just five months after she’d moved, everything changed. She’d done as promised and responded eagerly to every one of his letters. And as promised he said he was staying true to her.
Then all their plans began to fall apart. A few months after she’d left Pueblo De Oro, Alejandro wrote her to tell her about Cido. His dad Octavio left to try his luck in Tijuana, another border town on the west coast. Cido and his other uncles and their families stayed behind and waited. Weeks later he was back, raving about how the city of Tijuana was a gold mine just crawling with tourists and much safer than Juarez.
Alejandro said that, despite Octavio urging his dad to make the move with him, his father still wasn’t sure. He said it was still on that side of the border, and he was determined to live out his ultimate dream and move them to the other side.
Then, just a few weeks ago, Alejandro sent two letters back to back. One was his usual responding to the last one she’d sent him, but before she could write back, she’d received another to tell her they were making the move. Only unlike he’d thought before, that they would move to the closest city over the border to El Paso where he’d be near her, they were moving to San Ysidro, a city in southern California. As he had in all his letters, he assured her it didn’t matter. No matter where he moved to, he’d come get her as soon as she was eighteen. He said it might be weeks before they were settled anywhere where he could give her a permanent address to write to, but in the meantime, he’d continue to write to her and update her.
Then it happened. Her uncles had an ugly falling out. Isabella’s abuela sided with one sister’s husband, and next thing Isabella knew, they all moved out of the aunt’s home in El Paso. Her other aunt and uncle moved back to Mexico to live with her brother-in-law’s family. Her aunt and uncle couldn’t afford to rent the house on their own anymore. But Isa’s mom wanted to stay in El Paso. Only at first Isabella, her mother, and her grandma didn’t have a set place to live. They stayed at a hotel for a while then decided to move to Las Cruces, New Mexico to stay at the home of a cousin of her grandmother’s, until they were finally able to get their own place months later.
Alejandro had yet to send her a good address where he could be reached in San Ysidro, so there was no way she could get word to him about her move. It was devastating. Just like that, their constant correspondence came to a screeching halt.
At first, Isabella was inconsolable, even though her grandmother assured her that, if it was meant to be, they’d one day be together. Isabella had no idea how that would ever happen with him living in California and her in New Mexico. But worst of all, neither had a clue where the other lived now. How in the world would Alejandro find her without any trace of her in the last place he knew her to be?
Her eighteenth birthday had come and gone with no word from Alejandro. Isabella couldn’t even begin to consider dating anyone else. She’d graduated from high school and was now working full-time as a waitress in a restaurant.
As the months continued to pass, Isabella continued to carry that first letter from Alejandro and reread all his others. So many times he’d promised and made her promise she’d forever believe they’d be together some day. But as months turned into years, with still no hope of reuniting with him, that hope began to fade.
She still hadn’t met anyone who came close to making her feel that bond she’d felt with Alejandro almost from the moment they met. But as the time passed, reading his letters or even looking through her photos with him—of her fairytale quinceañera—became something she did less and less. It was just too painful. Still, she continued to find fault with every single guy she met.
As if things didn’t look bleak enough, her grandmother became suddenly ill. At first, it was just her feeling dizzy a lot, but then she began complaining of fatigue and shortness of breath. Then one day, just months after Isabella had turned nineteen, she got the call at work that her grandmother had