Blood Daughters: A Romilia Chacon Novel

Chapter 17

87 Chapter 17 This time Nancy and I crossed the border legally. We showed our credentials at the gate. The border guard punched the badge numbers into a computer at his stand, then waved us on. The irony of us being here, together, I’m sure was not lost on Nancy. The last time she and I had crossed the border from San Diego into Tijuana, she drove while I lay in the trunk. Bound and gagged. Now neither of us said anything about that day, like two good, dysfunctional siblings who both recognized a familial abuse, but remained silent about it. A half mile south of the border, however, I asked her, “How long are you going to keep this up?” She sighed. “You just can’t accept the fact that I am truly FBI.” “You were a mole. For Tekún.” “And now that’s over.” I could hear, in her voice, a sadness. The slight revival of mourning. And a slip: usually she spoke about the matter as if there were always a microphone in the room or planted on me. But now she actually had affirmed my statement. Which showed, once again, how much she had cared for the man. “He was a father to me, shit, that sounds so trite, saying it like that. He was a dad. My Dad. I don’t—I didn’t want to lose him like that. He took care of me all my life, and asked very little in return.” She looked to the east side of Mexico to keep me from seeing her eyes. After a few moments I asked, “You keep in touch with your mother?” “What? Oh yeah. Called her just the other day, after I dropped you off at your house.” “How is she?” 88 ~ Blood Daughters “Doing well. Moved to Oaxaca. She’s opened a second clothing store there.” She looked around, then ahead again, at the city of Tijuana. “It was hard, right after his death. I wasn’t sure how she’d do. But then she got the business going in Oaxaca. I figured she was forcing herself to move on.” “Was your mother one of his lovers?” Nancy laughed. “No. Though not for lack of interest on Mom’s part. I grew up hearing her talk about how hot he was.” “But he never dated her.” Nancy looked at me. She recognized my fishing expedition of questions. “No. They were not a couple.” “But did he call her mi amor, or mi corazón, like he did with you, or with that woman in that small town on the border, the one who helped smuggle us back into the States?” “You mean Ricarda? Lord no. Ricarda was like a sister to him.” “But I heard him call her mi amor.” “He called every woman he knew something like that. For me it was mi corazón. My mother, either mi amor or mi alma. He could be like that. Whenever he wanted to woo some girl into helping him with something, like a pick-up place or a drop-off, he’d haul off and call her la reyna de mi alma. He could put the Latino on thick.” “Yeah, he could,” I said. “Like calling some women mi vida.” Nancy paused before she responded, as if considering the weight of that. “No. No I never heard him call any woman mi vida.” Andthatendedmyfishingexpedition.Iturnedtothepassengerwindowand looked out at Tijuana and saw none of it. I rubbed my index finger underneath both eyes, a trick my mother taught me, to keep the liner from smearing. 7 I’ve never cared for Tijuana. That may have to do with being forced to visit it last year. The streets and their Cholos, the legion of kiosks selling everything from tiny guitars to miniature guayaberas for your boy’s first communion to incense, and all the coke and heroin and grass hiding behind God knows how many of those kiosks, along with the meth and the Ecstasy shoved into the glove compartments of souped up low-rider Hondas and Cadillacs and Camrys, from which spilled out the latest narco-corrido from the accordions of Los Tigres del Norte—none of it’s for me. Marcos M. Villatoro ~ 89 I had never been in a Tijuana police precinct before. Our federal badges got the fellow at the front desk to sit up with a...