by Roger Bruner
If only my father had still been alive. Things would have been different. He would have defended me the way my mother wasn’t able to do. Dared not do.
Rosa, I understand the difficulties you experienced being motherless and pregnant in Santa María, but I’m thankful you didn’t have to endure taunting throughout your pregnancy. At least the villagers ultimately gave you a small measure of support.
If support is defined as “getting rid of you.” I know something of that myself, however, and I don’t consider it to be anything but cowardice.
The Chief Elder—this happened before Raúl Diaz became an Elder—came to my mother by night and asked her to meet—no, they insisted she meet—with the Council. They didn’t invite me.
When she returned home, she told me what they had decided—what was to happen. There would be no negotiating, she said. No compromising.
The Elders would send us to San Diego as soon as the baby was born—to fend for ourselves any way we could. They had already arranged transportation with their current marijuana smuggler—the father of Tomás del Mundo.
“What is so terrible that we would want to negotiate?” I asked my mother. “At least the three of us will be together.”
With tears in her eyes—rarely had I seen my mother cry—she replied, “The baby will remain here in the village and become the child of a couple who cannot have children of their own. They have already asked for her. You will not be permitted to see your baby after she’s born.”
~~~
I closed my eyes for several seconds. How could I read more? I ached for my mother and the decision she’d had no part in making. I had protested the idea of letting Nikki adopt Alazne. I’d been able to fight for what I wanted, and I had won.
My mother didn’t have that option.
Nikki glanced at me. I think she would have taken my hand in hers, but I shook with such rage at what the Elders had done that I needed both hands to hold the letter still.
Instead, she touched my arm gently, looked into my eyes as if to say, Continue reading, and then looked away again.
I moved on to the next page.
~~~
“Surely you wouldn’t want to raise a baby fathered by a rapist?” my mother said.
“I…am not sure,” I mumbled as I tried to pull my mixed-up thoughts together and assemble them into words that made sense. “The baby is half mine, and it—no, not ‘it’ but ‘he’ or ‘she’—is already growing inside me. I can’t ignore her—I can’t fail to love her—just because of the circumstances.”
“Such love is dangerous.” I suspect my mother was trying to hide the fact that she understood my feelings well. Although she didn’t say so, she gave me the impression she might have felt the same way if she had been in my place.
“It doesn’t matter now, Chalina. The Council has spoken. This is the way things are to be.” That concluded our conversation.
I burst into tears and clung to her as if I had become a tiny child again, one who had just lost—or was about to lose—her most prized possession. How I longed to return to the days when my mother’s gentle embrace assured me that all was well. But those days were past.
As she wiped away my tears with her fingers, she spoke once more, this time with quiet determination. “They won’t keep you from seeing your baby. I’ll make sure of that. You will hold her once before they take her from you. You will suffer a sense of loss for years to come—perhaps forever—but you must focus hard on your baby.
“Memorize what she looks like, although that will change over the years, and memorize who you think she is on the inside. If you ever see her again, you will be able to recognize her—although perhaps not at first—because of the few moments you have spent together. It won’t matter how old she is or how much she’s changed and matured.”
I looked into my mother’s eyes and hugged her gratefully. She had to pry herself away from me. “Get some sleep.”
She and I were together in the fields the day my labor began. We had recently started working at an area distant from the other villagers. No one could see us there. She had also selected a private spot for my delivery, one not easily detected. From your description, Rosa, I believe you and the village boys used to go “play” at the same location.
My mother had been midwife to a number of village women. She knew what to do. She explained what was happening as my labor progressed, and I memorized everything she told me to help keep my mind off the pain. Her instruction would serve later as the basis for my career as a midwife.
We hoped things would go quickly so no one would miss us and start looking. No hiding place remains secret long when a young woman is giving birth to her first child. At least the women in our family had always had short labor times, she said. Even for their first babies.
The process went more quickly than I had expected, but it still took hours. My mother passed the time by teaching me everything she knew about pregnancy and caring for babies.
Rosa, how I felt for you when you were delivering Alazne. You were as scared and distressed as I had been giving birth to you.
At least you were free to scream.
But I had to remain silent so no one would find us until I got to hold my baby. My mother gave me a cedar stick to bite on and keep me silent. I’ll always associate that wondrous aroma with childbirth. I chewed the stick nearly all the way through, and she replaced it several times.
When your birth was complete, my mother did what I later did for you. First, she showed you to me looking so frighteningly and repulsively newborn. Not that I ever considered you anything but beautiful. Then she cleaned you up and put you in my arms. Santa María had no cameras. I had never heard of a photograph, much less seen one. So I don’t have pictures of you as a newborn.
How I regret that.
I savored each moment you and I spent together in the field. During that time, I didn’t care who your father was. I loved you because you were you, you were part of me, and you were mine. Mine even though they would soon take you against my will.
