Free After Peaches by Michelle Mulder Page B

propped my head in my hands. I wished we were all back in Victoria, working on the friendly farm, going to the library on Sundays, and living exactly as we had before my impossible traveling idea.
    How had I ever imagined that picking our way across the province would give me Normal Canadian Kid stories? Nothing about my life was ever going to be normal. I could see that now.
    Papá returned from the shower, walking slowly, as if he didn’t have the energy to move faster. He sat down at the table and offered us a weary smile.
    â€œRemember when we went picking with Julie and her mother?” I asked.
    â€œThat was a good day,” he said.
    â€œI think they had fun,” I said. “Julie liked all the colors.”
    â€œRemember how Ms. Norton said she never thought about how tulips grow or who picks them?” Mamá smiled at the memory.
    Papá took a slice of bread and bit into it. “Why would she?” he asked. “If we could speak English as well as Rosario does, maybe we could tell people our stories, and they would listen, but who has time to learn English when we’re this busy working?”

    That evening, we drove from one farm to another, comparing them.
    I sat in the backseat with my notebook, remembering the first time I met José and everything that had happened since. I wrote down stories he’d told me about his family and about how excited he was to be working in Canada. I wrote about him getting sick and being afraid of being fired, and about Analía. I tried to imagine her all grown up, a teacher with a big smile.
    I hoped it was possible. If there was one thing I’d learned, it was that you could never know exactly what was going to happen. I’d tried so hard to keep my English to myself until it was perfect, but it all bubbled out at the hospital. José said I saved his life. No one could have imagined that happening.
    I wondered what my own life would be like when I grew up. Would I write for a newspaper, or become a doctor like the one who helped José? Maybe I’d be something else that I couldn’t even imagine yet. And one day, I might even feel like Canada was home.
    I stared out the window at the brown hills with the orange sky behind. If I had had the money, I would have called Julie. I wanted to know what life was like in a skyscraper in Vancouver, and I wanted to tell her about my life here. And after all, if I could speak English to doctors and nurses and an angry patrón , I could certainly speak English to my best friend on the phone.

CHAPTER 13
After Peaches
    â€œLook at this!” I shouted.
    Julie had barely stepped into our new apartment when I raced across the living room, waving a fat envelope. “Analía’s letter arrived this morning,” I said. “She put many things in it!”
    Sending it from Mexico must have cost her family a fortune, but in her last e-mail, Analía said it was the least they could do to thank us. Besides, José might be working again soon. A tomato packing plant a few hours from his house was looking for workers. He’d have to spend most of his time away, but he could go home every ten days. That was something anyway.
    It had been two months now since he went back, and a week since Mamá, Papá and I had finished harvesting peaches and returned to Victoria. Even after a whole summer of picking fruit and saving money, we still couldn’t afford a fancy apartment with a swimming pool, but Julie says pools in apartment buildings aren’t so great anyway. The one at her father’s place turned out to be tiny, and the adults never wanted to share it.
    Julie’s mum helped us find a bright, sunny apartment with smooth linoleum floors perfect for sliding on, right down the street from her house. As soon as we moved in, I took off to the library to e-mail Analía our new address and to tell her what I needed for my book. Now the envelope had arrived, and Julie