Branches Book

BRANCHES

With so many mouths to feed, toys and gifts were never a priority, which I, most of the times, now regret. I can’t help but wonder that if my kids had more toys, then maybe Toño could have been saved. My youngest son, Toño, suffered bad burns as a kid. After a toy truck survived a fire used to burn our trash, he had carelessly fallen into the pile of hot ash in an attempt to reach for the toy. I found him crying in pain, and my heart stopped. But by 1987, Toño was sixteen and invincible. You’d never see him without a hat because he was embarrassed of his scars, which also made him bald in certain areas. His favorite thing to do was to bike along racing bicyclists that traveled from one neighboring town to the other. One day, full of adrenaline and passion for racing, his hat suddenly flew off as he competed with the bicyclists in his imagination. Shot back into reality as soon as he felt the wind slap his head, he turned with his bike to retrieve his hat. Then, he failed to see the oncoming car as much as the car failed to see him back. The car hit him off his bike, but he was fine. It was only a scratch. Then he remembered, “¡Mi gorra!” He sprinted back up from the ground – his fatal mistake. Incredibly dizzy, he lost all his balance and fell back onto the ground. He hit his cerebellum against a rock. Then, he went into a coma and never woke up again. I lost my son – my youngest son – that fateful day. That time I made sure to have a picture. I wouldn’t forget my son like I had forgotten my brother. Mi hijo. I lost my breath every time I thought of him and could feel my body crumbling to pieces. After his death, I trembled and cried for days, weeks, months – I stopped keeping track. My body never really hurt, it was always my soul that felt pain. But I learned to move forward and live with a shattered heart. Then in 1996, my heart broke once again. A truck traveled from Tlacolula’s corn fields to Mátatlan carrying zacate that reached 30 feet high. Antolin chose to travel in the back of the truck along with the produce to make sure none of it fell off. All of the zacate came from his own personal harvest and he wanted to sell every last bit of it. But the dirt road curved in mean twists with bullying bumps that made vehicles jump. The truck was old and its engine whined loudly. It tripped over one of the road’s bumps and Antolin fell. He fell off the 30 feet high zacate and landed on his back. A rock struck his head, but he didn’t bleed. Instead the blood let loose inside his skull, sending him into a coma. He gave his last breath a few hours later. I lost my Antolin – the man I loved – that fateful day. Years later, I found myself in a strange city. Rosarito, Tijuana was nothing like my Tlacolula. It was loud during the day and even louder during the night. I was alone and anxious as I waited for the coyote. It had been two weeks and I was promised I would have been taken by the end of the first

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