You earn your money babysitting and dog walking since none of the shops in town will hire you. You were too scared to apply for DACA when you were eligible. You said it was another trick to sniff you out in exchange for a work permit and two years of a semi-documented existence. And maybe you were right, now that the government froze the program, knows where everyone is, and can do whatever they want with that information. I know you’ve been thinking of ways to bring in more cash to pay for your classes since Mom forbids you to work off the books for a restaurant. But I didn’t expect to see your computer left open to a site with ads looking for webcam girls. No experience necessary. Must feel comfortable showing face and total nudity for paid subscribers. Work in studio or in comfort of your own home. After dinner, when our mom went back to the main house to put Lance to bed, I asked what you were looking up such crazy shit for.

It’s just research. I want to know what job opportunities are out there for someone like me, you said, like it was the most normal thing. Like I caught you bookmarking scholarships or financial aid funds instead.

I wanted to come down on you like you came down on me last summer when I started talking to those recruiters prowling the mall about joining the military, when you said our mom would fall into a grief coma because she didn’t bring me into this world to kill or be killed, that they would use me as a bait dog and I was totally fucking expendable. The government knew it, you all knew it, the only one who didn’t know it was me. You’re a talented artist, you said. You need to go to art school, use what you have and become excellent, not waste your gift on learning to murder instead. I wasn’t sure I believed you. I still don’t know if I do. But I didn’t argue, because you’re the one who made the library your second home, who says if you can’t go to college you can read every book there, memorize this country’s narratives and myths, study history even the most educated people never learned or have forgotten, about laws written and unwritten and rewritten for people who come here looking for a better life than the one they left and people who were brought as babies, so nobody can say you’re ignorant about your status, no matter how arbitrary it is, this undocumented condition they talk about like it’s some disease.

All these years we’ve been watching out for the government and you’re ready to hand yourself right over, you told me. I let you think you won the argument, but the truth is I didn’t really want to go anywhere. I wanted to be convinced to stay.

TWENTY-FIVE

At the Palisades with my brother, I noticed crows swarming the river basin. I read somewhere that crows aren’t usually found in estuaries and are more inland prone. People marvel at the miracle of animal instincts for migration to ensure their survival. Hippos, zebras, and lions were imported to Colombia by drug lords for private menageries, then abandoned when the arrests and extraditions began. Some animals starved, others were given refuge, and still others found ways to roam free and populate hills and valleys with their offspring. They’ve adapted and thrive in terrain for which they have no genetic memory. Unless you believe, as our father told our mother long ago, that the first beings traveled every inch of this earth, claiming it as home for all creatures.