Don't Go by L.J. Breedlove (series like harry potter txt) 📕

that he had also been a police officer in Morelia, apparently that was not considered a transferable skill.

Nor was it a background that would welcome him back if ICE carried through and deported him. She worried about him. And about her abuelo who was no longer a young man — he’d been in the states for nearly 40 years! What did he know about life in Morelia? About staying alive in Morelia? His return, and even more, her father’s return, not only jeopardized their own lives, but also the lives of the families they’d left behind in the Michoacán. And of course, it was devasting to the lives and families they’d built here.

She was still trying to come to grips with the fact that she had a biological mother in Mexico. She hadn’t known that. The woman she called mama had lived in Yakima all her life, and so had her parents. She hadn’t known she was her adoptive mother. Come to think of it, that was probably more missing paperwork. She sighed.

Teresa helped the oldest woman of the three families, Abuelita, grandmother, the children called her, dish up lunch for the children — homemade tortillas and beans made with lard. Teresa ate hungrily too. It was good food and plentiful. These families were doing well on this migration trip. Up into Texas, through the southwest, up through California, Oregon, and Washington. They stayed in central Washington the longest with the apple harvest. It was there that the kids had attended class starting in September with the new school year and ending just a week ago. Then they’d headed down through Idaho. They would move slowly through Utah, and back into New Mexico, before crossing the border at El Paso and heading home to the Michoacán they called home, getting there in time for Christmas. Most of them had work permits and had them for decades of trips like these. Teresa asked no questions, and they had no questions of her. She was a grandchild of the Michoacán on the run, and in need, and that was enough for them.

As long as she didn’t jeopardize them or their permits went without saying. So, she kept her head down. She spoke to no one, never left the campground where they had their trailers. She barely talked to anyone within the family except for the children. And to them she was la maestra, the teacher, and she doubted they knew any other name for her. It was safest that way.

Oh, she missed Rafael, she missed her little boy so much. She hoped she’d done right by him to take him to Ryan, and not leave him with her mother. But their family was in such turmoil! Her aunt’s husband was causing such a mess. She wasn’t sure if the trucking company would survive at all. And then there would be 54 people out of work. Five, six families without an income source. All because one man decided he wanted to own it for himself. Own the work her grandfather had done. That her father and his brothers had done. And that the women had done too.

She snorted at the memory of the meeting where it was revealed that the company was actually owned by the women. Her abuela, her mother, her aunts. And the last was part of the problem now. Because the pendejo’s wife did own a few shares of the business. Not enough to make decisions. But the man was pressuring her to sign them over to him, to give him standing in the lawsuit he was threatening. Her aunt had moved in with a sister. She was planning a divorce. One daughter was siding with her father, the other two girls with their mother. But it was all very tense.

And she didn’t want to leave Rafael in the midst of it without her protection.

Besides, there was something weird about how she was discovered. Her mother said so. So did her grandfather. She should have been safe. Instead, it was only the good graces of an excellent attorney that she’d not been sent to a camp.

So, she had taken her son to his father. She had faith that Ryan would care for him. Protect him.

She probably had more faith in Ryan than Ryan had in himself. Joanne — who was now sports editor, wasn’t that something? — had told her in one of her infrequent emails, that Ryan had gotten clean and sober. That the media board had chosen him as editor, and then editor again. Following from afar, Teresa was proud of him. He still screwed everyone in sight, though. She would not go back to that. She loved him. But she would never live with a man who wasn’t faithful.

But she did believe in him. He was smart. Really smart. Just messed up.

She picked up a picture book and held it up to the children who took turns reading the words in English, and then telling her what that meant in Spanish. She was determined that these kids would learn both English and Spanish from her. Too many American schools taught only English, depriving the children of one of their greatest assets — to be bilingual. She had been outraged when she got to college and realized the value of being bilingual, and that she herself wasn’t. She had taken Spanish for native speakers which sought to fill in the gaps of her own language acquisition. It had been humiliating to study a language she’d spoken from birth from these white people who condescended because she spoke slang or didn’t know how spell words she’d only heard spoken. Or whose grammar wasn’t textbook perfect. But she had swallowed her anger and learned. She would finish college one day.

And then she would be a position to change things. Little ones like these should be taught in both languages. So should their white classmates for that matter. They could have been learning Spanish from a native speaker starting in kindergarten! But