I should have known Elena would find a way to go north. If I'd kept my eyes open, if I'd been paying any attention at all, I might have seen what she was up to. After all, I'd dreamed about crossing la línea for years. Why should my sister be any different? But it was my fifteenth birthday, and Elena was the last thing on my mind.

I opened one eye and looked down at the wooden crate at the foot of my bed. Abuelita always left something for me to open, and I always knew what would be inside. Calcetines, una camiseta, chones. Something useful. Something my grandma could afford. Something I needed. Something I didn't want.

But there was nothing. No present. Nada. I rubbed my eyes and checked again. No, nothing. Not even the usual pair of underpants this year? Of course there was never enough money for a gift I didn't need. But any small thing would be okay. Cualquier miseria. I rolled over and covered my head with my blanket.

What I wanted was a pair of jeans, like the ones I saw Juanito wearing last week. They weren't like the pants I wore to work on the rancho every day, the knees patched and darned by Abuelita, frayed on the bottom. The jeans I wanted were bigger and looser and hung low. They got frayed because you let them drag on the ground and you stepped on them — on purpose, just because you could, because it didn't matter if they wore out or not.

But what I really wanted couldn't be wrapped up in a package. It cost thousands and thousands, and only Papá could give it to me. And he was thousands and thousands of kilometers away.

What could I remember about Papá? I thought I could remember sitting on his lap as he read aloud to me, when I was still little enough to sit on his lap. I liked the faint scent of his hair oil, the clove gum he chewed to cover up the cigarettes he smoked behind my mother's back. I liked the slow, careful way he pronounced each word, and how his moustache curved up when he read a line he enjoyed.

Abuelita made sure I didn't forget the important things about Papá. Every chance she got, she told the story of how he educated himself. He went to school only to the fourth grade. After that, the government closed la primaria in San Jacinto. He had to work on Abuelo's rancho, anyway, to help the family.

"He herded the goats and watered the corn with a book in one hand, and still he did more work than anyone else!" Abuelita always said. In those days, Papá could save a peso here and there. He used the money to buy books. The few he had, he read over and over until he knew long passages by heart.

I was the firstborn, so Papá should have named me Domingo, after himself and Abuelo and Bisabuelo and Tatarabuelo — and all the Cervantes as far back as anyone could remember. But Papá declared I wouldn't be like him, starting with his name. Miguel Carlos Octavio Pablo de Cervantes, he named me, after the authors he admired. Those were his saints, so those were the names I got.

And Papá proclaimed I would get an education. I would have a good, important job, one where I didn't have to break my back to put a few frijoles y tortillas on the table. No quiero que sufras como yo. That's how Papá put it.

I leaned over the side of my bed to pick up the pants I'd left on the floor the night before. On top of them lay a plain white envelope. Well, at least I got a card. I sighed. Abuelita loved me. She wished she could give me more. This year, there had been no money