The baby’s wailing mixed with the firecracker sounds of guns ablaze, yelling to the sky. Antonio’s mother cut the cord, placed the wriggling infant in María Isabel’s arms, wrapped a blanket over mother and child. But María Isabel pulled herself to stand on wobbly legs. Weak, smeared with blood and sweat, trembling. The baby cried out again, and she held it close to her heart, tried to remember the feeling of her mother’s arms as a child. Cecilia. She rocked her to exhaustion, watched as her tiny lids fluttered into sleep, never taking her eyes off the field framed in the window. Antonio’s sister had gone to look for him. But María Isabel already knew the task would prove fruitless. She had felt the truth of the moment in her bones, in her breath. And she thought she had heard it: a faint, barely audible cry for liberty.

She brought Cecilia to her chest as tears clouded her vision, and the infant’s newly found screams quieted when she felt the nipple and suckled. María Isabel had worried her milk sparse since regular meals had become an increasingly rare luxury. She fought anxiety over what solid food she could provide when the moment came. Instead, María Isabel fixed on a ribbon of smoke outside as it curled into itself, formed a slow waltz upward. She could think only of a cigar ashing on the edge of a life, could almost feel the warmth of its dark, woody embrace. But just like that, the sky was clear again.

2

EVERYTHING IS HOLDING YOU NOW

Jeanette

Miami, 2014

Blue and red lights disco-dancing across the walls wake her; she watches from her bedroom window. A white van with an official-looking crest. Two agents in black jackets with reflective letters. She shrinks behind the curtain. Only a sliver of scene is visible, and the only light on the street that hasn’t burned out blazes a cold glow. The letters on the jackets seem to spell out the feeling of the night: ICE. Jeanette clutches her bathrobe tight.