The Years that the Locusts Have Eaten

Chapter 9

As soon as Jin's chemo ended, he rushed to Caridad's house where he found her packing a small suitcase. She was throwing items into the suitcase with no real care as to how they ended up. She was in such a frenzy of activity that she couldn't even hear Jin as he called her name.

"Caridad, did you call the police?" he asked. She didn't answer but instead grabbed a handful of underwear from her drawer and threw them into the suitcase. "Caridad, where are you going?" Jin tried again. "Do you know where she is?" he questioned. "You can't just go running off without knowing where she is," he attempted to reason with her.

Finally, she stopped in the middle of the bedroom and stood still. The tears that she was holding back all came in one fell swoop. She dropped to her knees in emotional exhaustion as the plush pink carpet absorbed her sobs. Jin got down on the floor with her and held her, rocking her back and forth.

"She's a smart girl," Jin assured her. "She'll find a way to contact you."

When Caridad finally was able to speak, her words came out punctuated by periodic bouts of the hiccups. "The police --- put out an Amber Alert. They are going --- to try to stop him from --- crossing the border with her," Caridad managed to tell Jin.

"So, where are you going?" he asked. "How is it going to help for you to run off?" he asked again.

"I don't know. I just can't stand sitting here waiting when I know he has my baby. I just feel so helpless, and you know, I don't do helpless," she admitted. If nothing else, Caridad had the demeanor of a woman who had her stuff together. She was confident and didn't suffer fools lightly. Yet here she was broken by something that she couldn't control.

As she looked into Jin's brown eyes, Caridad realized that they were in similar situations. They were both facing crises that they couldn't control. Her modus operandi had always been to do more, try harder, never give up. She didn't know how many times her mom had told her to stop and get quiet in moments like these, but it seemed counterintuitive to sit still in a crisis.

Even still, she didn't have much of a choice. Jin was correct in his assessment of the situation. She assumed Andrés would take Victoria to Mexico, but even he wasn't dumb enough to go to his hometown. Caridad knew how easy it was to disappear in Mexico. There were so many remote villages where Andrés and Victoria could blend in. If they made it to Mexico, finding them would be much harder. But rushing to the border would do no good. There were so many legal passageways into Mexico and even more hidden ones. It was likely her ex would attempt the latter because he didn't have Vicki's passport. It would be too tricky to attempt a legal border crossing. People often thought of undocumented border crossings as only going toward the U.S. They often failed to think of reasons why someone might want to enter Mexico without documents.

Jin stood and pulled the suitcase off of the bed, laying it open on the floor. He put his hands under Caridad's arms and pulled her to her feet. He led her to the bed and lifted the covers, tucking her in tightly. He sat beside her and stroked her hair gently.

"People always say, 'Don't just sit there; do something' but my mom always said, 'Don't do something; just sit there.' It was her advice in every situation to just stop and do absolutely nothing until you knew what you should do," Caridad said.

"She's probably right," Jin replied. "Activity just for the sake of activity isn't all that helpful," he replied, concurring with Caridad's mom, whom he still had yet to meet. But now was not the time for him to ask when he could meet her parents.

Caridad tossed about under the covers. "I can't take this, just lying here while my baby is lost," she said. "I just can't quiet myself," she admitted. "Can you hold me still?" she asked. It was very uncharacteristic of her to ask for anything, but she was asking now, and Jin knew it was one of the few things he could do for her. He got under the covers and wrapped his arms and legs around her, pressing his face against her back. He could hear her rapid heartbeat.

"What do you want to do when we get Vicki back?" he asked, trying to redirect her mind to something positive.

"You sound so sure," Caridad replied. "What if things don't go our way? If there's one thing I've learned from cancer patients, it's that you never know how things will go. I guess being around all that uncertainty has made me a bit pessimistic," she admitted. Jin didn't respond. What could he say? Cancer sucked, and there were lots of things outside or our control. He knew that well enough.

"Do you know that my name means 'charity'?" Caridad asked amid the silence.

"No, I didn't know that," Jin whispered against her back.

"It's from 1 Corinthians 13 where it says, 'And now abideth faith, hope, and charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity'," she continued. *  "Some translations say 'love', but the idea is the same. It's a gift from one person to another, an affection not brought on by anything that the other person has done. Working in oncology all these years has shown me that faith and hope are important, but sometimes those two things fail us. We're human and we can't always stay positive. But the greatest of the three traits is charity, to love no matter what happens. I feel like by giving me that name, my parents were marking me as a person who would love at all costs," she explained.

"So, is that why you aren't running scared even after finding out I have to do another round of chemo?" Jin asked. "Most people would cut and run, but you didn't."

Caridad was silent for a moment. "When I started this job, I decided that I had a choice to either engage deeply with people, no matter what the end result, or I could guard my heart. I chose to engage. In fact, all of us seem to have made that same choice. You would be hard-pressed to find a soul at Hillman who isn't all in," she replied.

"I'm all in too," Jin assured her as he held her tighter. "No matter if things go our way or not," he vowed.

Just then, Caridad's phone rang. Jin released his grip on her, and she lunged toward the nightstand, grabbing the phone. In her haste, she fumbled with it for a moment before she righted it. "It's an unknown number," she told Jin.

"There's no way he would use his phone. He would have bought a burner, for sure," Jin replied. "You'd better answer. It could be her."

"Hello?" Caridad answered hesitantly. "Vicki," she whispered when she heard the girl's voice. "Where are you?" she asked desperately. Caridad put the phone on speaker so that Jin could hear.

"I can't talk long," Victoria said. "Dad's taking a shower. He's been talking to his cousin in Monterrey. He thinks I don't understand Spanish, but I do," the little girl asserted. "He told his cousin to pick us up near the new lion. I don't know what the new lion is, but I figured I'd tell you anyway. I'm going to have to get off the phone soon, so he doesn't catch me," Vicki said.

"Call me back any chance you can. I'm going to tell the police what you told me. We'll find you baby. You can be sure of that," Caridad told her. "I love you," she added.

"Love you too," Victoria said quickly before hanging up.

Caridad immediately called the police to relay everything Vicki had told her about her dad's plan to take her to Monterrey. "And she said something about a new lion," Caridad added. "But I don't know what that part means," she told Officer Ortega.

The normally stern officer laughed aloud. "She's leading us right to her," he said. "They must be planning to cross at Nuevo León," he said confidently. "She didn't know it was the name of a city. So, all she could do is to tell you that it was 'new lion'," he said. "You've got yourself one smart little girl," he told Caridad before hanging up the phone.

"They know where they are going to try to cross the border," Caridad told Jin. "Officer Ortega has alerted the Border Patrol. I think we're going to get her back," she said, a spark of faith finally igniting in her heart.

*1 Corinthians 13:13, King James Version