfriend, another member of Raul's gang executed her the week following the triple murder. Her killer, in turn, was kidnapped and executed by the girl's brother during the rival gang's final takeover of the housing project.

Mrs. Sanchez was aware, because she was Raul's mother, that she was in danger herself. She had decided to return to the Dominican Republic and was trying to make arrangements to leave. The problem she faced was that she didn't know what to do with Pedro. The boy's mother had disappeared more than two months before and no one knew where she was. The only option was to take the child to the Dominican Republic, but the woman was not thrilled about it because she had neither the desire nor the strength to raise her niece's boy. Cecilia had a question:

"Mom, does Pedro have a passport?"

"Yes. That's one of the things that kept me from getting out of here, because I couldn't take him unless he had a passport. I just got it a couple of days ago."

"Then why don't you let me take him? I'll get him off your hands and that'll let you get out of here."

Mrs. Sanchez seemed reluctant, but Cecilia pressed forward with her request.

"Look, Mom. It's the only thing we can do that makes any sense. You told me yourself that you don't think you can take care of him. But you got to get out of the project. So why not let me have him? That solves your problem. It'll fix another problem, because I know that you're still pissed at me about running out on you. This is how I can make it up. I'll take Pedro, and that way you can leave here knowing he'll be safe. And you know that I'll take care of him."

Cecilia paused, and then finished her argument.

"Mom, what other choice do you have? Both of you staying here and getting killed?"

The older woman sat silent for a few minutes, but finally she pulled Pedro's passport out of a cabinet and handed it to her daughter. Cecilia breathed a huge sigh of relief as she took it. She then stuffed Pedro's clothes and toys into two plastic shopping bags. Without saying anything more, Mrs. Sanchez found Pedro's birth certificate, Social Security card, and immunization records to hand over to his future guardian. Cecilia went into the room she had shared with her cousin. She went through her cousin's photographs, taking any that had her or Pedro in them. There were a lot of other pictures of miscellaneous friends, boyfriends, and gang members posing with weapons. Cecilia did not bother to take any of those. Most of those people were dead by now anyway, and no longer had any relevance to Pedro's life. She glanced at the collection of CD's of Rap and Salsa music. None of that had any relevance either. Pedro would not grow up listening to Salsa or Rap. He would grow up not knowing anything about Gangsta street culture. Cecilia would see to that.

Less than an hour later Cecilia went down the stairs of her tenement for the very last time in her life. She was carrying the two bags of Pedro's possessions, some photos, and his documents. Her mother walked behind holding the boy's hand. The driver was still waiting out in front, his face reflecting relief at seeing his passenger returning. The tension caused by his presence on the street had been mounting and he would be quite happy to get the car out of the neighborhood. Cecilia threw the bags in the trunk and opened the door for Pedro to get in.

Cecilia had hoped for closure with her mother, a gesture of mutual forgiveness or a promise that the two women might someday repair their broken relationship. However, that was not to be. Her mother continued to stare at her with a hostile, betrayed expression. Still, Cecilia had to say something:

"Mom, when I get back to Danube City, I'll write you at Grandpa's place."

"Great. You do that. Just like you wrote me from Chicago."

Mrs. Sanchez said nothing more and abruptly went back into the building.

Despair swept over Cecilia, in spite of having accomplished her purpose for coming. She felt a combination of resentment, hurt, anger, and guilt. Yes, she should have written, but then, her mother should have been more supportive.

The reason she hadn't written had been because of that single word: "bitch". In Spanish the word was a much more serious insult than it was in English, and that was what her mother called her the day she insisted on leaving for Chicago.

Bitch. Something inside Cecilia snapped when she heard that word one time too many. And yet...maybe she could have calmed her anger and written. She realized she had failed to keep her own emotions under control, and that failure had cost her any possible future relationship with her mother. The two women would be going their separate ways and probably never see each other again.

Cecilia Sanchez knew that her life in New Jersey was over for sure. Within a few days her mother would be out of the apartment and on her way to the Dominican Republic. Everyone else she had known growing up was long-gone: dead, in jail, or just in a different location. The neighborhood was broken up and now taken over by strangers. After having seen her housing project one last time, Cecilia was leaving as well, never to come back.

The young Dominican watched the dilapidated row houses pass by as she got on her cell phone to call the man who had flown her to Newark. It turned out his business was finished as well. If she wanted, he could fly everyone back to Chicago that night. She gladly accepted the offer. She wanted to get herself and Pedro as far away as possible, away from the drugs, crime, and despair that had engulfed the world of her childhood. She felt the neighborhood pulling at her, and worried that until she was on the plane headed to Chicago, there was a chance she and Pedro might not escape.

Pedro quietly played with one of his toys as the driver made his way to the airport. The child was used to amusing himself, because no one had paid much attention to him after Cecilia left. Poor kid, she thought. I really shouldn't have left him like that. I've got some catching up to do.

----------

Cecilia and Pedro stayed at Ruth Burnside's house for two days while they waited for Jason and Cassie to return from Wisconsin. Cecilia went shopping for Pedro while she waited, since she did not like his clothes and wanted him to be more presentable. The second day he was in Burnside's house he cried a few minutes for "Tia", which was how he called Mrs. Sanchez, but it seemed that otherwise he made the adjustment to being with Cecilia fairly easily. She wondered if deep down in his memory he might have some recollection of all that time she had spent taking care of him. The child spent much of his time wandering around the professor's back yard and staring curiously at Maynard. He had never seen a dog up close before and shyly reached out to touch him. Maynard was the perfect companion for the child's explorations, because he was so placid and quiet.

Burnside was busy, as usual, but she was able to make some time for Cecilia and talk to her about everything she had experienced in Upper Danubia. She was happy to have the student available for a few days to talk to her about the National University, some of the quirks of Danubian culture, and changes she would need to make to the exchange program before sending the first group of students.

Just four days after they had entered the United States, Jason and Cecilia, along with their two companions, were ready to leave. Ruth Burnside and two other officials from the Foundation accompanied the four young people through check-in to make sure they made it as far as the secure area of the terminal before saying good-bye. For Burnside and Cecilia the good-bye was only a temporary one, because over the next year the two women would be in constant contact with each other as the exchange program got under way and selected its first group of students. Burnside may have been an important part of Cecilia's past, but she also would be a very important part of her future.

Because of Cassie's problems with the flashbacks, Jason had decided to get a flight out of O'Hare in the middle of the night. Traveling at night would keep his sister from seeing too much on her way to the airport and hopefully prevent any flashbacks before she had a chance to get on a plane. Cecilia and Pedro met up with Jason and Cassie at the ticket counter. Once they were alone in the airport, there was the usual hassle getting through security and waiting in line, and an argument between Cecilia and Pedro over how many toys he could pull out of his suitcase and take with him on the plane.

Cecilia struggled to conceal her shock at how much Cassie's appearance had deteriorated since the last time she had seen her. Not only was the girl very pale and overweight, but she had a vacant look in her eyes from having taken tranquilizers. Jason had her drugged up, hoping to get her to Danube City without any incidents. Once they arrived in the Danubian capitol, he would lock up his sister's medicines and force her to get some exercise and eat better. He would make her regain her health, which would be the first part of the very long journey of taking back her life.

However, once the plane was airborne, Cassie and Pedro promptly fell asleep. Jason and Cecilia, their mission to the United States completed, interlocked their arms and spent the next eight hours talking about their most recent experiences at home and their hopes for the future. It was significant that neither of them talked about "my future". The couple took it for granted that it was "our future". For better or for worse, the Paths of their Lives had drawn them together. Now there was only one Path in Life, the path they were destined to share.