Across A Hundred Mountains

As Adelina rides the bus toward her mother’s home, she remembers the phone call from her mother’s friend, Sandra, telling Adelina that her mother was dying. Adelina tells Sandra that she is coming home, “feeling a cold pit in her stomach” (94). Adelina also promises Sandra that she will bring her father back to her mother, too.

Adelina remembers a woman named Diana who stayed at the shelter. Diana fell asleep while driving, causing her to crash her car and killing her son in the accident. One night, when Adelina was off duty, Diana tried to commit suicide. Adelina rushed to the hospital to visit her, where she ran into Dr. Luna. Dr. Luna managed to save Diana, and Adelina told Dr. Luna that she hoped to see him again soon.

Shortly after Amá’s baby’s birth, Don Elías and his wife visit the shack. Don Elías’s wife insists on taking the baby away from Amá to raise as her own. Amá argues that she has named the baby Miguelito, after her husband, Miguel, and that the baby is actually Apá’s. Don Elías calls her a liar and forcefully takes the baby from Amá.

Amá starts to drink heavily. One night, the night watchmen comes to their home and tells Juana that Amá is in the cemetery, “‘ranting and raving like a loca’” (96). When Juana arrives at the cemetery, she sees that Amá is drunk and trying to speak to her dead daughters. Amá accuses Juana of falling asleep and killing Anita, and insists, “‘If Anita was still alive, none of this would’ve happened. Miguel wouldn’t have left. And I would still have my son by my side’” (97).

The next day, a few days before Juana’s thirteenth birthday, she sets out for the mountains. She is sure that “on the other side of those mountains, she would find Apá” (102). After a day of walking, Juana collapses from exhaustion. She wakes up at Doña Martina’s home. Doña Martina explains that the United States are not on the other side of the mountains, but very far away, and shows Juana the city of Los Angeles on a map. Juana realizes that “Apá was not on the other side of these mountains. And in order to find him she would have to cross not just these mountains, but perhaps a hundred more” (106).

Adelina remembers how shortly after she began living at Don Ernesto’s apartment building, she obtained jobs in factories, hoping to find her father, but she never did. Eventually, Don Ernesto encouraged Adelina to go back to school and helped her enroll in high school.

Juana gets a job at the train station selling quesadillas. One day, she meets a man who is returning from the United States. He explains to Juana how to travel by train and by bus to the border, and then how to find a “coyote” to take her across.

Juana realizes that “[n]ow Abeulita Elena had every right to call her a beggar. Amá went from person to person trying to get money to buy beer or tequila” (120). One day, Juana returns home to find her mother, drunk, caring for a pregnant stray dog. Amá asks Juana if they can share some of their food with the dog, but Juana refuses, and insists that the dog stay outside. The next day, the dog gives birth to a litter of puppies and disappears, causing the puppies to die. Amá is devastated, asking, “‘What kind of parent abandons her children?’” (120).