Indivisible

I catch a gleam in his eye as he turns back towards me. Jorge has never found it easy to talk about his feelings, but all of a sudden I can see all the things he’s struggling to say- that, he, too, feels lost, that he’s not sure he’ll be able to keep the promise he made to Ma and Pa, that’s he’s terrified of what will happen if they’re not allowed to come home.

I’m not sure how to respond to that. I don’t think there’s anything I could say that would make Jorge feel any better, so we remain silent for what feels like a long time, breathing quietly in the darkness.

“I never thought this was gonna happen to us”, I say. “Even thought we’d always had this fear in the back of our minds, I didn’t think it was actually going to come true. Deportation always seemed like something that happened to other people… not us”.