I examined every millimeter of your body as if I had been a doctor doing a thorough physical examination, and I listened to the music of your cries and tried to learn everything there was to know about you so I could never forget the smallest part of who you were.
“We must go now to the village,” my mother said after an hour or so of bonding. “They will be angry if they come here and find us hiding. We can’t let them think we are disobeying them.”
Although I was still hurting, the pain was different from before. When my mother helped me to my feet, I could barely stand. Walking was harder still because we had to move as quickly as possible—at least until we were far from our hiding place. We couldn’t let anyone discover it and become suspicious. Your grandmother insisted on holding you as we walked.
“The ground is uneven,” she explained. “In your weakened condition, you might fall and drop your baby. We can’t allow that to happen.”
She didn’t have to tell me the real reason. She couldn’t chance having anyone see me holding you. They would realize we had disobeyed the Council’s orders. Partially, anyhow.
I didn’t argue. The spoken and unspoken reasons both made sense. But in my heart of hearts I will always believe she wanted that time to enjoy being your grandmother.
The Council of Elders didn’t say anything when she explained that I had gone into labor so rapidly we couldn’t get back to the village in time. No one had been sufficiently close by to help—as if anyone would have chosen to—so we had located a quiet, comfortable spot where I could deliver. We were bringing them the baby now because we were honorable women, living up to our agreement.
Several of the women Elders—and even one or two of the men—had tears in their eyes. We hadn’t fooled them. And how could they condemn us for doing what they might have done?
I was terrified when they took you from my mother and handed you to the woman who was to become your mother, but I forced myself not
to cry.
That woman, by the way, was Señora Valdes. Pedro’s wife.
~~~
I gasped and looked at Nikki. She motioned for me to keep reading.
~~~
The next day my mother and I were on our way to San Diego, although my heart remained in Santa María because that’s where my baby was. I didn’t even get to name you, although I heard before we left that your new mother called you Rosa. I was pleased with her choice.
While I finished growing up in San Diego, becoming an American citizen and gaining greater affluence than I would have had in Santa María, my thoughts were constantly on you. How I longed to return to the village of my birth and make you mine once more.
I could ride to the village with Señor del Mundo any time I was willing to pay the price. But I couldn’t take you away from the couple I thought loved you as dearly as if they had been your birth parents.
You didn’t know me. Those people were your parents, and I couldn’t let my selfishness hurt you with the truth.
I didn’t make that trip until I was twenty. My mother had died several months earlier, and I was lonely and depressed. I just wanted—I desperately needed—to see you. You were the only family I had left.
Señor del Mundo wouldn’t drive me all the way into the village. He advised me not to let anyone see me. The discreet inquiries he had made among the villagers when I first mentioned riding with him confirmed his suspicions that the villagers wouldn’t welcome me back, especially without my mother.
But I could sneak around the outskirts of the village, he said, and observe village activity at a distance. His own young son—the same Tomás we both despise now—came with us on this trip, and he moved freely among the villagers and found out whatever I wanted to know.
That’s how I learned that Señora Valdes hadn’t remained your mother very long. Shortly after your birth, she discovered she was finally pregnant with her husband Pedro’s child, and she told the Elders they didn’t want you anymore. They couldn’t “tolerate the stigma” you bore as the result of my “immorality.” But the truth was they didn’t want two babies, and the one Señora Valdes had given birth to took precedence over the one they’d adopted.
So you became Rosa No-Name, an unwanted ward of the village. I still cry whenever I think about it.
I didn’t spot you for several days, but I recognized you almost instantly when I saw you. At first I couldn’t understand why you weren’t playing with the other children. But then I remembered. Everyone treated you as an unwanted orphan—less than one, really. Everyone including the children. I decided to bring you back to San Diego with me.
No amount of pleading would convince Señor del Mundo to cooperate, however. He refused to believe he would be helping the village, not just you and me.
Anyhow, he said he couldn’t bring you across the border without the proper papers. I shook my head angrily. Surely someone with his connections could obtain them. After all, he had brought my mother and me across the border four years earlier. I didn’t care if it required an extra trip.
I offered him all the money I had. He still refused to help.
I was angry and frustrated. Helpless. If my mother had been alive, she would have spoken to the Council of Elders on my behalf.
I hadn’t actually met you yet. And I hadn’t seen you when I could approach you privately.
I told Tomás my problem, and he learned where you liked to take long walks. I caught up with you just hours before I was to meet Señor del Mundo and return to San Diego. Empty-handed.
“Rosa?” I said, trying not to startle you. “Your name is Rosa?”
You looked up at me, and I could barely keep from crying. I longed to hug you—oh, how I longed to wrap my arms around you!—but I was afraid I might frighten you. I can’t tell you how I regret the decision not to. I’d like to believe that embrace might have lingered in your memory and helped to warm you during the many cold years you were facing.
I beg your forgiveness for failing to do that.
