That was how the idea got started of visiting CRI. First, it was just Mom and Dad going, but the visit soon turned into a group outing. Everyone, including Grandma, wanted to see the place. On the way, we stopped at the bakery and bought the biggest cake on hand, a sheet cake with coconut frosting. “No, it’s not a birthday cake,” Mom assured me. “Just a treat for all the kids.” We also ordered a wedding cake to be picked up in a week. It turned out that Happy and Eli would not be getting married until the end of the trip because the paperwork took that long, even with Camilo, a lawyer, helping us. Happy winked at Eli. “We get to live in sin, darling.”
Eli blushed the color of the hibiscus on another one of his loud shirts. How many Hawaiian shirts had Grandma bought him? I wondered.
We arrived at El Centro de Rehabilitación Infantil with the cake and a carton of sodas and a big bag of ice we picked up at the supermercado. Sor Arabia was beside herself with gratitude and welcome. She claimed to remember Mom, who said that of course she remembered Sor Arabia. I could tell Mom was just being polite, and later in the van, she admitted that the only nun she remembered was Sor Corita, and that was only because over the years she’d been able to refresh her memory with the pictures in my box. “I was so in love with my two little babies, I’m afraid I didn’t pay much attention to anyone else. You know how it is when you fall in love with someone. . . .” Mom’s voice trailed off. She could tell something was up between me and Pablo, but we hadn’t had a private moment, just the two of us, to talk.
Meanwhile, Sor Arabia couldn’t get over Kate. “You haven’t changed a bit!” she exclaimed. Oh, come on! Kate had been less than a year old the last time Sor Arabia could have seen her, right before my parents left this country. I thought nuns weren’t supposed to lie. “Those same beautiful brown eyes and that sweet smile.” Sor Arabia looked fondly at Kate, who was eating it up.
They hooked arms, and finally, Kate’s Spanish was unleashed. During the ensuing tour, Kate asked all sorts of questions about the orphanage and whether they accepted interns. I felt that old gnawing of jealousy and competition in my gut. I tried reminding myself that this was Kate’s way of showing interest in my past. A first step. But still, the heart feels what it feels, as Pablo might say. Ms. Morris once said basically the same thing when we were reading Anne Frank’s diary, and someone said something like, “Jeez, there’s a Holocaust going on and this girl’s complaining about her mother?!” Well, here I was in the middle of an orphanage, having an attack of sibling rivalry.
Kate sidled up to me. “Do you remember any of this?” she whispered.
“Of course not,” I told her.
“Phew.” She sighed. “That nun had me half believing that I remembered her.” We exchanged a knowing grin.
Another step, I thought.
In the dining hall, the kids were waiting, super excited by the American visitors. The little guy who once ate up my cake was especially taken with Nate. He kept staring at this boy: his white skin, his blue eyes, and as it turned out, his baseball cap! Nate let him try it on, but then the little guy wouldn’t take it off. Nate was too afraid to ask for it, but some kids were quick to point out to Sor Arabia that the cap hadn’t been returned, and she made the little guy give it back.
After the introductions, the cake was brought in. The kids clapped. I beamed my family a don’t-even-go-there look when I sensed the birthday song wafting through their brains. This time they actually gave me what I wanted and didn’t sing it. We all sat down to eat cake, and this little guy wiggled in beside Nate. There goes Nate’s piece, I thought.
But the little guy didn’t ask for Nate’s cake. Instead, he nudged his own serving over and gestured toward the cap lying on Nate’s other side. Nate didn’t get it and shook his head, meaning I don’t want more cake, which this little guy took to mean that a serving of cake was no trade for a Red Sox baseball cap. So he dug into his pocket and out came a half dozen metal jacks to add to the bargain. What an outcry! The little girls at the table went wild. So that was who’d been stealing their jacks! I hated to think what awaited this little guy once we left. But I was so proud of Nate. As we stood up to go, he took off his cap and set it on this little guy’s head.
Meanwhile, Happy pulled out her checkbook and wrote out a donation. She handed it to Sor Arabia, who turned pale with disbelief.
“You always bring milagros when you come,” she whispered to Pablo and me as she bid us goodbye, adding, “New plumbing for the nursery.”
