Return to Sender

Watched-Over Farm. Gramps and Tyler used to watch the stars together, so as the months wear on, Tyler finds comfort in the night sky. Sometimes he even thinks he sees Gramps’s face up there, looking down at him. Gramps’ death still hurts, but in a way, Tyler doesn’t want it to stop hurting. He associates the hurt with memory, and his memories are a way to keep Gramps alive. Still, it’s hard seeing how broken-up Grandma still is.

By now, the telescope is back in Tyler’s bedroom, in part because it’s getting colder and in part because that way he doesn’t have to feel guilty about not sharing it with Mari—he’s sure her Papá would not allow her into a boy’s room. He feels guilty about ignoring her, but also that it would be wrong to be friends with a lawbreaker. Mom, Dad, and Sara don’t seem bothered, and he can’t talk to anyone outside of the family lest they report the Paquettes to the Department of Homeland Security. Tyler already worries that it’s DHS who keeps calling the house but not talking when someone picks up. Sara thinks it’s her nosy ex-boyfriend.

Tyler pins his hopes on Dad’s recovery, which is going better than expected. Maybe soon, everything will be back to normal, and the Cruz family can go away before the Paquettes get in trouble.

On this evening, Tyler is looking out the window when he sees Mari leave the trailer. She walks out into the field and raises her face to the night sky, evidently staring at something that Tyler can’t see. Then, the stars resolve into Gramps’s face, smiling down at the little girl. Tyler is jealous. Gramps should be smiling at him! But before he can get Gramps’s attention, Mari waves and the face disappears.

The next day after school, Tyler heads straight for Grandma’s house hoping she can help him with his moral quandary. At the very least, she’ll reminisce about Gramps with him. Much to his surprise, Grandma is upstairs in one of the back bedrooms, sitting next to a table bearing a picture of Gramps, some of his prized possessions, and food. Tyler is familiar with the Mexican Day of the Dead celebration, because Ms. Ramírez taught about it in Spanish class, and he recognizes signs that Mari, Ofie, and Luby have helped Grandma set up this altar for it. Tyler thinks some of its observances, like picnics in the cemetery, sound “creepy,” but Grandma has found that what she’s calling her “memory table” has helped to make Gramps feel less absent.

Tyler remembers the day Gramps died. It was the last day before summer vacation, and he can’t help but wonder if things might have been different if he’d been home instead of at school. If he could have seen Gramps collapse in the garden and been able to call the paramedics in time, like he did with Dad. Grandma interrupts his reverie. She’s saying that she plans to leave the memory table up after the celebration is over, and she invites Tyler to drop by and visit whenever. Guilt washes over Tyler. He’s been avoiding Grandma’s house because he’s trying to avoid Mari, Ofie, and Luby.

Now, Tyler asks Grandma what she thinks Gramps would have said about Dad breaking the law. The answer isn’t what he expects. When Uncle Larry started hiring illegal Mexican immigrants, Grandma says, Gramps had reservations. It was, after all, breaking the law. But he also recognized that except for Indigenous people, everyone in North America had come from somewhere else, too.

Grandma invites Tyler to join her, Mari, Ofie, and Luby for dinner on Wednesday, the actual Day of the Dead. That evening, he sets his telescope up in the garden before he knocks on Grandma’s door. Inside, she and the Cruz girls are busy putting candles, Gramps’s favorite foods, and the Coca-Cola that the girls’ Abuelita loved on the table. Dinner is delicious, and afterward, everyone puts on their coats and goes outside. Tyler points out the constellations then lets everyone take turns looking through the telescope. Luby says she sees a beautiful woman in the stars waving at her, but Ofie says her little sister is just telling stories.

In the trailer, Tío Felipe begins playing his guitar. He’s singing a song about the swallows, a song which Mari says a person is supposed to sing when they’re far away from home and feeling lonely. She and her sisters start singing, and although Tyler doesn’t understand all the words, he definitely understands the emotions they express. Suddenly, he feels terrible about how he’s been treating Mari and her sisters. Fortunately, Grandma has just the right words to say in this situation. She reminds the girls that, although they’re far from home, they’re surrounded by people who love them. Tyler agrees, though he’d never use such “sappy” words. He points into the sky where a meteor shower begins.

Querida Abuelita. On November 14, 2005, Mari writes a second, private letter to her dead grandmother (Abuelita). She had to hand in the one she started in Ms. Ramírez’s class. Mari starts by thanking her grandmother for making her presence known on the Day of the Dead with the shooting stars. She also describes the dinner she, Ofie, and Luby shared with Tyler and her “American grandmother” (Grandma). She also asks Abuelita to look over Papá’s mother, who still lives in Las Margaritas and whose health is failing.

One event from the Day of the Dead is still bothering Mari. As she and her sisters were getting ready to go to Grandma’s house, Ofie tried to place a picture of Mamá on the family’s altar. Mari was horrified. Their mother isn’t dead, she insisted, and putting a living person’s picture on the altar is sure to bring them deadly bad luck. Mari and Ofie struggled over the picture until Papá took it from them.

Then, Papá sat Mari, Ofie, and Luby down at the table to figure out what to do together, American democracy style. He started by pointing out it’s been a year since Mamá left. Not so! Mari interjected. It’s been 10 months, 2 weeks, and 2 days. Still, Papá continued, it’s been a long time, and the trip is dangerous. It is entirely possible that Mamá has indeed died. But, in deference to Mari’s strong feelings, he said the family should put off placing her picture on the altar for another year. Although she technically won the argument with Ofie, Mari burst into tears. Mamá may as well be dead, she thought, if everyone else in the family is ready to treat her like she is. Soon, the entire family was in tears.

Oh, and there was another alarming incident, Mari writes to Abuelita. This one  happened on October 31st, two days before the picture incident. That day, when Papá calls the old apartment in North Carolina, he discovered that the line had been disconnected. Eventually, he reached another immigrant friend still in North Carolina who confirmed the Cruz family’s worst fears: the family that had taken over the apartment had been picked up by immigration and deported. Afraid of what might happen if Mamá turns up at the apartment to find it empty, Mari took the phone from Papá and begged his friend to leave their new number and address at the apartment for her.

No one felt good after the call. Whenever anyone gets picked up by immigration it makes everyone else extremely nervous. So, a little while after dark, when people started ringing the doorbell and pounding on the door of the trailer, the Cruz family panicked. Papá flicked off the lights and Tío Felipe hustled the nearly hysterical Luby into a bedroom. In the dark, Ofie slipped a cold, terrified hand into Mari’s. It’s only after the callers started throwing eggs at the side of the trailer that Mari remembered it was Halloween. She and her sisters have never participated. Mamá considered it disrespectful to beg for candy, and, like many others in the undocumented immigrant community, the family was afraid to answer the door for unknown visitors lest they turn out to be immigration officers. 

A little while later, Mrs. Paquette knocked on the back door. Coming inside, she gave Mari, Ofie, and Luby a bucket of candy while apologizing profusely for not warning the Cruzes about Halloween or coming to their aid earlier. She explained that she hadn’t been able to get away from her own house until the trick-or-treating had finished, since Tyler and Sara were out and Mr. Paquette wasn’t yet strong enough to answer the door all night. Ofie said that they already knew about Halloween. As Papá chivalrously walked Mrs. Paquette back home, a horrified Mari imagined Mamá knocking on the door of the old apartment and being ignored by another family of frightened immigrants. She closes her letter by asking Abuelita to watch over Mamá and guide her safely back to her family.