Even though you realized I was a stranger, you didn’t seem to be afraid of me. You peered deep into my eyes before responding. You looked so young, so innocent. And you appeared to sense that I cared about you. I think you realized I might have been the only person in the world who did.
“Yes,” you finally said. “Rosa. Rosa No-Name.”
I broke down and wept aloud for a number of minutes. I could tell you wanted to comfort me with a hug. Perhaps you were afraid of my reaction. If you had hugged me, though, I think I would’ve taken you from the village that very instant, even if I’d had to carry you many miles on my back to civilization.
“Who are you?” you asked once my tears slowed to a trickle.
You had been crying, too. Just because I was, or did you suspect…?
How should I respond? I couldn’t come right out and tell you I was your mother. What could I say?
“Can I trust you with a secret?” I whispered. I had to explain what a secret was.
“Yes.” Your eyes brightened with excitement. “No one has told me a secret before.”
I willed myself not to start crying again.
“I knew you when you were very small,” I said. “A baby. But then I had to move far away. The villagers don’t like me any more than they seem to like you, so we can’t let them know I’ve come back even for a short visit. To help you keep this secret, I mustn’t tell you my name.”
“I will pretend I never met you,” you said with childish sincerity. I believed you would somehow block our meeting from your memory, although I didn’t realize then what a powerful mind you have.
I felt a mixture of relief and frustration.
How I longed to tell you who I was—and who you were. You were not Rosa No-Name, but Rosa Ramírez, the daughter of Chalina Ramírez. But I didn’t dare to say that. Such a secret would be too much for any child to keep.
I was aching to leave something of myself with you. In wiping the sweat from my neck, I touched the necklace I was wearing. It was a prism in a gold setting, very majestic in appearance.
My father had given it to my mother. He had saved whatever money he could get his hands on and bought it in San Diego when he hitched a ride there with Tomás’s father—or perhaps his grandfather. It wasn’t new when he bought it, but it was a gift of love, and my mother had never taken it off.
Since her death, I had rarely removed it, either, even though other young women my age didn’t wear such an outdated style of jewelry.
I knew what to do.
As you gazed in wonder at the necklace, I took it off, put it around your neck, and showed you how to turn it in the sunlight to project the colors of the rainbow on the ground or wherever you liked. You were entranced.
“The chain is too big for you to wear now,” I told you. “You must put it someplace where no one can find it. When you are older, you may wear it. Don’t tell anyone where you got it, though. The villagers will recognize it as my mother’s, but let them think she left it here by accident and you found it. Please think of me when you wear it and give it to your daughter when you have one.”
~~~
I fell backwards on the bed, unable to laugh or cry. My thoughts wandered helplessly in a maze, unable to find their way out. Nothing could have overwhelmed me more than my mother’s letter.
Nikki’s eyes focused on me with concern.
“The necklace,” I said before she could ask.
Everything suddenly fell into place. I vaguely remembered that meeting with my mother, although I was only four at the time and didn’t know who that kind stranger was or why she had given me the beautiful necklace she took from her own neck.
I remembered her saying goodbye after explaining that her ride would leave her behind if she wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She mouthed something to me. I can still see her lips. “I love you, Rosa.”
I couldn’t speak for a moment. “Nikki, surely this didn’t actually happen.”
“Chalina…Mother Chalina says it did. Doubt your own memory if you must, but don’t question your own mother’s words.”
I nodded slowly.
“What about the necklace, Rosa? I’ve never seen it. Didn’t you bring it with you when you came here with Tomás? Perhaps not. You would be wearing it.”
“When I used all of my childish energy and concentration to put that visit out of my mind, I also forgot about the necklace. But now I remember exactly where I hid it.”
“Ah! I recall Mother Chalina straightening up your room some months ago, but I didn’t wonder about it at the time.”
“Do you suppose she—?”
“—was trying to learn whether you still have the necklace? Yes, that’s exactly what I think.”
“How do you think she felt when she couldn’t find it?”
Nikki’s face was radiant. “I think it made her decide to write a ‘last will and testament’ to her beloved daughter.”
23
Mother Chalina told me many other things in her lengthy epistle, but this one seemed especially relevant.
~~~
Rosa, a famous American author once said, “You can’t go home again.” He meant that home changes while you are away and you change, too. Sometimes the changes are major. Conspicuous. Sometimes they’re smaller. More subtle. Either way, it’s impossible to come back and fit in comfortably again.
But what if a person never fit in at home to begin with? Is it possible that changes on both parts might allow a “homeless” person to return and find the acceptance she hadn’t experienced before?
I can’t be sure about this, Rosa, but—if you ever need a place to go, perhaps even a place to escape to—Santa María might be willing to have you back. Maybe even to welcome you on your own terms. You have become a woman—well-educated through diligence, intelligence, and determination. You can help the villagers in ways no one else can, but you must first determine their needs.
