“I…uh. I’m doing really well now. I have this big, crazy family made up of people who save people like me. They’ve been so amazing.”
“Your Spanish is still so good,” his grandma says, her smile encouraging.
“I kept it safe in my head, where they couldn’t take it.”
His family nods, the words still hard to come by. It’s his cousin, Gael, who pushes forward.
“Primo, who gave you that shaggy haircut?”
Ant cracks up. “I did. I had it in a ponytail for a really long time.” His eyes flick to Erik, then back to the screen. “But I realized I didn’t need it anymore, so I cut it off.”
“Super dramatically,” I say, still off-camera.
Ant sticks his tongue out at me, then continues, “Okay, I was a little dramatic, but I watched a bunch of TikTok videos, so I knew what I wanted.”
Yaya and Gael laugh, but the grandparents look confused.
“Is this like the YouTubes with instructions for tying a fishing lure?” his grandfather asks.
Gael and Ant share a look. “Yes, Grandpa, it’s like that. There are instructional videos on how to cut hair. Maybe Antonio should have watched a few more.”
Ant runs his fingers through his hair, not fazed a bit. “It’s quite fashionable, Gael. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Besides, who are you to talk about my hair when you’ve got this slicked-back thing happening?”
“Shut up! I was dragged out of the shower for this. You’re lucky I’m wearing clothes.”
“We’re all lucky you’re wearing clothes,” Ant cracks, giving as good as he’s getting. It’s a peek into his past, seeing how easily he and his cousin go back and forth.
Turning to me, he explains, “Gael used to strip off his clothes whenever he had the chance. Yaya would get him ready for church, then get herself ready. By the time she was done, Gaelcito would be naked and playing in the mud.”
They share a laugh, another small window into how things could’ve been for him had none of this ever happened.
A tiny bit of trepidation crosses Ant’s features. He sends me a quick glance and then sets a boundary. “If you could…I prefer to be called Ant. And before you ask, yes, Ant like the bug,” he says, shouldering Javier.
The smiles on the other end of the line dim. They understand without words that something happened to make his own name somehow wrong.
“Of course, sobrino,” Yaya’s husband, Emil, says.
There’s a slightly awkward pause, then his grandmother asks any family’s most urgent question.
“When can we see you, Ant?”
The quiver in her voice reveals the importance of the answer, and Javier takes this one. “He’s here on a special visa and slowly working toward citizenship. We first need to see if he can even travel into Mexico.”
Ant grimaces, saying in English, “I hadn’t thought about that. It would be hard for me to go back to the place where I was sold. At least right now.”
Gael and Yaya immediately react to his words, clearly understanding what he said. Tears fall down Yaya’s cheeks, and Gael’s chin trembles as he tries to hold back tears.
Ant, seeing their reactions, lowers his head. “Sorry,” he mumbles in Spanish.
“It’s okay, nephew,” Yaya responds. “This is so hard, but we are thrilled to find you alive and with good people.”
A little more silence, and then Yaya continues, “Hermano, gracias. You traveled through the depths of hell to find our Antonio, our Ant, and you have put this family back together again.”
Javier’s breathing hitches, and he breaks like he did before the call. He’s been on a hair trigger since he found out what Ant’s life was like, and every emotion is right at the surface. He drops forward, sobs racking his shoulders.
I put my arm around his shoulders in a side hug. “This was a lot for you. The work you’ve done, the things you’ve seen? Your actions, more than anything else, show how much you love your nephew. Somebody who goes through this will often question their value for the rest of their life. I suspect as you and Ant share your stories, he will come to know exactly how much you value him.”
Ant and I share a look over Javier’s back, and he’s nodding along to my words.
