The Distance Between Us

In Iguala, located in the Mexican state of Guerrero, Reyna learns that her mother is leaving for America. Reyna, only four years old, will be left behind with her eight-and-a-half-year-old sister, Mago, and her brother Carlos, nearly seven. As the children move in with their paternal grandmother, Evila, Reyna makes certain to bring a framed photograph of her father, who left for America when Reyna was two. Her father plans to work and save money in America to build a proper home in Mexico. He has called for Reyna’s mother to join him. She is pleased, as some Mexican fathers and husbands simply disappear in America and start new lives and new families. However, the notion of her father needing her mother troubles Reyna, “as if my father were not a grown man. As if her children didn’t need her as well” (7). To make matters worse, the children are terrified of Evila and would prefer to stay with Chinta, their maternal grandmother.

Mago, as the oldest, promises to look after the others and makes certain that her mother promises to return; Reyna adds that “if truth be told, I never really got my mother back” (6). She often speaks to the photo of her father, calling him The Man Behind the Glass, but upon her departure, Reyna, resentful, is tempted to destroy the photograph of her father; Grande writes that she “hated him for taking my mother from me just because he wanted a house and a piece of land to call his own” (13).

Reyna and her siblings adjust to living with grandmother Evila and grandfather Augurio. They share a small mat in the corner of their grandfather’s bedroom and have to urinate in a bucket placed near the door. Through a window that faces an alley, they can hear clamoring drunks and, one night, a galloping horse. Evila tells them that the devil travels on horseback, kidnapping undisciplined children, and warns them to behave lest they be dragged to Hell.

In other instances, the neighbors call Reyna an orphan; even her own spoiled cousin Elida, whose parents have also abandoned her, teases Reyna and her siblings for being orphans. Additionally, the Grande children have to eat sitting on concrete steps rather than at the table; they are given only scraps. The only kindness comes from their aunt, Tía Emperatriz, who also shares the house with them.

Eventually Evila gives Reyna a coin, with instructions to go out and buy a sewing needle. Again, the neighbors call her an orphan. Reyna, enraged, throws the coin at one of the children, and eventually Evila forces her to apologize. Mago tries to comfort Reyna by telling her the story of her birth and tells her that their mother buried her umbilical cord nearby. She also offers some soothing words: “It doesn’t matter that there’s a distance between us now. That cord is there forever” (21).

Reyna, jealous of Evila’s preferential treatment of Elida, watches as Evila washes Elida’s hair “as if she were washing an expensive silk rebozo” (23).

Evila does not care that Reyna’s hair is full of lice and that her stomach has swollen due to roundworms. Elida, letting her hair dry in the sun, teases Reyna, telling her again that she will always be an orphan and that her parents will never return. Mago retaliates, reminding Elida that her own mother, in America, has given birth to a baby. Elida brags that her parents send her everything she wants; Mago threatens to infect Elida with lice. Reyna is certain that she and her siblings now will “get a beating with my grandmother’s wooden spoon, or a branch or a sandal, the usual choices” (26).

Evila and Tía Emperatriz soak Reyna’s hair in kerosene, then cover it with a plastic bag to wear overnight. Unable to resist the agony, she removes the bag in the middle of the night. Carlos and Mago receive the same treatment, and Carlos, too, removes the bag from his head. Only Mago is able to deal with the irritation. The following day, at Evila’s instructions, Grandfather Augurio shaves Carlos’s head and awkwardly chops off Reyna’s hair. Elida teases her further, telling her that she looks like a boy. After her grandfather clips off her hair, she looks at “Papi’s photo hanging on the wall […] We both had small foreheads, wide cheeks, and a wide nose. And now, we both had short black hair. ‘When are you coming back?’ I asked the Man Behind the Glass” (28).

Reyna and her siblings venture out only on Saturday mornings to play in an abandoned car and pretend that they are driving to America to see their parents. Local music and the scent of Old Spice remind them of their father; for Reyna, “It was easier to find Mami. She was in the smell of the apple-scented shampoo we asked Tía Emperatriz to buy for us” (33). Reyna often visits the site where her umbilical cord is buried to “think about the special cord that connected me to Mami” (33).

Their parents call every two weeks. After having been at Evila’s house for eight months, they get the news that their mother is pregnant. Mago is especially distressed by this news, and all three children fear that their parents will never return to Mexico. The Grande children find a map so that they can locate Los Angeles. Mago explains, indicating on the map: “This is Iguala. And this is Los Angeles […] this is the distance between us and our parents” (34).

The following day, a local woman, Doña Paula, delivers water to Evila’s home, accompanied by her two sons. Jealous of the affection that Paula shows to her sons, Mago fills two tortillas with human feces and offers them to the boys. Once Evila finds out what Mago has done, the Grande children hide in a tree, trying to avoid their inevitable beating. Now Mago is filled with despair, saying that “Mami won’t be coming back. Neither will Papi. They’re going to have new children over there and leave us here for good” (37).

Reyna’s parents are not there to celebrate her and Mago’s birthdays. Resentfully, Evila spends some of the money that Reyna’s parents have sent to buy a cake and simple presents. When it is time to have their picture taken, Reyna smiles widely, knowing that her parents will see the photo and wanting to show her appreciation for the money they sent. Mago refuses to smile, hoping that their parents will realize how miserable they are, but “her tactic didn’t work. The pictures were sent, the months went by, and still our parents didn’t return” (40).

Elida is nearing 15 years of age, and her mother, María Félix, returns from America to celebrate her quinceañera. She arrives with loaded suitcases, leaving Reyna to wonder if there are any presents for her and her siblings. She also brings her American-born son and gives the Grande children news: Their mother has given birth to a girl, named Elizabeth. The children spend the night in tears, with Reyna realizing that she was “no longer the youngest. Some other girl I did not know had replaced me” (41). 

María Félix forces Reyna and her siblings to help prepare for Elida’s party. Reyna in particular is jealous of the attention that Elida receives and is equally distraught to learn that the dress Evila made for her has been sewn inside-out. The morning of the party, she and her siblings pluck chickens; at the party, they can’t get out the smell of wet chicken feathers and even find stray feathers caught in their hair. When the traditional father-daughter dance begins, Elida, whose father is in America, has to dance with a distant cousin, which leads Reyna to pray for her father’s return.

Elida weeps openly when her mother returns to America, and the Grande children feel lucky that they at least have each other for comfort. Together, they imagine a scenario in which their parents make a glamorous return, their father “emerging from the helicopter, his hair blowing in the wind, his face framed by aviator sunglasses […] We pictured the whole colonia rushing over to see them come home. And we would be so proud” (46).