“Sí, señor, I’ll have everything I want and need except the most important thing.”
“And what is that, Delia?”
“Family,” I said.
“You want me to get your aunt to take you back?”
“No. There is no family there for me. My cousin Edward is the only kind one and he is out of the house. That’s not the family I mean.”
He shook his head. “I can’t promise you I will be the father-in-law I would have been or could have been. I’ll do my best. You don’t have family back in Mexico!” he added, frustrated at my silence. “You have only graves to visit.”
“And I want and need to visit them.”
“And I will personally take you to them.”
“When?”
“Soon. We’ll fly to Mexico City, and I’ll hire a helicopter to take us to your village and land right in the cemetery.”
I had to laugh at the image of that. “You’d scare the whole village.”
“I’ll make it look like a piñata.”
I laughed again.
Then I thought about mi tía Isabela.
“This will not please mi tía Isabela,” I warned him.
“At the moment, you are the only woman I care to please,” he replied.
He could have said nothing better.
“Today?”
“The car is waiting for us. Your aunt’s already signed you out.”
“Will you first tell her you intend to do this?”
“She’ll hear about it soon enough,” he said.
I couldn’t help but smile at the image of her hearing about it this morning.
“I know you will want to get your high school diploma. I will arrange for a tutor to help you finish up and take the exams. I can do all of these things for you,” he continued. “You have only one thing to do for me.”
“Whi
ch is?”
“Give me a healthy grandchild.”
He stood up.
“I am afraid, señor,” I said.
“If you’re afraid about going home to live in my house, imagine what you would fear being tossed over a border.”
“All of our lives we cross borders, Señor Bovio. Going to your home is just another crossing.”