WITNESS-Part IV

WITNESS-Part IV

My favorite blue shoes made a clicking sound as I struggled to keep up with Mami’s hurried gait.  Her hand clutched mine tightly.  Mami had told me to hush so many times that I was all but mute.  She had resorted to putting her hand over my mouth to remind me to be still.  How can she expect me to be still?” I thought.

Papi held papers in his hands as we waited in line.  In front and behind us were lots of families, suitcases in hand waiting to get on the airplane that shone brightly in the noon day sun.  A current of nervousness traveled through the air.  Short whispered conversations could be heard.  In the long, wide hall were a row of soldiers, carrying their guns and looking in our direction.  I heard a muttered “Gusano! (worm)” from a soldier who spat on the ground before putting his cigar back into his mouth.  I looked up at my mother, who had turned pale at the utterance by the soldier.  She pulled me tightly to her side. 

Our turn finally came to speak with the man at the table.  He wore glasses and had kindly eyes.  “They are leaving us so young,” he commented sadly as he looked at me pressed up next to Mami.  The soldier next to him gestured towards my father’s hand.  After a heated exchange of words, Papi turned to Mami and told her to take off her wedding ring.  My father took their rings and dropped them over the table where they clinked loudly before they rolled to the floor. Then he took my mother’s arm and we headed out the door into the sunshine.

All the people on the plane gave a cheer of utter joy as the ground pulled away and we went up, up, up into the blue sky.  I sat next to Mami, nose pressed to the window.  The propellers on the plane moved so fast that I couldn’t see the individual blades. And the roar they made had me screaming to be heard.  Mami gave me a genuine smile, a smile I hadn’t seen for a long, long time.  I wondered if my angel would fly to America too.