The address the salesman gave me was on a quiet cul de sac in Gilbert, ten miles from my little house in Mesa, and I drove my 2012 Camry there with both hands on the wheel and my teeth clenched. I am Elena Navarro, sixty nine years old, a school secretary for thirty years, and I turned the corner and saw a nebula gray Lexus parked in front of a stucco house with a red tile roof. A woman in a blouse like mine stood at the front door, searching in her purse for keys. She turned. She had a tiny scar through her left eyebrow.
It was my daughter. Gabriela. I had not seen her in six years. She was forty, thin, with my hair cut the same, and when she saw me on the sidewalk in my church blouse, she went absolutely still. Behind me, a squad car from the Gilbert police rolled quietly to the curb, since the salesman had already called them, and the finance manager of the dealership stepped out of a white sedan with a folder under his arm. Gabby looked at them all. Then she looked at me, and said, in a very small voice, “Mama?”
We went inside because there was nowhere else to go. The house was handsomely furnished, with white sofas and a glass coffee table, and on the table stood a stack of unopened mail, every envelope addressed to me. A credit card statement. A bank notice. A bill for an electric account I had never opened. Seven accounts in all, and a lease for the house in my name. I sat down on a white sofa with my purse on my knees. In the kitchen, the refrigerator hummed, and a clock ticked above the stove.
A dealership salesman who said welcome back gave one retired school secretary the length of a short drive to bring her daughter back to the truth in Mesa.
I gave my terms at the glass table, with the officer at the door and the finance manager across from me taking notes. “Gabriela, I am your mother. I will always be your mother. But I will not be your victim. The car goes back to the dealership today. Every account is closed. You will sign a statement for the officer, and for the credit bureaus, and for the bank. And then, if you are willing, you will come to my house on Sunday, and you will tell me what happened to you.”
Gabby covered her face with both hands. “Mama, I got into a business with a man,” she said, in a muffled sob. “Essential oils, a pyramid scheme. I sold my condo to buy in. I lost it all, and Steve left, and I could not call you because I was so ashamed after what I said at the service of Dad. I started using your name just to rent the house. And then the car. And then the cards.” She looked up with red eyes. “I told myself I would pay it back before you knew. I have been so afraid for six years.”
But shame is a quick animal. Gabby suddenly snatched the keys of the Lexus from the table and the folder of statements, leaped up, and ran through the kitchen to the garage, meaning to drive away before the officer could stop her. She slapped the button, and the garage door rumbled up. In the driveway stood the tow truck, which the finance manager had summoned, and the driver in his orange vest. The officer came behind her. And the neighbor across the street stepped out onto her lawn.
Gabby stopped in the open garage, in the bright desert glare, with the keys in her fist and the tow truck blocking the drive, an officer behind her, and her mother coming slowly through the kitchen door. I did not run. I did not shout. I said her name once, very softly, the way I had said it when she woke from a bad dream at seven. Gabby began to shake. She laid the keys on the hood of the Lexus. Then she turned and walked into my arms, and I held her while she sobbed.
The consequences were hard and merciful. The loan was voided as identity theft, and the dealership took back the car. Gabby pleaded guilty to a lesser count and received probation, and because I stood beside her in court, the judge allowed her to serve part of her sentence in community work. The bills were cleared with the help of a consumer attorney. Gabby moved in with me, into her old bedroom with the purple wallpaper, and took a job at the elementary school office, answering the phones.
In the name of my mother Rosa, who passed in 2009, I started the Rosa Navarro Fund. It pays for identity theft recovery and credit repair for seniors and families and for school supplies and uniforms for children whose parents are struggling, in Maricopa, Pinal and Gila counties. In the first year we cleared the credit of two hundred and thirty families and outfitted nine hundred children. One was a seven year old girl in Apache Junction who put on a new backpack with both arms and walked into the classroom without looking back.
On a warm Saturday in October, I stood in my driveway in Mesa, next to my little 2012 Camry, and watched my daughter Gabby wax the hood with a soft cloth, humming. She wore a school office badge on a lanyard, and she looked ten years younger. Beside her, a fat orange cat sat in the sun. When she finished, she tossed the cloth into the bucket and opened the passenger door for me, bowing. “Mama,” she said, “where shall I take you today?” I got in, and told her anywhere at all, and we drove away down the long shady street with the windows open and the radio playing the old songs, while the whole of the valley glittered ahead.
