MOTHER’S DAY

MOTHER’S DAY
It is May 14, 2000, a Sunday when many churches in Mexico celebrate Mother’s Day.

Finally, Enrique has saved 50 pesos. Eagerly, he buys a phone card. He gives it to one of El Tirindaro’s friends for safekeeping. That way, if the police catch him again, they cannot steal it.

“I just need one more,” he says. “Then I can call her.”

Every time he goes to Parroquia de San Jose, it makes him think about his mother, especially on this Mother’s Day. In addition to the refectory, on the second floor are two small rooms where up to 10 women share four beds. They have left their children behind in Central America and Mexico to find work in El Norte, and they have found this place to sleep. Each could be his mother 11 years ago.

They try to ignore a Mother’s Day party downstairs, where 150 women from Nuevo Laredo laugh, shout and whistle as their sons dance, pillows stuffed under their shirts to make them look pregnant. Upstairs, the women weep. One has a daughter, 8, who had begged her not to go. She asked her to send back just one thing for her birthday: a doll that cries. Another cannot shake a nightmare: Back home, her little girl is killed, and her little boy runs away in tears. Daily she prays: “Don’t let me die on this trip. If I die, they will live on the street.”

Enrique wonders: What does his mother look like now?

“It’s OK for a mother to leave,” he tells a friend, “but just for two or four years, not longer.” He recalls her promises to return for Christmas and how she never did. “I’ve felt alone all my life.” One thing, though: She always told him she loved him. “I don’t know what it will be like to see her. She will be happy. Me too. I want to tell her how much I love her. I will tell her I need her.”

Across the Rio Grande on Mother’s Day, his mother, Lourdes, thinks about Enrique. She has, indeed, learned that he is gone. But in her phone calls home, she never finds out where he went. She tries to convince herself that he is living with a friend, but she remembers their last telephone conversation: “I’ll be there soon,” he had said. “Before you know it, on your doorstep.” Day after day, she waits for him to call. Night after night, she cannot sleep more than three hours. She watches TV: migrants dying in the desert, ranchers who shoot them.

She imagines the worst and becomes terrified that she might never see him again. She is utterly helpless. She asks God to watch over him, guide him.

On the afternoon of the Mother’s Day celebration, three municipal police visit the camp. Enrique does not try to run, but he is jittery. They ignore him. Instead, they take away one of his friends.

Enrique has no money for food. He takes a hit of glue. It makes him sleepy, takes him to another world, eases his hunger and helps him forget about his family.

A friend catches six tiny catfish. He builds a fire out of trash. It grows dark. He cuts the fish with a lid from an aluminum can.

Enrique hovers nearby. “You know, Hernan, I haven’t eaten all day.”

Hernan guts the fish.

Enrique stands silently, waiting.

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