The Only Road

The book opens with “a piercing scream” (5) that tells Jaime his cousin Miguel is dead. In a flashback, Jaime remembers the encounter he and Miguel had with Pulguita, a boy they knew who had joined the local gang, the Alphas. Pulguita tried to convince the boys to join him, flaunting his expensive clothes and phone and taunting the boys about their poverty. But Jaime and Miguel refused him. The next day Jaime was too sick to walk to school with his cousin; the Alphas caught Miguel and beat him to death.

In their rural Guatemalan village the Alphas control nearly everything. They watch as Miguel is buried, and soon enough the message comes: The Alphas want Jaime and Miguel’s sister Ángela to join them. They are given six days to mourn Miguel, then they are expected to meet the gang and help “deliver a gift to a friend” (22). The cousins and their families know this means the children will be forced to “push drugs outside of school […] take part in beatings, and killings” (22). Ángela could be forced to be a gang member’s girlfriend, “whether she wanted to or not” (22).

The families and their local priest gather to discuss their options, but they are few. Miguel and Ángela’s grandmother, their abuela, suggests trying to pay off the gang, but no one wants to reward the very people who killed Miguel, and they are not certain the Alphas would even allow them to buy the children’s freedom. Ángela proposes that she and Jaime run away, and Jaime’s father agrees, saying they could go live with Jaime’s older brother, Tomás, who lives on a ranch in New Mexico.

Everyone in the family knows how dangerous the journey north could be—“[e]veryone knew the stories” (26). The families agonize over the decision, but in the end they cannot think of a better solution to save Jaime and Ángela’s lives.

They prepare for the journey in secret, not wanting to alert the Alphas to their plans. Jaime’s aunt is a seamstress and finds a way to sew almost $2,000 into the seams of each of their pants, the only chance they have at getting the money safely to the border of the United States and Mexico, where the cousins will need to pay a smuggler to help them get across. The families must sacrifice everything they have to raise this money, and even then they worry “it might not be enough to pay for the crossing” (32). Jaime is stricken with guilt over how much his parents are giving up for him, but his family remains firm.

The night the cousins leave, abuela cooks a feast, and the families have one last meal together. Abuela packs up food for the children, and they hide in the back of a truck driven by an old family friend who smuggles them under a pile of fruits and vegetables over the border into Mexico.