Return to Sender

In “Christmas Tears Farm” Tyler worries that his two weeks at home on holiday break from school will be miserable. Not only is it the first Christmas without Gramps, but Ben cannot drive his car and Sara cannot ride with her boyfriend due to new rules imposed by their parents. Tío Felipe is in prison, and the rest of the Cruzes are upset and fearful. The family Christmas tree lot is deemed too risky for sales because customers might notice the Cruzes and report them, so Grandma simply gives the trees to the church youth group to cut down for selling at the Christmas bazaar: “Afterward the field looks so forlorn, it reminds Tyler of a tree version of the French Revolution his class read about when lords and ladies got their heads cut off on a guillotine” (141). Everyone is sad that Tío Felipe is spending the holidays imprisoned and worried that he will have to serve a lengthy sentence in Vermont before deportation. Tyler’s mom arranges for a pro bono lawyer to defend Felipe and gets a visitation to see him. Mari points out that none of the Cruzes can visit him. Tyler has an excellent idea for the necessary translator: Mrs. Ramirez. Grandma fibs on the phone to Principal Stevens to get Mrs. Ramirez’s number; Mrs. Ramirez agrees. She, the lawyer, and Tyler’s mom plan to visit Felipe on Christmas Eve.

Tyler teaches Mari the winter constellations, including the Pleiades, six stars in a group with a “seventh sister” too dim to see without a telescope. He suggests there is a myth about that sister’s attempts to reunite with her siblings. Mari tells Tyler the truth about her mother and the length of time she has been missing. They discuss the chances of Mari’s mother surviving her dangerous journey, and Tyler compares Mari’s mother to the missing seventh sister of the Pleiades. This thought comforts Mari, and Tyler resolves to show Mari the seventh sister through the telescope.

Papá gives Tyler cash and shows him pictures from a store mailer of Christmas gifts for the girls. Tyler also finds some stationery he thinks Mari will like and a set of stick-on glow-in-the-dark stars. Finding gifts for the girls improves Tyler’s mood.

Tyler then convinces his mom to allow him to also visit Tío Felipe on Christmas Eve. Mari gives Tyler a letter she wrote for Tío Felipe, but when they arrive, Tyler sees that a glass barrier separates prisoners from visitors. He holds the letter up to the glass, one page at a time, so that Tío Felipe can read what Mari wrote. An emotional Tío Felipe expresses gratitude. Back home, Sara answers the ringing phone, and Tyler hears her respond in Spanish: “Un momento, por favor” (155). She excitedly tells Tyler to run and get the Cruzes; she believes the caller might be Mari’s mother.

After the point-of-view switch, seven letters from Mari follow. In the first, “Querido Tío Felipe” on December 24, Mari reassures Felipe that no one thinks his imprisonment is his fault, that Papá and Armando understand the need for “a little fiesta” (156) after such hard work, and that in fact they are grateful for the way Tío Felipe led authorities away from the family as he fled. Mari tells Tío Felipe that her big Christmas wish is his “safe and quick deliverance” (158), and that Ofie will ask Santa for this as well.

In subsequent letters headed “Querido Tío” on dates ranging between December 31 and February 4, Mari tells Tío Felipe that the caller they thought might be Mamá got disconnected before they reached the phone. She sends one of her stick-on stars to Felipe. She tells Felipe that they baked the baby from Ofie’s new dollhouse into the cake for the celebration of Three Kings Day on January 6. Mari gets the slice with the baby, so now she is to give a party on February 2, Candlemas Day, to celebrate the baptism of Jesus. Mari tells Felipe she will only have a party if he is free. One of Mari’s letters is accompanied by another letter from a girl Felipe met at the party he attended with Ben.

In her January 28 letter Mari shares that Felipe will serve no time after his criminal hearing and that his deportation hearing is the following week. She also mentions that a girl went to visit Felipe in the jail. Mari’s last letter in this chapter, dated February 4, explains that she did not have her party, that Tío Felipe will be deported the next week, and that Papá is attempting to remind Ofie of her Mexican heritage. He wants only Spanish spoken at home and forbids TV shows unless they are in Spanish. Mari tries to help by encouraging her sisters to speak Spanish and see that “America is the whole hemisphere, north and south. We are all-American!” (175). Ofie is resistant but complies. Later Papá allows weekend TV to be in English if they switch to Spanish channels for commercials. The girl interested in Felipe calls to offer to take items to family in Mexico when she travels to Chiapas on her spring break. The Cruzes ask her to take Felipe’s guitar, Wilmita.

Mari concludes her letters to Felipe by relaying that she asked Grandma if the groundhog saw its shadow. Grandma notes how Groundhog Day and Candlemas happen to align: “I’m afraid he did, dear. As they say, if Candlemas is bright and clear, there’ll be winters in the year. So we’ve got some more winter left” (177). However, Mari looks forward to someday seeing Tío Felipe again.