Trouble

The house that stood before me was outside the gang neighborhoods, just barely into the suburb line. I hadn’t anticipated such a long walk, but it ended up feeling kind of nice. It had been so long since I’d been able to walk for miles and miles and miles outdoors, and I welcomed the reintroduction of it into my life.

I didn’t really know what I was expecting, since Alejo had just forced me to go here, but I figured I really had nothing to lose. So I knocked on the door a couple of times and stepped back, waiting for an answer, just like I had at Alejo’s house.

And the face that greeted me was incredibly foreign and familiar at the same time. Esperanza had grown up significantly since I’d been gone. While she had always been beautiful, the woman that stood in front of me was drop-dead gorgeous. Her blonde hair had grown out, dark loose curls taking their place, framing her features in the most perfect of ways and making her eyes stand out.

“Sol?” she questioned in shock. “Oh my God.” Unlike Alejo, she made no move to hug me or anything. She just stared at me in awe, probably wondering whether or not I was real.

“Hi,” I replied finally, clearing my throat. “Can I come in, or…?”

“Oh, yeah. Of course.” She stepped aside, still in a daze, and yelled, “HEY, SOLEDAD’S HERE.”

I turned to ask her who she was yelling to before I heard running. Feet pounding against the floor with intensity, down the hallway, and there they were.

Gone were the little girls I’d left before. Claudia, at thirteen years old, had the figure of a woman, and she stood almost as tall as Esperanza and me. Her glasses were new thick black frames instead of the thin red wire ones, and I could see quite distinctly that she was wearing eye makeup behind the accessory.

Marisol still looked young, but she had gotten a lot taller. Her curls were not quite as tight around her small head, and a fraction of the innocent twinkle in her eye had been diminished. I wondered for a second if they knew what had happened with me, if Esperanza had told them. If I had to guess, I’d say that Claudia knew, while Marisol did not.

But either way, they both ran toward me, throwing their arms around my neck, burying their faces in my shoulders. I kissed the tops of their heads over and over, almost in shock that they were actually real and in front of me again. I thought I had missed them before, but it was nothing compared to the feeling that overwhelmed me when I finally could see them again.

I felt myself starting to get emotional, so I pushed back the tears and sniffled a couple of times, finally pulling back so I could look at them better.

“Hey, Soledad, guess what!” Marisol exclaimed enthusiastically. “Claudia got her period!”

“MARI,” Claudia scolded, smacking her off the shoulder. “Can you not tell that to everyone you see?”

“I don’t tell everyone!” Marisol argued indignantly, crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I just told Sol. And she’s our sister. Don’t you think she deserves to know?”

“Well, sure, but Liam didn’t need to know when he visited last month.”

Marisol snorted with laughter, her little face flooding with red coloring. “Oh, come on. The look on his face was so funny.”

I could just imagine the incredible awkwardness Liam had felt when confronted with the information, and it made me chuckle a little.

“Hey, Mari and Claudia, why don’t you heat up some of the leftovers last night for Sol?” Esperanza suggested, her eyes not leaving my face. “I’m sure she’s hungry, and I want to talk to her for a few minutes alone.”

“Okay,” Claudia agreed. “And I’ll make sure that I add some more peppers, since I know you like spicy.”

With that, the two girls were gone, and Esperanza grabbed my hand to lead me up the stairs. After pulling me into what I assumed was her bedroom, she shut the door behind her and promptly burst into tears.

For a second, I didn’t know what to do. No one cried in prison. I’d grown out of touch with the expression of emotion. But once the shock wore off, I pulled her into my arms and rubbed her back soothingly, my t-shirt catching all the tears she shed.

After about five minutes, she sniffled and pulled back, using her sleeve to wipe off her face. “Sol, I had no idea what it took to raise us,” she told me shakily. “After you left, Liam came to the house and told me in a rushed voice what had happened, keeping his voice quiet so the other girls wouldn’t hear. And then he told me that he was going to pull some strings and work to get me to be an emancipated minor so that I could raise them. I was scared, but I knew it was what I had to do, since there was no way we were going to be allowed to stay with mamá. Liam got this house for us and put some money into an account for us to use while I graduated high school, and now, the account’s gone, and I’ve been working at a local diner as a waitress to try to support us.”

I let out a long breath, trying to hold back my smile. “I told him to take care of you,” I replied. “And Alejo made me think while I was in prison that you guys were all in foster care, so I thought Liam wimped out on helping you.”

“No, he was incredibly helpful. He still pops in now and then to make sure that we’re doing alright. Last time, he noticed that Marisol’s clothes looked a little small, so he gave me some money to get us all new clothes. He’s supposed to come again in a few days, according to the conversation I had with him over the phone last week.”

I couldn’t have felt more relieved. The huge leap I’d made to put my utmost trust in Liam had paid off. He hadn’t taken advantage of the situation, he hadn’t done anything stupid like taken the girls with him back to England to raise them himself. He’d done the absolute best thing for the situation, and for the first time in a while, I felt myself start to get upset that he wasn’t around me. Although I’d missed him before, it had paled in comparison to the intense longing I felt to hold my sisters again.

But now that they were in front of me, my stomach started to roll with anticipation to see Liam again. I was kind of scared, too, since I didn’t know where life had taken him in the past couple of years, but there was always a chance. And I needed to thank him personally for everything he’d done for my family.

“Do you talk to mamá?” I asked Esperanza, already knowing the answer.

“No,” she responded. “She cried when we moved out, which was scary for Claudia and Marisol, but after that, she’s never answered our calls or anything. I think she thinks that we abandoned her instead of avoiding the inevitable.”

“Why didn’t you try explaining things to her?”

Esperanza laughed, but it was filled with incredible sadness. “I went over there about a month and a half after we moved in, and she screamed at me to get out, that she didn’t have daughters anymore. And when I still tried to explain, she picked up a glass plate from the counter and threw it at me.” She brought her hand up to her head and moved aside her hair to display a three-inch-long scar. “That wasn’t a highlight, for sure.”

Esperanza had to grow up really quickly, and while I felt hurt by it, I also thought it was necessary. I found myself feeling so proud of her, that she was able to put her selfish teenage-mentality behind her and turn into the maternal figure she needed to develop in order to make sure the girls grew up to be productive individuals. Just like I’d had to.

“I love Claudia and Marisol,” Esperanza broke through my thoughts, “but I can’t say that I’m sad that I’m turning them back over to you again.”

“I’d love to take them back,” I responded honestly. “But I’m still going to need your help. I’ll have to get a job and work to get some more money on the table in here. You understand me?”

“I’ll help,” she replied. “Thank you, Sol. And I want you to know that I’m not mad about what you did for Alejo. You helped a lot of people in our old neighborhood. I’m proud to call you my older sister.”

I knew no words would express clearly what I felt, so I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head, even though I had to get up on my tiptoes to do so. “I love you, Esperanza.”

“I love you, too.” There was a short silence as she reached over to open her bedroom door, the smell of Mexican spices immediately flooding into the room. “And I think Liam’s going to be really happy to see you again.”

“I can only hope so.”