So, when Ana took my hand and said, “Alma, there’s something you need to know,” I was ready, but what she said took my breath away, “You are pregnant, embarazada.” She waited and let the words linger. Then she continued, “The doctors knew this before we left the hospital, but Dr. Ramírez felt you were not ready to know yourself.” Ana took a deep breath and squeezed my hand. “They were going to tell you . . . they were going to talk to you about an abortion, if you wanted, and then, afterwards, send you to the detention center.” She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “I knew this and didn’t tell you. Lo siento. Forgive me. I felt you needed to get stronger first. I feared what this would have done to you . . . at the time.”
My mind swirled. Pregnant? I placed my hand on my stomach. “A baby?” I asked in disbelief.
Both nodded.
The doctor stepped forward. “You are about seven weeks along. You can easily abort at this point. Best before the end of the first trimester, which gives you four or five more weeks to decide.” He paused. “Or if you choose to carry it, you must begin to care for yourself—eat well, take vitamins, exercise, seek regular medical care.”
I turned to Ana, my lower lip quivering. “Un bebé?”
“You don’t need to make a decision right now—unless you are certain. No hurry. You can think about it. We’ll talk later. Okay?”
I couldn’t speak. It was as if my jaw was still clamped tight.
The doctor’s voice floated above me, “Do you have any questions? Can I help you in any way right now?”
I sat stunned and silent.
He turned to Ana and said, “Well, take her to the women’s clinic when she decides, and they will help her . . . either way.”
In a trance, I was helped down from the table and out the door. We rode in silence. As soon as we climbed the stairs and entered Ana’s apartment, I collapsed onto the sofa, curled up in a ball, my hand pressed firmly against my stomach. I couldn’t believe there was a life within me, a life created in the midst of the most horrifying experience imaginable.
What was God thinking? Or was it, perhaps, the devil, desperate to keep his seed alive? And I was his instrument. A bitter bile rose in my throat.
Then I gasped. Or was the baby Manuel’s? Could it possibly be his? ¡Dios mío!
Ana had turned on the television, thinking, perhaps, that it might bring the comfort of distraction, but derisive laughter burst from the screen—a cruel response to my desperate hopes. I wept until no tears could form.
The next morning Ana woke me from a deep sleep and led me to the bathroom where she had prepared a bath. I thought of the lavender soaps that Rosa and I had used at Señorita Garcia’s, and fresh tears began to drip down my cheeks. Ana and her mother bathed me as if I were a newborn child; soothing hands glided over my skin, then dug in deeper to massage my scalp and scrub my hair. When finished, they dressed me in a sleeveless, loose-fitting dress and led me to the kitchen.
“Now that you can eat, you must eat well, por favor,” Ana’s mother insisted as she began to prepare a breakfast of fresh eggs.
I watched a small hummingbird just beyond the window, its wings fluttering faster than my eye could see. I wondered, was this the size of the baby inside me, or was it even smaller? Watching it flit from one blossom to another, I suddenly remembered my mother and a friend whispering about a woman who had taken a mixture of herbs to get rid of her baby without ever telling her husband. Their disapproval had been profound.
The smell of peppers and onions filled the air, and though my mouth watered, my stomach began to revolt. As if reading my mind, Señora Lopez said, “Just a little today. We’ll take it slowly.”
For two weeks, they bathed and dressed me daily, took me for short walks, and fed me small amounts of food throughout the day. Numbly, I went along, thankful more than anything that they respected my silence. No questions asked. No decisions to be made. For the truth was, I did not want to confront this reality.
One evening, shortly before Día de los Muertos, Señora Lopez was describing all of the ingredients that she put in her fiambre, a special Guatemalan dish prepared for this day. The list was endless: sausage, cold cuts, pickled baby corn, pacaya flower, olives . . . I was half-listening and half-dozing before the television, when a name was spoken that resounded off the walls like a crack of thunder: “Dolores Huerta.” I snapped my head up and leaned on an elbow.
An anchorman with empty eyes was mouthing words I understood, such as hospitalized and critical condition, as well as words I did not know, like aortic aneurysm. The screen flashed familiar images of a young Dolores with Cesar Chavez leading the farmworkers, but it also showed a photograph of an older woman, tiny and frail, but with the same jet-black hair and lively eyes. This Dolores was in grave danger, and if so, my fate was sealed. That link to Papá would no longer be possible. If Dolores was close to death, then God had sent me a clear message. All doors closed—and locked.
A sadness descended, pulling me down even further than I already was. I felt like I was sinking into icy waters, deep and dark. A chill swept through me so cold that my frigid fingers ached. Burying my face in the sofa, I pulled at my hair and sobbed inconsolably.
“No! No!” I wailed, thinking of Rosa, of the many times we had dreamed and argued, wondered and worried, planning our journey, searching for Dolores and Papá. And now it was gone. All of it gone. Rosa. Manuel.
