He’d been crewless that afternoon as he worked on a small rock wall that he’d been hired to build. The rocks he’d been moving into position were known as “two man” rocks and he could surely understand that they were aptly named. His shoulders ached and his forearms, unprotected by long sleeves, were beat up. All afternoon, he’d been guzzling sweet tea from McDonald’s. Not because he loved it so much, but because it only cost a buck. Tavio wanted to save every penny possible for his family—both in Spanaway and back home in small village south of Guadalajara, Mexico. He’d been in the United States for more years than he had spent growing up in Mexico. And yet, even though he’d earned a green card, married, and started a family, he still kept his distance from some things American. The law was one of them. It wasn’t about him or his papers, of course, but about the extended family that lived in and around the mobile home he rented at the end of a dusty lane in Spanaway.
