44 8.4.19
one fall Wednesday, Fanny’s coach caught her in the parking lot getting
into an Uber and wanted to know why. Fanny was still in seventh grade,
a cadet on the junior team, and in the Atlanta suburb where she had
spent her whole life, parents, not taxis, usually waited in the school
parking lot. Coach Stephanie was concerned that a stranger was picking
up a 13-year-old, but Fanny didn’t feel like explaining that she rode with
strangers all the time now, or that ‘‘home’’ was with people who, until
recently, had more or less been strangers, too. Her mother had been
gone for months. Her father hadn’t been around for years. Her 22-year-
old brother lived a 45-minute drive away.
‘‘It’s fi ne,’’ Fanny said. ‘‘My brother’s tracking me on his phone, see?’’
She held up her iPhone. ‘‘Don’t worry,’’ she kept saying, and Stephanie
relented, telling Fanny to text when she got home.
Fanny had practice in the local high school’s band room twice a week
and competitions every few Saturdays. Sometimes she skipped when
she was feeling sick or sad, but other days she wouldn’t stop rehearsing
even after she got back to the quiet neighborhood where she now lived,
casting her green fl ag up toward the yellow streetlights in the dark. In
color guard, time moved in orderly counts of eight. You couldn’t stop
and think; there was always a next count, a next step to get to. One, two,
three, four, fi ve, six, seven, eight, Fanny whispered.
The sounds of practice shushed all thought: the artifi cial swish of bare
feet on fl oor mats, the swoop of fl ags shearing the air, the clatter of wooden
rifl es hitting the ground. ‘‘Can I get a whoop-whoop?’’ Stephanie called out
every few minutes. ‘‘Whoop-whoop!’’ the girls chanted back. All through
their routine — more modern dance than military, set to Demi Lovato’s
‘‘Warrior’’ — Fanny kept count under her breath. Stephanie wanted her
middle school cadets to channel the emotion of the music. ‘‘Think of a
sad, hard moment in your life, like a problem with your friend, or a hard
math test,’’ Stephanie called out as they warmed up at one practice. Fanny
listened, hands on hips, nodding slightly. ‘‘I want you to think you’re a
warrior,’’ Stephanie went on. ‘‘Think of that superhero in your mind.’’
Fanny had wanted to be a captain, but she never told Stephanie, and two
other girls were chosen instead. Still, she couldn’t help taking charge now
and then, demonstrating a tricky move to some of the more timid-looking
girls, pointing out corners that needed unwrinkling when it was time
to roll up the vast fl oor mat at the end of practice. As Stephanie issued
instructions for their next competition — call times, eye-shadow color,
topknots, hair spray — Fanny interjected with some practical footnotes,
confi rming that they had to show up at 6:45 a.m. and dispensing tips for
cleaning newly pierced ears. Then Stephanie handed out invoices to the
girls who still owed money for the program, and Fanny fell silent as she
looked hers over. ‘‘Oh, wow,’’ she said. ‘‘Oh, wow.’’
She shifted away from the knot of other girls, her brow scrunched.
‘‘O.K.,’’ she said to herself. ‘‘I’m going to do some
accounting.’’ From his paycheck working construc-
tion, her brother, Alejandro, gave her between $50
and $100 a week for Ubers, food and anything else
that came up. She’d already had to buy nude tights
for Saturday’s competition, and she’d devoted anoth-
er chunk to a couple of trips to Walmart for tubs of
Mayfi eld Creamery cherry-vanilla ice cream, Chick-
fi l-A for chicken sandwiches and the pizzeria where
her mother, Rosario, used to work, for slices. Sometimes the couple
who owned the pizzeria tried to give them to her free, but she always
insisted on paying; Rosario had taught her to earn whatever she got.
Next week, she’d have to save more.
Outside, the other girls were dispersing into their parents’ waiting
cars. Fanny planned to order an Uber as usual. Alejandro worked all
day, including on Saturdays, so he’d never seen her color-guard routine
except in videos she showed him on her phone, and he couldn’t leave
to pick her up unless there was an emergency.
Fanny folded up the invoice as she went over to talk to her coach. ‘‘I
just wanted to let you know that my mom was deported,’’ she announced.
‘‘So it’s just me and my brother.’’
Stephanie laid a hand over her heart, her mouth open. ‘‘Oh,’’ she said,
groping for words. ‘‘That... that hurts my heart. Just because... just because
I know as well. My parents are both immigrants. So I can’t imagine.’’
Fanny looked at her, her face unreadable. ‘‘See you Friday,’’ she said,
and headed to the parking lot.UNTIL ROSARIO WAS deported, it was always Rosario and Fanny
together. (For their protection, The Times is withholding their last names
and identifying Rosario by her middle name.) Fanny and Alejandro’s
father left the family three years after Fanny was born in Georgia, only
to be deported later on. Alejandro never fi nished school and moved out
of the house when he was still a teenager. Rosario was frequently absent,
too, working two or three jobs for as long as Fanny could remember.
But Fanny would wait up for Rosario to get home from her late shift,
as a cleaner at a local private school, so they could get a bite at Waff le
House; Rosario would get up early enough to tell Fanny, ‘‘I’ll see you
soon,’’ as her daughter left to catch the school bus. That was the last
thing she would say to Fanny before the arrest, in May 2017, that would
eventually lead to her deportation.
Fanny was at home, waiting up for Rosario, when a county police
offi cer pulled Rosario over as she drove home, even though she was sure
she had done nothing to attract attention. The offi cer booked Rosario
into the county jail for driving without a license — the same conse-
quence most immigrants living illegally in Georgia risk every day to get
around — and after a few days, the jail turned her over to Immigration
and Customs Enforcement. Rosario pleaded that she had a 12-year-old
daughter struggling with depression at home; Fanny had tried to kill
herself earlier that year, after bullying by her sixth-grade friends. After
a few more days of detention, ICE let Rosario go with a clunky ankle
monitor that she tried her best to hide under her skinny jeans.
With Rosario back at home, Fanny managed to convince herself that
her mother was edging out of danger. She thought Rosario’s lawyer would
manage it, that a visa was on its way. Rosario kept
wearing the ankle bracelet and showing up to the ICE
offi ce in Atlanta for check-ins, certain she was follow-
ing the rules, until the morning four months later when
she was arrested again. Rosario called Fanny from the
detention center a day later: ICE agents knocked soon
after Fanny left for school, she said. They told Rosario
she was going to come back home, but they also said
to call Alejandro and tell him to pick up Fanny.‘I WANT YOU TO BE
STRONG,’ HER BROTHER
SAID. ‘MOM CALLED
EARLIER. SHE’S ALREADY
ON THE BORDER.’AFTER COLOR-GUARD
PRACTICE