MICHAEL PHILLEY
EL DESVIO Gabriela…Gabriela! Hurry, the sun is rising! My mother’s voice can pierce mud walls. She stops calling and I can hear the murmur of the river. It is Sunday, the procession about to begin. I rise from my straw mat, step into a tattered dress, slip on sandals that once belonged to an older sister. Soon my mother and I are descending a steep path, together with people of our village, to a sandy riverbank. We stand there wrapped with blankets in the chill of daybreak. Across the river, early sunlight glints against sandstone cliffs. Minutes pass before a deep notch in the sandstone—the very one we have been watching – catches the light. Will this be the time? Will she appear? I hear prayers being whispered. My mother drops to her knees and clasps her hands. I keep my eyes fixed on the notch, my heart beating in unison with other hearts, each heart full of longing for the holy. My mother left this earth blessed not to know what would become of me. Mercifully, she would not worry while I was fleeing – pregnant and unmarried – with Emilio to the North. I rejoice in her innocence of not knowing the hardships we faced, our ungodly thirst as we crossed the parched land in the shadow of the mountains. We would walk all night, hearing the howls of coyotes and fearing that we would step on scorpions or rattlesnakes. The faith that my mother instilled in me began to vanish like vapor rising from the lakes of salt. But I wanted desperately for my child to be born in 137
