Before We Were Free Read Free

she once made a promise that she would always wear purple. But she’s never said why she made such a promise or to whom or why she decided on purple. Yellow or even lavender would be a lot more cheerful.
    Chucha also has dreams where she can see the future. Mundín likes to say, “You would, too, if you slept in a coffin!” As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago, Chucha dreamed that my cousins would be leaving for a city of tall buildings before my cousins even knew they would be leaving for New York.
    Strange as Chucha is, I’m glad she’s moving in with us. I feel safer when she’s around. And now especially with everyone gone, it’ll be comforting to have Chucha in our house.
    “Chucha,” I ask her after we’ve moved all her things over, “how soon do you think I’ll see the Garcías?”
    Chucha narrows her shiny eyes. Her wrinkled black face wrinkles even more when she concentrates. She doesn’t say anything for a while. Then she looks straight at me and says one of her riddles: “You will see them before they come back but only after you are free.”
    I feel too scared to ask her when that might possibly be.
    At supper, Papi explains that the construction business isn’t doing all that well, that we’re going to have to economize, that the
familia
is going to be scattered for a while—
    “For how long?” I want to know.
    Mami gives me her warning look that reminds me that I am interrupting. Little parrot or not, I am almost twelve and have to learn some manners.
    Suddenly, a black moth flaps into the room. Talk about interrupting! It’s as big as my hand. “A bat!” Lucinda screams, and ducks under the table.
    “It’s not a bat. It’s a black butterfly,” Mundín observes, leaping up to catch it.
    “Don’t touch it!” Mami cries. We all know from Chucha that a black moth is an omen of death. Mundín stops in his tracks. The moth lifts off and disappears into the night.
    “You can come out now, Lucinda,” Mami calls in a teasing voice. But she looks pretty shaky herself.
    Lucinda rises slowly from under the table. Tears are rolling down her face. “This place is just . . . just . . . just . . . so . . . sad,” she sobs, then storms out of the room.
    Mami and Papi exchange a tense look. Papi stands up from his place at the table. As he goes by me, he plants a kiss on top of my head. “My grown-up baby girl,” he says.
    I feel proud to be acting more mature than Lucinda, but the truth is, I’m just as sad even if I’m not showing it.
    After supper, I try tidying my room to make myself feel better. But when I empty the contents of Carla’s schoolbag on my bed— her neatly sharpened pencils, her notebooks with pictures of kittens tangled in balls of yarn, her funny eraser that she got for winning the recitation contest on Independence Day last February—I feel the sadness stir up again like a storm inside me. There’s no way I’ll be able to use my cousin’s supplies. I pack everything back in her bag and stick it in my closet. Or so I think. A little later, I crawl into bed and jump right back out. I’ve felt something hard, a cockroach or scorpion, under the covers. But when Chucha draws back the sheets, we find the eraser in the shape of the Dominican Republic.

two
    ¡
Shhh
!
    The day after my cousins leave, Papi goes to work early, taking Mundín with him. Now that none of my uncles are around, Papi has a lot more to do at the office.
    I’m alone at the breakfast table, already feeling how long and lonely this Saturday is going to be without Carla. Chucha and Mami and Ursulina, the cook, are in the kitchen, discussing what’s needed at the market. Lucinda is still sleeping her beauty sleep that will last all morning long. Outside, Porfirio is watering the ginger plants, singing a Mexican song.
    The woman I love ran off with another—

I followed their footsteps and murdered them both.
    What a cheerful start to my day!
I’m thinking when, suddenly, Porfirio stops singing. I