Delia’s Crossing Read Online Free PDF Page A

your opportunity. You will eventually become a citizen of the United States! You will get a better education and everything you need to stay healthy and strong, and you know how much your mother wanted you to have an education. Maybe you will go to a college, too.”
    “But Isabela was not good to us, Abuela.”
    “What she was she was. What she is she is now,” she replied, and waved her right forefinger. “Remember, Delia, hasta el diablo fué un ángel en sus comienzos. Even the devil was an angel when he began. It’s not too late to change.”
    I thought she recited it all more to convince herself than to convince me, or perhaps to make herself feel better about her inability to keep me with her. I couldn’t continue to contradict her, for fear I would make her feel even more terrible than she already felt. There was nothing to do but nod and smile and accept.
    “You will return to visit soon,” she continued. “You will come back in fancy clothes and in a fancy car. Everyone will be envious of you.”
    I turned away so she wouldn’t see my face, the great pain and the terrible doubt. I looked down at the small suitcase we had packed for my trip. The fastener no longer worked. It had to be tied with one of my father’s old belts.
    Señor Orozco had delivered my aunt’s warning about bringing along lice, and that had frightened us into limiting what I was to take. I packed only my newest garments, and my grandmother had washed them even though they did not need to be washed. What I had wouldn’t have filled more than two suitcases anyway.
    “I’m sure she means to buy you many new things,” my grandmother told me. “She didn’t intend to be nasty about lice. It’s simply that she wouldn’t let you wear old clothes in her beautiful new hacienda. You are her niece. She won’t want you to look any worse than her own children. Isabela was always concerned about the way she looked. Appearances are very important to her.”
    I glanced at mi abuela. She was struggling so to make my future look rosy. I knew she didn’t believe these things. She, like most everyone else, was not approving of Isabela’s worship of wealth.
    “I don’t care about beautiful clothes,” I said.
    “Oh, sure you do. You will. Why shouldn’t you? You are a beautiful young woman, the most beautiful in our family on both sides. Would you put a dirty, old, ugly frame around a beautiful painting? No.”
    She made me smile.
    “I’m not a beautiful painting, Abuela Anabela.”
    “ Sí, you are, God’s beautiful painting,” she said, stroking my face and smiling. “Don’t fill your heart with too much pride, but don’t regret yourself,” she advised, and kissed me on the forehead.
    And then she shook her head and muttered to herself. “I lived too long to have lived to see this.”
    Finally, she went off to be alone, shed her tears, and talk to God.
    I sat waiting and wondering why all of this had happened. What had we done to bring such tragedy down upon us? Father Martinez’s explanations in church seemed hollow and inadequate to me. God had brought them to his bosom? Why would God want to take my parents from me? Why would he be so selfish? I would have to go elsewhere to understand, I thought, and I might spend my whole life getting there.
    The car sent for me arrived surprisingly early in the morning the next day. I didn’t remember my aunt’s car when she came to her mother’s funeral as well as some of the other people in the village remembered it, but I couldn’t imagine a more luxurious-looking or bigger automobile. She had hired the driver and the car out of Mexico City. Everyone who saw it approaching came out to watch the driver, who was in a uniform and cap, take my small bag and put it into the cavernous trunk, where it looked about as insignificant as it could, like one pea on a plate. It didn’t occur to me until that very moment how quickly it was all happening. Mi tía Isabela had practically pounced on