This milagrito almost didn’t happen.
There was a revolution—in the family—about plans.
After Aunt Joan and the cousins arrived, we stayed one more day in the capital. Next, we were supposed to head for the mountains. But it turned out that most everyone wanted to bypass the mountains and go directly to the beach resort.
We put it up to a vote. Only Mom and I raised our hands for the mountains. Dad was undecided because he was worried about driving conditions in the interior.
“We’re overruled,” Mom said cheerily, like she wasn’t that sorry to lose. By now, Dad had gotten her worrying about the bad mountain roads he had never been on.
But Happy—yes, Happy!—read the disappointment in my eyes. She came up with a new plan. Why didn’t she hire a driver to take me and Mom and whoever else wanted to go along on a mountain outing? Then we could all meet back at the beach resort. “We old folks need to rest up for our honeymoon.” This time, she winked at me.
“Where are you going to find an experienced driver?” Dad challenged. I had noticed he stood up to Happy a lot more now. “It’s not like we can just call up Roger.”
“This is not a problem,” Pablo explained. “You can hire a driver where we rented the van. They are very reliable. All the international agencies arrange for their transportation there.” How could Dad argue with that?
But when he had Mom and me alone, Dad tried a new tack. “I just think it would be nice for us to all be together. You know, a family vacation.”
“This is about . . . my family,” I said, coming clean. And then I told them why I wanted them to see Los Luceros, how it was likely my birth parents had come from there. I worried that all the stuff about the eyes was going to seem over the top to them. I mean, in the States, if you claimed that everyone from a certain town had the same eyes, people would think you’d been watching too many Spielberg movies. But Mom wasn’t that surprised. It turned out Mrs. Bolívar had told her about Los Luceros when Mom noticed that Dulce and Esperanza had “Milly’s eyes.”
But Dad was nonplussed. “Let’s get this straight,” he said, hands on his hips. “You did go on a search for your birth parents—” He stopped just short of saying “after you assured us you wouldn’t.”
My eyes filled. “I didn’t mean to,” I tried explaining. “It just happened.” The visit to the orphanage had led to meeting Sor Arabia. The trip to bury Daniel had led me to Los Luceros.
Mom was nodding, like she understood. But Dad still had a problem with my story. And I didn’t blame him. It wasn’t just Kate, I could see now, it was everyone in the family having to rearrange the puzzle pieces so that all our stories fit in. What if we couldn’t get the pieces back together and be a family again? That girl, Pandora, popped into my head, how after she opened that box of trouble, the world was never the same. Suddenly, I was the one feeling scared.
“Honestly, Mil, I don’t know where we failed you.” Dad looked frustrated. “I thought you felt you could come to us.”
“It’s not like I went sneaking . . . it just kind of...” Soon I was sobbing too hard to even try to explain.
And this was how I knew my parents and I, anyhow, were going to be okay. When Dad saw me sobbing, he hurried over and put his arm around me. He remembered to be my father before he remembered to finish his lecture.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I said between sobs. “You’ve got to believe me. You didn’t fail me. The whole reason I could even go to Los Luceros is that I have you guys.” It s
ounded lame, like I was blaming them for what I’d done.
But Dad was really listening, head bowed. Like maybe this was making sense to him.
“And I want you to know that I actually found what I was looking for.”
Dad’s head snapped up, his eyes a little worried. Mom looked surprised.
“No, no, I don’t mean I found my birth parents. I mean...” How to explain this feeling that I’d touched bottom in my heart? How did I say that to anyone? How did I say it to my parents? “It’s like . . . I found . . . Milagros. I mean, I’m still me, Milly . . . but now, I’m more me.” How could something so simple sound so confusing?
But Mom and Dad were nodding as if to encourage me as I stumbled along. When I was done, Dad said, “We understand,” which caught me totally by surprise. That was usually Mom’s line.
“We would love to go see this place with you.” Mom was smiling, her eyes soft and moist.
“Ditto.” Dad nodded. My good old eloquent father! My sweet mom! I couldn’t help throwing my arms around them. It felt so good for a moment, but then sort of embarrassing when we pulled apart and we all had red eyes and stupid grins on our faces.
