Chapter Eleven - He Left Me for the Canalito

School let out early because of the unbearable heat. Intending to go sit in the hammock and enjoy the breeze while I typed up homework, I step out of the kitchen house, coffee mug of hot tea in one hand, water bottle in the other. I see my 7 year old student Tony seated on an old ripped up tire laying by the road in front of the house, tears dripping from his long black lashes.

I go and sit beside him.

“My brother left me for the canalito," he whimpered. The canalito, or 'little canal", is a small channel of water that runs along the road and fields commonly used to wash clothes, bathe and swim in to escape the heat.
“I’m sorry Tony.”

“My brother, and Abi, and Kathy. They go to the canalito. But I, no,” he explained to me in his broken English. He stared longingly at the field across the way.

After further conversation, I asked him about his sister Doylin who I hadn’t seen in a while. “She is with my mother. My mother is no here.”

He threw a small rock into the dusty road and stared again at the field where his brother was playing about a mile distant.

He threw another rock and stared at the ground. “My mother don’t love me. My dad, yes. My mother no.” Another tear dripped from one eye. He laid his head on his arm draped across his knees.
I hugged him. “I know Tony, I know. But I love you. Ok?”

He nodded. A few moments passed. He raised his head once again to gaze at the field, wiping away the remaining tears from his eyes.

“When are you leave?”

“When will I leave to go where?”

He didn’t answer. We both knew.