Page 56 of The Delivery

“Thing is, I wasn’t ashamed to be six and nursing. I wasn’t embarrassed to be breastfeeding in the back of a van crammed with twenty other refugees. My shame came from stealing my sister’s milk. The milk belonged to Brisa, and I felt so awful that it was meant to sustain her and not me. It was the worst feeling in the world, to drink from my mother’s breast and know that my baby sister was somewhere—crying and hungry for what I was taking. Knowing all along that my mother was dying inside thinking the same thing and that I was taking that bond between them, taking what wasn’t mine, stealing it from both of them.

“And that’s the story of how I survived and Brisa didn’t—or at least not as Brisa. The story of how we climbed on board, joining the American dream. It’s how my mom fell and could never quite get back up on her feet. The story of how Moisés Robles de la Cruz stole his baby sister’s milk and became such a fuck-up.”

CHAPTER 26

The car seat is soaked from the drench of my steady tears. I’m keeping my crying silent because it wouldn’t be fair to him to make him stop his telling and try to comfort my discomfort with his history. Mozey’s reality. A sadder story, I’ve never known. The bravery it took to tell it—I’ll probably never encounter again. I loved Mozey before, but now I’m in awe of him. How did he turn out so incredible when his journey wasn’t only painful, it was torturous?

“Thank you for telling me that,” I say, wiping the snot from my nose on the back of my sleeve. “It’s a truly remarkable story.”

“You sound like a social worker, Lana. Tell me what you really think? Disgusted by how pathetic it is? Does it make you see me as weak?”

“Don’t get angry for telling me, Mozey. You chose to share it with me. It’s a story of great strength not a show of weakness. Everyone has a tale of origin and not all of them are pretty. Thing is, it’s your starting point, and it doesn’t have to define all of you. It is a remarkable story and you turned into a remarkable person. ”

We pull off of the highway into a rest area offering gas and bathrooms and something to eat. We’re suddenly back in civilization after so many miles covered with only the two of us. Mozey exits the car and slams the door without sharing a plan of why we stopped or of what we’re going to do here. He hates that he made himself vulnerable. He wants me to see him as strong.

I know from my training in social work and all the years in the field, Mozey hates his own beginning and that means he hates himself. It’s something I can relate to—of course nowhere near as extreme as his own. But I too often feel tainted by the shadow of my beginning. It’s the unshakeable feeling of wanting to shake off your own history and rewrite yourself.

I drag my feet over to the bathrooms on the side of the gas station. They stink from the outside so I’m sure it’s not going to be pretty. There are no stalls, only a row of toilets and none of them have seats. Since we started this trip, I feel like every bathroom in Mexico was left in a state of being incomplete. Where are all the toilet seats? Don’t they come with the toilets? I drag myself over to the darkest corner and reluctantly pull down my pants. At least I can’t understand what people are saying; it gives me a false sense of cover. There is no toilet paper, of course. There’s an attendant, but I forgot my pesos in the car. I try to decide what’s more humiliating: flagging her down from the pot or not wiping in front of everyone and pulling my pants up despite the drips. I go with the latter. I don’t care if I’m dirty.

I trudge over to the car, and Mozey is nowhere in sight. He must have gone to get food and felt like I didn’t need an invite. In other words, he expects me to pull away and confirm the worthlessness that he feels. I’m trained in this shit. I know how to deal with it.

I’m being pulled into the undertow of his sea of grief. The sadness I feel is here for two reasons. The first is that the man I love has had it really rough. He hates himself, he feels unworthy. He is deeply, deeply scarred. He thinks his sister deserves to be here and the whole incident was his fault.

The second reason is more personal. Today, more than ever, Mozey has shown me that it’s not a good idea to get involved with him. He needs professional help, and I’m a professional. His seeking attention and approval from me is symptomatic of the trauma, not a sign he’s in love with me. I can’t add myself onto the list of people who have hurt him. I can’t do that to him. I care about him too much.

He’s on a payphone by the entrance of the restaurant, and I can tell from the slump of his shoulders and how his hand grips the box that the conversation isn’t a good one. His strong body looks as if it could be close to breaking down in sobs.

I buy weird looking Mexican chips and candy in the small convenience story by the phones. I can’t peel my eyes off him and the toll the conversation is taking—his whole frame is caving. I pay for the junk food and make my way closer. It sounds like he’s speaking a bit in Spanish. My guess is that he’s talking to his wife. Thinking about Brisa probably makes him think about his son. I don’t want to intrude, so I sit on the side of a huge ceramic potted plant. I tear open a bag of chips still not taking my eyes from him. Of course they’re as hot as lava, all mashed into some cornmeal. My throat constricts, my eyes water, and I start to cough. Mosey turns around at my choking and brings the phone to his chest.

“You okay, baby?” he asks.

Oh, for the love of God, DO NOT, call me baby! Especially not in this moment.

I nod my head yes and pound on my chest with my fist. How does this whole country consume fire food? Don’t they get ulcers from eating like this? I watch Mozey’s mouth form the words, “gotta go,” and he hangs up the phone. He’s coming to save me from my Scoville scale emergency that’s my own stupid fault.

“Want some lava lamp chips? They taste like Mount Saint Helens,” I ask lamely. I’ve just about given up on this trip. I’m acting dumb to avoid the tension between us.

He says nothing but grabs my hand and pulls me to standing.

“Did you get to the bathroom?” he asks, picking up stride through the parking lot.

“Yeah. I peed like a champ and then didn’t wipe in front of everyone.”

“Nice,” he replies, looking both ways for cars in the parking lot. We rush across the lot to our car by the bathrooms. There doesn’t seem to be any organized rhyme or reason to the coming and going of vehicles. Without signs or traffic signals, the parking lot is mayhem. We’re trying to pass through a jumble of cars that are all stuck in the stalemate of parking lot gridlock. Mozey pulls my hand, and we attempt to cross, just as a car sees an opening and whizzes right past us, dousing us in dirty puddle water and almost taking my foot off.

Mozey roars with misdirected anger and lunges at the car, which is now stuck in a new spot fifteen feet from where it was before. He kicks the frame on the underside of the driver’s side door. It probably hurts his foot a lot more than it hurts the car. He swears loudly in Spanish and offers a spew of insults that make me blush even though I’m not sure what he’s saying. I get the gist of it. I’m pretty fluent in anger. I always understood my mother’s perfectly.

But I’m not quite fluent in treating it. If that were the case, I would have cured myself years ago.

“Mo, just leave it!” I shout, with visions of narcos and crooked cops and general lawlessness taking over. He has no idea who he’s kicking, and we should always be careful. Especially here. With the both of us, foreigners, no one to look after us or worry if we go missing.

“Mo, you want to paint? I saw a good spot over here,” I say, nodding in the direction of the pretend spot that I didn’t see.

He perks up like a wolf catching a scent in the breeze.

“Yeah, the side of the bathrooms? I was thinking the same thing.”

“Let’s do it!” I say, grasping at strings. Mozey shrugs at the driver who is exiting the car. His attention has been captured, and his mind is already there, creating the outlines, filling in the color with long and even strokes.

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