Prologue

Prologue

House of Hope, Love Without Borders

 

May, 1986

The thin, twenty-one-year-old girl walked down the stairs from the plane now sitting on the tarmac at the Tijuana Airport. I watched her make her way uncertainly toward the airport terminal, shoulders slumped and her head down. When she reached the double-glass doors, she raised her head to scan the crowd. As soon as she saw me her face lit up with a smile. I ran to her and gathered her in my arms for a long, warm embrace. It had been seven years since I’d seen her—she’d been fourteen at the time. Now, she was grown up, but still so very small.

 “Bienvenida, mi hija, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here,” I said as I took in her deep brown eyes and bony physique. “Are you ready to do this?”

I had spent ten years trying to get her from Costa Rica and finally she had arrived. I couldn’t help but see the tiny little girl who’d been given to me by her father when she was just eleven. I’d been working in Costa Rica, at the House of Hope, for nearly a year by then. In another lifetime.

“I’m scared,” she answered. “What happens if we get caught? Will I get sent back?” She looked around furtively, as if expecting someone to take her away.

“I don’t want to think about that,” I answered.

I walked her to the parked car where my three friends, Jasper, Jenna and Ceci waited.  

“She’ll sit in the back next to me, “I said. “Ceci, you sit on her left side. Jasper will drive and Jenna will be in the front passenger seat. Let’s go.”

We left the Tijuana Airport and drove north to the U.S. border station. I held Ana Cecilia’s trembling hand. We were all nervous. Back in Costa Rica, so many years ago, I’d promised to never leave her. But I had. I didn’t want to lose her again.

I took a deep breath, willing my heart to beat normally. “Va estar bien, it will be okay,” I said, to assure her and myself.

Five cars were ahead of us as we neared the border guard’s booth. We’d timed our border passing for rush hour traffic, expecting the guards to be less attentive. As we got close, each of us prayed silently that we would be allowed to pass over the border without being detained.  

Continued....soon