Berta sighed. “Oh no. Your father may have asked, but Lara had no such plans yet; she was going to college. She wanted to be a social worker. She worked part time and took two or three classes every semester. Nothing was going to stop her. That is, until she got pregnant. And oh, your father was so excited. The first thing he did was find a construction job nearby—and then he came to my father. Shortly after, they married and Juan moved in with us. Lara continued with school, and Juan went from job to job.”
Berta grimaced, and I knew the love story was taking a fateful turn. “But then, one night, she awoke screaming. She was bleeding heavily, and sure enough, she lost the baby. It took her by surprise, I think. She hadn’t realized how much she wanted that baby.” Berta bit her lower lip and frowned. “It changed her a little. She wasn’t as certain of everything anymore. And she began to lean on others, especially your father—and me. I guess she let herself need us. That’s when we began to get really close, Lara and I. I had always been just her little sister, but after that, our relationship deepened. We became friends.”
I was thinking of Rosa and struggling to hold back tears when I realized Berta was weeping softly.
Trembling, she said, “And then . . . Carlos died. My fiancé. In Vietnam. And I don’t know what I would have done without Lara.” She looked down at her empty hands with a puzzled expression.
My voice broke as I tried to say, “I’m so sorry.” We sat in silence for a few minutes. Through the window I watched a little gray bird, hooded in black, land on an empty bird feeder and sway to and fro, pecking at the opening in search of one tiny morsel.
Berta reached for a tissue on the table and blew her nose. “Those years were such a struggle for me. But Juan and Lara kept me going. They continued to live here at the house. Juan worked at odd jobs—I remember that was always a struggle—and Lara tried desperately to get pregnant again. There were two more miscarriages, maybe more that I never knew about. She talked of adopting now and then and continued with college. Then in 1975, out of the blue, she got pregnant with Diego. Everyone tried not to get excited. We held our breath through the whole pregnancy, but there were no problems whatsoever—until the delivery.”
Her lower lip quivered, and she lifted her chin. Then simply and quietly, Berta said, “Some freak thing with her uterus turning inside out after the delivery.”
My dad had never spoken of any of this, just that Diego’s mom had died in childbirth. I’d always pictured an older woman exhausted from labor, who simply drew her last breath, while all eyes were focused on baby Diego.
Berta leaned forward and, squeezing the arms of the chair, said, “It seemed impossible that she no longer existed. None of us could believe it. My parents were in shock that whole year. And Juan—oh your poor, dear father—was devastated. There was no consoling him. Even seeing little Diego only made him sob all the more.
“But for me,” her eyes brightened as she continued, “Diego, mi bebé precioso, when I held him to my chest,” she pressed her hands tightly to her bosom, paused, and then in a whisper that tugged at my soul, she said, “he soothed the pain in my heart.”
I leaned back and pressed my hand over the spot where that ever-present heaviness weighed on my heart. My hand slid down to the rise of my abdomen. “Soothed the pain in my heart.” I thought of Rosa modeling the rebozo for the couple in Oaxaca, of Manuel tearing pieces of his sweet bread for me, how his lips tasted like sugar when we kissed on the bench.
Then from somewhere far away, I heard my voice speak softly with a reverence saved only for prayers, “We were attacked during the crossing. Rosa, Manuel, and I. They are dead, I am certain. And I . . . I am going to have a baby . . . in the spring.”
Her lips parted as she gasped, then settled into a frown. But her eyes, though full of sorrow, stayed bright.
If there had been any doubt whether I should have come there, it disappeared with the box of tissues we went through that day. It was as if I had always known her, that she’d been my Aunt Berta from birth. I found myself telling her things I would never have discussed with my mother. She didn’t blink an eye when I told her I knew it was a girl; in fact, from that moment on, she referred to the baby as “Luz” as if she were nestled in my arms, not my womb.
The next day, she picked me up after work with her car full of bread and pastries for “the boys” as she called them, and we drove to the fire station. The garage door was open, so with our arms full of boxes and bags, we walked up the driveway. A tall, muscular man with a thick mustache approached from behind the ambulance to help, but when he smiled, I stopped abruptly, for a taller, fuller-faced version of my father stood before me. It took me a moment, but just as I was about to step forward to shake Diego’s hand or accept a hug, a few men suddenly approached from the side, and I startled. Like a frightened cat, I jumped and let out a short, sharp cry. Diego’s arm was around my shoulder in an instant, steadying me as I stumbled. I lowered my burning face and tried to calm my trembling hands. Then Berta was beside me rubbing my back and saying something in English to the men, who with eager nods headed
