Part Four

Rosa lived on the far side of town in a little shack with her mother and father and six sisters and brothers. She was the oldest and the most responsible. That’s why she sold the flowers that grew around their house. At least that’s what Benji thought and he was right. He arrived on a Friday, just after lunch.

“Hola! Anyone home?” He gently sang out through the overgrown bushes at the gate.
“Who are you?” said an old man with a hat on. “I don’t know you. Go away.”
“I’m Benji. I have come to marry Rosa. She is the love of my life and I must have her as my wife.”
“Why Rosa, why not Maria or Blanca or Victoria? Rosa is my eldest and she brings the most life into our family. No. You can’t have Rosa. She stays.”
“But I love her.”
“I meant what I said. No.” And he slammed the gate.
Benji sat down wondering what to do when suddenly he knew exactly what to do. He unlatched the case and took out his guitar.
Well, if your imagination is anything like mine, you know darn well that half the village came out to hear Benji play. It was simply magnificent. People were speechless, weeping, covering their mouths and as always, clutching their hearts.
“Who is this man sent to us from the heavens?” they all wondered.
“He is the man that will marry Rosa, my eldest daughter,” said the old man with a hat on.

But that’s not the end of the story.

Benji lived in the United States and Rosa lived in Mexico. The Mexican government wouldn’t let Benji stay much longer since his Visa was about to run out. And to get Rosa a Visa to the United States, well, that was almost impossible. What were they to do?
“I know a man that can help you,” said a friend of Rosa’s, “come with me.”
So they did.

The man was a government official who did sly things on the side. He lived in the United States many years before and knew how to get things done with a little money slipped under the table. But it would cost them, he said, three thousand US dollars, money Benji just didn’t have. Rosa put her head in her hands and cried.
“Don’t cry, my love. I will figure this out,” said Benji. “I will find a way to pay him.”
“But that is just too much, mi amor. It will take me years to make that selling flowers.”

What were they to do?