We hired a driver with a jeep—Dad did insist on a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Pablo came along as our guide. Before we set out for the interior, Dad made a last-ditch effort to make this a family trip. But there was no budging Nate from Grandma’s side after she mentioned making reservations for a whale-watching excursion. Meanwhile, Kate was back in her angry mode, still refusing to accept the fact that I had a birth family at all. “We are your family!” she insisted. Before we left, I scribbled a note. “Remember, no matter what, sisters for life. I love you and always will.” I just hoped the cousins didn’t find it first. Something I only thought about after I slipped the note under the door to their suite.
So the milagrito that almost didn’t happen happened, but it turned out different from what I’d planned. Our first stop in Los Luceros was the little church. Mom bought a milagrito medal in the shape of a heart for Happy and Eli, then bought one for our family, and some for all the friends who were now a part of our circle of family. Dad bought a car—he was still worrying about road safety! I found this milagrito of two figures with joined hands, a medal to protect twins. For Kate and me, I thought. The other one I picked out was a tiny ring. When I turned to show Pablo, he was holding one up, too.
“What’s that one for?” Dad asked the old lady selling them at the back of the church. While she explained that the ring milagrito was for weddings, for anniversaries, for vows made by a young novice before she became a bride of Christ, Pablo and I headed for the statue of the Virgin at the front of the church.
“Tu y yo,” Pablo said, pinning his tiny ring to the Virgencita’s skirt.
You and I, like the flower. I smiled, remembering my first morning on the island. So many memories since! I pinned my ring next to his.
Then, while Mom and Dad were snapping a photo of the old lady and her panel of milagritos, we sealed our wish with a kiss and a thank you to the Virgencita.
The main reason for coming to the mountains was for Mom and Dad to meet Doña Gloria. But that first night with Dulce’s family, the whole town came over to greet the special visitors. It turned out they thought Mom and Dad were here from yet another Truth Commission to collect testimonies. Everyone had a story about some missing son or murdered father or brother or husband. Mom couldn’t stop crying. Meanwhile, Dad hardly talked, which is what he does instead of crying when he’s really upset. It wasn’t that Mom and Dad didn’t know this stuff had gone on, but now, because of me, they felt intimately connected to it.
After Mom and Dad went to bed, Pablo and I took a walk around the square. I told him that I was having second thoughts about taking them to Doña Gloria’s.
He had noticed, too. “Your parents feel responsible.”
“It’s like they’ve benefited from someone’s tragedy. I mean, our happiness as a family comes out of somebody else having had a horrible life. It doesn’t, I know,” I added when Pablo looked like he was going to protest, “but then again, it does.”
“But you wanted so much for them to meet Doña Gloria, no?” Pablo’s voice felt soothing, like Mom’s hand on my forehead when I had a fever.
“I know.” I sighed. “But tonight, when I looked at Mom and Dad, they seemed so sad and helpless. I felt like, well, like they needed a mom and dad.”
Pablo smiled sadly, as if he was thinking of his own parents and what they had been through. “Pobrecitos,” he agreed.
“I haven’t exactly been easy to live with for the last eight months. No, seriously,” I said before Pablo tried to defend me again.
Pablo put his arm around me and squeezed. “The truth is, your parents are so especial. They are people who spread more light.”
I wondered how I could have missed it! It seemed so obvious now. Mom and Dad didn’t have to come to this country; they didn’t have to adopt some sick little orphan. In some ways, they weren’t that different from Dolores and Javier and Tío Daniel and Pablo’s brothers. Why make it any harder for them now?
“Ever since Doña Gloria, I’ve been thinking what big heroic thing I could do with my life,” I admitted to Pablo, who nodded as if he entertained these thoughts, too. “But it’s like how in Spanish everything is a little this and a little that.” I had pointed it out to him: how his mother and aunt were always talking about our little meals, our little appetites, our little outings in the little afternoon.
