Oh dear Lord, let this be the right decision, Maria fidgeted with her rosary beads. She prayed often and believed He heard, but
right now she was terrified. She was totally out of her element.
As this young woman sat alone on the bench in a small
border town in Mexico she had an old, small, multicolored bag and her long
black hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail. Waiting on the bench at the bus station she
contemplated what she was about to do.
She was going to Phoenix. She had
nothing left here for her. While
scrubbing floors, the woman she had worked with showed her a letter from her
bother. In his letter he had told her to
go to Nogales and to wait at the bus station there, a coyote would find
her. She would need to bring about two
thousand dollars. Her brother had sent
her the money, a little bit at a time.
His sister wasn’t interested in crossing to the US
and had used the money for other things.
Her feeling about the trip was that it would be too dangerous.
She had never seen so many different types of people
in her life before. Maybe if she had
made it into college, maybe if her family hadn’t been murdered. Life was
supposed to be much better, maybe she would find it in the States, according to
that letter. It had been a hard
decision, one she might regret, but after the decision was made there was no
looking back. Now here she sat in the
bus station with what could be thousands of people around her all looking for
the same thing or plotting to take what they had left. Letting the rosary beads slip through her
fingers she kept looking over the area.
From
behind her a strange man threw his leg over the bench making her jump and then
followed through with his other leg, stepping the rest of the way over. Making himself more than comfortable by
sidling up close beside her, made her a little more than uncomfortable. Dressed in a fairly new leather jacket, dark
glasses and a baseball cap turned backwards to hide all but a bit of his black
hair did nothing to hide his slimy character.
He was only about five feet ten inches tall, and he weighed in at about
one hundred eighty or ninety pounds. She
wasn’t physically scared of him, but she wasn’t positive about his intentions either.
“Where’re you headed?” she sat eyes straight ahead, not sure
whether or not to answer his question. “Wherever
you’re going, I can get you there. What’s your
name?”
“Maria,
and I want to go to the States,” he didn’t look like
any official she had seen.
“The
States right,” he leaned close enough for her to feel his breath on her cheek
and smell the peppers he had eaten.
“Yes,”
she wanted to leave, run, he made her skin crawl.
“Five
hundred dollars will get you across the border safe and sound,” Maria fiddled
with her bag. She had been told it would
cost her nearly two thousand dollars and here was someone that would take her
for five hundred. Doubt started to grow
and show on her face, and she wasn’t gullible. She looked at him again, “No catches, I just
want you to get there. I can find you a
job and then I get the first two months pay.
Most of the time I make more money that way.”
Even though she still had doubt niggling at the
corners of her mind she couldn’t help but think
that she may need the money she had for other things. His offer of finding her a job could be
useful since she would be an undocumented worker.
“Okay,”
she replied tentatively as he smiled and grabbed her bag. He stood up and turned before she had a
chance to change her mind.
“Follow
me,” and he walked off with her bag not even glancing back at her. Maria got up and followed him, not sure of
what was coming next, and she was too afraid to ask.
Available at: www.amazon.com/Hidden-Promises-Annay-Dawson-ebook/dp/B01M09HTR0
No comments:
Post a Comment