The harried responders placed Marta on a stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance. Eva climbed in too. “You can’t ride in here,” one EMT said. “You can meet us at the hospital.”
The python returned.
“Sit over there and stay out of the way,” he relented.
Jim looked on helplessly. “I’ll meet you at the med center,” he said to the closed doors of the ambulance.
Inside the vehicle, Eva took charge. “Put her on her side.” Eva read the EMT’s ID glowpatch. “Barton Cornell? ID 5877? Listen. She’s having late-stage contractions. She needs to be on her side to avoid tearing.”
“Miss, would you let us do our jobs? I think we’ve handled more precipitous deliveries than you have.”
Marta spoke. “Eva? Can you help me? I need something from my plant kit.” Eva loosened a knot at the top of the leather pouch Marta wore around her neck. “Find a three-petaled flower. It was white when I picked it but it will be dried now and look more yellow.”
Eva moved with care. She held up a plant. Marta nodded and reached for the white trillium flower and began to chew it.
“Hey! You can’t give her anything. You’re not a doctor,” said Barton.
“And you’re not going to be a man if you get in my way. Just do your job and you get to keep all of your dangly bits intact.”
“Eva, you’re too much,” Marta chuckled, “but take it easy on these guys. They’re doing just fine…and so are you.” Then she bit down hard as she was wracked by another contraction. As she chewed the dried flowers, her face softened. “Does Jim know where to go? Eva can you link to Jim? I hope this baby waits for his father.”
Eva touched the small commdisc on her right cheekbone. Eva could be heard when she raised her voice, unusual for her, but she was excited by Marta’s birth in a way that no one would have predicted. The child would have an ally and mentor.
Eva’s voice punctuated the siren’s wail. Snippets of her side of the conversation could be heard in the ambulance. “…you bet your ass” “…no, she’s going to be fine!” “…Harvard Med Center…” “…don’t care how…” “… your child.” She fired her words more than she spoke them.
“He’s on his way. It’ll take him fifteen minutes to get to the hospital,” Eva reported.
Marta and Eva reached the hospital and Jim joined them a few minutes later. Eva commandeered a gurney for Marta and pulled her past registration, pausing long enough to transmit Marta’s data to an admissions pillar. The two EMTs looked at each other and shrugged. Six minutes later, Marta was gowned and heading into a birthing suite. Two hours later, the baby crowned. Eighteen minutes more, and Dana Rafael Ecco wailed his way into the breathing world.
“You’ve got a boy, Ms. Cruz. He sure was in a hurry,” said the obstetrician.
The lusty strength of his first cry impressed the physician—“a very healthy baby”, he pronounced, and it gladdened his mother as she sobbed with relief.
The baby’s sheer volume impressed Eva. “Now that’s a set of pipes,” she said.
The new father was still working through the day’s events and could only manage, “Why is he so… slimy?”
Marta held 8 pounds, 2 ounces of red and wrinkled life, 21 inches of fragile humanity—proof of love between a man learning to temper his anger and a woman learning to thrive despite her disabilities, proof of the cycle of life, proof of all of the hopes for the future.
11
RAFAEL
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
MCALLEN, TEXAS
REYNOSA. TAMAULIPAS. MEXICO
AUGUST. 2030
Thirty-six hours after Marta Cruz served her father dessert, the Mexican Federal Police arrested Rafael at the border crossing in Reynosa.
Marta’s signature dessert was lemon curd with rosemary and it crowned Rafael’s last homemade meal. She kept a row of herbs by a south-facing kitchen window and used the savory plant in her cooking and as a compress for her rheumatism. She knew better than to try to grow lemons in New England, even in a window box, and used bottled lemon juice in the recipe. Marta fretted that she had no fresh lemons, but Rafael approved.
His arrival in Cambridge was unannounced. “Dad!” was the only word she could manage when she opened the door to her father. The two clung to each other without speaking for two long minutes. Tears polished their faces. Jim attempted to take Rafael’s single small bag, but his father-in-law kept it.
“We’re happy to see you, sir,” Jim temporized while Marta regained her composure. “You look like you’ve been hard on the road. What can I get you?”
Jim opened two bottles of Red Stripe and a club soda for Marta. Rafael frowned briefly at the Jamaican ale, declined a glass, then smiled and clapped his son-in-law on the shoulder.
“Dad, I wish you’d linked ahead. The most beautiful baby ever created is sleeping now. Come with me, but your bouncing knee will have to wait. Next time, link ahead,” she chided and kissed his cheek.
They spent several minutes watching the slow rise and fall of Dana’s chest. Rafael leaned over the child, the overnight bag still in hand, and inhaled the baby’s fragrance.
“So what brings you north?” asked Jim.
Rafael turned serious. “I have been back and forth to Saltillo to find justice for my mother and for Elena. I will not rest until the
“Maquiladoras, sir?” asked Jim.
“Factories. Assembly plants,” said Rafael. A short wave of his hand dismissed Jim from the conversation.
“But Mom never spent much time in Saltillo. How could the factories affect her?”
“Her DNA, of course.” Marta looked puzzled. “Hija, do you know that Saltillo was once called the ‘Athens of Mexico’? That our textiles and ceramics were the best in the world?”
“Dad, you’ve told me only fifty times.”
“Then I’ll tell you again.”
“I don’t get the connection between the malquiladoras and mom.”
“The government cannot see Saltillo’s beauty. The politicians counts pesos when adobe is replaced by steel. Mexico now depends on auto parts manufacturers and many of those are in Saltillo. The industrial wastes kill our citizens,” he said, momentarily conflating his native and adopted countries. “How else do the people become sick?”
“You’ve travelled to complain, how many times is it now? Five? Six?” asked Marta.
“And I will continue until they stop poisoning the water and the air.”
“I read that the manufacturers are replacing their old plants with clean installations. They even turn the discharge into drinkable water.”
“So they say. Evidently it is not convenient to publish the information that shows the damage that is already done. But it is convenient for U.S. manufacturers to dump their poisons in Mexico where this goes unreported. They must be stopped.”
