A Sister's Prayer

Dulce trotted behind her older brother as fast as her little legs could carry her. Her mother had sent them to the neighborhood store with a few pesos to buy eggs. It was April, the height of the dry season in central Mexico, and the noon sun beat down on Dulce’s braided black hair and brown arms. Her legs were powdered with the dust from the road that her bare feet had kicked up.

Few people were out and about at that hour in the village. Most of the housewives had already bought their meat and vegetables earlier that morning for the afternoon meal. A bricklayer lounged on a bench on the town square, mostly having given up hope of being hired that day, but not willing to go home yet. Around his cement-crusted work boots was a carpet of delicate lavender flowers that had fluttered down from the gloriously laden jacaranda branches overhead.

Outside the store, a few skinny dogs with mottled tan and black coats were stretched out in what little shade the narrow awning offered. Inside, the store was dark, and the cool, clay tile floor felt good on Dulce’s hot feet. Her brother Manuel, or Manolo as most people called him, took the basket from her and asked for a dozen eggs. Jaime, the storekeeper, counted them out and laid them gently in the basket, along with the cilantro, onion, and tomatoes. Dulce gazed wistfully at the ripe mangoes resting on the counter. Manolo saw her look and asked for one of them. Jaime observed Dulce’s faded green dress that was a few inches too short, and Manolo’s torn pants.

He looked down into Dulce’s deep brown eyes and smiled. “Here, little girl, take two, on me.” Her shy smile was his reward. Manolo didn’t smile, but methodically counted out what they owed. He had half a peso left. He stared at it a moment, and then gave it to Jaime and took a milk caramel candy. He handed it to Dulce.

“A dulce—a sweet—for my Dulce,” he said hoarsely. Dulce stared dumbly at her brother. This was unheard of, and would likely earn him a whipping. “Take it!” he insisted.

Once outside, Dulce looked up adoringly at her brother. “Gracias, Manolo!” But Manolo was handing her the egg basket and the sack with the other groceries.

“Take these home to Mamá, Dulce.”

“But where are you going?”

“I said take them home.” With that, her brother turned and ran down a side street. Dulce watched him go farther and farther away, heading toward the hills. Suddenly, she knew he was not going to come back.

“Manolo!” She screamed, running after him. “Manolo!” The sack dropped to the ground and the eggs began to jostle against one another. Dulce was running, sobbing, tripping, running again. Finally, she fell to her knees watching the small dot that was her brother, disappear in the trees. She cried out one more time: “Manolo! Please don’t leave me! Manolo!”

___________

Dulce’s eyes opened. She saw not the sun-drenched hillside and the pine woods that had hidden her brother, but the white ceiling of her bedroom, and a poster that her grandson had tacked there, of a waterfall with a verse from the Bible. The pain in her abdomen reminded her that it was only a dream—those things had happened 70 years ago, when she was five years old. Manolo had been eleven. She had never seen him again. Now she was lying in her bedroom at home, sick with terminal cancer.

She looked at the clock. It was 3:00 p.m. When had she dozed off? At 1:30 or so? Ay, the pain medication was wearing off faster now. She groaned slightly as she tried to shift to a more comfortable position.

“Are you all right, Mamá?” Her daughter Verónica poked her head around the door.

“Sí, Hija, my daughter,” Dulce answered weakly.

“I’ve got some good chicken soup with rice for you. I’ll bring it in.”

“Mm hmm,” Dulce murmured noncommittally. She could smell it from her bedroom. Verónica was famous for her chicken soup. Three months ago it would have made Dulce’s mouth water. But now she felt nauseated almost all the time—“dizzy,” she called it. The doctor said it was because of the medication.

Verónica came in and helped her mother into a half-sitting position. She couldn’t help noticing Dulce’s furrowed brow and sharp intake of breath when she was moved.

“Ay, Mamá!” she said. “I don’t think the medicine is helping you at all! I’m going to ask Dr. González to come this afternoon. Maybe he can give you something different.”

Dulce waved a weak hand at her. “No, Hija. I know I’m getting worse. Why don’t we pray?”

Verónica sighed and took her mother’s hand. “Dear Father in Heaven...,” she prayed. Silently, she cried, “My mother is suffering! I’m so tired! How long do we have to go on this way? I’m scared she’ll die any day!” …

She was resting when her grandson Enrique poked his head through the door. “Abuela?”

“Come in, dear.”

Enrique entered the room with his relaxed, easy gait, hands deep in the pockets of his baggy jeans. The fashions of today’s young people amused Dulce. Imagine, buying sweatshirts and jeans that had rips in them on purpose! And she knew Verónica didn’t like the way Enrique’s wavy black hair partly covered his ears, but Dulce never minded. Her grandson’s gentle eyes and boyish smile were all she really noticed.

“Hey, Abuela,” Enrique began, “I heard you talking to Mamá about your brother. Do you really think he’s alive?”

“Si.”

“What was his full name?”

Dulce brightened. “Manuel Alberto Torres Valdés. But I always called him ‘Manolo’. He was the best brother. He took care of me when Mamá was working. When she didn’t leave us anything to eat, he’d make eggs for me, and he’d go out and milk the goat so I would have something to drink...”

Enrique nodded. “Sí, Abuela.” He had heard this account dozens of times. “But you shouldn’t talk so much. You’re going to wear yourself out. I wanted to know his name, because maybe I can look on the Internet—you know, on the computer—and find something out about him. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”

Dulce sighed. “No, dear. The last person that saw him, besides me, was Jaime, from the store back home in San Pedro.”

“And no one ever heard from him?” Dulce shook her head. Enrique persisted. “Maybe some relatives where he might have gone, here or in the States?”

His grandmother sighed. “On my father’s side we never knew of anyone. We never even knew my father. My mamá had two sisters, but we only saw them once. Tía Lucinda lived in the state of Morelos. They were nopal cactus farmers. Tía Chela lived in Puebla. But Enrique, we won’t get anywhere looking them up. My mother tried…” Dulce squeezed her eyes shut at the pain that stabbed through her.

Enrique held her hand until it subsided. “Well, maybe I’ll look them up anyway. You never know, Abuela. There are all sorts of stories about people finding each other on the Internet after years and years. It doesn’t hurt to try, right?”