The Borzoi Killings

10.

Mariana’s favorite work at the supermarket was stacking cans. With the gift of her agile hands, she loved removing them from the cardboard boxes in which they were delivered and placing them in gleaming, colorful rows along the shelves for all the world to see. They formed a bright mosaic.

Mariana was in the second aisle arranging the oval-shaped cans of sardines when Alfonso, a man with a limp whom she sometimes jokingly rebuffed when he tried to kiss her, approached. He spoke in Spanish: “Juan’s been picked up.” Fear washed over her like a sudden infusion of cold water. Picked up: to her and all the people she knew, the words meant you disappeared, you entered the endless maze of prisons and detention centers. No one ever returned from a pick up.

Mariana walked to a storage room at the rear of the store, put on her hooded sweatshirt, and picked up her small knapsack. She left nothing behind; she knew she would never return. In the clear autumn air, she made her way through the curving, quaint heart of the village, passing the Sag Harbor Cinema with its big 1930s-style marquee, the antique stores, the stone-and-brick library with its green dome, and the stately houses along Main Street. At the end of the Village, where Main Street became the old turnpike and the houses became more and more run-down, she broke into a trot. The ranch house was less than a mile away.

Mariana stopped when she came close enough to see the house. Three police cruisers and a large van were in the driveway. She was afraid, almost panicked, as she had often been when she sensed that immigration police were poised to arrest her. As soon as she saw men carrying Juan’s bicycle out of the house, she knew what she had to do. She walked back to the village, went into the library, found the bathroom, and stayed there for the two hours until her children would arrive on their school bus at three. It was the first day of school in the new year.

When the bright yellow bus came to a halt at a corner several stops before her children’s usual drop-off place, Mariana held the door open and said to the woman driver, who recognized her: “I want my kids. We walk today. It’s nice out.”

The boy and girl strapped on their colorful knapsacks, looking happily at their mother. They were smart, outgoing kids, well-liked in the pretty grammar school in Bridgehampton. When Mariana told them they were not going home, they became quiet. She said they were going to Celia’s house. They referred to Celia, a 65-year-old kindly Salvadoran, as “aunt” even though she was not related to them. Celia’s house was closer to Bridgehampton and the Montauk Highway than Mariana’s now-abandoned ranch house.

Over the next three days, Mariana and her children stayed inside Celia’s neat home. Mariana kept the newspapers away from her children, who read English fluently. The radio and television were turned off. Every time they asked about Juan, Mariana said that he had returned to Mexico. They, too, she said, would soon be in Mexico. It was home. Their grandmother lived there. It was always warm, she said, you never needed any winter clothes. Life would be better there.

The old Buick station wagon stopped in the driveway of Celia’s house. Clutching an oversize leather bag, Mariana and her children climbed into the third row of seats because the first two rows were crowded with Mexican men who were also on their way to New York. Wide-eyed, the children stared at Main Street in Bridgehampton, where some of their young friends lived, as they passed through the beautiful village.

The windows of the car were tinted so darkly they were almost black. They drove cautiously west toward the city, never above the speed limit and never below it. The driver wanted to avoid the attention of state police cruisers.