Summer of the Mariposas

“Don’t you see? There’s a reason we found him instead of the border patrol. He came looking for us because he knew we could help him. It’s not a coincidence that he’s from the same place as Papá.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “You’re not making any sense.”

Juanita continued passionately. “Don’t you get it? We were meant to find him, so we could go see our abuelita in Mexico again. It was fate that brought him to us.”

“You were chosen for the goodness in your heart,” she explained. […] “Your sister was right when she said finding the body of the drowned man was not an accident.”

She took my hand once again, her touch still deathly cold. Standing beside the hackberry shrubs with hundreds of empty desiccated cocoons still clinging to their branches and a carpet of butterfly corpses under her feet, La Llorona did not look anything like a malevolent specter. She looked more like a tired, heavily burdened woman.

“This is about all of you: your sisters, your parents, even your abuela,” La Llorona continued. “You must travel to the other side, into the land of your ancestors, to find each other again.”

As apprehension spread into every pore of my being, I did the one thing I could to quiet the guilt in my mind. I turned the radio on. But even with the sound of loud music reverberating through the car, I could still hear my conscience nagging at me. You could have stopped this, all of it, it whispered. This is more your fault than anyone else’s. You’re the eldest. You should have known better.

My heart suddenly ached for her, and I wondered if this sadness, this pain that seemed to overwhelm La Llorona, was what Mamá felt after Papá had left, when she went to bed at night and cried alone in the dark. Did she miss having a family then? Was it the family and not Papá she had mourned? Had we misjudged her sorrow?

“Odilia is right. We’re the Garza girls, cinco hermanitas, five little sisters under the protection of the goddess,” she said, holding the stake in front of her with both hands and anchoring the sharp point of it on the ground.

“That’s right,” I said. I looked down at Pita, who was clutching her ankle, wincing. “Remember what I told you? La Llorona said we must remain noble and kind. We should grant mercy when it is asked of us.”

“Sometimes, men leave, for whatever reason,” Abuelita continued. “Nothing you did or could have done differently would have changed that. So I want you to stop blaming yourselves or your Mamá for the choices your father has made. Instead, I want you to continue taking care of each other the way you’ve been doing so far. I’m so proud of you for standing up for your hermanitas against those evil creatures. I’m sure having to do that has taught you how important it is to stick together and love one another more than anything else in the world.”

“You have done well, my daughter. Your migration through the voyage of pain and sorrow has been hard, but you are at the end of your journey. The Ancients have waited a long time for you to emerge, to spread your wings, to take flight. And now, they are ready for you to come home.”