“Well, I’m not the big-hero, capital-letters type person,” I went on. “I’m more a lowercase type. Milagritos, not Milagros.” I had to smile, thinking how my nickname did fit me. “And here’s a chance to do a little something. I can choose to spare my parents more grief. And it’s not just them. Oh, Pablo, you know what’ll happen if we take them up there. Doña Gloria will want to share all the stories she told us, and then probably some others she’s thought about since. And like you saw, it’s so hard on her to talk about all that stuff.”
“Milagritos, Milagritos.” Pablo rocked me in his arms. “And I was worried Doña Gloria’s stories would be too much for you. But this country has made you strong!”
I crumpled in his arms. “Who, me? Strong?” I thought of telling him what Ms. Morris had said about stories saving your life, stories helping you find yourself when you got lost. But I thought it was something Pablo and his family already knew. Why else had they sat for hours in front of that TV listening to those awful testimonies?
We walked in silence for a while, holding hands, pointing out the stars. “Looks like the sky is keeping Doña Gloria’s promise. . . . To make more light,” I added, though I doubted Pablo had forgotten. It seemed like there were twice as many tonight as before.
Maybe it was from looking at their light that I got the idea. “It’d be great for Doña Gloria’s great-granddaughter to go to school. You think maybe we can talk Tía Dulce into arranging it?”
Pablo looked doubtful. “You know how Tía Dulce is about girls leaving home. But the truth is that Doña Gloria is becoming too frail to live so isolated. She should move to town. That way, her great-granddaughter can have an opportunity. I think it’s a brilliant idea.”
“I got it from on high,” I joked, pointing at the sky.
“Then Tía Dulce will approve for sure.” Pablo laughed.
I looked up and caught myself wishing on stars again.
The next morning at breakfast, Mom and Dad looked wasted. It turned out that they hadn’t slept a wink all night.
“I think we should head back today,” I suggested. “We can be at the resort by tonight.”
They both tried not to look too eager. After all, they didn’t want to wimp out on our side trip. “Didn’t you want us to spend a couple of days here?” Dad asked, swallowing a yawn.
“I just wanted you to see this place,” I explained. “Next time, we can all come up together and stay longer. Now, it’s probably better if we get back.??
? I didn’t have to tell them about the tension between Kate and me. They could see it.
“Well, if you’re sure?” Mom asked.
“Totally,” I assured her.
Mom sighed with relief. “Then I think it probably is best, honey.”
We made plans to leave after lunch, stopping on the way to visit Abuelita. Pablo wanted my parents to meet his grandmother, and of course, he welcomed the opportunity to see her one last time. After all, he probably wouldn’t be back for another year.
“Is she the Doña Gloria you spoke of?” Mom wanted to know. “Or was that Dulce’s mother last night?” I couldn’t blame poor Mom. So many names and stories and people had come at them since they landed.
“Not really,” I said, hesitating. If I went into too much detail, Mom was going to feel she should visit Doña Gloria. And I was more and more convinced that I’d made the right choice by not taking my parents up to see her.
“Doña Gloria is one of the oldest inhabitants of this area,” Pablo stepped in. But I could see he didn’t know where to head with his explanation. “She knows many more stories.”
“I think we’ve heard enough stories for now,” Dad said grimly.
We rolled into the resort late that night. But no one was in their rooms, not even Nate, who was supposed to have a little cot in Aunt Joan’s room until Mom and Dad returned.
“What on earth?” Dad said.
“They are watching the stars,” the man at the front desk explained. He gestured toward the back of the hotel. “There is a shower of light,” he added, bowing politely as if he were announcing a special on the menu. We had heard about the meteor shower from Pablo’s brothers in the capital.
We walked down some steps to an outdoor courtyard that hung above the sea. I could hear the waves crashing on the cliffs below. Torches were flaring around the perimeter, like this was an episode from some Survivor -type show on TV. And this was the little miracle we found: my family, in all their splendid, complicated, ornery glory, sprawled on those lounge chairs that you can slide back to the exact degree you want to tan when the sun is showing. The cuzzes were arguing with Aunt Joan about what a meteor shower actually meant. Meanwhile, Nate was snuggled beside Happy, who sat next to Mr. Strong, holding his hand across the space between them. Off to the side, her towel wrapped around her like a protective cocoon, I spotted Kate.