“Are you sure there’s enough money for this, Mom?”
“Not everything is about money.”
“But I heard Dad tell you he didn’t want you to spend the money.”
“He’s not a risk taker. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you. Sometimes you just have to jump.”
I’m glad I stuck Catcher in the backpack at the last second. I need to reread some of those scenes again. After I figure out how to buckle the seatbelt and start the movie. I’m starving.
When we land in Mexico City, a chunky man in a Los Angeles Dodgers hat holds a cardboard sign with LANDON FAMILY printed in red ink. Underneath that is MCINTYRE FAMILY. Mom smiles and tries out her ancient high-school Spanish. With the sign held above his head, the man listens politely.
“Howdy,” a man’s voice booms behind us. “Just where Doc said you’d be. I like that. Arkansas reliability.” The plaid of his jacket and the wide-brimmed cowboy hat make him seem twice as wide.
In his shadow is the thinnest girl I’ve ever seen. She’s the same height as Mom, but her shoulders curve forward and her sweatshirt sleeves hang below her wrists. Her fingers—what I can see of them—are bony enough to be sparrow’s claws. My first thought is she’s sicker than I am. And I’m relieved, which makes me feel terrible.
“Spike McIntyre, missy, pleased to meet you.” The newcomer finds Mom’s hand and pumps it several times, then drops it to put his beefy hand on my head. No time to duck, I didn’t see it coming. “This your ailing cub?” he bellows.
Mom nods, the silent laugh in her eyes aimed at me.
“Daniel. Daniel Landon,” I say, but I’m looking at what must be his daughter, whose eyes are shuttered and whose shoulders are quivering. Mr. McIntyre ignores her and moves on to the man with the sign. The voices mute around me as I try to decide what to do. I know that pain. She’s going to faint any minute. She needs a chair. I hug her. It’s all I can think of. When she goes limp, I swing her featherweight around to my suitcase, her slippered feet skimming the floor. With a slow bend of my knees, I fold her onto the suitcase, her spine against the pull-out handle, her head on my shoulder.
“You’re okay,” I whisper. “Want to put your head down?” I speak over her father’s complaints about the turbulence in the air, the limited drink menu, the cramped legroom. He doesn’t turn around.
When the man with the sign coughs and dips his head, Mr. McIntyre finally turns and moves into high gear.
“Dahling.” More surprise than concern. “Dahling child, there you go again, Southern charm just making those boys fall all over you.” He clamps one hand on my shoulder and twists me away. “I’ll take it from here, son.” And those two tree trunk arms scoop her off the suitcase as if she were a chick just fallen from the nest. “What the hell we waiting for?” he announces to the whole airport.
Mom and I are speechless. But the man with the sign steps forward and shoulders all four bags. Apparently he’s done this before.
“Welcome to Mehico. You bring the good weather, no?” Without waiting for an answer, he heads for the blinding sunshine beyond the automatic glass doors.
Behind him the sign floats to the floor like a failed kite. We have no choice but to follow. Mom’s smile is fixed to her face, her hand on my arm to keep me close. We’re not in Kansas anymore.
The Dodger fan fellow, our greeter, drives the old black Mercedes up and down the Mexican hills, all shale and sand. There are pockets of pale green undergrowth in the gulleys, but mostly open space. The sky is cobalt. No lie: deep blue, almost purple. I swear it would be blue forever if you cut it open like a melon. I wish I’d thought to bring my camera. Meredith would love the colors. Mr. McIntyre has his arm across his daughter’s back, her head on his knees. Sputtering coughs punctuate her light snores. Mom pats a tissue at the corner of her eyes. Grit, I think, but know better than to ask.
The clinic is three whitewashed buildings in the middle of a desert. A dorm marked MEN on one side, another marked OMEN.
Mack would love the Stepford-Hanes irony of it. Two dirt paths lead to a long low L-shaped building. I’m guessing offices and treatment rooms and maybe some kind of cafeteria, although I’m not sure acceptable standards of hygiene allow the mingling of sick and well. On either side of the dust bowl of an entry road there are only cacti and weeds in the sand. No roads out.
To tell you the truth, despite the odd piles of junk and seediness, I like it. It’s blunt, honest, no frills, no decorator lounges or travel magazines. This is serious business. And it can’t have cost that much if it looks this worn. Hard to tell what Mom thinks, she’s so quiet. I do wonder if she imagined something softer, gentler.
“I’m starving,” Mr. McIntyre says to our driver. “You got any nachos or”—he bumps me with his elbow—“what’s those other things Mexicanos make?”
“Quesadillas?” I’m short on Spanish vocab.
“Yeah. Kay-so-dee-dahs.”
But I don’t correct him. The driver ignores the backseat and speaks to Mom who’s sitting up front. “Dinner, four. After you meet Doctor Henkins. Wash now. Meet at one and thirty in white building.” He points. When Mom tries to open the trunk to take our luggage, the driver waves us away. “I take to rooms. Too hot. You go in.”
Ten minutes later we’ve peed and are sitting on plastic folding chairs that are arranged in a circle, staring at each other. Seven adults and four kids. It’s not hard to pick out the adults who are sick from the ones who aren’t. Mr. McIntyre and his daughter are not there. Right on the dot, the doctor and his staff, five of them, march into the welcome session as if it were a military drill. The first badge reads DIR. PABLO JENKINS with the IR in such little letters I wonder if it’s supposed to look like Doctor from a distance.
None of the staff are introduced as doctors, only by first names, which should add extra credibility in Mom’s eyes. One nurse in white whose tag says MARTINA tries to show a video but the tape sticks in the machine. The director is not at all flustered. He repeats several things and smiles widely, showing off his perfect line of bright white teeth, while Martina fiddles with the equipment and finally gets it running.
Afterward the other families crowd in on each other at the reception. The staff in assorted white shirts and pants circulates with forms on clipboards for the parents to fill out. The adults are eager to compare information, to reassure each other they’re not crazy to have come out to this wilderness. The kids are silent. I try not to stare at a boy who’s younger than Nick and already bald, the stump of one knee resting on an empty chair while his father corners the director and fires questions in a pig Latin kind of Spanish.
“I thought they were very straightforward, didn’t you?” Mom asks as we head back to our assigned rooms once we’ve completed registration and the director has circulated and has shaken hands with everyone.
“It sounds pretty simple,” I say. “Did you know it was all natural, no chemicals at all?”
“Sweetie, I gave you the printout from the Internet.”
“I was studying.”
“Studying Meredith maybe.”
I laugh with her, I can afford to. This is the paradise that will make me whole again and it’s Mom’s perseverance that got us here.
“When we get home, it’ll probably still be sitting on the table right where you left it,” she says.