Refugee

When his mother died, Esteban was fifteen years old. He moved into a house where a woman took care of him and several other children. At seventeen he left San Pedro Sula and found rides that took him north, through Guatemala and eventually across Mexico to Juarez. He worked sometimes in a restaurant, other times unloading trucks, until he had enough cash to pay a coyote to get him across the river.

On the outskirts of El Paso he saw two border guards. They did not notice him. Could he just walk on into the United States and make his way … somewhere? He had heard his sister was in a place called New Hampshire. How would he begin to try to find her? He walked to the guards and turned himself in.

Six months’ detention was tedious. He watched television and learned some English by talking with his roommate, who was from Sri Lanka. When the guards let him make a phone call back to Honduras, he reached a friend who had heard from his sister. Yes, she was living in New Hampshire with people who were helping her apply for permanent residence. They appealed to I.C.E. to let them do the same for Esteban.

A ride in an airplane. Chatter everywhere in English he could hardly understand. Tall people with blue eyes who met him in the Manchester airport. A ride to their house. An enormous breakfast of eggs, sausage and coffee. A soft bed. A family fifty miles away in Massachusetts, in a town called Florence, with whom he could live while he applied for permanent asylum.

For the first time ever, Esteban has a room to himself. He stays inside it for much of each day. It is quiet and safe – two things unfamiliar in San Pedro. He is far from the guards who would sometimes tease him, sometimes ignore him, and the one who kept trying to touch him. He talks on WhatsApp or Facetime with his sister. His girlfriend in San Pedro phones him every day. Outside his window are a meadow, woods, deer grazing. Snow, which he finds is very cold, especially when, once, he runs through it barefoot.

He takes English classes on Zoom. His teacher says he is learning quickly. He plays indoor soccer; in one game he scored four goals, and his American teammates gave him the game ball.

At moments, everything that has happened spins through his mind so fast that it scares him. He adjusts his thinking, remembers the soccer, the English lesson. He gets another can of soda from the refrigerator. The soda, the soccer, the phone calls are specific and immediate.

The lawyer hopes a judge will rule favorably on his case in two or three months. In her file for Esteban’s claim of abandonment is a copy of the newspaper clipping. It shows his mother’s car, dotted from end to end with bullet holes. Outside his window, chickadees at the feeder pick sunflower seeds.