From:

  Subject: Receipt for BEST OF BAJA on 12/14

  Hello,

  Here is your receipt for your order at: BEST OF BAJA.

  1x Mulitas Plate 12.95 12.95

  1x 3 Quesa-Birrias 13.95 13.95

  5x UNDEFINED ITEM 1.95 9.75

  2x Fountain Horchata 3.95 7.90

  Subtotal: 44.55

  Tax: 4.56

  Tip: 8.91

  Total: $58.02

  Thank you for your patronage!

  Rectangle Retail is a third party payment service. For complaints regarding your order, please contact your card or the vendor. For technical issues, please contact our IT team at

  Maria Evita Perez sat in stunned silence in the driver's seat of Best of Baja, eyes locked on a beautiful sun drenched sky through the yellowing windshield. Her heart raced and her breathing began to come in choked starts. Golden fields and blue skies, oh yes, , she had been called home in the middle of her afternoon nap. She set her jaw and sat up to lean her pudgy, arthritic hands on the wheel and squeezed it until her breath came under control. She slowly shook her head, her heavy face quivering with a whirlpool of conflicting emotions and she gripped the cross dangling at her neck.

  Was it really her time? After surviving so much? Had the Lord really forgiven her for everything she’d done? What of her family? Her poor brilliant daughter, her fat, happy little grandson, her sweet, clueless husband…

  “ did you see that?”

  Maria whipped around in the seat to see her family crammed into the back of the long food truck, her daughter stepping around little Marco to peer through the windshield. Everyone was there, even her good for nothing brother and her daughter’s idiot husband.

  “” Maria breathed, pale eyes widening in horror as she realized the Lord had not taken her soul alone. “Not you too, me, Marco Antonio, it’s too soon…!”

  “, please, hold on!” Sweet Franchesca took her by the shoulders and gently guided her mother back to the creaky leather seat. She did her best to stay calm, bless her, but Maria could see her daughter glance past her to take a look at the Kingdom of Heaven for herself with fear in her eyes. “, we don’t know what’s going on, but I know we’re not dead, ? Do I look dead to you ?”

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Fran turned to men standing idly in the back and snapped her fingers, drawing them to attention at once. “Hey! John Paul!”

  Her husband, a lanky with thick horn-rimmed glasses and a vile, beard startled guiltily, quickly shutting the serving window he’d been peeking from. “Yes, my love?”

  “Can you go see if anyone’s out there might know something?”

  “Mama!” Marco chirped, tugging at his father’s sleeve.

  “Of course, love. Should I take Marco or Bella?”

  “Mama!!”

  “No, but take Nacho before he and get into it, yeah?”

  “Mamaa?”

  “Sounds good, dear. Be back in a minute. Ignacio, shall we?”

  “‘get into it’.”

  “MAMA!!”

  Maria sat back in her chair, turning her pale face to the sun and closing her eyes, giving thanks to the Almighty that someone here still had some sense, even if it was not herself. So be it, it’s what she worked so hard for. If she still had her family it would be okay - Heaven, Earth, somewhere else - no matter.

  Still…

  She watched her daughter bustle about the truck, getting the open containers of food packed away and Nacho’s FN Five-Seven out from under the grease hood. She watched her grandson passively beg for her attention and felt the fight melt from her weary bones.

  If they were not in Heaven, they were in Hell. If they were in Hell, they would have been separated, as there was no way any of their sins would ever equal hers. So they were somewhere else, with nothing but this truck and the clothes on their back. So, Maria reasoned, , back to homelessness, having nothing, being nothing.

  Years on the streets being kicked and chased, years serving errands to low level thugs to get a place to live. Years of sinful, bloody, demeaning work. Work to get into trouble, work to get out, work to run away from her old work, only to work hard every day in the new country. A home for a family she vowed to give a better life than she could have imagined as a vagrant child… and then, in a nap-ruining flash of light, all of that work was taken away.

  Tears came to the old woman’s tired eyes, try as she might to keep them down. What good would it be to try again, if another act of God can just take it all away once more? Why try?

  Maria glared out over the gently rolling landscape, shaking with the effort of keeping the Devil’s grip from her heart yet again. Despondency, pure waves of pure failure, washed through her body like ice poured straight into her veins.

  “MAMA!”

  “WHAT, MARCO?! WHAT, WHAT IS IT?”

  The roaring response of her daughter shook the truck, jolting Maria from her impending catatonia to sit up straight. The volume wasn’t the unexpected part, it was normal whenever Marco, bless his young heart, got belligerent. It was the crack in her strong daughter’s voice.

  “What is it Marco-tonio?” She breathed carefully, kneeling to take his face in her shaking hands.

  “Mama.”

  “Yes, sweetheart.”

  “Mom, does this mean I have to go to school tomorrow?”

  Franchesca let out a sigh that emptied her lungs of air and her body of tension. Juan, having finally translated the sentence in his head, let out a deep wheezing laugh that sent him leaning against the counter.

  “No, sweetheart, you probably won’t have school for a while.” Fran said and Marco screamed, pumping his fists before throwing his entire backpack from under the counter into the trash. At that moment, John Paul and Ignacio returned in time to wrangle the eight year old that had begun singing football chants to celebrate the end of his education.

  Maria watched with a waning smile as the familiar chaos of her little family raged in their little home-away-from-home - now much further from home, but no less theirs. It would be more work, yes, of course, but she had been ready to work to death to make this family happy. There was no time for the Devil and his cruel words in her moments of weakness, she had to go on, if not for Fran, then for Marco. Maria straightened her hunched back, setting her jaw once more with determination. By God, she would not fold to this new world, and with the Lord as her witness, she would still give her family the best she could bite and kick and claw for. She would make Marco a little Mexican king in this brand new world.