She recorded to her younger brother the form in which she was satisfied for her to do more. Without thinking too much about it, I filled three cuencos and walked towards them. “Hola,” I say to the English we care about. hot corner. The children were left immobile. No, it was immediate gratitude, it was deflation. Was the silent question, how much will this cost? The smallest god a step away. Siomara put the clocks in the space and moved back two steps leaving the space. Open your empty hands like someone who doesn’t have any makeup on.
No money, he said. I arrived alone. The middle one looked at the other two and had a kind of leadership about him, even though he was so small. He didn’t snort, he just sighed, like someone who accepts an agreement with destiny. He set out, took the cuencos, and started with an urgency that wasn’t a lack of education, but survival. Yomara stayed there pretending to arreglarse the delantal, but in reality making sure no one would leave. When he finished, the middle one raised his beak. His eyes were shining, but the surprise wasn’t emotion, it was dignity.
He was a child intent on maintaining a straight line in a world that wanted to bend it. “Gracias,” I say in a hoarse voice. Siomara signaled to yes same. “Siomara, I signaled to the three one by one how a team will present itself. Malik said the most high. Bitter the medium. Niles the most small. Three names, three sides, three pieces of a story that Omara didn’t know yet. But that you were entering into your life. They would return the next day and the next y to the other.
At first, Omomara pretended it was casual. Sober, I decide, even when I wasn’t sobrado. Make it cold, you need it. Sometimes she’d leave the cuencos in the same place as always and pretend not to aim so as not to humiliate herself. Sometimes I’d have an extra tortilla hidden under the rice like a good secret. She was learning her little things without the need to ask too much. Malik protected his brothers with his heart, always looking around, always ready to run. He didn’t love much, but he paid attention to everything, as if he were taking note of the world from within.
Fingernails were the most fragile and sensitive. If an adult raised his voice, he searched for and recognized men as if waiting for a hit. One day, Yomara approached a well-dressed woman, signaling her from across the street with a scowling expression, talking to a police officer. The police went all out to cross. Yomara felt the ice of the victim, not because of her, but because of them. Before the police arrived, Siomara called for a halt. “Oigan, vienen aquí aquí aquí.” The three looked confused.
She opened the space behind the carriage where she looked at the empty boxes. Here they are hidden. Ellos obeys. Yomara pulled from a old loaf and cut it as if it were just one more piece of material from the cart. When the police got angry, they forced a surprise. All well here, señor”, I said choosing each word with care. The police looked at the carriage, the smell at the food, on their hands I looked at the rededor. “Let’s take a question from kids here.”
God a quick look like someone looking for a reason to laugh, and so he lowered his voice. Just make sure you don’t have any problems with the inspection. There are people who like to complicate things. When it flew, Siomara lifted the air she was containing, pulled out of the air and met three pairs of very open eyes. “You can’t stay alone on the street,” Amari whispered. He looked at the soil. “Albergue”, I said, and the word went dark. Demasiado full. Niles spoke almost voicelessly.
“We need shoes.” Siomara felt a silent rage, the kind that made no noise, but changed her mind. I didn’t have the money to solve the world, but I had food, and I had something worth more than what was in my bag: perseverance. From that day on, she created a ritual. Every day, before midday, three separate buckets. Every day a bottle of water. In winter, a jar of hot chocolate that she let go using the milk she bought with her tea.
If you like it, keep a rincón with you behind the trolley so that they stop looking without calling attention. If any customer is queried, she replies with a look that says, “If you don’t care, at least don’t extort.” Not all the world allowed it. A man with a dear abrigo once spoke loudly for the whole world to escuchara. You’ve encountered problems. These kids are stuffed. Yomara didn’t cry, I just watched him holding the cucharón as if it were an extension of his arm and I said in Spanish because his English failed on purpose.
The problem is letting a child have a child and connecting with that security. The man didn’t understand the words, but he understood the tone. He was irritated. Malik, who was watching the other side, tilted his head as if someone were confronting a monster with a spoon. And for the first time, he smiled a small, quick, almost hidden smile. Over time, Siomara came to understand that the trilliizos weren’t sin techo by choice or pereza, as so many people repeated.
They were huérfanos of the chef. I had a problem with a system that had failed. I ran away from an albergue where someone had golpeaba, where someone had problems, where things disappeared. The street, terrible as it was, was at least predictable. El frío was frío, el hambre was hambre. In the albergue cruelty reigned supreme. One day, a woman called Leandra, a social worker from the barrio, appeared at the puesto. He held a carpet in his hand and looked carefully. ¿Usted es Xiomara?, asked in fluent Spanish.
Xiomara got used to it. Yes. Leandra discreetly looked at the trillizos heard in the murete comiendo. I have been trying to meet these children for the past few weeks. Others say they come here. Siomara’s instinct screamed, “¡No confíes!”, but Leandra’s voice didn’t have pleasantness, it had urgency. “I don’t want them to go to a bad place,” said Xomara. Leandra gave up. “They don’t, but if they wait in the street, they disappear in a worse way. I work with a smaller, more secure house.
I need to confide in someone.” Xiomara felt the weight of her girlfriend’s mouth. as if he were a thief, Mari and Nailes looked at her again, trying to decipher whether that woman was a criminal, they would enter their eyes. If we move, we will separate. The phrase rose as an old memento rose.
Leandra apologized and made haste. I don’t want to separate, I swear. I can put it in writing. If they ask joints. Lucharé for this. Amari, who always observed everything, looked at Siomara’s beak as if wondering: “Aguantas la consecuencia?” If Omara thought about the longed-for boy, about the fines that she had received to parry in the wrong place, about the pains of the sword, she thought about losing the little she had and she thought about the gaze of Nails when someone else raised their voice.
She gave up. I am with us. I’ll try the hardest wagon this day. You lose money, you lose customers, you get something else. On the way to the host’s house, Malik always walked half a step behind him, as he was the guard. Amari walked to Siomara’s side. Niles gripped the edge of his delantal like an ancla. The house was small, clean, with soap and detergent. It doesn’t seem like a place of punishment, it seems like a place of routine. Leandra introduced a coordinator named Juniper, a large woman with amiable hands.
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